Why Getting Financial Education is Key to Success

 

Managing your finances, whether business or personal, is a skill. It’s something we need to hone, not just something we might be naturally good at. To grow this skill, we need education!

Financial education has so many benefits to our financial lives. Here are my top 3 for you:

Increasing Your Longterm Wealth

When we hear the phrase “return on investment”, this is the first thing most of us probably think of. Financial education does indeed have a great financial return, especially in the longterm. No matter what type of financial education you pursue, if you implement what you learn, you will increase your longterm wealth.

The knowledge you apply to your financial life will change and improve how you handle money. You may find yourself more capable of making decisions around saving, spending, and investing. Over time this can have compounding positive effects.

This is true both in the case of business and personal finances, by the way! Even just the way that financial education can make you more aware of your money tends to have positive effects on both areas. When you pay more attention to your money, it’s more likely to flourish.

Acquiring Relevant Skills

The skills you learn when you invest in financial education will always be relevant to your life. As far as I know, most of us need to manage our money throughout the course of our lives.

If you are a business owner, the money skills you acquire will be helpful not only to your business, but may also be helpful to your business peers and any people you want to hire or mentor in the future. Money skills really do keep on giving!

A Sense of Peace with Money

In my opinion, this one may be the best of all the benefits. The peace of mind and clarity that come along with getting the financial skills you need to manage your money well are absolutely amazing.

I’ve witnessed many clients experience a great reduction in their stress levels after a few sessions together. Money is one of the leading causes of stress in the U.S. Especially for those managing debt, gaining the financial skills to recover and surmount it can be deeply emotionally healing.

Where Can I Get Financial Education?

In this article, the term “financial education” refers to any resource that helps you better understand your finances. Whether this is a podcast, a YouTube channel, a workshop or class series, or working with a coach or bookkeeper, anything you find helpful in this arena counts!

If you’d like some ideas about finding financial education resources that meet your personal needs, I have a couple articles on finding the best financial education resources for you:

And of course, if you liked this article, you’ll probably love my e-Book, 9 Secrets of Financial Self Care! It walks you through 9 different ways to upgrade your financial life and add self care to your routine. Download it free here.

This post was originally published in July 2021.

By |2022-06-15T09:14:06-07:00June 15th, 2022|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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Want to Enjoy Your Life? Fund It.

The irony of financial goal setting is that we can get so wrapped up in our big-picture idea of financial success, that we forget to lean into enjoying our lives too. This is a snag that I see many people get stuck on. We focus on purchasing a home or funding our retirement. These financial priorities are great, but they sometimes overshadow something that also takes a bit of cash – having fun!

The Importance of Fun

It seems a bit silly to make a serious case for the importance of enjoying your life, but a lot of us (including me) need that reminder! Right now I’m reading The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again by Catherine Price. One of my favorite concepts from this book so far has been Price’s conviction that the moments we are having true fun are the moments we feel most alive.

When it really comes down to it, isn’t that what most of us want anyway? To feel alive in a positive, joyful way? Yes, there’s certainly a lot to be said for achieving goals and getting things done. And, I believe that oftentimes we want to do those things in service to our pursuit of aliveness.

When Fun Costs Money

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you might be surprised to see me recommending that you spend money on “fun.” That might even seem contradictory to another concept I like to write about, teasing out your wants from your needs. I particularly like to emphasize the point of finding your “enough,” and of meeting your needs and wants creatively and inexpensively.

Actually, that does apply here. The thing is, being on top of your finances is not about being so frugal that you don’t have any enjoyment in your life. There may be a point where you realize that you truly want something that you know will bring a lot of joy, but also cost money. When you’re setting your financial goals, you can prepare for this and take it into account!

This might be a longterm savings goal, like a trip overseas, or it might be a purchase, like a musical instrument. These things do cost money, but they’re worth it. Including them in your financial planning is an important of remembering to enjoy your life!

Fun Up Your Finances

So, how do we integrate fun into our finances, exactly? My suggestion would be to keep fun in the front of your mind whenever you’re setting new financial goals for yourself. Here are a couple articles of mine on the subject that you might enjoy:

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By |2022-05-23T11:42:05-07:00May 23rd, 2022|Categories: Money Mindset, Personal Savings, Personal Spending|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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4 Quick Tips to Get Your Finances Back on Track

Post tax-season, a lot of us are looking to do better on our finances. Maybe you got a big tax bill and are now wondering where your earnings went. Perhaps you were a little less organized than you would have liked.

Whatever the case, mid-points like this are great times to give your finances a makeover! Here are my top 4 tips for getting your finances on track again, whether that’s in your business, or your personal finances.

Review Your Goals

After a big financial event like tax season, the financial goals you set earlier in the year deserve a revisit. Check in with them and ask yourself if they still fit. If not, give your goals a nice update! Make sure what you’re aiming towards is relevant to you. You can check out my article on doing a mid-year review of your finances right here.

If you don’t have any financial goals, now is the time to set them. Harness whatever financial fervor tax season (or whatever other financial situation brought you to this post) has instilled in you.

What are your ideal financial conditions? Dream them up, write them down, and come up with a plan. If you need some pointers, here’s my article “4 Strategies for Setting Doable Financial Goals.”

Set Up a Weekly Money Check-In

So much of creating the life you want is about habits. One of the best habits to adopt, in my opinion, is regular “money time”. Find time each week to check in with your finances. Start with a short chunk, to make it feel more manageable. Fifteen to thirty minutes should suffice.

Use this time to check in with your expenses, upcoming bills, IOU’s, and more as needed. Here are my suggestions on what to look for during your weekly money check-in.

Make a Plan to Stay on Top of Your Books

Especially if organization was an issue this tax round and you run a business, making a plan to stay organized until next tax time is a great thing to do right now. Ask yourself what you need to be able to do this.

Do you need to work with a bookkeeper? Do you need to get some training on how to do your bookkeeping yourself? Identify your needs and take some steps to set yourself on the right path.

Find a Money Buddy

It’s my personal belief that anything can go better when you have an accountability buddy. Find someone in your circle who has a financial goal they’re working on too, and join forces! This might be a fellow business owner, or someone from your church, or another mom from a play group.

“Why You Need a Money Buddy”

Once you’ve found your money buddy, establish the terms of your accountability partnership. How often do you want to meet? How do you want to do check ins? Do you want to learn about finances together, or just trade tips on goals?

These 4 tips will help set you on the right path. If you’re a small business owner looking for more ideas, you might like my free eBook, the Cash Flow Reboot Guide: A Guide to Thriving in Uncertain Times. Click below and get your free copy.

By |2022-05-12T14:30:34-07:00May 12th, 2022|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset, Personal Savings, Personal Spending, Small Business|Tags: , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Why Self-Compassion is Important During Tax Time

When it comes time to reflect on the financial choices you’ve made over the last year, shame and guilt, along with many other emotions, are likely to show their faces. Many people spend tax time berating themselves for mistakes or missed opportunities. I’d like to suggest a different approach. Instead of shaming and blaming ourselves, what if we tried empathy? Approaching tax time with financial self-compassion is important. It has positive impacts on our mental wellbeing, our productivity, and our bottom lines.

Stop the Blame Game

During tax time, we review the last tax year and every financial decision we made – or didn’t make – along with that. Since 2020 was an exceptionally challenging year, reviewing it will likely be challenging too. You may have faced some tough decisions last year. Perhaps you had to pull money out of your IRA, or you took on some consumer debt to pay bills. Whatever your situation is, and however it gets reflected on your 2020 tax return, stop the blame. Blaming and shaming yourself for whatever state your finances might be in won’t change your circumstances. Actually, it may get in the way of moving forward on your financial growth.

Financial Self-Compassion Clarifies Solutions

Self-compassion just might be integral to your financial success. Studies show that encouraging empathy and compassion can open us to adopt a growth mindset, where we are open to learning from our mistakes and trying new things. A growth mindset makes it possible for us to think clearly about the problems we face, and find new innovative solutions.

What opportunities might financial self-compassion open for us during tax time? For starters, instead of blaming and punishing ourselves for our financial missteps by going it alone this tax time, financial self-compassion might inspire us to open up to a money buddy about our tax concerns. We might get some useful ideas or feedback this way. We might also take a look at our spending plan, and decide that the money needed to hire an expert to help us with our taxes is well worth it this year. Without the shame and guilt, we are less likely to try to handle our money problems in isolation. We are open to new solutions and better ideas.

For more financial self care ideas, check out my free e-Book, 9 Secrets to Financial Self Care. These secrets run the gamut from the emotional (like forgiving yourself for past financial mistakes) to the practical (like setting aside regular “money time”).

Image by: Tim Marshall

This post was first published in March 2021

By |2022-03-11T12:43:44-08:00March 11th, 2022|Categories: Money Mindset, Taxes|Tags: , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Book Review: It’s Not Your Money by Tosha Silver

I’m curious, what feelings come up for you when you read the title of Tosha Silver’s book, It’s Not Your Money? Do you scoff or disapprove? Are you intrigued? Perhaps something else entirely comes up for you, or a mix of both. Today’s book review is focusing on a book that deals with a popular topic on this blog: money mindset.

However, Tosha Silver’s background is not as a money coach or bookkeeper (like myself). Her works originated from her love for and desire to share yogic philosophy. Her unique background gives this book a powerful spiritual charge. This book was an excellent and insightful read. Here are my top three takeaways:

#1: We’re Not In Charge

The title of this book is central to its philosophy. Throughout, Tosha tries to communicate that we alone are not in charge of what happens. She encourages the reader to “release doership,” embrace surrender, and give everything over to Love. Specifically, she speaks of Divine Love, her vision of a higher power. She suggest surrendering over to this power.

Now, if you’re reading this and raising your eyebrows, I get it. Surrender is nice and all, but applying it to your money in our competitive and driven world is no small feat. However, this book makes a wonderful case and provides a clear framework for doing just that. Much like Lyne Twist’s The Soul of Money, this book encourages us to see money like water – just a part of the flow in the universe.

This piece of the book was interesting for me to read. It reminded me of some other money mindset work that I have read and written about, which emphasizes the importance of releasing financial anxiety and other money baggage. Surrendering the care of our money and our wellbeing over to Divine Love is also, probably not coincidentally, a great way to release financial anxiety.

#2: Language Matters

During the book, Tosha outlines a 5 step process. One of these places great emphasis on the language we use around money. Specifically, she encourages us to examine the language we use around our financial situations. Another piece of this process also delves into working with prayers and affirmations. She introduces “Change Me Prayers,” which are meant to help the reader give up who they used to be to the Divine, in order to allow for change. Here’s one of these prayers below:

“Change me, Divine Beloved, into one who fully trusts that all true needs are always met through your bounty. Let me surrender and allow You to be my Source for All. Let me breathe, relax, and let you lead. I am safe. I am peaceful. All needs will abundantly be met. I am Yours completely.”

Isn’t that prayer beautiful? Definitely not your typical money mindset work! As a fellow lover of affirmations and an appreciator of words, I deeply resonated with these elements of her approach.

#3: Make Space

Another piece of this 5-step process is decluttering. Tosha invites the reader to “let what needs to go, go, so that what needs to come, can come.” This is an exercise in detachment, another theme running throughout the book. She writes, “Detachment is not that should own nothing, but that nothing should own you.”

As a Marie Kondo fan, this was not necessarily a new concept for me, but an exciting one nonetheless. In the past, I’ve talked about reviewing and refreshing your finances occasionally. The idea of incorporating an emphasis on decluttering and detachment is exciting and something I just might try out!

In sum, this book was an excellent book about money mindset work with a deep spiritual emphasis. I’d recommend this book not only for folks interested in money, but also for those less interested, too! The spiritual emphasis makes it inviting for those who tend to eschew material focus.

If you enjoyed this book review, you’ll probably like being on my newsletter! Click here to subscribe and receive my monthly tailored newsletter full of important financial conversations, and my weekly blog updates.

By |2022-02-17T13:01:42-08:00February 17th, 2022|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset|Tags: , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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Is Your Money Affecting Your Relationships?: 3 Tips to Cultivate A Healthier Money Relationship

How we interact with our money can affect how we interact with others, and ourselves. So it’s important to tend to our relationship with money, in order to keep things clear in our other relationships! Today, I’m talking about three different ways that money may be affecting your relationships, and how you can begin to cultivate a healthier relationships with your money. I’ll be referencing The Soul of Money, an amazing book by Lynne Twist, throughout. Check out my book review if you’d like to learn more!

1. Dissolve the Competition

“Money has become a playing field where we measure our competence and worth as people. We worry that if we stop striving for more, we’ll… lose our advantage.” – Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money

As this quote highlights, money in our society is a high-stakes game. The competition and the need to always be getting more, buying more, earning more, and doing more can creep in and take over our lives. This can and does affect our social relationships. The phrase “keeping up with Joneses” is direct proof of how competition around money can affect how we interact with our neighbors, friends, and community members. At the same time, it’s also evidence of how we tend to measure ourselves and our efforts – against our earnings.

To cultivate a healthier relationship with money, and in turn, healthier social relationships, I suggest beginning by removing this element of competition. Work with affirmations or turn to mindset work or journal prompts to find ways to uproot this tendency. Talk openly with other people about your money. That’s a perfect segue into my next point!

2. Practice Transparency

“Our behavior around money has damaged relationships when money has been used as an instrument of control or punishment, emotional escape or manipulation, or as a replacement for love.” – Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money

Find some people who you can really trust to talk to about money. I call this process building a Money Team. In particular, it’s great to have a friend or two who you can open up to about finances.

Having a Money Buddy can give you a space to practice financial transparency, and get more comfortable bringing up money in your social relationships. This can be a great way to work on the feelings that come up around money in this arena. Eventually, you might find yourself feeling more comfortable sharing about your financial situation in general!

3. Create a Spiritual Connection to Your Money

“Your relationship with money can be a place where you bring your strengths and skills, your highest aspirations, and your deepest and most profound qualities.”  – Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money

The Soul of Money is definitely an excellent resource in this area. Lynne Twist writes about how money is like water, it’s a resource that’s meant to flow. She encourages us to recognize that money itself is not problematic, and that it is instead the interpretation of money that brings up so many issues.

Doing some personal work around our connections with money can be a great way to prevent it from interrupting our connections with ourselves and others. If you’d like some resources for this pursuit, I have a couple suggestions:

If you enjoyed this article, you’ll probably like being on my newsletter! Click here to subscribe and receive my monthly tailored newsletter full of important financial conversations, and my weekly blog updates.

By |2022-02-10T16:07:36-08:00February 10th, 2022|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset, Personal Savings, Personal Spending|Tags: , , , , , , |0 Comments
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My #1 System for Achieving Financial Goals

You reach your goals if you work on them regularly. Things happen one day, one week, one month at a time. So, it might come as no surprise to you that my #1 system for achieving financial goals is making regular time for financial self care. I’ve seen this work with many clients and know that in personal experience, this is what works best for me. This approach is backed by many achievement experts, like Gary Keller. In The One Thing, he suggests setting a single goal and then suggests scheduling focused time to work on it into your calendar and protecting it.

Make financial self care a habit! I frequently suggest checking in with your finances on a weekly basis, but another time interval might work well for you too. Since we’re thinking about self care, consider your weekly financial check-in a part of your overall self care routine. Just like you manage your time and your physical health with self care, your money is a resource to manage and use to your best advantage. Use your regular “money time” to work towards your financial goal. 

Here are a couple suggestions of things to do:

  • check in on your spending for the month to see where you’re at with your spending plan
  • check in with your financial goal for the month
  • talk to your money mentor or your partner
  • spend time learning about finances
  • do any finance-related admin work you need (paying off bills, sending off IOU’s, billing clients, etc.)

Most importantly, make sure this time is enjoyable so you can keep coming back to it every week. Try to limit the amount of time you spend, so that you finish off your money time by completing a task. I suggest starting with twenty or thirty minutes and slowly increasing the amount as your finances become more interesting for you to work with. Pro tip: when you end on a high note, it’s easier to keep the habit going. And don’t forget to reward yourself for sticking with this habit!

If you liked this article, you’ll probably like my free e-Book, 9 Secrets to Financial Self Care. Click here to download.

By |2022-01-28T13:23:15-08:00January 27th, 2022|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset|Tags: , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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4 Strategies for Setting Doable Financial Goals

If you set financial goals that are way out of your reach, you’re setting yourself up for defeat and disappointment. Rather than curtail your progress with emotional roadblocks, try simplifying your financial goal-setting for this year. These four strategies can help you create goals that are meaningful, motivating, and realistically achievable.

Check in With Your Values

Check in with your values before setting goals. Your business, your finances, and your goals should enable you to have enough of the things you value in your life to feel satisfied. Basing your goals on your values will also give you a clear way to connect with your “money why” and stay motivated when you’re working towards them. 

Set One Goal

Set one goal, not a dozen. This will make it easier to manage and complete the goal. James Clear is a great thinker around goal setting, and brings up the psychological concept of goal competition. “…Your goals are competing with one another for your time and attention. Whenever you chase a new goal, you have to pull focus and energy from your other pursuits….What often looks like a problem of goal setting is actually a problem of goal selection.”

When you cull your goals down to one, you’re able to direct all your focus and effort towards this one goal. Of course, I’m speaking about the general realm of your finances. In reality you’ll of course still have a full and complex life – all the more reason to simplify things and pick one financial goal to focus on! Which brings me to the next point:

Identify Your “One Thing”

Identify the thing to do in your finances that would make everything else easier or irrelevant. This is from Gary Keller’s book, The One Thing. This book carries a similar message to what I wrote above: multi-tasking is actually holding you back from making progress on your goals. Using the question “What is the one thing, such that by doing it, everything else would become easier or irrelevant?” can help you further cull your goals and make space in your finances to get focused. 

Turn Your Goal Into a System

How will you stay on track with your goal? When setting your financial goal, consider how you’ll turn it into action items, and how you’ll complete those action items. Will you set up a time to make progress each week? Will you find a money buddy to work in tandem with? Will you create a special routine for yourself around checking in with your finances daily? 

Carving out regular time to devote effort and attention to your goal is one fo the best ways to actually achieve it. So when setting a goal, keep in mind how likely you are to be able to do this, and how you’ll set up a system for success. If you’d like to work on a financial goal with my guidance, set up a free Financial Self Care Consultation.

☮

Angela

By |2022-01-19T14:45:56-08:00January 19th, 2022|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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Celebrate Good Times: Enjoy Your Financial Wins!

My number one tip for financial self care is celebration. Specifically, celebrating your financial wins. A financial win is any instance where you get a little bit closer to a goal you’ve set for yourself. So even if it’s just saving an extra $5, resisting the urge to spend on something small, paying down your debt just a bit, or making the first appointment with a bookkeeper or coach, these are big steps, and they deserve to be celebrated.

In my series on how to do a mid-year business review, I wrote this passage on celebrating your financial wins:

…[T]ake stock again of all you’ve done this year, including this review process. Chances are, you will find you’ve done quite a bit of work towards your goals, no matter how close you might be to completing them! Take some time to celebrate all the work you’ve done. Treat yourself to an afternoon off, a fun or inspiring event, or whatever you’d like to do to celebrate your achievements so far! Being a self-starting solopreneur is hard work. If you’ve done the work, you deserve to cheer yourself on once in a while.

I whole-heartedly believe this is true, and especially with the challenges this year has faced us with, we definitely need a moment to look at all our accomplishments and congratulate ourselves. Doing this is important to sustaining our financial self care routine, because it encourages to keep moving forward on our goals.

I invite you to find whatever feels like it would be the most meaningful way to celebrate these things. It might be sharing them with other people, like a money buddy or a mentor. It could be rewarding yourself with a purchase or some time off. If you use the Profit First system, it’s time for your quarterly profit distribution! Think about what you’d like to use it for. If you need some help thinking about the most meaningful way to celebrate, check out The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist.

Marking Time and Progress

Over the years, running your business may often feel like a blur. In order to get the fulfillment and satisfaction you want from it, it’s important to take time to mark time and progress. Notice how long you’ve been running your business. Make a practice of keeping track how you’ve grown and progressed as a business owner. Celebrating your financial wins is one excellent way to keep up with that practice.

Marking time and progress also helps you create a sense of momentum and purpose. This helps you keep coming back to your financial goals. When you notice how your actions are bringing you closer to certain achievements, it gets easier to show up every day and do the work you need to do.

So, celebrate yourself today! If you’d like more thoughts on celebrating your financial wins and other topics in the realm of financial self care, download my free e-Book, 9 Secrets to Financial Self Care. 

☮

Angela

By |2021-12-31T15:08:24-08:00December 13th, 2021|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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Your Year in Money: How & Why to Reflect on Your Year

Reflecting on your year as it comes to a close is an important and time-honored activity. When you’re reminiscing and re-evaluating, don’t forget to think about your money, too! Considering how this year went for you financially is an important part of the process. Here’s the why and how of it:

Why Reflect?

Reflecting on your financial journey throughout 2021 can yield several important results. First, it can give you a chance to simply notice what’s changed, and how. The last two years have been economically tumultuous for most of us. Consider where your finances were at in the beginning of the year, as opposed to where they are now.

Aside from noting change over time, this can also be a chance for you to learn from your past money moves. Perhaps this year you tried some new strategies or made a big purchase. Reflecting on how different events in your financial life this past year have worked out can give you insights into what to do next, and what you’d rather not do again.

Finally, I personally believe that just giving your money the gift of your attention is a positive thing by itself. Simply making it a habit to check in with your money and what it’s doing right now can be enough to start you off.

Prompts for Reflection

To spur your reflective time, I have a couple different questions you can try asking yourself. These prompts are about your values and your goals, rather than the nitty-gritty details. If you’re more interested in that, scroll down to the review section. You might like to try answering these questions either as journal prompts, or use them as discussion questions with a money buddy:

  • How has my financial situation changed over the course of this year? Where am I now compared to December 2020?
  • Do I feel fulfilled by how I used my money this year? Why/why not?
  • How do I feel about they way I showed up with my money this year?
  • What are my financial lessons this year? What did I do with my money that worked so well, I’m going to do it again next year? What would I like to improve on?

Do a Review

If you want a reflective process that gets further into the numbers and details, I have two recommendations for you. First, of course, I highly recommend doing a year-end review with a bookkeeper if it’s your business finances you’re reflecting on. Second, I encourage you to check out my article on doing a business check-in. You can adapt this process to fit to your personal finances too, if you’d prefer that.

If you enjoyed doing this reflective process, you’d probably like my free e-Book, 9 Secrets to Financial Self Care, which contains a lot of ideas for up-leveling your financial life in ways that are simple and sustainable. Download your copy here.

☮

Angela

By |2021-12-13T14:29:34-08:00December 13th, 2021|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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