We often think the rich get richer by taking something from people or by doing something to people.  But the truth is, we are lining up to give our money to them.

In my Facebook live yesterday I showed how money flows from the poor and middle class to the rich, not just from the purchase of goods and services, but perhaps more importantly, in the form of interest.

You see, most of us sell our labor (our time) to the rich at our jobs in exchange for money, which we then mostly give back to other rich people in exchange for goods and services.  Apparently discontented with just giving the rich money for goods and services, we finance them, giving them even more money than we would have if we'd paid cash.  By financing these goods and services, we voluntarily commit to giving even more of our  paycheck to others rather than keeping any of it to buy our freedom.  Imagine how much money you'd have if you weren't paying bills with it!

You see, the rich own (either directly or indirectly) most of the businesses out there.  And so when you willingly give all your money to them each month, you are performing a valuable role in shifting resources from the poor and middle class to the rich.

 If this annoys you, all you have to do is step out of your current role and into their role.  Move from just being a consumer to being a producer.

What value have you created in the world?  Not at your job – the paperwork you signed when you were hired clearly states everything you make on their equipment and with the time they bought are theirs.  But where have you created value that you own?

This is why side hustles are such an important part of becoming rich for many people.  By becoming a producer and bringing value to the world – value you own – you will start to understand how the other side of the game is played.  There's a reason most self-made millionaires are entrepreneurs.  It's not just because they make more money – it's because they get perspective on how money flows and how money is created that few employees (outside of sales or upper level management) get.

The path to financial independence includes tracking your spending.  If you don't feel confident you get a ton of value from what you are trading your money for, then stop.  Keep some of that money for yourself.   The money you stop handing to the rich in exchange for  goods and services can be used to free your future self, both from the obligations you agreed to in the past (debt) and in order to provide for the needs you will have in the future (retirement).

As long as you stay focused on how much you want the goods and services now, you will always be in the trap.  You have to want freedom more  than you want the immediate gratification of trinkets and pleasures.

American society – consumerism – has trained us that getting stuff is the best route to happiness.  But the truth is stuff is a trap.  Stuff depreciates quickly – in fact, it loses almost all its value immediately.  Think about the difference in price between stuff at retail and stuff at a secondhand shop and you will see what a poor use of money stuff really is.

Now, we all need a certain amount of goods and services to get along in the world.  And for some of those goods and services, there are no alternatives to the big providers.  But is that true for all the things you buy?

As you are tracking and reviewing your spending, I'd challenge you to not just cut unnecessary spending, but also to see what of your spending can be redirected to small business.  When you shop locally with a small business, the profit of that business is going to someone who will further circulate a percentage of that money in the community, boosting the prosperity of the region.  When you shop with a small local business, that business owner can hire other local folks to help them do the work, which creates a job in your town.  And you'll be helping that small business owner to meet more modest goals, like educating their children, versus buying a second private jet or whatever the CEO of the larger company in NY or CA is doing.

 I'm not completely opposed to working with big companies – I like the fact that I can go on the Delta website and book a flight to anywhere I want in the world.  But doing better with our money is not just about spending less.  It's about spending more mindfully.  And it's about being a producer and contributing value, not just being a consumer.

 The best kept secret is that over time, you may find production to be more meaningful and enjoyable than consumption ever was.

helplient Case Study:  Savings vs. Debt

When is adding more to savings not the best advice?  When you are earning roughly 1% on savings beyond your emergency fund and paying 20+% on a credit card.  

My client Sam was doing a lot of things right.  He had a good job making good money and was living in an apartment that was well within his means.  He also didn't have a car payment, and he had a huge savings account.  However, he had several credit cards that he was juggling for points or other incentives, and because there were so many of them, he really wasn't able to mentally keep track of what he'd spent from his checking account and across all the cards and so would overspend and roll a balance.

This is the exact scenario banks hope for when they issue credit cards with incentives and other promotions.  Add up everything you pay in interest, and you may be surprised to learn it exceeds the cost of the flight or cash back you received.  While some people do game the system, the credit card company only needs you to get busy and drop the ball once or twice for them to win.  Otherwise they wouldn't offer these types of promotions!  I'm not 100% anti-credit card, but having worked for a credit card processor (and having helped the banks implement programs to make money from their clients), I can tell you they are very savvy at it, so you need to be very careful when playing chess with them.

The client and I worked together to determine what amount of his savings account was his emergency fund, settling on six months worth of his spending since he was single.  He then decided to pay off the credit cards with a portion of the remaining savings.

The remainder of the savings he'd earmarked for the down payment on a house.  He was planning to move to California to be with his girlfriend, work there for 5 years, and then move to a lower cost of living area and buy a house valued at roughly $500,000.  He'd heard that 20% was required as a down payment and so believed he needed $100,000 in the bank to purchase his first home.

While it is correct that buyers usually get the best interest rate when they have 20% to put down, we talked about the fact that there are many first time home buyers programs available that require a much smaller down payment.  While the market and the regulatory environment could change between now and 5 years from now, I explained that we had bought and sold multiple houses, and only now, on our 4th house, had we chosen to put 20% down.  That made him feel more comfortable with paying off his credit cards, since he knew there would likely be options down the road even if he did not have $100,000 in savings.

To make tracking simpler, he decided to carry only his debit card and the one credit card with the best incentives, so he could better mentally track how much he was spending in a month.  We also talked about the importance of tracking expenses with an application and not just in his head, either using Quicken (which he uses now, but only once ever few months) or You Need A Budget, which I use, to give visibility as the month is progressing how your money is flowing.

Are you interested in getting control over your money?  Interested in getting on track to buy your first home?  Contact me to learn more about my coaching programs so you can get support in your financial life. 

*Client name and some details have been changed to protect privacy.

In a world of endless financial information, how do we gain some knowledge that is useful in getting our money on track?  I recommend tracking your spending as a first step.

 It's hard to know where to begin in taking control of your money.  There's a ton of financial information available – the stock ticker crawl along the bottom of the TV screen, endless internet articles, boring books with terms that put you to sleep as soon as you get into them.  Where should you begin?

The first step is to gain some awareness as to where your money is going now.  I like (and currently use) You Need a Budget, and I was a Quicken user for many years prior to switching to YNAB last year.  But there's really no special program required.  You should be able to log in to your bank and download past spending into a spreadsheet.  You'll then want to sort those expenses into categories so you can get an idea of where your money goes today.

If you aren't a computer person, you can buy a notepad and write your spending down as you are out and about running errands or at home paying bills.  The main idea is to get a handle on what you are spending so you can do some analysis as to whether or not that's really how you want to be spending.

Why is tracking where your money goes so important?  If you don't pay attention, it can be easy for all your paycheck to flow through your fingers without doing anything toward building your wealth.  Seeing what you've been spending on will help you understand where you can easily make changes.

You probably know what you spend on the big fixed expenses – your mortgage or rent, your car payment, and other similar items.  But there are always variable bills, like that shocker of an August power bill that covers your air conditioning during the hottest month of the year.  There are also non-monthly bills that can turn into nasty surprises if they sneak up on you.  If you can look back over your past year's spending, you'll have a much better idea of what is coming your way this year.

So if you don't make any other moves this week, at least start out by tracking your spending and gaining an understanding of where your money has been going.  That data will form the basis for your spending plan going forward, and will help you identify areas where you want to make changes.

They say knowledge is power, so get to know where your money has been going to gain more power over how your money is flowing out of your account.  That's how you'll start to keep some of that money for your future self so it can build and grow over time.

We think the way to build wealth is to earn first, spend what we “need” to, and then save what's left.  In a world where wages have been stagnant in real terms since the '70s and conspicuous consumption is the norm, that generally means saving nothing at all.

 In fact, for most of us limiting ourselves to just spending everything we make would be progress.  Many Americans spend what we make plus what we have access to with credit.  There's always more to want, despite the fact that science proves past a certain point increasing spending and stuff doesn't bring lasting happiness.  It just keeps you on the hedonic treadmill and in your cubicle.

I would propose the way a lot of people are attempting to save is exactly backwards.  If you save the “extra” money, only the natural savers will have anything to show for their labor.  I view natural savers as interesting little aliens, and I'd love to find some research as to why they do what they do.  But it's not the way I'm wired.  I like travel and experiences and yes, stuff, to a degree.  I'm not a natural saver.

So what's the best way to save if it doesn't come easily to you?  Take your savings right off the top.

For those of you who have access to a work retirement plan, this is exactly what those plans do.  Remember these plans were designed by wealthy people to help people who think the way they do get wealthy.  This is also why they are so awful for most of us, as we were never taught to think that way.  Much easier to ignore the problems of funds and investing and living within your means and just go to Target.  We need some new throw pillows anyway.

If you can fight your spendy nature, though, take advantage of that work retirement plan.  At bare minimum do what you need to do to get the free match.  It's literally like money laying on the floor of your office that you aren't bothering to bend over and pick up.  PICK UP THE FREE MONEY, SARAH.  IT'S FREE.

 Once you've recovered from that adjustment to your paycheck, the next step is to do the same thing with your take home pay.  You need to skim some off the top and hide it from yourself.  Check with HR while you are setting yourself up for the payroll deductions for your retirement plan and see if they can split your check between a savings account and a checking account.  If not, once the money hits your account do a transfer – preferably automatic.

How to start?  Paula Pant recommends starting with 1%, and I think that's great advice.  Instead of earn – spend = save, for natural spenders the formula needs to be earn – save = spend.  It's the only way you'll have money set aside for emergencies and the only way you'll be able to build wealth. 

By the way, having money set aside for emergencies is the only way you'll get out of credit card debt.  Also keep in mind that the next recession is right around the corner.  So no matter how tight things are now, it's likely to get tighter at some point in the future.  If that happens, you will look back on the spending you are doing now and wonder where it all went and why you didn't set any of it aside.  Future you needs current you more than Target needs you.  So set aside some of your money right off the top.  Future you says thanks!

Melt down those balances….

The Debt Snowball is famous in personal finance circles – probably primarily for being Dave Ramsey's preferred way of getting people out of debt.  For those who like to play games with numbers, the Debt Avalanche is preferred.  But allow me to introduce the newest contender for the way to pay down your debt – the Debt Meltdown.

First a definition of terms for those who are new.  The Debt Snowball means paying off all of your debts, from smallest to largest, and it works because it allows you to get some quick wins and some momentum.  You make minimum payments on everything and throw and extra money at the smallest one.  As soon as that smallest debt is paid off, you take the extra money, the minimum on that smallest debt that is now paid off, plus the minimum payment on the next to the smallest one and roll all of that money into one payment on the second smallest of your original debts. 

The Debt Avalanche is for those who point out that, all things being equal, you should actually pay less in total dollars if you start with the debt that has the highest interest rate and pay that off first.  If you are a spreadsheet/math/super disciplined person, then this may be the approach for you.  It's definitely the correct approach mathematically, but if you are going to get discouraged and quit while paying off the credit card from he!!, then don't bother.  In either scenario you will pay less in interest than if you just give up and ignore the problem.

II'd like to propose a third way – in which you pick either approach outlined above and add a separate step.  If you are anything like me, as you create a list of all your debts, the minimum balances, the interest rate, and the total due, your system is going to go bananas.  For many people, this could cause them to quit or to push the emotions down and keep going.  I'm going to encourage you to view this as an opportunity to do a bit of research.

Most of what messes us up the most about money is all the nasty limiting beliefs and toxic money scripts we have.  In order to address and get rid of those beliefs (important if we want to stop them from getting in our way), we have to find a way to bring them from the subconscious mind where they have been like apps running in the background up to the conscious mind where we can look at them and deal with them.  As you take inventory of all the debts you have and how much you owe, your thoughts and feelings will start to go wild.

You may hear yourself thinking, “ugh, this is a disaster.  I'll never pay off these debts.  I'm just bad with money.”  You may feel anxiety.  This is actually really valuable information, as this mental chatter is harder to get rid of than the debt itself.  Take the opportunity to capture all of that.

For the thoughts, sometimes just bringing awareness to them is enough to dissolve them.  When my husband and I got married, I just completely abdicated the bill paying to him.  The problem was that he had a very different standard of what was ok.  My standard was to get the bills paid before the due date – his was to get the bill paid before they turn off your lights.  Yikes.

I had been paying my own bills for years.  Why, when we got married, did I suddenly decide I was done with money?  I had a subconscious belief that money is the man's department.  As I remember it (which may not be actually how it happened), my dad earned the money, managed the budget, and paid the bills. 

Now consciously I did not believe this.  I was a career woman.  I had no interest in having kids, being a stay at home mom, babysitting, or otherwise being a traditional wife.  But deep in my brain, the belief lurked, completely without me knowing about it.

For other beliefs, you may need to go from negative, “I'm bad at money” to more neutral, “I can learn any skill.  I can learn about handling money,” to positive, “I am great with handling my finances”.  But move the needle over time so you can improve what you tell yourself about yourself.

So why debt meltdown? Well, if being honest about your debt leads to a meltdown, best to take advantage of all the thoughts and feelings that are going to come up during that meltdown.  Plus, I believe if you can combine internal finance with external finance, you'll get better results faster, melting down that mountain of debt and reducing the chances of it coming back.

of Approach finance from both sides for the best results.

Most of us are familiar with the exterior world of finances – tax returns,statements, retirement planning and such.  But there is an interior world of finance as well that is just as important.

The model of exterior finance and interior finance I have pulled from the book Facilitating Financial Health by Klontz, Kahler, and Klontz.  This model has given me a great way to explain what I do. 

Exterior finance is the “real world” of money – the world of tax returns, bank statements, and retirement accounts.  You can split the world of exterior finance into thirds – past, present, and future.

Exterior finance in the past is the domain of the CPA.  An accountant's primary concern is getting everything reconciled and reported to the IRS so that you can pay your taxes and be a good, upstanding citizen.  While your accountant may have some thoughts about how you are handling your money, she will likely keep those to herself and focus on getting your taxes filed.  While accountants may stray into other areas of finance, such as the exterior future if you come back later in the year for a tax planning meeting, primarily the exterior past is the accountant's arena.

The exterior future is the realm of financial advisors and especially financial planners.  A planner's main job is to capture the vision you have for your financial future and to advocate for your future self to your present self when your present self starts to mess things up for your future self.  Long term goals like retirement and paying for kids college often are a risk of being traded for pleasure in the present – vacations and toys and such.  If you have enough money to do it all, fantastic.  If not, it is your planner's job to remind you of what you said you wanted.

That doesn't mean a planner won't venture into the exterior present.  Keeping track of your progress toward your goals helps them update and modify plans as life circumstances change.  And a financial planner may be able to earn her fee back to you by letting you know about a great tax credit or other strategy in the short term.

Financial planners may move into the interior world as well.  The degree to which they do so is often a product of their training, their personality, and their level of comfort with behavioral finance and emotions.  But even the most spreadsheety of planners will often start their engagement in the interior future by asking about your dreams for the future.

The interior world has more to do with what's going on inside your head – stuff that you may not even be consciously aware of.  It's easy to say that what is happening in your head doesn't matter or shouldn't matter,  but I truly believe Brooke Castillo has it exactly right.  Your thoughts create your feelings.  Your feelings drive your actions.  Your actions lead to your results.  If you don't have your thoughts right, you'll get in your own way over and over again.

The interior past is the primary world of the financial therapist.  By exploring what you learned about money as a kid, you'll uncover hidden beliefs and stories you'd forgotten that related to how and what you were taught about money.  While I'm not a therapist and don't feel qualified to spend all my time in the interior past (and definitely refer out if childhood trauma is uncovered), I think exploring the interior past is one of the most important things we can do to improve our relationships to money.  While you can certainly do this work yourself through journaling, it can be helpful to have a facilitator to draw the information out of you and to help you see how those beliefs may have created patterns in your life.  That's exactly what I do in my Money Mindset session. 

 As you begin to uncover and shift the limiting beliefs and negative money scripts from your childhood you'll begin to live life with more clarity and awareness.  You'll start to be able to make choices based on who you are now and what you believe now rather than what you picked up as a kid and lived by subconsciously.  This is the world of the interior present. Both financial coaches and financial therapists spend time in the interior present with clients.

One of the biggest things you can do to be more present in the present (see what I did there?) is to meditate.  Meditation is just the act of being here now.  Not using our minds to relive the past or to imagine the future, but just being still and aware and moving more into observer mode.  I have yet to develop a consistent meditation practice so I am not an expert here, but I can tell you that meditation is nothing to be freaked out by.  It is basically exercise for your brain. The practice of focusing and being present has been shown to have huge benefits for your brain.  I can tell you from personal experience that even though I'm not super consistent, even the little bit of meditation I have done makes a positive difference. 

Some financial coaches start with clients in the interior future.  “Tell me what buying a house would do for you?  What would it do for your family?”  By having a good idea of the clients dreams and desires, they can help use that emotion to energize clients toward their goals.  While you might talk to both a financial planner and a financial coach about your dream of retirement, the planner will more typically respond with what it will take from a numbers side to get you there, and the financial coach is more likely to help you really paint the picture for yourself and feel the emotion of that dream to help you stay motivated.

What I've given you are rough outlines – what is more typical.  Certainly each of these professionals may draw from different techniques and disciplines to work with clients, and each has their own preferred style.  So while there are no hard boundaries, hopefully you now have a better understanding of where to start.  Are you looking for more interior work – help in sticking to your plans?  Or are you needing more the hard numbers side of exterior work?

 Regardless of where you are today, I hope you will talk more about your finances, even if it's just with a friend or a significant other.  If we can normalize the money conversation it will be easier for us to get the information and support we need to demystify this area of life.

Look to the past to understand the present and change the future.

I can remember first being recognized for my writing ability by Ms. Brown in 4th grade.  It wasn't completely surprising – my mother was a stay at home mom who had been an English teacher and who loves to read.  She taught me to read before first grade.  And one of the best ways to develop an ability to write is to read.

As I remember it, the bullying started in 5th grade.  It could have been jealousy of the attention and recognition for that gift.  My father received a big promotion around that time, so my mother thinks it had to do with that.  It could have just been the age – perhaps that's just when girls get mean or when they started to realize I didn't fit in.  With a mother who was an English teacher from Ohio you are just not going to be allowed to completely develop the same accent as kids from rural Arkansas.

Maybe everyone was bullied.  When I went back for my 20 year high school reunion, one of the guys I graduated with said, “Misty* bullied you a lot, too, didn't she?”  I think that was the first time I was aware that I wasn't the only person in school who was bullied.  I was pretty deep in my own misery, so there wasn't a lot of room to be sensitive to what other kids were going through.

During that time I went deeper into the writing.  I was raised in a family of introverts, so there was a lot of quiet time for reading and writing.  I went to summer enrichment programs and submitted poems and short stories to writing contests and national publications.  I won state level awards and was published in real, grown up journals.  And this was back in the day when to be published someone else had to think your writing was pretty good instead of just typing some sh!t into a computer.

Most of the connection I needed came through summer camps and those extra curricular getaways.  I felt like an outsider at school.  Girls who were in pictures from my birthday parties in years prior fell in line with their ringleader and shunned me.  I spend hours in retching sobs in my room.   My mother was so kind, but at that age I just desperately wanted to fit in with the other girls.

I can remember my mom asking Mrs. Burks, another teacher who really supported my writing, why the other kids were so mean.  She said, “some kids just want to tear the wings off a butterfly.”  This sounded nice, but to this day I don't quite know what it meant, and it didn't solve anything for me.

As I got older I started to realize that a talent and skill for creative writing would probably be tricky to use to make a living after college.  I can't remember if I figured this out on my own or was nudged in the direction of going from more the creative writing to the journalism by well-meaning parents, but I chased this more practical use of the writing with enthusiasm.  I got an (unpaid) gig at the local small town paper covering events at the high school, an opportunity that came about in part due to my gifts, my mother's editing, the editor and owner's admiration for my dad, and the paper's desire for original content on a limited budget.  As I got well into high school, I started researching colleges with strong journalism programs.

Around that time (I'm guessing this must have been roughly sophomore year), I was part of a group that got to tour the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the flagship state newspaper.  I remember asking two of the reporters about journalism schools.  Even then, in the 80s, before the internet was a thing, budgets were tight and the writers seemed tense and anxious about their career prospects.  “Don't get a journalism degree,” they advised.  “Get an English degree.  It's more versatile.”

That advice set me down the path of looking at liberal arts schools with good English degrees.  I had Macalester College on my list, and remember being charmed by the tunnels between buildings until my dad mentioned that they had tunnels because of the cold in winter.  After that, the list got winnowed down to schools in the southeast.

 I was seriously leaning toward Duke, and despite a disastrous interview (the interviewer was obsessed with why I hadn't taken Calculus, which threw me off.  For reasons I still do not understand, when asked who my favorite author was, I said Flannery O'Connor.  I hated Flannery O'Connor, but she was the only author I could think of when asked.  Then I had to answer why I loved her stuff.  Yikes.) I was wait listed. However, the campus at that time had had an outbreak of crime, and the whole time I stayed in the dorm overnight the safety talk made me feel seriously unsafe.  After a magical visit to Sewanee, there was nothing any other school could do – I was in love.  The fact that they offered me a scholarship said they loved me back and sealed the deal.

Sewanee had an epic English department, with an unapologetic focus on the literature written in English by dead white guys.  I read tons of books and wrote a truly staggering quantity of 3-5 page essays.  I did no creative writing (I don't even remember there being creative writing classes) and did not pursue any of the limited journalism opportunities like the school paper.  Sewanee was not about making good stuff, it was about studying the great stuff, and I took the hint.

After not fitting in at school from the ages of 10-18 (teenage years are sort of like dog years – they are seven times longer than any other years), feeling in my element with my slice of Sewanee society was heaven.  There probably were some rich kids who would have snubbed me had I given them the chance, but I was so intoxicated by finding my tribe I didn't even realize that I might not have been welcomed in every circle until decades after graduation.

 Somehow by getting steered from creative writing to journalism and from journalism to reading the works of others and writing papers about them, the creative writing got lost.  The need to live in fantasy worlds of my own making was replaced by finding a real-life fantasy world that gave me the connection and belonging I'd never had.  And nothing will convince you that your writing ability is nothing special like reading the great works of dead white guys. 

As college progressed, the more versatile English degree did not seem to map to any specific after college plan.  I was done with school – I really wanted to go adult in the world.  Along the way toward that English degree I'd taken some really good Political Science classes from really great professors, so I started down that path, interning in Washington, D.C.  Plans toward DC and government were ended by the nasty environment during the Gingrich era.  I remember a story of a staffer accidentally leaving some Democratic party strategy documents on the counter in a liquor store.  The next person to pay happened to work for the other party, and used those documents to wreak havoc.  I wanted nothing to do with a nasty business that seemed to thrive on dividing people instead of helping them find common ground. Plus the revelation that most of the staffers were subsidized by parents meant that path was a non-starter.  My parents had been pretty clear that once college was done we were off the parental payroll and needed to support ourselves.

Four years of college meant more career interests explored and eliminated.  When I graduated I traveled and had internships in Central America, but as Christmas of that year grew closer I started missing home and was running low on funds and so needed to come home and find a “real” job.

I was at a bit of a loss as to where to start, but my dad did business-stuff in an office and seemed able to support us all financially, so with other options eliminated it seemed business-stuff in an office was the next step.  I got a list of alums doing business-stuff in offices in the Southeastern US and went to work reaching out, sending resumes and looking for “informational interviews”.  This was before the internet, so as far as I knew this was how it was done. 

After bugging the career services folks at Sewanee, sending out hundreds of letters to alums, and having a few “informational interviews” that led to little information and no jobs, an alum contacted the career services team looking for grads who could speak Spanish for the international services division of a credit card processor in Columbus, GA.  Despite the fact that my Spanish was deemed mas o menos by the Spaniard who interviewed me (to be fair, I was super fluent when talking about my travels, but didn't have any business-stuff vocabulary) I was offered a job with one degree of separation from the clients at the credit card processor.

I can remember telling my parents I had no idea what the company did, but they said they'd train me and pay me so hey, sounds great!  With that level of discernment, a career in IT was born.

That initial job was not a great fit (although I did get a husband out of it).  I was unhappy and was sure it was just that these were small town folks I didn't fit in with, and that if I could move to Atlanta and make more money that would solve all my problems.

Atlanta it turned out had it's own problems (traffic and a manager who kept a bottle of liquor in his desk drawer and drank in front of us at work, and not in the classy way they do on TV and in movies), and I was yet again a square peg in a round hole.  It was starting to look like work = misery.  If I was going to be miserable, I figured I should do so for as much money as possible, and so I became a consultant.

 That job taught me that money didn't equal happiness, although I wasn't ready to let go of the idea that money and happiness probably went together.  I chafed at the lack of freedom in the corporate world.  I really still don't know if I wasn't just a good fit, if I was doing ok and just was triggered too much and too often, or if I was constantly about to get fired.  I know that I was miserable at all three jobs and always believed I was on the verge of getting fired, despite having never been written up.  I had to get out.  I wanted freedom and fairness and control over my own destiny.

When I was approached by a network marketing company it sounded perfect.  I'd get to teach and train and motivate and mentor women who were starting their own businesses.  YES.  I'd get promoted based on when I met the criteria, not when someone else thought I was worthy.  I'd get to control my own paycheck, and the implication was if you were awesome and willing to work you'd be making  six figures in no time.  Hook, line, and sinker.

I stayed with that company twice as long as any job I'd had despite never making a third of what I'd make at the corporate job I'd quit, which tells you how much it was hitting all my buttons.  There was a ton of applause and recognition and approval from peers and authority figures.  There was a ton of personal growth and learning.  There was the fairness of meeting the criteria and getting promoted. The promise of big paychecks just around the corner kept me going on the financial side.

Eventually I lost faith, though.  While everyone had the same opportunity I'd had, not everyone on my team was bringing the same internal “stuff” to the game.  We were encouraged far more to sell at wholesale, loading new recruits and ourselves up with products, then we were to sell at retail.  To be fair, I have no doubt our team had vastly more support than any other group within the company.  On the other hand, we specifically told new recruits that the business was not about the product, and then immediately told them to buy thousands of dollars worth of product.  While the business may not have been about the product, the fact of the matter was that none of us got paid unless those wholesale orders got placed. 

I cried – not as much as in my hometown growing up, but it was another dark night of the soul.  I'd found something I loved and then decided I had to leave.  I wasn't going to make the money I'd promised myself, my husband, and my team I'd make.  There were entire days where the major accomplishment of the day was getting out of bed and into a recliner while wearing a bathrobe.  I'd found belonging again, but the cost was my integrity, and I just couldn't do it any more.

I also couldn't stand the idea of going back to corporate.  I went further into entrepreneurship, starting a professional organizing business.  I did ok financially, but within a year the idea of telling adults to clean up after themselves just wasn't doing it for me.  Knowing what I know now about business, I probably should have kept going and outsourced the actual organizing work, but it honestly didn't occur to me.  Plus, my husband and his buddies had a going concern in IT consulting, and needed someone who knew about sales and marketing and IT.

 STS has been a fantastic learning experience.  I don't know everything about business, and we've made plenty of mistakes, but we've kept it going for almost 15 years, in large part due to my husband's exceptional skills as an IT consultant.  I certainly have made a ton of contributions, but as best supporting player.  I wanted to really step out on my own and take a starring role.

Over the 15 years of running STS, I'd learned a ton about the entrepreneurial mindset, and I'd (mostly) cleaned up my money stuff with the mentoring of a Certified Financial Advisor(®).  I was proud of our success and confident I knew more about money than most people, so I thought a business helping people learn about money and start side hustles would be a fun side gig for me. 

Here's how starting a business works: 

Step 1 – find something you know more about than the average person

Step 2 – dive into it and realized what you didn't know you didn't know

Step 3 – Freak out.

Those years of focusing on the IT business and shining my husband's star, immediately proceeded by a bumpy career path, had shaken my confidence in myself as a main character in my own life without me knowing it.  Yet again the accidental entrepreneurial spiritual growth started kicking in.

Spiritual growth makes it sound a bit too magical.  That's truly what it is in retrospect, but when you are going through it there's no magic.  There's a lot of self-doubt and fear and wanting to quit, and again there is crying (so much crying).

I decided I needed to look like I had “it” together in order to be successful coaching, so I contacted a life coach who had become an intuitive health coach to heal my thyroid so I could lose weight (clearly it had nothing to do with what I was eating or the sedentary lifestyle).  Instead, that interaction with the coach somehow led to me quitting drinking right before FinCon.  Because I'd quit drinking right before FinCon, I made a new friend who was also fleeing the alcohol infused welcome mixer on the elevator, who invited me to a networking event for financial coaches where I met the team who run Financial Coach Academy (FCA).

At FinCon I signed up for a session in Sedona, AZ with a financial coach who had me openly weeping about some sort of childhood stuff that supposedly had something to do with making money (it did).  I studied for and passed the AFCPE‘s AFC exam and attended the FFC two day live coaching training and symposium so I'd have some credentials in case anyone cared about that (still working on the hours part of this). 

My friend from FinCon and I started having every other week accountability calls, where I set what I thought were totally realistic financial goals and missed them all.  In love she told me, “I believe you know how to run a business.  I just don't think you know how to run a coaching practice,” and told me I needed to take FCA.

Because I was in a Facebook group with the FCA folks and saw it recommended, I started listening to Brooke Castillo's Life Coach School podcast after realizing I'd set myself out as a Financial Coach without knowing what coaching is (not to worry, no one else knows for sure either).  From her podcast I learned about the concept of buffering – of using other things, including food, to avoid really feeling your feelings.  From that I've lost 15 pounds.  So somehow the domino the health coach knocked over 6 months ago had in fact led to me losing weight.

I signed up for FCA and learned a ton, including that I don't want to do coaching the exact way they do (which is totally fine).  At the same time I started a group coaching class with the lady who helps you to weep your way to wealth.  And last Friday, I attended a marketing focus group/networking event where I think I finally dialed in on my ideal client.

 So here I am a year into the business (based on the date I started and updated my LinkedIn profile).  I finally got the business license (there was a bit of a mixup on that) and have my revised initial offer on this website.  I feel like I am just now set up and ready to start.

It's been quite a journey.  In some ways I've come full circle.  It's finally ok to write creatively again (it's not exactly fiction, but I do have a creative memory so there may be those who say what I remember of the past is nearly fiction).  I don't have to map the writing directly to money, but it is supporting my business.  I'm not as good as Shakespeare, but there's some doubt as to whether that was all him anyway.  And I feel like that voice inside who was told in Arkansas it was wrong and bad, and that I turned my back on in favor of acceptance and fitting in and trying to make a living, has my attention again. And that result may be the point of the whole journey.

So here I am a year into the business, and I feel like I'm actually ready to start.  I can't tell you if this will finally be the happy ending – where I find an outlet for my voice, where I tap into my power, where by being vulnerable I build a tribe, or if this will be another dumb a$$ thing I've done for unclear reasons that will just make me feel worse about myself.   I can say that it feels good and terrifying to keep trying to find that place in the world where I can be exceptional in my own right and where that can make a good professional living. Will there be a career for me where money and happiness can finally co-exist?  The jury is still out, but even if this isn't what I dream it will be, at least I will be able to look back and say, damn, that girl just did NOT know when to give up, and that's a powerful and beautiful thing.

*I did not change her name to protect the innocent, because she wasn't innocent. Her family moved away a few years later, although the other girls kept things going for her. In the first draft of this I had her full name, but in thinking on it calling someone on the internet out for what they did at age 10 may in fact be starting a new cycle of bullying, so I took it out.

By interesting coincidence, we ended up on the same hall at Governor's School between junior and senior year.  My mom asked if she should have me moved to another room.  I said no, and went down to say hello to her to see what I was up against.  I guess she'd gotten a taste of her own medicine after she moved, because her spirit had been broken and she was completely timid. 

Now that I remember that part of the story, the fact that I went to see her instead of running from her means I'm kind of a bad a$$, aren't I?  I may need to edit my version of my history in light of that now that I think about it. More spiritual growth, y'all.

Writing in a journal can be a great way to uncover hidden beliefs.

One of the best ways to uncover your hidden money beliefs is by writing in a journal.

If you aren't where you want to be with your money, chances are that the problem is either underearning or overspending.  On either side, this behavior is usually fueled by something you believe that no longer serves you. 

Perhaps you believe that money is the root of all evil.  If you were taught this, you likely have a deep aversion to money, and you may not even realize what is driving your behavior.  You might take a job offer with negotiating pay, as you don't want the employer to think all you care about is money (pro tip – the employer never brings the best offer in the first offer.  They expect you to negotiate, and so they've brought the offer down artificially low so they can negotiate up.  Don't take the first offer.).

You might find yourself in a situation where you are earning money, but you have to get rid of it as quickly as possible to avoid feeling icky.  You might overspend to get rid of the money that way.  You might loan money to friends and family members that you know are terrible with money, and then harbor anger and resentment when (surprise surprise) you don't get paid back.

The worst part is that you may well be completely unaware as to what is driving your behavior.  It may seem to you like you just never have enough.  You'll need to look within and understand what those money scripts say if you want to have any chance of changing them.  If you don't, they will stay lodged in your subconscious, and you will act them out regardless as to whether or not they conflict with what your conscious mind believes you want.

So how can we uncover those beliefs?  Well, you could have a money conversation with a friend or with a coach.  But if you want to work on your own, a journal can be a great tool to help you have a conversation with yourself.

 If you can, making journaling a daily habit is a great self-development tool.  But it's tricky – everyone has an idea for the best daily habits you need to be a success.  After your Ultimate Power Morning Habits (one hour), hour of meditation, and hour of writing in a journal, and hour of exercise, it's not time to start the day, it's time for lunch!  So if you can't figure out how to do this on a daily basis, rest assured that even a one-off session can be helpful.

Here are some prompts to get you started:

What did I pick up from my family about money when I was a kid?

Was there ever an emotionally charged incident around money – perhaps a fight between parents about spending?

Did I ever have any formal financial education around money either at home or in school?

See what comes up for you as you write out your answers.  You may uncover a belief that has served you and that you want to continue moving forward (perhaps you grew up in a family who talked about the importance of saving?).  You might find a belief that got you to where you are, but that you will have to let go of to move forward.  And you may find something that does nothing but hold you back.  Those are the beliefs you'll need to address to get where you want to go.

It's about progress, not perfection.

For years I had a surefire budgeting system that was guaranteed to produce nothing but self-hatred.  Step 1 – make budget.  Step 2 – break budget. Step 3 – decide I'm bad at money and give up on the whole budgeting thing.

 Recently  I got a deck of Money Habitudes cards.  My top value when it comes to money?  Planning.  Not surprising giving my affection for “playing money”, the fact that my parents were natural savers and planners, and the fact that we've been working with a financial planner for years.  Here's the twist.  My second highest value?  Spontaneity. “Oh,” my husband said, “so that's why you always make budgets but never stick with them.”  Ouch.

It's true, though.  I don't think you'll get much of anywhere without a plan, but I also believing in stopping and smelling the roses.  On a hike my husband is all about heart rate and steps, whereas I want to check out a cool flower or an interesting bug.  Yes, the plan is great, but within the plan there should be a bit of wiggle room.  Life happens in the wiggle room.

In addition to realizing I liked both planning and spontaneity, another factor contributing to my conquering the budget thing (at long last) is the realization that the goal of the budget is not perfection.  Big bill you forgot to plan for?  Swear, beat yourself up, then divide the amount by 12 and build it in going forward.  Now you are ahead for next time.  Boom.

Things are going to happen.  Mistakes will be made,  Build in a bit of cushion so when a friend calls and says, “I'm flying out tomorrow, but I'm staying near the Atlanta airport tonight.  Don't you live near the airport?” you can say, “Heck yeah, what's the address,” and go have a burger with them, because friends are important and let's be honest you didn't really want to cook tonight anyway, did you?

So, as the team at You Need A Budget says, roll with the punches.  When you forgot something or you messed something up it doesn't mean you are bad a money.  It means you need to tweak your plan and move on.

If you were driving from Atlanta to Orlando and planned to stop in Macon, but really had to pee in Stockbridge, would you give up on the whole planning your travel thing and declare yourself bad at navigation?  Would you go back to just aimlessly turning left or right as the most struck you?  Or would you say, “surprise!”, roll with it, and get back on track?  Of course you'd think nothing of it, because the great American road trip isn't as tense and fraught with emotion as money is.

Let's model the great American spending plan on the great American road trip.  Yes, you want to get from Point A to Point B, but leave a little wiggle room in there in case you want to explore or miss an exit or just have to pee in Stockbridge.  In the grand scheme of things, you'll still get closer to your destination if you know what it is than if you don't have a plan at all.