The airwaves took me to Australia this month where I guested on Financial Advisor and Money Mindset Coach Amie Baker’s podcast, Centsability. Listen to this lively conversation where we cover it all. Why do women stress over money? What do our childhoods have to do with how we feel about money? How can we feel truly abundant? This is a deep dive and you’ll love it.
Dare I say there is a silver lining to divorce? Well, there is. You get a fresh start in so many ways. And your relationship to money is one of these “fresh start opportunities”.
Now that you are single, you get to do money the way YOU want to. However, we all know that post-divorce, you may be stressed about money. There is sometimes less money, different expenses, potential career changes, and houses that must be settled. In the midst of so much chaos, you may think, how can there be anything positive? The positive is that this new life is YOURS. You can set up fresh accounts at your own bank, pay bills the way you want to, and spend on what matters to YOU.
More than this, divorce gives us an opportunity to engage in “conscious life design”. That’s my way of saying- create a life that YOU love- a life of your own making.
I have studied psychology and how to create a life of your own choosing, for many years. There are wonderful tools- from vision boards to all sorts of ways to “desire map” your life. (Danielle LA Porte’s “The Desire Map” is on my favorite book list.) But what is often missing from the conversation about “how to create an amazing life” and “how to manifest your life goals” is the money piece. When you infuse money- how to handle it, think about it, use it wisely– you really CAN create a life of your choosing.
Money is the ultimate tool for designing a new life you love.
I wish so many of us didn’t have to divorce to get to this piece. But so many people marry young, and create busy lives with years full of children, career and our marriage partnership. And money is often a topic of frustration between couples with differing styles, so years can go by without people looking at it clearly, let alone getting a good handle on it.
But now everything has changed. And you can use learning about money as a personal growth opportunity just for you. You can take the time to examine your emotions around money, your history around money, and your early money beleifs. Money IS emotional- and being able to examine our feelings around money- feelings about spending, earning, how much money there is, what we wish we could do, etc, is a huge game changer.
We are creative beings. And women in this phase of life are extremely creative. On the other side of divorce, we are freed up from the drive to “have children” and sometimes we are freed up in other ways as well. We look at everything with fresh eyes. Why? Well, we have to. Everything HAS changed, so it forces us to assess everything. We end up assessing our friendships- old ones strengthen, some friendships wither away, and new friendships come into being.
We often think about how we are dressing and taking care of ourselves, now that it is just us. We think about what WE want our homes to look like and feel like. We find fresh energy for our careers. We engage with our children in truly thoughtful and meaningful ways, as we help them weather a family divorce as well.
Divorce shakes us out of ruts. I don’t mean to make it all sound fun. Heck, it’s hard work. But none-the-less, like the phoenix rising from the ashes, we are reborn into a new life. So learning how to handle money in a lovely and easy way, ensures this new life is one we consciously create. Not just something that happens to us.
Here is a tip- use this as an opportunity to clean up accounts and start fresh- keep things simple and elegant, so you have an easy time seeing where all your money is going and coming from. Open up new accounts all at the same bank, and keep it simple. I recommend opening one checking account, one attached savings account and one credit card account at the same bank. This way you can log onto one interface and see all your accounts in one place. And refrain from opening up multiple accounts. Again, keep it simple.
Here is a video I recorded on how to simplify your financial life. It’s perfect if you just went through a divorce. (Three minutes)
And here is the accompanying article I wrote on the art and magic of simplifying your finances.
You really can create a new life that you love, during this pivotal transition. This is an opportunity to hit the reset button on your relationship to money. You can let go of unhealthy ways of relating to money and really befriend it. Truly. And since it is just you, you can create a relationship with money that suits YOU.
The process I coach people on is perfect for women post-divorce. It is about how to create a life you love, using your relationship to money as a way to craft it. It’s about getting a handle on expenses, and learning to plan where your money goes, so you don’t create debt. It’s about learning how to manage your cash flow to avoid financial stress, rebuild savings and move into the future so you can work on growing your net worth.
Once it is just you, you can really give everything a fresh shot. There is no one telling you what to do. There is no one to react to. You get to spend the way you want, you get to decorate the way you want, you get to sleep in the middle of the bed and hang that picture he hated. 😉
So- since we have to “deal with money” anyways, why not use it as a vehicle for personal growth AND a way to create and design a life you love?
Back in 2017, I attended a tango class for beginners – and low and behold I fell in love with this complex and beautiful dance between the sexes. It started as just a weekly dance class, but as time went on, I become more deeply involved, until it blossomed into a passion that consumes a lot of time. Ah, such heaven. But it also consumes a fair amount of money… From classes, to dances, to private lessons to travel to shoes…
Many of my clients also have engaging hobbies- horseback riding, mountain climbing, drag racing, bee keeping, sailing, oil painting… The list goes on. It’s actually one of my favorite parts of my practice- learning about and supporting people’s different interests. And I consider it a sacred duty to help people find the money to pursue interests that they fear they can’t afford.
Having a passion, or an engaging hobby, adds such zest to your life. It’s about enjoying life in the now and living fully in the present. We can’t live only for a future where debts are paid off and retirement is funded. We have to also live in the present and enjoy the life we have right now.
So- the question is- how do we live our financial lives in balance and make sure that we are also attending to the future needs of retirement, as well as taking care of life necessities like home maintenance and the needs of dependent children? The answer is to work with a nourishing monthly spending plan, protect your needs while also naming your wants, and then develop an annual plan to create the lifestyle you want. Read on.
I could write a book about the power of creating a monthly spending plan process, but in a few short paragraphs, a spending plan is about creating a plan for where you want to spend your money, and making sure that what is important to you, is protected. It also allows you to see how to reallocate your resources from places that are less important to places that are more important- like your passions.
It is important to give your interests room in your money life. Don’t deny them! And the best way to protect them is to fully name them in your personal spending plan. A colleague of mine, Bari Tessler, author of The Art of Money, calls this “values-based bookkeeping”. Giving your values a personalized name, helps ensure that you not only name, but claim what is important to you. And a plan gives you a roadmap to actually make it happen- it ensures that when you decide where your money goes, the money goes to tango class and doesn’t leak out the door to things that may be nice, but don’t bring you as much JOY.
Each month I create a monthly plan and within it are predictable things like bills, the mortgage payment and other life necessities, as well as my tango plan for the month. You would see my plan for classes, and dances and of course shoes. I may see I need to spend less money eating out to protect this dance passion. Which brings us to the hot topic of needs vs. wants…
We often confuse our needs and our wants. And in things that we are passionate about, we simply don’t think clearly. It feels like a combined NEED/WANT/DESIRE.
Discerning needs from wants is a core tenet in creating a healthy relationship to money and in creating a healthy life. To put it simply, we want to make sure we fund our real needs first, before we spend money on our wants. As my colleague Karen McCall writes (author of Financial Recovery– developing a healthy relationship with money), faulty electrical wiring in the walls should be taken care of in our home before we cover the walls with pretty wallpaper!
However, when we think of our passions as “just wants” we begin to fear that we can’t afford them or shouldn’t spend money on them. We may feel they are a luxury. Indeed, some people feel like everything outside of basic housing and food is a want. And yes, it can feel confusing when there are people in the world starving while we have plenty to eat. So who are we to say that dancing, or horseback riding, is a need?
It is different for everyone, of course, but many passions are good for our emotional, physical and/ or spiritual health. They are part of how we enjoy the life we have. They keep us anchored to the present instead of always waiting for the future to arrive.
When I ask my friend Ken if he wants to go out dancing, he will often respond, “I NEED to go out dancing”. Dancing regularly is key to his physical health, as well as keeping him anchored in community and friends. Name and claim this need.
But of course there are wants too. I may “need” to dance, for my own health and happiness as well, but I also want nicer dance clothes, more dance shoes and travel to tango festivals in faraway places. So it helps me to differentiate between what I need vs. what I want. To help you think through your own needs vs wants conundrum, I will share some of mine:
Darn those needs vs. wants. But once I thought through it, I saw I could meet the needs- and even some of the wants- by getting creative. For example, I could see my friends (need) by only meeting them for drinks instead of dinner, or inviting my friends to my house for a potluck meal. I could buy my first tango shoes in a neutral color that go with everything (tan). And I could switch to consignment store shopping to afford all the fun clothes I now wanted. (I quickly realized that all my tango friends already figured this one out.)
What about you? You may need a decent saddle but want a new fancy one. You may need art supplies but you may want a LOT of art supplies. You may need to sail but want to buy your own boat. And so it goes.
(For a deeper dive, see my post on how discern your real needs and heal deprivation.)
And what about traveling to Bueno Aires? It’s a rare tango dancer who doesn’t think about that one. And this brings us to the last subject: working with an annual plan.
I have an annual plan (budget) and that is where I dream and debate the big picture. Annual plans are the place to make decisions and see what you really can and cannot afford. They are where we strive to create a balanced lifestyle where our spending is under our income.
So could I afford to go to Bueno Aires? Well, when I added up all the tango related expenses that I wanted to protect, as well as some travel to smaller festivals, Bueno Aires did not work. (Obviously, my annual plan has many non-tango related expenses as well, like helping my son with college.) Alas. So next year, I will definitely strategize how to get it in. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy local dance festivals and time with friends.
I have many priorities, like funding retirement, but I really do want to protect tango. So what interests and passions do YOU want to protect? If you name what gives you joy, and prioritize this, you can protect it. Even if you have to find creative ways to enjoy your interests, your interests deserve time and attention. They are part of living a well-balanced- and a well-lived- life.
I’m off to dance.
Whether you are a therapist, a life coach, business coach or money coach, you are in a position to help women create better lives for themselves. It is sacred and intimate work being invited into someone’s life. Of the many topics you work with, I want to invite you to add money to your list. So many women long to have more freedom, create a life of their own choosing, and have less stress, but often one of the culprits that holds them back is money.
There are many aspects to our relationship to money—from how we feel about our spending to our relationship to debt and savings. But the fuel that underlies many money subjects is our relationship to earning money. When we make enough money, there is enough for spending, debt repayment, savings, investing, giving back and enjoying life in general.
Most women know that the key to life is not money. And being “rich” does not make one happy. But having “enough” IS key to a happy and balanced life.
Does your client (or friend) want to earn more? Would this help her meet her needs better now, and secure her future? Will she sleep better if she earned more?
If so, how do you support her in increasing her income? The first key to talk about it. Money is still often a taboo subject, even in counseling and coaching, but it is time to break the silence. This silence keeps women earning far less than they could.
How do you broach the subject? At some point gently ask, “Would it be okay if we talk about your relationship to earning money? I’d love to explore that with you.”
From there, it is a matter of asking questions. Women are very self-reflective, if given the opportunity and a genuine listening ear.
You may share that sometimes people love their work but not the money they earn for it. And for others, it is the opposite—they make good money but don’t love their job. What is true for them?
Other questions you can ask:
As you can imagine, these will get the conversation rolling. Big time. So many women simply don’t have someone to talk to about money. And it is possible that other elements of the work you’ve done with them will come to play in this conversation.
For example, often women fear that they need to be perfect before they go for it and ask for a raise or better position, or they feel they are not good enough to ask for more. These connected topics, the conjoined twins of perfectionism and low self-esteem, affect many women’s ability to go for it.
Explore in your conversation what her fears are around earning more. You may ask her to answer this question:
Many women fear rocking the boat—it’s scary to put oneself out there. So, to have a confidant to talk about this with is essential.
Perhaps the most important aspect to coaching women to greater abundance is being their supporter and accountability partner. Being the cheerleader to someone who is contemplating making a change is no small thing. And research shows that when women don’t talk to supportive people in their life about things such as raises or their fees, they don’t ask for raises often enough or charge enough money. But when they have someone in their life saying, “You can do this, and you are worth a lot of money!” it is a game changer.
Be this support for the women in your life. Your support, encouragement and openness about this topic can make more of a difference then you realize. You hold one of the keys to helping women step into greater abundance. Break the silence and explore her relationship to earning money. Be the voice that tells her she is worth a lot.
The other day someone asked me what financial program I recommend. That is an easy one for me—MoneyGrit. The answer is easy, but the question is, why?
My client Jenny comes to mind. Jenny has been my client for many years, so I don’t see her as often as I used to. Once a quarter we get together and talk about her money life. We use MoneyGrit. to look at her annual spending plan and see how her year and goals are unfolding. We talk about her self-care plan, we discuss ways to increase her net worth and fund some big dreams she has, and then I support her in increasing her income. Years ago, I taught her how to manage her cashflow and get out of debt. I was struck by the story Jenny told me recently.
She has a child who has some developmental challenges and had come across a new form of therapy that could potentially really help him. But it was very expensive. So, on Sunday night, when she sat down to track her money, she said to herself, “I’ll adjust my monthly spending plan in my MoneyGrit. with this big new expense and see what happens. Can I afford it?” Then she excitedly told me, “Well, when I went to the part that tells me if this plan works, I was shocked that it did! After all these years, I’m still amazed how this process brings my stress down. Mikelann, what do other people do who don’t have a way to get these answers?”
The short answer is most people are more stressed about money.
Jenny uses MoneyGrit. to give her a sense of calmness about her money life. Life in general can feel chaotic and MoneyGrit. creates a calm oasis for her when she sits down once a week to track her money and look at her spending plan. She does this on Sunday evenings and it gives her a sense of control over the coming week.
Does it work magically? No. But MoneyGrit. provides you with the perspective and tools you need to make the right decisions and take the right actions.
I recently had a huge opportunity come up regarding travel and tango dancing. I really wanted to go to this festival, but when I adjusted my own monthly spending plan with the airplane ticket and hotel, it did not work. So, I had to move to the level of looking at my annual plan in MoneyGrit. and see if I could make it work out in some way. Was there something else I could let go of later in the year, so I could make the trip and not have my savings plans and other goals interrupted? (After some thought, I decided to go, and wait on buying a big piece of furniture I had my eye on.)
What I love about MoneyGrit. is that it helps me look at my options. This helps me feel in control. I have created a wonderful life, and money is a sacred tool in that creation. But things do not always go according to the original plan. Opportunities arise. Unexpected expenses hit.
As I tell my clients, “You can have anything you want. But you can’t have everything you want.” My clients and I love having a tool that helps us see our options and lets us decide what we are willing to give up or postpone. MoneyGrit. provides the insights we need to take advantage of a new opportunity or roll with a sudden expense—and this is huge. And sometimes the key to good money management is all about finding a more creative way to get something done. I love this. Seeing the whole picture is so important and MoneyGrit. helps you do this.
I also teach people how to unlock their earning power. (My course page is here: Unlock Your Earning Power). I truly love the power of MoneyGrit.’s annual plan for helping my clients and students create an “earnings plan” and accurately see how much they really need to make. MoneyGrit. then helps them make the earning plan become a reality. Self-employed users also harness the power of an earnings plan when they use the business version of MoneyGrit. I love this. No other software does this.
Money programs should help you see where you spend your money, stay out of debt, and not create new debt while you pay off old debt. And they should also help you see your whole life and allow you to consciously create and craft a lifestyle you love, while helping you easily see what you earn and spend, so you can make the best decisions.
I can go on and on about MoneyGrit., but that is not the point of this post. You can visit their sales page to read about its features and benefits, (www.moneygrit.com). I do use all its features with my clients, in addition to using MoneyGrit. both for my own personal and business finances. There are two versions of MoneyGrit.—a business version and a personal finance version. I use both, as do many of my clients. (Disclaimer: while I am an occasional consultant to MoneyGrit., I do not get paid for recommending it!)
Ultimately, a tool is just a tool. Buying a beautiful new cookbook and gorgeous dishes won’t manifest dinner on the table (trust me, I’ve tried that one). Tools must be learned. (And “yes”, you’ll learn it faster with a coach, but “no” you don’t need one). MoneyGrit. has great support for all its users. But it is really about the intention under the tool. MoneyGrit., in my opinion, is a wonderful tool for creating a conscious life and sustainable lifestyle. It’s a tool that allows us to better use money as the sacred means for creating the life you want.
Ready to earn more and step into greater freedom? Click here to be notified of the next time Mikelann offers her 8 week Unlock Your Earning Power course.
The idea of change can be overwhelming, especially when it comes to money. We love the idea of goals, but at the same time, feel overwhelmed by them. We may love the idea of having more money and less debt, but then are immediately distressed by the thought of how to get there. The key lies in beginning to make some shifts inside ourselves, like planting small seeds, since most of us know that true change comes from within. But how to do this?
Recently, I was reading Loyalty to Your Soul: The Heart of Spiritual Psychology (one of my favorite subjects). The authors talk about how to use what happens in our daily life to grow spiritually. And one exercise they shared is four steps to shift things in your life that you wish were different. I immediately thought of money and all the changes that people long to make in their financial life. So, while the authors (Ron and Mary Hulnick) don’t talk about finance, their steps definitely apply, and I want to share them.
First, let’s stop for a moment and think about why making a change can feel so overwhelming. What is going on inside of us?
Part of the dilemma of making a shift is that when we contemplate making a change, we are assailed by pangs of remorse over how we have handled, or not handled, some financial matter. So, when we debate taking more personal ownership for our actions, we immediately feel guilt. We get caught up in the self-blame game and beat ourselves up. However, as the Hulnicks write, “if it is your intention to live from within a Soul-Centered context, what you want to do is accept what IS without judgement, take 100 percent responsibility for your choices, and begin making more positive choices”.
The key is to not judge yourself for what is. We are all enrolled in the school of life, and we are all learning from what we’ve gone through. All of us! Everyone’s money story is full of twists and turns. The question is how to make a shift—if what you are experiencing is no longer working. And how do you make a shift in a gentle way that leads to real change?
Here is how, in four steps:
Allow yourself to get very quiet, breathe deeply for a while, and try to enter into a state of calmness. Light a candle perhaps or get your journal out. Then allow yourself to identify a current situation that you would like to be different for you, regarding money.
For example, perhaps you are stressed that you do not have any money in savings. You fear that if something happened to your job or income stream, you would be in a difficult situation. You would like to have at least a couple months of savings in the bank to cover you. But you don’t, and you feel frustrated and stressed by this.
Perhaps you think that you don’t deserve to have savings, and that you don’t really like thinking about the future. And perhaps in the outer world, you name the fact that you have not opened a savings account dedicated to this kind of savings. Or perhaps you have this savings account set up, but you have not set up an automatic transfer of money each month from your checking to your savings account. You are also aware that you are maintaining the current situation of not having money in savings because you are going out to eat four night a week, and this is draining your account.
Remember, you are not judging yourself. You are simply naming the various choices you are currently making that may be keeping the current situation going. If you are stuck, try finishing these statements: “Inwardly I am aware that… Outwardly I seem to be choosing to do…. Outwardly, I seem to not be taking any action on…”
Now brainstorm the possibility of other choices that could give you different results. As the Hulnicks write, “It’s not that you have to do anything differently; can you simply see any alternatives?”
In our example, you could choose to tell yourself that you do deserve to have savings. And that the future is a positive thing, and you welcome it. (Though you may not currently believe these things, you can say them.) You see that it is possible to set up a new savings account online with your bank. Or you imagine that it’s possible to set up a monthly transfer of a small amount of money from your checking to a dedicated savings account. It may also be possible to eat out twice a week instead of four.
These are all simply possibilities. That is all—just possibilities. This is not about taking action. Simply allow yourself to brainstorm.
This last step is about visualization and planting a new seed. Think back to your brainstorming. You want to pick some of these ideas to visualize. Which ones draw you, or strike you as having possibilities?
Visualize yourself in the process of making these new choices, and visualize this in the present moment, present tense. This is not about committing to actually doing anything different right now! This step is about visualizing yourself making different choices. See yourself taking different actions. Imagine what it would feel like to take these actions.
You may see yourself getting online with a cup of coffee and setting up a new account. You may see yourself setting up automatic transfers. You visualize talking with your close friends about going out to eat at less expensive restaurants, or only two days a week. You see yourself sharing your money goals with your close girlfriends. You tell yourself, “I am worthy of having savings.” You visualize all of this in detail, including the feelings.
Remember, this step is not about action. It is about visualization.
And here is the key with this last step. I want you to imagine doing this visualization every day for a month. Yes, that’s right—a month! Whether it is first thing in the morning or when you go to bed at night, run through this visualization. Our outward behavior shifts when our inner thoughts and feelings shift. So commit to visualizing this every day.
How will you do this? Can you put a reminder on your phone? Can you put a card on your pillow that you see when you go to bed each night? How will you go through this visualization every day for 30 days?
True change comes when we first see it internally. Don’t force change on yourself without trying to gently give your mind and emotions a new possibility. Behavior follows thoughts and feelings, not the other way around. So now is the time to begin to write a new internal program.
The daily repetition of this visualization will lay down new potent seeds in your mind and spirit. Then taking actions becomes easier and easier. In time, new actions bloom in the outer realm of your life, grounded in the fertile soil of your inner shifts.
Ready to earn more and step into greater freedom? Click here to be notified of the next time Mikelann offers her 8 week Unlock Your Earning Power course.
The kitchen ceilingIt was a dark and rainy night, and I was returning home from the dance studio where I had been happily dancing Tango. Money was definitely not on my mind. Rather, tango dresses occupied my thoughts. I walked in the door and my 12-year-old niece who lives with me, ran to me. “Auntie! There’s water coming out of the ceiling in the kitchen! Come!” My heart in my throat, I raced to the kitchen where sure enough, I could see water dripping slowly from three places. It was hitting the table and forming a pool on the floor.
I could feel my throat constrict, my vision narrow, and panic well up in my gut. I then ranted, both out loud and inside my head: “What am I going to do?! This will cost a fortune! There goes my travel plans when the pandemic ends! I just finished the remodel! Why oh why?!” My niece, less triggered in the moment, got a bucket out.
I stormed out of the kitchen and retreated to my bedroom, unable to temporarily control my emotions in the face of impending doom. The world was ending, the sky was falling, and the roof was caving in.
I knew some of my core fears were being triggered. “Triggered” generally means you experience a surge of fear and anxiety, and bleak emotions descend and take hold of you. Underneath the panic lurks some of our core fears. We all get emotionally stirred up, but how do we know when we are financially triggered? For me, I know my core fears are provoked when:
What about you? How do you know when you are deeply triggered? How do you react? Do you feel it in a part of your body like a stomachache or anxiety in your chest? Where does your mind race to? Knowing you are triggered is a sign to stop and look deeper, before taking action.
When I looked deeper, I knew it was my biggest money fear coming up, “Something bad will happen and I won’t survive financially”. Usually it is just shortened to: something had will happen and I won’t survive.
This core fear is the number one fear that women have around money. (And many men too.) We fear something bad happening, and suddenly the future is in jeopardy. What if we get injured and can’t work? What if our child gets sick? What if a storm damages our house so bad…?
Worry, worry, worry. Our nightmares take us to living under a bridge, or at the mercy of other’s financial help (living on a friend’s couch?) We fear that when disaster strikes, we will come up short financially and we will not be safe.
Author Rachel Cruze wrote about money fears in her newly released book, Know yourself, Know your money. “Every single one of us either has or has had fears about money. In fact, studies show that not having enough money is one of the top things American’s fear most. It doesn’t matter how much money you have or make, everyone has experienced fear around money…. The kind of fear that wakes you up at one o’clock in the morning in a sweat with your heart racing…”
And part of the problem with money fear, she writes, is that “fear narrows the mind’s focus to survival only and blocks out creativity.” It’s hard to solve problems when all creativity has vanished.
At times, our money fear is about the present—I’m afraid I can’t weather something bad happening, like a leaky roof, and then I won’t be able to pay my bills this month. Sometimes it is about the murky future. This usually goes, “If something really bad happens, my future is threatened. I’ll have to work forever or be dependent on others…” etc. etc.
For me, and for a lot of women, many of our money fears do get wrapped up in security, and this is often very connected to our homes. It is why so many women desperately fight to keep the home in a divorce, whether they can afford it or not.
My home is everything. It is my refuge. I am the ultimate home body. Perhaps it is because I am a solid introvert, but my home is truly important. It is both real security (no landlord can kick me out) and it is emotional security. To have my home, of all things, feel unstable, was deeply triggering. Generally, if something bad happens, I retreat to my home. This is true for many of us.
So how to move forward and come out of fear that we won’t survive something bad happening?
Go back and look at the trigger list. What are your triggers? Then ask yourself, what is the worst-case scenario you envision, and how likely is it to happen? Is the world really ending? Is catastrophe eminent? Is your life being threatened? Generally, the answer is no.
As I said above, when I notice my thinking slowing down, or I am catastrophizing, or my options are very extreme (black and white thinking) I know I am triggered. This tells me to slow down, not make any decisions, and repeat to myself, “I am okay, I will get through this. The answers are coming.” I repeat this over and over. And then I move to step two.
Second, start listing out resources: money, people, ideas. Remember, when you are gripped with money fear, your creativity dwindles. So you will likely need help brainstorming. This is normal.
When the roof was leaking, I was seriously freaked out. And I had no idea what to do. (Fuzzy thinking.) So my list was: 1. Call my mom and see if she had advice, or any names of roofing people, since she was doing work on her house. 2. Text my boyfriend, rant a bit, and tell him I needed to brainstorm with him the next day about roof stuff. 3. Call my friend Ken who has done a lot of contracting in his life. I asked him if he would come over and look at the roof with me and help me think about next steps. 4. Eventually, as I calmed down, I added to the list to call my old contractor and see if he could come and give me advice too. (Sometimes I post for ideas on Facebook.)
The point with step two is that you don’t need to have answers yet. Listing out resources, such as people you can talk to, will help you find the answers. You simply may need help brainstorming.
The top antidote to money fears is to have emergency savings in the bank. There is no greater help. I teach my clients to save for “periodic expenses” so they can cover unexpected expenses that periodically happen. Why? Because periodically, we all have the unexpected happen. Don’t expect life not to happen. Oh, it happens… So, while I still didn’t have any answers, I felt a bit better after I brainstormed initial options with people and then looked at my savings. I certainly did not have a budget line labeled “Roof Repair”, let alone “New Roof” but looking at what I had in savings did help me feel like the world wasn’t ending. There WAS money in savings for upcoming trips, furniture, and other larger expenses.
The next day I made the calls and started gathering info.
Eventually, by the next week, I had enough information that I sat down with my annual spending plan and came up with a plan. Part of why I am so keen on helping people learn how to plan, and ADJUST their spending when things happen, is that there is literally nothing that helps more with financial stress than having a plan. (My favorite tool for doing an annual spending plan is www.moneygrit.com)
Time and time again my money plan has calmed me down. I do not relish having to cut something, or wait on buying something, but compared to the fear of impending doom? I’ll take a money plan any day!!
Eventually, I had a good plan and was less freaked out. (I’m replacing part of my roof.)
We ALL get triggered around money. Know this is normal. The key is to calm ourselves, and begin to brainstorm. Yes, it is ideal to also have some savings and a plan. Savings is simply one of our resources. So while we can’t predict what will happen, we can do certain things now that will calm us the next time the roof starts leaking, like starting a savings fund.
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I’ve taught many classes on conquering underearning. And one common belief that comes up for women time and again is the assumption that if you made better money, you would have to work harder and have less personal time.
Our time is precious to us. I get it! We want time for our ourselves, time for our families, time for our lives. Work has to fit into our life and not lead to burnout. But is this assumption true that earning more money means we must work more hours?
I was musing this question when the Sunday Seattle Times showed up in my inbox. In it was Parade Magazine, a newspaper magazine carried by many U.S. newspapers. They were doing their popular annual report called “What People Earn in 2020”, where they survey people across the United States, and ask them what they do and how much they make.
The range is pretty astonishing, and fascinating. But what struck me when I was reading through it was the different amounts people earned for doing pretty much the same amount of work. For example, there was a 58-year-old school nurse who earned $44,000 a year, a 57-year-old social worker who earned $67,000 a year and a 57-year-old meteorologist who earned $83,840 a year. All worked full time. All women. All in the Midwest.
Does the woman who is the school district nurse work hard? Absolutely! That is a difficult, and sometimes under appreciated job. What about the social worker or the meteorologist? They work hard too. All women spend their days working with people and are engaged in many different activities. All put in their hours. But one makes $43,840 more than the other. If you are going to work 40 hours a week, why not choose something you like that also makes great money?
The dilemma is that many women assume that if they earn a higher salary, it would mean they had to work more and hence have less personal time.
Barbara Stanny, in her classic book Secrets of Six Figure Women, commented on this belief that more money equaled less personal time. She assumed that women who made really good money must all be workaholics. But what she found was quite different. In fact, a majority of women who earned over $100,000 a year worked forty hours a week or LESS. “It was the intensity of focus on their work, not the number of hours they spend doing it, that factored so heavily into these women’s financial success.”
In other words, if you work hard during your “work” time, you will free yourself up during your non work time. I find this to be very true in my own work life. When I am working, I do nothing else. Being self-employed, this can be challenging. But I silence alerts on my phone, turn off my email, and focus intensely on my work for a certain period of time. I believe this compartmentalizing of work and personal time is a key to maintaining balance and a sense of “having a life” outside of work.
But the women in the Parade article were not self-employed. They were all salaried and they all worked full-time.
I find that the answer to this riddle often goes all the way to college when most of us did not ask the question, “How much money could I make if I studied this?” We often choose our career without thought of our future earning potential.
Again, if you are going to work 40 hours a week, why not pick a career that pays well? Also, how high- pressured of a career are you considering? Will the career you choose demand more than full time hours? All of these are important considerations for something as important as the career you choose. The intersection of time and money is always worthy of deep reflection.
For most of us, college was a long time ago. So now we need to examine our assumptions and see how they impact us.
Many years ago when I was married, my husband was offered a job that paid more with a different company. But after investigating the time demands and work culture of this other company, he turned it down. He decided the extra money was not worth the extra time they would demand of him. And he never regretted it.
Knowing how much he needed to earn, (and not earn) allowed him to make a thoughtful decision. And he did not assume more money always had to mean more hours. And in fact, the following month he asked for a raise at his current job and received it.
If we assume we can make good money and have enough personal time, we may look at career options with a different eye. We may negotiate for schedules that work better for us. We may think carefully about our next job change. (The average American changes jobs 12 times as an adult.) We may say no to intrusive demands. And we may negotiate with our domestic partners for more equitable sharing in household chores, to free up more time.
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Recently I was doing some money coaching with my boyfriend. It’s always luxurious to do coaching in front of a fire in a cozy living room, but besides that, it looked like many of my coaching sessions. Well, I did have a glass of wine in my hand.
We were talking about his multiple accounts- and how they were not quite working for him. He kept a lot of money in one checking account and transferred money as he needed it into a second checking account that he spent out of it. He liked seeing a large balance in the first checking account, but it wasn’t particularly organized. And he often hesitated, unsure if he should pull the trigger on a larger project. Lucky for him, he was dating a money coach.
One of the things I (strongly) suggested was that he use only ONE checking account, not two. Nothing crazy about that idea, though it would streamline his finances a bit and cut down on transferring money around to cover things.
(Your savings and credit cards should be connected to this ONE checking account.)
But what I want to share with you was our savings conversation.
I explained to him that part of why he wasn’t feeling particularly secure was that the large chunk of money in his checking account was functioning partly as his safety net (if he left his job and had no money coming in) and partly for large projects (like rebuilding his beloved motorcycle and replacing his wood stove) and partly for boring bills and monthly spending. It was all mixed.
I recommend he have ONE checking account and TWO savings accounts.
I had him name one savings account “Safety Net”. He loved the sound of “Safety Net”- it made good sense to him. He put three months of expenses in there and LEFT IT ALONE. (Many of my clients like to call it “Freedom Fund”.) Done. Don’t touch it. Stop transferring money in and out of it. If anything happened to his job, he was covered for a few months.
He already felt better.
Then he named his other savings account “Project Savings”. This is a name we brainstormed together. Many of my clients know I use the term “Periodic Savings” for periodic expenses, but my guy liked the term “project savings” better. Words are powerful and you have to resonate with what you name things. So great by me! This savings account is for both the unexpected (like car repair and leaky pipes) and for the expected, like vacations and Christmas. Some finance people call this your emergency savings. I never like this because some of these “emergencies” are fun- like going to Hawaii for a week. They are simply non-monthly.
But good or bad, these kinds of expenses are the bigger financial “hits” that stress him, and everyone else. He didn’t want to carry a balance on his credit card for these things, but he always felt bad when he pulled money out of his large checking account to pay them off. It felt like the “safety net” part of his money went up and down, and this didn’t feel good.
So, we got into his online banking interface and named his second savings account, “Project Savings”. I had him set up an auto transfer from his now single primary checking account to this account each month, of approximately $1,000. We debated the amount and changed it several times, as his list of “projects” grew. He knew he could pull the money out of this account whenever a “project” appeared.
My guy makes good money. He can always cover normal monthly expenses. But when he has a big project, he likes knowing now there is dedicated money for it that he can pull from—and this does not affect his safety net, which is now totally separate. He loves knowing he is saving up for these projects. His project list:
Here are examples of projects that my clients have on their own lists:
What about you? What is your own list of “projects”? Consider a dedicated savings account for these periodic expenses, that is separate from your safety net and retirement accounts.
Less stress and anxiety mean more time and space to enjoy life.
Here’s to a cozy fire, another glass of wine and a few grateful hugs from my boyfriend.
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We’ve all heard: “Follow your bliss.”
And how about the famous saying, “Do what you love, and the money will follow.”
Does it? If you do what you love, will the money follow?
Maybe.
The dilemma with these beliefs is that they can abdicate responsibility about money. It says “don’t you worry about that money stuff. Just focus on what makes you happy.” And of course, we want to believe that, because who wants to think about money? Isn’t it comforting that we don’t have to think about all this money stuff?
And I admit, it does sound lovely, and I wish it were true. The premise is good—it says focus on using your talents. But a lot of times it doesn’t work because people don’t realize that just because you are talented at something doesn’t mean you will make money. There must be a demand for what you do. Ouch.
Over the years, I’ve noticed that women fall prey to these beliefs more than men. Yes, men want meaningful work and work they enjoy. But they rarely divorce their work aspirations from money. They often believe they need to earn enough to support themselves as well as a family. Women often grow up still believing that we only need to earn enough to support ourselves. I rarely talk to a woman who grew up thinking she had to earn enough someday to support herself, her husband and two possible children.
Women often believe that meaning is everything, and focusing on money may somehow degrade the deeper meaning we seek. We may also believe that bringing money into the picture makes us appear greedy or more self-centered. This is perpetuated by our common belief that one can have meaningful work OR make good money.
But what if it wasn’t either/or?
I always tell people that instead of saying, “follow your bliss and the money will follow”, say “How can I make money following one of my blisses?” The difference between these two questions is huge. Or perhaps a better way to say it is:
There are many things I like. However, some of these ideas will earn me more money than others. Not all hobbies or passions can be turned into lucrative careers. And sometimes trying to monetize a hobby or passion takes the joy out if it. Passions are the spice of life. It may be better to create a career that gives you good work life balance, so you have time for your passions and interests.
When you think about work and career, look for the intersection of these three things: Work you enjoy, work you are good at and work that pays well (other people value financially). What type of work sits at the intersection of these three things?
When we say, “follow your bliss”, and disregard money, we are not living in balance.
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