There’s a new show on the Oprah Winfrey Network called “Maxxed Out”. This series follows personal finance coach Leah Collins as she helps families navigate how to spend and how to save their hard-earned cash. Though she travels for the show, Collins is a resident of northwest Arkansas.
Ozarks at Large’s Jack Travis connected with her over Zoom to discuss “Maxxed Out” and her transition from financial advisor to television personality. The show is framed as a financial intervention program. Collins says it meets at the intersection of finances and relationships.
Leah Collins: And so in every episode there will be a nominator and a nominee, and the nominator is always affected, negatively impacted negatively by the nominee’s poor financial management or mismanagement. And it really forces people to have those taboo conversations, right? And the focus is on relationships. But it’s not just romantic relationships. So the first episode that you saw was a married couple. The next episode is a mother and daughter. We have business partners. We have siblings. We have business partners. There are all types of relationships, and everyone who watches this show will see themselves in the cast.
And one of the things that I really love is the whole family can watch. Like many people that I know, they sit their children down to watch this show. So it’s a good, wholesome show that everyone can learn from. And what really sets this show apart also is that we don’t just look at finances from a high level. We’re looking at credit scores, credit reports. We’re talking about debt-to-income ratios, net worth, all of those different topics that you don’t see on most shows. And we’re really going past the numbers as well and really helping people mend those relationships.
Jack Travis: Something I really thought was cool was y’all’s use of these kind of practical exercises, like the grocery store trip and having a date night about making a budget for your household. These are practical things that people could do with their own family. They don’t have to be on “Maxxed Out” to do these things. How did you come up with them?
Collins: So there are things that I do with my clients that I currently have and that I’ve had in the past. And one of the things that I really liked about the grocery challenge, for example, is really showing the other person’s perspective, right? So, you know, Corey, he had all these things to say about his wife and how she doesn’t manage the budget and she spends too much money. OK, Corey. Well, let’s go to the grocery store and see if you can do better. So really allowing people to see the other person’s perspective, and we try to do the same thing with Nina as well. So a lot of times, just helping bridge that gap in communication and perspective can really go a long way. So that’s something that I’ve gathered through my own family and my clients as well.
Travis: Let’s talk about your work. I’d love to hear what your background is as a financial advisor and how you developed such a passion for helping people.
Collins: Well, I went to school for finance, corporate finance. So my undergrad degrees, I have a bachelor in finance. And then I also have an MBA, Master of Business Administration. I have worked in corporate America for 20 years doing corporate finance, audit and accounting.
I got into personal finance because back in 2017, I got really focused on paying off debt. I had made the most money I’d ever made that year, had nothing to show for it. And so I decided to get serious. So in 18 months, I paid off $40,000 worth of debt, increased my credit score to over 800, and purchased investment property. And at that point, people saw what I was doing. They were inspired and asked me to teach them. And that’s when I launched my financial coaching business. So that was the start of it.
And then a pivotal moment in my life and with the business was in 2020. I was engaged, and my fiancé and I called off the wedding for many reasons, but one of them was largely due to financial incompatibility, and we never navigated those tricky money conversations. We went to premarital counseling, did all the things, checked off the list. But even in premarital counseling, they barely cover that. Right. It’s like 30 minutes and that’s it. It’s very high level. So then that’s where the relationship piece came in, where I wanted to start helping people have those conversations within their relationships.
Travis: And these are potentially hard conversations to have. How do you get people comfortable enough to have these really, because I mean, you're talking about family and you're talking about finances. That's a very private thing for some people. How do you get people to let their guard down enough to talk about it on camera?
Collins: I think really just developing a relationship with them quickly, allowing them to trust me. I’m really good at developing relationships and gaining people’s trust. And I think because I walk the walk and I talk the talk — like I’ve been there, I’ve done that — I’m not your average financial advisor who’s just coming in talking the numbers. I look at the person as a whole. I look at the relationship. People aren’t just maxed out with their credit cards. They’re maxed out emotionally, mentally, and relationally. So we’re addressing all of that, not just the numbers. And once I’m able to do that, then people let their guard down and trust me.
Travis: I’d like to bring up a specific scene in that first episode. You went to the scrapyard with Nina, and you brought up how uncertain futures can be, especially financially speaking. It got heavy. She got emotional. Could you give me the behind-the-scenes on that and why you took her there to illustrate your point?
Collins: Well, so I took her there because they thought that they had a few months of savings as a nest egg, and they actually had two weeks. And so I really wanted her to see that they really could not afford to not have additional income, because with them, their expenses weren’t the issue. They needed additional income and it didn’t really seem to be clicking. And so I brought her there, her husband had three accidents. One, he almost died. So I brought her there so that she could see, like it could have ended differently. You have to have a nest egg. You have to have a safety net. You have kids. You have children that depend on you. What if it had turned out differently? And so my hope for that scene was that that would really drive the point home, that something needed to be done differently quickly.
Travis: Also, there are also scenes without you. It almost feels like you are getting a glimpse of your fly on the wall in some of these scenes. What's the editorial decision making process on that? Why include scenes like that where it's just Corey and his friends shooting pool, talking about what he's experiencing?
Collins: Because that’s how it unfolds in real life. Like, money touches every aspect of our lives, all of our relationships. So a lot of people are sitting down having conversations with their friends or with their family. So we wanted to make it real. It is real. It’s unscripted. So we wanted to show that in real life, like how this really plays out. So some of these scenes, I haven’t seen. I wasn’t in them. So I don’t see them until they air. So that’s pretty cool.
Travis: So yeah, it is reality TV.
Collins: It’s all real. I don’t meet these people until I show up at their house. You see what’s really unfolding in real life.
Travis: Has it changed your perspective of reality TV?
Collins: It has. I think initially I thought most reality TV wasn’t real. And maybe it isn’t, I don’t know. And going into that, that’s what I was expecting. And they told me, no, like, this is real. Which freaked me out a little bit. But I think that just goes to show how authentic and raw these stories are and the storytelling is. And I think that hopefully that comes across on camera.
Travis: This first episode took place in Dallas. You said you’re from northwest Arkansas. Do you have to travel a lot?
Collins: So I live in northwest Arkansas. My family, my roots are here in Arkansas — Bentonville and Fort Smith. We filmed it in Dallas. It was kind of a last-minute type thing that we were doing, and from a casting perspective, it just made it easier given the short time frame to cast it in Dallas.
Travis: What is the film cycle like?
Collins: Well, this one, it was intense. We filmed in about two months. So the changes that you see in each episode happen very quickly. So that’s how impactful this show was. Corey found that job within about a week. That’s how intense it was.
Travis: It seemed like a really quick turnaround
Collins: It was. You’ll see in the next episode, the young lady that I’m helping, she pays off two personal loans, payday loans, within the first two weeks. So we’re making changes very, very quickly. And one thing that I’m very proud of is everyone on the production crew paid off at least one debt during those eight weeks. Seven to eight weeks of filming.
Travis: Testament to how impactful this advice is and how practical it is. Just a few things and you can learn how to solve a lot of problems.
Collins: Yes. Absolutely.
Travis: So you went from being a personal financial coach to a TV personality. What’s that transition been like?
Collins: Yeah, it’s been great. So it kind of just started because of the work that they saw me doing. The network had conversations. And the thing that I really like about OWN is they’re very big on authentic, transparent conversations. And I knew that they would be able to tell these stories the best way. So that’s how we partnered up.
But the transition has been great because it’s what I naturally do in real life with my clients anyway. Now it’s just on camera with a whole crew looking at me. After the first episode or two, you just kind of forget that the cameras are there.
Travis: You didn’t have any TV experience before this?
Collins: No. I did a lot of public speaking. So I did a TED Talk. I speak a lot at different speaking engagements, workshops, even in corporate America. I’m always in the boardroom leading meetings. But as far as actual television, no.
Travis: That’s all I had for you, Leah. Where can people go for more on “Maxxed Out” and your work?
Collins: You can go to my website, https://www.leahmariecollins.com/. You can view the TED Talk there or on YouTube. The show comes on every Saturday, 9 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m. Central on OWN, and it’s streaming on Hulu, HBO Max and Discovery Plus and on demand.
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