Pivotal People
Join us in conversations with inspiring people doing amazing things. Their insights and experiences help motivate all of us to find our purpose that fits with our abilities, gifts and life situation. Get a "behind the scenes" look at successful people making a difference in the world and benefit from their advice for the rest of us. Our guests include authors, artists, leaders, coaches, pastors, business people and speakers.
Pivotal People
From Coupon Blogger to Business CEO: Laurie Hise of PassionatePennyPincher.com
Ever wondered how a love for coupons could blossom into a wildly popular website with millions of loyal fans? Laurie Hise, the savvy CEO behind passionatepennypincher.com, joins us to share her remarkable transformation from a modest coupon blogger into a business leader who helps millions of people save money every day.
I met Laurie 14 years ago at a conference when she was just beginning her business. She reminded me of my younger self, full of enthusiasm about the idea of making it easy for other moms to save money in every area of their household budget. BUT Laurie did more than grocery deals--on top of doing that, she grew her business with dozens of team members to search out little-known deals on EVERYTHING and produced an extensive line of organizational products.
She was generous enough to agree to come on this podcast, which was so much fun for me. She's kind, beautiful, brilliant, and incredibly generous. Profits from the company support many charities across the world. I'm so inspired by the progress she has made in 14 years, and I believe her story and experience may inspire other people to take the bold step of faith to put their talents into action to help other people, while building a profitable company.
Recently I subscribed to her newsletter to see if there were deals I would use. I snagged an unbelievable deal on a fabulous purse thanks to Laurie's newsletter (it cost $16 if you must know, and one of my friends who loves expensive things complimented me on it. I didn't tell her the price). Beyond finding deals, Laurie went on to create an extensive line of high-quality home organization products and planners. She sent me a big box of the company's organizational and menu-planning products and they are beautiful and practical.
Start saving money on everything TODAY by going to
PracticalPennyPincher.com
Order Stephanie's new book Imagine More: Do What You Love, Discover Your Potential
Learn more at StephanieNelson.com
Follow us on Instagram @stephanie_nelson_cm
Follow us on Facebook at CouponMom
This is a fun podcast. I would like to welcome my friend, lori Heise, to the Pivotal People podcast. She has a website called thepassionatepennypinchercom. Don't be fooled. This is a big business doing something super helpful for people, and I met her. I'm going to say it was about 14 years ago at a conference that I wrote about in my book Imagine More. I went to a conference of other women who had websites about saving money, but they called us coupon bloggers at the time and I really felt like I had met my tribe. We all sat around and talked late. We all had this thing in common where, first, we like to save money, we like to get deals and we like to tell people about them, because there are a lot of people who like to get deals who don't like to tell anyone about it because they don't want people to beat them to the deals. But we have this in common.
Speaker 1:Before I let Lori talk, I want to tell you a little bit about her. She is a wife, she's a mother, she is the CEO of this company, which is very successful. She started it in 2009 as a small coupon blogger and now we'll learn more about it, but she has, you know, multimillion dollar revenue. She has a great team of people, but what I found on her blog, on her little about me page, was at the very bottom, and I just so loved this Frugality has allowed her family to save more, give more and have an abundantly blessed life, and I think that is what Lori brings to people, especially today when there are so many people struggling financially. I follow her website. I follow her website, I use her website. I can't wait to tell you more details about it, but first I want to say welcome, lori, thanks for being here, and could you tell us a little bit about yourself, your family and who you are?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I am so excited to be here. As I told Stephanie earlier, like I met her back in 2000, probably 2009-10. And I sat at a table with you because one of the girls a friend of mine, jamie who now is one of my employees she's amazing she somehow finagled that you and I sit together and I literally was like shaking at the whole and I was as nervous today and meeting you as I like talking as I was about back then. I was like you are. I think you have like guided so many women into just such a cool thing. Like when I think about it, I'm like I don't think you'll like I told you as we started, I said I don't think you'll ever know the impact you've had on probably thousands Well, definitely hundreds of thousands of women to save money, but even like specifically women to grow businesses Like I would never dream there's no way I would be here if it wasn't for what you did many years ago. So I'm super thankful.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate that so much because your business is so much cooler than mine was, and that's what I love. Before this podcast started, lori and I just talked for 45 minutes about her business, her vision, her dream. She has built such a neat business, different than mine, but I think what we had in common is that you start out with this idea of I'm excited about how I've learned to save money and I want to share it with people, and she has shared it with millions and millions of people. I am, you know, older Okay, let's just say older. So I got started 10 years before her and, as a result, I didn't have to compete with all these super sharp young women, but now I'm thankful I get to be friends with some of them sharp young women, but now I'm thankful I get to be friends with some of them.
Speaker 1:So let me tell you about Lori's website. I love it. It's called passionatepennypinchercom and if you go to it, she has deals, freebies, coupons, all kinds of interesting informational things about how you can use an app to save money or how you can use an app to get free stuff. How you can use an app to save money or how you can use an app to get free stuff. She has recipes, she has do-it-yourself projects. What I like is she kind of does the thinking for you. So when I first I got an email from Lori when my first my book first came out and it made me cry and I hadn't heard from her since we had sat together in 2010. And so I thought I'm going to start following your website and I started getting a newsletter and here's what I like. You're going to find this hard to believe, but I hate to shop. I only like getting grocery deals, but when it comes to clothes or shoes or purses I mean I think the last purse I bought was 10 years ago I just don't like to shop. I don't like to have to go to the mall. I hate all of that. But what I liked about your newsletter is like you filtered it all, so I've had on my list of things to do You'll laugh Buy new shoes. I don't Buy a new purse. My 10-year-old purse is a little embarrassing, so I need a new purse. I have a friend who's always trying to get me to go to the mall. She's real bougie. She shops at Anthropologie. She's got hip stuff and that's just overwhelming, but she keeps saying let's go to the mall and get you new stuff. I'm like no, I'll just have my old stuff. So the other day your email comes out and it's like here's this purse on Amazon for $16. And you know, purses can be $200, $300. I don't know, purses are crazy. That's why I never get a new one. And I looked at the purse and I thought, well, that's pretty cute. So I ordered the purse $16 on Amazon and the regular price is much, much higher. What they do is they find amazing deals for that one day or two days and they let you know so you don't have to think about it. So I got the purse, think about it. So I got the purse. Lori, I love this purse.
Speaker 1:I went out to dinner with my bougie friend the other night and you know what she said Love your purse. Where'd you get it? I said I'll never tell. I'll never tell because if I told her it was $16, she would not think it was so cool. So anyway, thank you for that.
Speaker 1:Other cool things on their website there's a whole section of freebies, things that are free, that we don't even know.
Speaker 1:Did you know you can get pizza free pizza pizza hut on this day?
Speaker 1:You can get free bowling, free roller skating on this day.
Speaker 1:The most hilarious one is did you know?
Speaker 1:There are days of the year every state has where you can fish free without a fishing license?
Speaker 1:That's pretty funny, and I clicked on it.
Speaker 1:Sure enough, there's three days in Georgia where you can go fishing without a fishing license. That's pretty funny, and I clicked on it. Sure enough, there's three days in Georgia where you can go fishing without a fishing license. You don't have to figure that out, because Lori's already figured it out, so go to her website, sign up for the email newsletter. What we're going to talk about today, though, is the behind the scenes on how she built this business, and what I hope is that it encourages people to say the thing I love to do might be a little bit crazy, but there is a path to not only helping other people with that crazy thing, but to making a living for your family and giving to charity and having a nice life and being abundantly blessed because of this thing you love to do. So, lori, I talk too much, but I just want people to know you know, really, how beautiful this thing that you've built is, so tell us your story, how it started and kind of the steps that it took to get to where it is today.
Speaker 2:So I started. It's been such a it's weird because I don't talk about it and I was telling Stephanie I don't ever do podcasts so there probably is no one else on the earth that I would do a podcast with, except when you said I was like okay, thank you. Yeah, so I don't tell a lot, but I started back in 2009 as a coupon blogger, kind of like you were, and at the time we talked about like everybody in the world was coming out to the scene of couponing, like it was the thing that we all were clipping our coupons. We're all following your blog, like I would sit. When did you originally? Did you start 2000?
Speaker 1:I started 2001,. But it was really taking off in 2008, 2009 because of the recession.
Speaker 2:I remember sitting before, like 2004, in my daughter's room on dial up and I was looking at your site trying to find the deal. So I remember, like from each like I would find it, and I mean I've used your site. I was a faithful couponer. A friend of mine told me about coupons. I remember doing the same thing you probably did, saying, oh, this will never, ever work. I couldn't afford the newspaper, I couldn't afford. Like. I was like I don't need the Tide brand, I'm as content with the cheap brand, like why would I spend extra money to have Tide? It'd be cheaper. And then, once I realized the process coupon inserts I was like, okay, I can do this. So we were talking earlier. I would spend hours and hours getting all the coupon deals and I would, you know, run to CVS I'm sure you did the same thing, where you would run to CVS on Black Friday and the day before.
Speaker 2:So we I was just an obsessive couponer, just so that our family, like I, really just wanted to have some freedom in our finances and we just didn't have a ton of money. My husband is an engineer, so he did a decent job, but we had three kids and you know life is expensive and I was like we had a ton of student loan debt. Yeah, we had a lot of student loan debt, so it just took us a lot. We were struggling those first few years especially. So I started using coupons, spent like 40 or 50 bucks a week to get groceries.
Speaker 2:And I think my brother-in-law one day he of us, like I, kind of came on the scene when everybody was coming on the scene and I was like how can I even set myself apart of these other amazing sites? Because there were so many fantastic sites, there are so many fantastic money saving sites. So we started with like how can we pair the coupon with the recipe each week? So it was like if you're going to shop at Publix, these are the three recipes you should make for sure, and you can make them under $3 and it'll be great and it was typically like spaghetti and ragu and you know, however, you could do it super cheaply.
Speaker 2:So that was kind of the initial start of the site Things, I think. Initially we were Publix penny pincher for quite a while and then we switched to passionate penny pincher. Once I realized like people wanted CVS deals and Walgreens deals and I don't know, I don't know if you guys did this. My friend Shannon has been with me, I think since 2010 or 11. And we used to run to Publix on Monday morning. We would drive across town. We had two little kids to get the the penny deal.
Speaker 2:It wasn't to get the penny deal, it was because we wanted to be the first blogger to get. Well, it was to get the penny deal. Of course, I mean, we had to get a penny deal, but but it was to be the first blogger to get the ad out, the Publix weekly ad out. And so there was one store in town that would. The ad wouldn't start till Wednesday, but if you got there Monday morning we would run up to the customer service desk and beg for the sneak peek of the ad and then we would type it up that day. So it was like we would babysit each other's kids just because we thought if we can get, be the first one with that public sign out. That is our secret to fame. That was going to be the way that we were going to like become, you know, known, and it was like we fought for those deals and so many people back then.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you I don't know if you participated in these when they did the linky parties where you could like put your name on. If you got your name on certain blogs high up on there, they would have a list. They'd say if you have something, a new recipe, to share, get your like. Who was the site that did this?
Speaker 1:Anyways, there were several sites.
Speaker 2:I'm going to forget our name Menu Plan Monday. It was. Workjunkiecom had Menu Plan Monday and if you could be the first thing recipe posted for Menu Plan Monday, you would get more traffic. So we were always just like anything we could do to get a tiny bit of traffic over to our site was kind of like how we grew, which, looking back, I was not good at the business stuff but I was really good at watching the analytics and so we had site meter on the site before Google Analytics and I would literally hop in and see like, okay, there were 17 people on the site and two of them are on toilet paper and one is on paper towels. We need to write more toilet paper deals.
Speaker 2:Like that was just kind of the way we grew. It really, really slowly and it took a long, long time to grow. So that's kind of how we started. And then we grew into, like, Amazon deals. We just realized people want to shop Amazon and other digital deals, online deals, Definitely Like. Even today I was posting this dress and I was like I really do love that dress and sometimes you just want to know you can get a nice dress from somebody and, like you said what like? What's a good dress? Is it vetted? Someone else tell me that this feels the way it does and just be a trustworthy resource. So a lot of times now on the deal side, we're just a trusted resource of fun deals.
Speaker 1:And I think that is you just hit the nail on the head a trustworthy resource. So many times people don't realize you can go on a website because there's a very low barrier to entry to creating a website, and that website might be from a 14-year-old kid in the basement of a city in China and they're just throwing things up because you get a commission If you're a website. You get a commission when people order things, and so one of the things I love about your website, first of all, is I know you personally, so I know it's a real person and things are vetted. So, for example, the last week you had something it was like today only. So tell me, because I don't want to have to go somewhere and just learn up myself. Today only Old Navy has all of their bathing suits 50% off, and here is a style we really like. And you showed the bathing suit, not the head, but you showed the person and I could look at it and see it, and that saves people so much time. And you know it's not just. You know an item that someone's just trying to hawk items. You're risking your reputation if you put something bad up, because people are very vocal and saying I hated it. Don't trust their choices. But the other thing I think is really neat is that you continue to go back to what you loved, which was so many times.
Speaker 1:People think saving money is buying things at a low price, but the reality is saving money is necessary because you have student debt, you have real bills, you have a mortgage payment, and saving money is really about spending less. So the reality is you do have to feed your family, and you talked about being able to do it $40 or $50 a week. So did I, with a lot of coupons, but today those numbers are virtually impossible. But the key, no matter what, no matter what the prices are, the key is being able to control your spending by having some planning. So Lori and I would both say to you well, the key is, you should have a plan of what you're going to have for meals for at least a few days. Your shopping list should be based on those items and you should actually be making your plan based on what's on sale. And if you could be that organized, forget coupons. You're going to cut your costs in half. Well, that's kind of hard for people to do, so she makes it even easier. This is what I really love about what you're doing.
Speaker 1:You have created products, Actual recipe boxes. People Like I'm 60. You remember what you had when your mom was growing up? Recipe boxes, because people are sick of looking at a computer. After they've looked at a computer all day, To have to search apps or to print recipes from the computer is tedious. So Lori has these really beautiful boxes by category.
Speaker 1:I would say I want low-cal. She has boxes of recipes that you can get and then also the whole idea. Your website will help people base recipes based on what's on sale that week, and I think that is where you are really helping people. Just take the thinking out how easy can you make it for someone to serve the family healthy meals because that's important too right, With good prices that fit your desires, which might be low-cal, or it might be low-carb, or it might be vegetarian I have no idea. But she has something for everybody, and that had to be very difficult to develop. But once you've developed it which is why I'm so impressed with what you're doing you're way ahead of people. You're way ahead of any competitors because you're doing something super practical and super helpful.
Speaker 2:It is crazy to me to see like just the how it started with one little box and then it kind of just has ballooned and so I think we're up to nine now and we have. We have a 10th one plans. I was like maybe we hit a dozen and then we're done, because it's like we were actually testing recipes this last week and it's like how many times can, how many ways can you make chicken and spot pasta Like you do run out of recipes and we try.
Speaker 1:So far, there's no duplicate recipes out of nine boxes, which is tell us exactly what your products are. Because people this is the core of her business success, so people are buying these like crazy. They're selling like hotcakes for a reason. So tell us exactly what your product line is.
Speaker 2:Yep, I guess we have two main things and they are the home planner products and the menu planning products. And the home planners are definitely like our biggest, like everybody loves, loves a planner. I will say I think it's. If you have a house, you need this planner, like I just it's in that, like I've tried other planners, it's just really, really good. We actually have it. We just came out with a work planner, so I'm sending you one of those.
Speaker 2:But the planning products are fun and they're just like if you're somebody like me who just wants to check off a list, we realized there were so many things that it's like we're doing this every day, all day long. What if somebody just writes these lists, all those things that I used to write on a post-it note, like shine my, clean my kitchen sink, do the shower we kind of put that into our planning product and, like I said, that's kind of our like most. That's been our most popular product. However, I will say the menu plans. Everybody loves the home planner because people love planners, but the menu plans are the things that I get emails from all the time with people saying I've cut my grocery budget, I've saved so much money, we're eating better, our family is happier. You've made me excited about cooking again and so it's been just fun to see it go. But the menu planning boxes if you can imagine as you're listening, it's a kind of like a cardboard box that comes with 12 weeks of recipes. They include your grocery list. Each week is five recipes and a dessert. The grocery list is dry erasable so you can, like, you know, so you just like can reuse it obviously over and over again and it's just kind of mapped out for you so that you don't even have any thought.
Speaker 2:And we say all the time like, if you're somebody who has tons of dietary issues and lots of stress around food, this may not be the best system, but if you're just a mom who's like Lori, I just need to make dinner literally any of our boxes you could take, and we do have special dietary needs. We have a Whole Foods box that just came out, which is not Whole Foods the grocery store. We should have named it differently. It's non-processed food. So it's all like healthy, non-processed, no, a summer box, a five-ingredient box, a slow cooker box. So any way that you want to cook, we've got them. But what's been fun is just to watch people just be told like here's what you need to make for dinner. I think all of us say like how many? We have lots of help for that. So it's been fun to see it just grow. And I never would have dreamed I just never would have dreamed the impact of those.
Speaker 1:Well, what I think is kind of neat is that this is, you know, this is a physical recipe box. These are physical recipe cards and people are buying these like crazy. I wouldn't have guessed that. Actually I would have said don't. But when we, when Lori and I talked before we started recording this, it became clear to me that people are tired of sitting on the computer all day. And now I'm going to cook for my family and oh, I got to go to the computer and see if I can find a recipe. Oh, I've got to search my app. Oh, I've got to, you know, have my phone propped up while I'm trying to cook. So I think it's neat that people are finding the simplicity of going back. And, by the way, whenever I do find a recipe, I can never find it again. So here you have this permanent box, and she and I also compared notes about growing up.
Speaker 1:I had a working mom, and I can see now how difficult cooking must spend for her time-wise. So did lots of slow cooker meals Anyone appreciates that and we also had lots of fast food, because that was the well anyway. So you can avoid that. Sometimes my husband and I will say it takes longer to drive to the fast food place and sit through the drive-through than to get a 20 to 30 minute meal on the table. So I like healthy food, I liked healthy meals, but I'm one of those people who it has to take 30 minutes or less to get on the table. There's lots of stuff you can do in 30 minutes or less.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's crazy to me I think that's the biggest thing was Stephanie and I were talking before. I grew up in a home where my mom she just didn't have the resources to cook like. She works 6070 hours a week just to keep us all. She was a single mom with a whole lot of kids and just a you gone and the recipes are bad. Like you get there and you're like, okay, I do all this, I spend all the money and the recipe, the food isn't good.
Speaker 2:So all of our recipes are tested and made. We have three. There's three people who would test recipes. Sometimes I test the recipes and if they don't pass our like they have. There's a system. So if it's not super high quality food, we just don't pass it out. So it's been interesting. We just finished testing whole foods.
Speaker 2:Whole food desserts are the worst. I will say those were. My poor. Husband was like Laurie, please, no more, don't make me do that one. That one was really tough. Everything else and that's why I tell people I'm like if you get whole foods, just recognize, because there's no sugar. So it makes it really hard to make a dessert that's whole foods.
Speaker 2:We're working on low carb right now and my friend Sri, who was just talking to me about menu planning. She was like Laurie, I don't know how we're going to come up with these recipes for low carb desserts, cause it's like I was like berries and cool whip, like she's like you can't use cool whip, so anyways. But the nice thing is the recipes have been to Pinterest, have been tested, so you're not getting like where you go to Pinterest. I just know so many times I would open up my app, find the recipe. The recipe would go down. You know the kids will come in the kitchen. It was so stressful and this way it's just there, it's sitting out. My kids can make it. A lot of times my kids and husband will come home and they'll like the card is out and they can make dinner Like all the ingredients are there. All I've got to do is just pull the card out and be like, and so it's been tested is the key.
Speaker 1:I mean cookbooks. You can make something out of a cookbook and it's like no one tested this. So I think everyone has an idea of all the cool things you can find at your website and how neat these products are. But you know, what I'm really interested in is your view of how God has worked in your life with this. I mean, this is a multi-million dollar business doing something you love, that is, helping people. You're employing people and here you are. It's 15 years since you started. You were just starting originally to save yourself money. How does it feel that you are helping so many people and yet you've been blessed so much? By the way, a percentage of our profits go to support missions work. I should have said that. So I'm going to be quiet because I would love to hear you reflect on this.
Speaker 2:That is a big question, I think. Honestly I'm so thankful, like if I had ever known I never. Like when we started couponing back then I would never if anyone had told me, never in my wildest dreams. And probably the thing that excites me the most is definitely being able to donate. When I look at it and think about just the money that we figured out as tax away so that we put certain amounts of money each year into that investment and into an investment fund that grows and then we donate from that, and so just the fact that we can just support people and know that at some point you and I both know all the money's God's anyway, so it's not our money to play with or whatever. So I just want to use it really wisely and use the skills he's given us to like do whatever we can as often as we can. And so I just love, I love my team. I love that they're supported. They are. I have truly I cannot say enough I have the best team on the planet.
Speaker 2:They work hard, they hustle, they're like. They get excited about seeing the products, the excited about seeing the products, the people who work on the deal side, who are like on the passionate penny fincher, the one who's once we're looking for the purses every day. Like they're passionate about getting you guys like the best deal on purses. Like they'll sit there and message each other back and forth and this week we were talking Walgreens has a really good deal, I believe, on Tresemme. That was the big thing to talk in the deal group yesterday. They were like, did everybody go get their trust to me? Because it was I can't remember, I think it was 23 cents which we have. Oh my gosh, yeah. So I think I just love that. Like we get excited about it and hopefully we inspire our community to get excited about just, you know, saving and giving, and then just get people excited about something as simple as cooking, like it's just fun.
Speaker 2:I just never would have dreamed God would have chosen to allow it to happen. And it is fun to see how God let each little step along the way, like you doing what you did, pass on to other things. Like God just has such cool plans and knowing that we don't even see it, like we're just seeing this flip, so who knows what he has next, which is a lot too, because it's also exhausting. So that's the flip side of all of it. Stephanie and I talked before and I'm like it's amazing and exhausting and amazing. So if you're starting a business, I would say I mean, don't look at people's success and just think, oh, it's amazing, it sounds fantastic, it's also exhausting. So no going into it. If you're exhausted, you're probably.
Speaker 1:I would say, if you're exhausted, you're normal. Would you think that during your-. I would say that's a good thing to say and also I appreciated we talked earlier to give yourself time. So your business is hugely successful. But it took time, yes, and it incubated.
Speaker 1:And I always say if people are discouraged early on, it's like standing in line. You're holding the winning lottery ticket. You don't know it's the winning lottery ticket. You're standing in line to redeem it. You're tired of waiting, you throw the ticket away and you get out of line. Don't get out of line.
Speaker 1:If you really feel like, even if initially your feedback is only from a handful of people, but those people are saying this matters, then trust that more people are going to think it matters and you're making a difference. And, lori, I have no idea how many people you've impacted positively on this side of heaven. You're not going to know, but you know enough to know from the people you have heard from that it matters and it's the sense. I keep talking about the financial success of your business, but really it's the purpose, the sense of purpose, and even people listening to this today might say you know what I have, this thing I'm interested in doing. Maybe I'll try it, you know, so tell us where people can connect with your website, connect with your products and find you on social media.
Speaker 2:So passionatepennypinstercom is the best place. It's kind of the home base list, just like the Coupon Mom. It's the home base of all the things we are on Facebook at Passionate Penny Pinster and Instagram we. It's the home base of all the things we are on Facebook at Passionate Penny Pinscher. On Instagram, we're trying TikTok out. It's painful. I don't know if we'll ever figure out TikTok, but we're going to try anyways. But definitely. And signing up for email, of course, is always the best way. So there's places there and then to buy our products. There's links again on Passionate Penny Pinscher to get to everything.
Speaker 1:So will you please tell your team how much I like my purse?
Speaker 2:I will tell them they will be, so they're going to want a picture. They'll be like they'll be. Jamie will personally message you and be like we need a picture with Stephanie and the hip hop mom purse because they love it.
Speaker 1:I'll be like I got it, but then my bougie friend's going to know, but oh well, I might have to confess to her. Anyway, she listens to this podcast. I think she knows who I'm talking about. That's awesome. It has been so nice to reconnect with you and I said I'm not going to let you go now that I have seen behind the curtain. I am watching and seeing what's next for you. But thank you so much for spending time. I appreciate it, thank you, thank you.
.jpg)