At Peace With Money’s Best of the Blog 2021

This year at At Peace With Money, we covered a lot of great topics on the blog, so I thought it might be a great time to do a “best of” post to wrap up the year. Collected below are our top 10 blog articles from the past year. The topics run the gamut from money affirmations to taxes, but all of these articles provide solid enough insights that they became crowd pleasers! My goal is always to provide helpful and compassionate financial education resources, and I think these ten posts do a great job of just that.

  1. Book Review: 55, Underemployed, and Faking Normal – In which I highly recommend Elizabeth White’s wonderful book, which manages to combine healthy doses of compassion and practical advice, a potent and helpful mix. 
  2. How to Use Affirmations to Transform Your Relationship With Money – This post goes into depth on my thoughts on how money affirmations can assist us in rewiring our money mindsets and digging through the emotional baggage we carry around our finances. 
  3. Why You Should Always Base Your Financial Goals on Your Values – A post that goes into the ideas central to my financial coaching practice, this article discusses the link between values and life satisfaction, and the importance of avoiding lifestyle creep. 
  4. Why Self-Compassion is Important During Tax Time – I believe financial self-compassion is always important, but especially at tax time, it can help us keep a cool head and clarify solutions! 
  5. Why You Need a Year End Bookkeeping Review – A couple practical reasons to get your books reviewed – a great read if you’re new to DIY bookkeeping. 
  6. Why Financial Education is One of the Best Investments – Three strong reasons to invest time and resources into financial education, this is another good read for people just diving into financial learning. 
  7. How to Prep for the Holidays as a Service-Based Business – Service-based businesses can get overlooked during the holidays, but that doesn’t have to be the case! 
  8. Boost Your Happiness By Clarifying Your Lifestyle Costs – Your business exists to support you; to fulfill your needs. If you don’t have a clear picture of what those needs are, it can be difficult for your business to fill them.
  9. Boost Your Social Impact With the Power of Belief – This post on reclaiming your power in your community as a small business owner is all about believing in your vision for a better world! 
  10. How to Tailor Your Income Goals to Your Life – If you’re on board with investigating your values and making sure your money reflects them, but you need a method for how to get there, start here! 

I hope you enjoy this list of top 10 blog posts! While you’re at it, this might be a great opportunity to reflect on your own financial year. What were your big financial lessons of 2021?

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Angela

The Most Important Question a Business Owner Can Ask Themselves

It’s easy to get caught up in the “How?” and the “When?” questions of running a business. However, the most important question a business owner can ask themselves is “Why?” Specifically, “Why am I running this business?” Recently, I shared on social media that I’ve been doing some of my own personal reflecting on my why. I’m about four years into running this business, and though I’m in a good flow, sometimes even the best things start to feel a bit stale. Reflecting on my why helped me counteract this and bring me back to a place of feeling fulfilled in my business.

My Why

One thing that’s always motivated my passion for helping people find peace with their money, is my past experiences with my family. When I was growing up, both my parents experienced a lot of financial stress. This issue affected our whole family, especially my mom, very deeply. As an adult, I knew that I didn’t want to follow in their footsteps. Beyond that, I also wanted to make it possible for other people to avoid that level of money anxiety.

At Peace With Money was born out of a desire to help business owners create money systems that were restorative to them, rather than demanding machines that set the pace for the rest of their lives. Continuing to reconnect with this purpose of my business keeps me feeling fulfilled in my work.

Letting Your Why Inform Your Offerings

As business owners, we need to make a lot of decisions. Referring back to our why when we need to come up with offerings or think about who we want to work with can be immensely helpful. I encourage you to spend some time thinking about your why and your current offerings, and how they’re related. Is your why reflected in what you offer? Do you feel fulfilled by offering those products or services?

Business Why vs. Money Why

In the past, I’ve written about discovering your Money Why. This is a bit different than the why I’m talking about today, which we can call your Business Why. Your Money Why is a purpose and a plan for the income you make; your Business Why is more about the purpose and meaning you derive from running your business. It’s about considering what you want to see in the world, and how you want to make a difference. Both are very important to consider! If you’d like to learn about establishing a Money Why, read more here. I also recommend checking out my free e-Book, 3 Essential First Steps to Starting a Business. This one has a whole section on getting clear on your why that you might find helpful.

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Angela

Avoid This Impostor Syndrome Pitfall By Connecting With Your Values

One major impostor-syndrome-induced pitfall I see people struggle with is this: overcompensation. Perhaps they’re not getting enough paying clients, or not keeping track of their finances. Or they’re missing some other metric in their business that makes them feel like they’re “getting somewhere.”

Whatever the reason, people in this type of situation can sometimes fall into a pattern of overcompensating. This can become a financial or non-financial issue. For example, many people in this situation may feel their circumstances are due to the fact that they need to learn more. Other people can struggle with feeling like they need to “spend money to make money” and get preoccupied with gear, expensive software, etc.

Especially because you’re the one calling the shots in your business, making these decisions all comes down to you. That’s why it’s important to work through emotional mirages like impostor syndrome before making a financial or business decision. Let’s dive into both of these examples, and then talk about banishing impostor syndrome by connecting with your values:

“I Don’t Know Enough”

People with this story can get caught up on an information hamster wheel. This is especially easy to do with the whole Internet at our fingertips! People might feel that their business isn’t succeeding because they’re missing something, or don’t have the right training, etc. As a result, they sign up for courses, trainings, and coaching engagements. Or perhaps they spend a lot of time listening to podcasts and working through free opt-ins. Whether this version of impostor syndrome results in financial investments or not, it can also make running your business feel murky and difficult.

Exercise: Show yourself what you do know. If there’s a particular subject or specialty that you’ve been researching or wanting to get training in, spend some time writing down everything you already do know it. Just taking a breather and doing this for 5 minutes can remind you of all the knowledge you already hold!

“I Need to Spend Money to Make Money”

This is one of those longstanding business myths that many people can get convinced of unknowingly. I wrote about how people just starting businesses can avoid this pitfall here. What’s important is to keep in mind how you want to do things, rather than looking at how other business owners do them. If we play the comparison game we ultimately end up losing. Social media and comparing yourself to other more established businesses can intensify this feeling.

Exercise: Take stock of what you have. What software systems, supplies, gear, business accessories, etc. do you have that you love working with? Celebrate those and be thankful for them, just for a few minutes.

The Answer? Connect With Your Values

Just to be clear, there isn’t really a one-size-fits-all solution to impostor syndrome. But connecting with your values by tapping into what feels authentically joyful for you is a great step forward. You don’t have to be the industry expert or have all the bells and whistles to run an awesome business! You just have to do things in the way that feels right for you. So take some time to consider what that actually looks like!

It might be the case that you really do value education or having the latest tech for your business. Just make sure you tease those values apart from the feelings of urgency and “less-than” that come with impostor syndrome. Let yourself come to conclusions about what you want on your own, without outside influence, as much as possible.

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll probably like reading through my free e-Book, Three Essential Steps to Starting a Business, particularly the section on having a purpose and a plan for your money. Download it here!

☮

Angela

Photo by Magnet.me on Unsplash

Book Review: 55, Underemployed, and Faking Normal by Elizabeth White

Elizabeth White might know impostor syndrome better than many of us. In her book, 55, Underemployed, and Faking Normal, she discusses the financial insecurity that has become a reality for many older people, women, and marginalized groups in the workforce. This book is emotionally uplifting and full of resources. Here are a couple of my favorite points from the book:

Unshaming Underemployment

What’s so interesting about this book is the way it’s starting a conversation  that seems to be sorely needed. Case in point: Elizabeth White originally began this book project after first penning an essay on the same topic online. It got a huge response, because so many people are in a situation where they are experiencing the same level of financial insecurity and ageism.

Not only does this book bring this topic out into the light, but the author also does a wonderful job of absolving older and vulnerable people of the shame they may be feeling around their finances. She discusses many different contributing factors, including our changing retirement system, healthcare system, ageism in the workplace, women and minorities earning less, and women living longer. She points out skillfully that these are not things individuals can control. 

Seeking Support

Along with this robust discussion of societal factors, the author also brings in a guide to creating support groups. She terms these “Resilience Groups.” She describes these groups as small groups of people coming together to discuss their financial circumstances openly with one another. They can be a hub for information- and resource-sharing, and group problem-solving.

If you’ve read my blog for awhile, you’ll know that having open and honest conversations about money with other people in your life is something I advocate for consistently. Creating space in multiple relationships in your life to talk about money is very important. It’s one of the best ways to release the shame of whatever financial situation you may be dealing with. As Elizabeth White points out, it’s also a great way to access resources and new perspectives on your situation. For more reading on these ideas, check out my articles on money buddies, building a money team, and finding a mentor.

Busting Through Denial

“The cavalry is not coming.” The author is adamant that one important facet of managing financial insecurity and instability is accepting your circumstances. She discusses the importance of letting go of magical thinking, and introduces the concept of “smalling up.” This concept encourages us to think about what we really need to be content, and prioritize that. Going beyond a call for us to live within our means, she asks us to think about what it would mean to “live a life not defined by things.”

This point resonate deeply for me, as something I often work on with my clients is helping them uncover their values and shape their finances to better reflect what’s important to them.

You can learn more about this book on Elizabeth’s website. The book is both an important wakeup call and a helpful resource. I highly recommend reading it! I hope you enjoyed this review. If you’d like to get connected with more of my content, sign up for my newsletter! Blog posts are delivered to your inbox every week, along with a monthly tailored note to you from yours truly.

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Angela

Image: Elizabeth White

Why Financial Education is One of the Best Investments

When we evaluate whether an investment is worth making, one of the most important considerations is what type of return it offers. Financial education boasts an excellent return. This is true in the context of your business and your personal finances. Below, I go on to list the top three benefits of investing in financial education of any kind!

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. This article discusses why it’s important to find resources that cater to your personal vision of what wealth and success look like, while this article breaks down a couple red and green flags when it comes to evaluating a financial education resource. You can also take a look at some of my favorite financial education resources.

If you want to take a look at more of my content for some financial education resources, check out my library of free e-books (scroll down on the page) and my episodes of Financial Self Care Friday! You can also check out my services and book a free Financial Self Care Consultation!

☮

Angela

Image: Keren Levand

Want to Grow Your Business? Check Your Impostor Syndrome First

Financial anxieties hold us back in many ways. Oversaving can prevent us from living our lives fully and meeting our needs. Similarly, impostor syndrome often holds us back from investing in our businesses and developing our experience as business owners.

“What if I’m not _____ enough?”

Out of all the questions impostor syndrome brings out of the shadows, this one is probably at the root of all of them. You might find yourself stalling on getting further education because you don’t feel ready. Perhaps you’re refusing to take the leap and hire an employee or purchase some equipment because you feel like you “can get along well enough without it.”

While this may be true, when we don’t take these steps because we’re internally blocking our own growth, this can have longterm effects on our wellbeing and satisfaction in life. In some cases, doing any of these can make a huge difference to you and your business. Are there places in your business where you’ve been wanting to grow but are holding yourself back mainly because of fear? Are you afraid of success or growth? Take some time to sit with these questions and separate what you truly want but are keeping out of your life based on fear from what actually doesn’t sound fulfilling to you.

Look at Your Numbers

Sometimes having unclear finances can fan the flames of your impostor syndrome. That means the first step is to get clear on where you stand financially, in your business and your personal life. I have a lot of resources for getting started on this process on my blog, but you might like to start with my e-Book, 9 Secrets to Financial Self Care.

Once you’ve got the big picture cleared up, refer to this post from last week, “How Much Should You Invest in Your Business?” which can help you think through how much money is reasonable to spend here. Rather than relying on your feelings about money and your business, let the numbers do the talking. Seeing how much money you actually have available to spend is much more reliable for decision making than listening to your impostor syndrome.

Prioritize Your Why

Above all else, when faced with a decision around your business, refer back to your money why and your core values. Ask yourself, “Will making this choice bring in more of what I want?” If it’s a yes, even though it might bring up anxieties, you know the way to move forward.

Happy investing! If you’d like to work through this process with an expert guide, check out my services and set up a Financial Self Care Consultation! I’d love to see if we can work together to help you bust through emotional and financial blocks.

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Angela

Boost Your Social Impact With the Power of Belief

I’ll get straight to the point – what you do with your business and your money matters. A year ago, protests against racist policing and in support of Black lives erupted around the country. Today, we can reflect on those moments and think about the impacts they had, like the conviction of Derek Chauvin and the reduction of police budgets in more than 20 major cities, and look to the future to see how we might add to the movement ourselves.

Typically on this blog, I share practical tips related to giving, like how to use money mapping to give back and tips for stepping up for your community as a business owner. Instead, this article approaches the issue from a mindset-centered perspective. Many of us feel discouraged when it comes to thinking about social change. However, it is important for us to stay in touch with the belief that we really can make a difference. Internalizing this is the first step when it comes to making social impact with your business. Here are a couple tips on this subject:

Reclaim Your Power

When world and community issues are displayed to us on the news, they can feel huge and overwhelming. At this point, many of us feel helpless – while we might be able to imagine alternatives a better world, who are we to bring it about? The world’s problems are so big, and we feel very small.

This is where we need to reclaim our power. It’s important to recognize that while you may not be able to Wonder Woman the world’s woes away, you are capable of making a positive difference in the world. You can plant flowers, donate, fundraise, deliver and inspiring speech, cook a delicious meal for hungry people, and so on. Even better, your power is multiplied when you join up with other people who also wish to create positive social change.

Get Clarity On Your Values and Your Money

One thing that might be feeding a sense of powerlessness in your life is a lack of clarity with your values and your money. If you feel strongly about social issues, but your schedule, income goals, and spending plan don’t reflect that, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

If you’d like to have more time to volunteer, or more money to pass on as reparations, think of ways you can incorporate these considerations into your schedule and finances, while still caring for yourself. You are in charge of all of these resources. How would you like to allocate them?

See Yourself In Your Context

If you want to use your business to make positive change but you aren’t sure where to start, look around you. Who is your community? Who surrounds you, locally, in your industry, in your interests and organizations? When you take a look, surely you can start to see creative ways you and your business can help fill a need or brighten a day.

There might be local issues you’re passionate about, and there are likely organizations already doing work to improve the issues who would love your help or expertise. The same goes for your industry or a group you might belong to, like your church.

Remember the Butterfly Effect

The Butterfly Effect dictates that small events have a rippling effect that can cause much larger events to occur. While you may feel that your contribution to the world is small, what you do ripples out. I love this quote from author and activist Grace Lee Boggs, who says, “We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness. In this exquisitely connected world, it’s never a question of ‘critical mass.’ It is always about critical connections.”

Next week, we’ll look at some of the more practical aspects of giving when it comes to your finances. For now, I hope these suggestions inspired you and gave you a couple ideas.

☮

Angela

How to Set Financial Goals for the Next Quarter

 

April marks 1/3 of the way through the second quarter of 2021. How are your goals doing? Whether you typically set goals for the whole year, or in twelve-week increments, taking some time to check in with your goals and set new, more relevant ones, is a good idea. 

What Do You Need to Succeed?

When setting any goals for your business, it’s important to consider what you need to succeed. If you’re at a point where you’re unsure about that, I suggest doing a business check-in first. If you’re working on the personal side of your finances, this process can easily be re-shaped to fit that, too. Feel like you’ve got a good picture of your current financial strengths and needs? You can go ahead with the goal-setting.

When setting a goal concerning your finances, here are a couple tips. First, set one goal, not a dozen. This will make it easier to manage and complete the goal. Second, identify the thing to do in your business finances that would make everything else easier or irrelevant. This advice is from the book, The One Thing – you can read my book review here. In a small business or personal finance context, this could look like setting up a money system, finding a good bookkeeper to work with on a regular basis, or building a money team. We’ll talk more about potential goals below, but the important thing is to set your sights on the thing that would make the biggest difference to you.

Create Good Habits

One potentially life-changing goal you could set for 2021 is to go through the year with good money habits. When I say “money habits,” I mean checking in with your finances on a weekly basis. The more aware you are of where you stand financially, the better. I’ve written about the stressful weight that feeling vague about numbers can create for business owners. If you look at your records every week, this won’t be an issue for you! In fact, you’ll be better able to make financial decisions, because you’ll be more aware of the information you need. If you need more ideas about what to look for during your weekly check-in, read my articles on knowing what your numbers are telling you and creating more revenue.

Prioritize Financial Self Care

I whole-heartedly believe that your finances are the key to self-care in your life. If you’re having trouble thinking of a goal to set in the realm of your finances, why not try prioritizing financial self care? That will look different for everybody, depending on your habits, values, and intentions. For more goal ideas in this realm, check out my article on simple ways to infuse for financial self care into your routine.

I hope these ideas have given you some thoughts on what the best goal is for you and your business. In my private work with clients, we do a lot to make sure they meet their goals. If this sounds like it might be helpful for you, you can reserve a space in my private coaching program, 4 Week Money Refresh, through April 30th!

 

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Angela

Image: Gift Habeshaw

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 gambit from the emotional (like forgiving yourself for past financial mistakes) to the practical (like setting aside regular “money time”).

☮ With peace and self-compassion,

Angela

Image by: Tim Marshall

How Can Women Achieve Financial Empowerment?

Are we afraid of our own power? One of the things I absolutely love about Barbara Huson’s book, Secrets of Six Figure Women, is that it asks us to face this question. In a society where we are often trained to take lower pay and funneled into “helping” professions, our earning potentials are often restricted, and we participate in the repression of our own power unknowingly. Some would argue the drive to help and caretake is natural for us. Barbara pulls a quote from Fortune of Oct 2000 which reads, “Women feel powerful when they are making a difference and expanding their own capabilities.” Naturally, we gravitate towards improving the world, but we can do this while also pursuing personal power and security.

Every time you leave the beaten path and aim for exceptional, every time you silence your fear and speak with your own voice, every time you stop acting small and start taking up space, you are owning your power and emancipating others to follow in your footsteps.

Financial Security Is Power

Power does not require money, and is not exclusive to it. However, if you have the financial freedom  to leave a job, leave a spouse, take time off, give money away, and allocate financial resources as you please, that can only add to your personal agency. Money gives you choices. Those choices can allow you to step into every part of your power.

When we claim our power in this way, we raise the stakes in our lives, and stop playing the small game.  Barbara writes,“It’s not what we have but what we do with what we have that gives us or denies us financial security.” Whatever we choose to do, we can do more easily and powerfully with financial security.

Serious fear underlies female passivity around money. My post on wealth-building may have stirred up some of this fear for you – and it’s exactly why so many of us stall on our way to building our assets. This fear is understandable. We receive many negative messages about powerful or wealthy women. They are often the villains in animated films, and there are no positive words for powerful women. The ones that come to my mind are “bitch” and “ball breaker.” This desperately needs to change, and it starts with us as we choose to turn against it.

Claiming your power and building financial security may be uncomfortable or cause conflict. It means rocking the boat, saying no, and not always being liked or welcomed. I believe that, in the long term, these things are a small price to pay in pursuit of your own freedom and power.

Claim Power For Yourself and Others

Claiming our power is an act of self love. When we honor and value ourselves and have the bravery and financial security to live our desires – that is real self love. This love ripples outwards, and makes a positive difference in the lives of those around us. By striving for what we really deserve, we can inspire and pave the way for a new generation of people ready to do the same. When we have the resources to donate to causes we agree with, we can heal the planet and help others achieve their dreams. When we claim our power, we can also extend that power to others.

I hope that this post inspires you to reach for your dreams – you truly deserve to have the financial security you need and the agency you want. If you’re interested in working with an accountability partner to help you get there, you know where to find me! Don’t hesitate to reach out and schedule a free 30 minute Financial Self Care Consultation.

☮

Angela


This post was originally posted in 2019 as part of a series of post drawing on the foundational concepts of Barbrara Huson‘s wonderful book, Secrets of Six Figure Women. You can read the other articles in the series on mindsetaction, and wealth building at the links. 

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