In the realm of personal finance, our words hold the key to unlocking a world of empowerment. By reshaping our language, we reclaim control over our financial destiny, make intentional choices, and pave the way to a future of abundance and freedom. In this episode, we delve into the often-overlooked aspect of personal finance: the power of language and mindful money talk. Our guest is Patti Handy, a Certified Executive Coach and Life Coach who has pursued her dream of Financial Coaching for Women. She reveals how a subtle change in her language dramatically impacted her family’s financial well-being. Patti explains how it’s not just about the funds we have available; it’s about the choices we make. She emphasizes the need to focus on fulfilling basic needs like feeding ourselves and our families instead of impulsively buying things that give temporary happiness. What’s truly inspiring is how this mindset extends beyond personal finances. If you’re a parent, particularly a young mother, the language you use when discussing money with your children can shape their financial values and beliefs. Tune in now and explore how a simple shift in the words we use can transform our financial mindset and empower us to make better choices.
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This conversation is going to be about women and money management. Many women still don’t feel comfortable managing their money, especially if they have had some kind of divorce or maybe a death of a partner. I invited Patti Handy to come and talk to us about what are some common mistakes that women make when it comes to money management. After many years of being a financial advisor and mortgage advisor and having countless conversations with women, she decided to pursue her dream of financial coaching for women. She’s a teacher at heart and she loves to educate and empower women with money smarts.
Understanding that money can be an overwhelming topic for many, she is passionate about creating financial confidence when it comes to your well-being. This has been the catalyst to follow her passion for empowering and educating women in their financial journey. She is a certified executive coach and certified life coach and holds a real estate broker’s license and published author of four books. Stay tuned for my conversation with Patti on all things money.
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Patti, thank you so much for being here on the show. I know that you’re a financial coach. One of the things that I want to talk about right away is what are the common struggles that you see women have with money.
Thank you, Rosie. I am so happy to be here. I appreciate you having me on. It’s a pleasure. Some of the common themes that I see with women are the overwhelm, insecurities and lack of financial confidence. They didn’t learn about money in school and typically we didn’t learn about it at home. Oftentimes in a marriage, the husband took care of the funds. Certainly, that’s not everybody. That’s an overwhelming majority.
When a divorce or a loss of a spouse happens, they’re like, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t even know where to start.” It’s fear. Fast forward, it’s the fear of running out of money. “I don’t want to be a burden to my kids. I don’t want to live on my kids’ couch. I’m embarrassed by this.” There’s a lot of shame and embarrassment, which is to eliminate that and take that out of the vocabulary.
This show primarily focuses on women in the corporate world advancing in their public careers. We want them to be financially seen and deal with all the things that we talked about. I want to shift the conversation a little bit to those young women that are coming into whatever job they have because I’ve heard so much that young women or people of both young men and women are struggling to be able to make ends meet and more than anything, to buy their home or even get their apartment. They’re finding themselves staying home and moving out until they’re 25, 26 or 27, whereas in the past you’d be able to graduate from college typically and get an apartment. Have you had conversations with young women about the struggles that they’re having to become independent?
There are many factors involved there. One is the expense of college has become much higher than it was in our years. Coming out of college with all this school debt, especially credit card debt and oftentimes you start a role and you’re not earning a lot of money, you’re negative. It’s a conversation about getting a good handle on where you are in terms of money. We don’t like the term budget. I don’t use the term budget so much but it is important to understand what’s happening with your money.
Where’s the spending happening? Where are the holes and gaps? Even those that have taken a close look at those potential holes in the boat so to speak, it’s about creating a plan to put in place that will slowly get you out of whatever debt you’re in if any or look for ways to potentially do a side hustle for a little while to get yourself back on the track.
There are ways. A lot of times we come out of college or even young 30 or 40-year-olds who are trying to stay above water and in survival mode. When you’re in that survival mode, you don’t look at opportunities. You look at possibilities. It’s about being open to the possibilities of what’s around us. There are so many with the internet that you can do but a lot of it too is a mindset. Try to get yourself in a good positive place and not be fearful about what’s happening to you.
You said the word budget. What word do you have instead of a budget? I come from like, “You have to have a budget.” What word do you replace with budget?
A spending plan is another way. The word budget, much like the word diet, is very restrictive sounding. It sounds like you can’t do anything. I don’t want to give people the impression that they have to watch every penny every day for their life. If you had told me, “I need to weigh my food every time I eat something,” I would say no. I would not do that. That’s not sustainable. I am watching and mindful of what I put in my mouth and how I work out.
I do things to keep a healthy lifestyle because health is important to me. The same with money. If you’re watching what you’re spending, you’re looking at what’s coming in, going out and you’re mindful of those things and when you’re given a choice of, “Is this a need or a want? Do I need this situation?” How important is it for me to have this instant gratification versus the delayed gratification later, which is financial freedom, choices and all the things that you want later in life? Those purchases start to be more cautious. I do think we have to be mindful of how we spend for sure.
The younger generation, like Gen Z, doesn’t want to work nearly as hard as their parents did. They want to enjoy life more but I don’t know what their mindset is about instant gratification. They want to travel. I read the article that travel, technology and gym shoes are very important in their generation. They’re future generations. What recommendations do you generally have for women whether they’re starting or they’re mid-level as far as investing is concerned? As a society, we’re always educating our young boys to make sure that they’re good in Math and all those stereotypes. When it comes to investing, what are some of the things that you recommend as a financial coach to your clients?
I came from being a financial advisor and a mortgage advisor. I’ve been in the world of money for many years. I have had so many conversations. My first and foremost recommendation would be to do what you can to find peace. I would stay off all the noise online. There’s a lot of information overload online. I’ve seen some of it is accurate. Find a particular person that you know to be accurate and follow their information. Learn those countless books. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to talk to a financial coach.
Have them teach you and educate you on areas that are specific to you with regard to where you want to be. I positively feel that women should get comfortable with investing. I heard an interview some time ago from a gentleman on a podcast and he said, “Men look at investing as a challenge and women investing as a threat.” I’m like, “That’s got to change.” There’s very little math in the mechanics of investing honestly. If you can add and subtract and divide and multiply, you’ve got investing down.
Take the stigma away from, “Investing is scary and dangerous. The market’s going to tank,” and all that stuff. If you look at the history of the market and where you are in terms of when you need funds, if you’re planning on buying a home in the next years, that money should not be sitting in the market. That should be in a safer investment, whether it’s a bond fund or a money market account earning you money but not in the market.
If you’re looking at retirement money and you’ve got a timeline of 7 to 10 years or longer, that should be in the market. That should be going into things that will work for you. The market works for you. It’s volatile. You’ll see it will go down and up. If you look at history and the charts since the inception of the market, it has over time.
Do your due diligence and homework. Read the books and reach out to people that you trust. If you’ve got somebody in your circle that is a financial advisor, CPA attorney or oftentimes attorneys, they’re not necessarily investment experts but reach out to those people that you trust. Women are very intuitive and smart. If it feels off, it’s probably off. If it feels good, dig deeper and learn about it.
Investing is a long-term situation. If it’s something that you’re not going to do in the next 7 to 10 years, then it should be in the market because that timeline is going to continue to go up. The biggest thing is you can’t look at your investments. Many years ago, there was an individual that looked at their investments every single day and they would freak out because it would go up and down. That’s what it does. You can’t put your emotions into your daily. If you look at it 6 or 12-month basis, you can see the trends going up. That makes a little bit of sense to me.
There’s so much behavioral side to investing in the market. You have to keep that emotion out. It’s hard to go down. Especially, 2022 was a tough year to see your portfolio. Those that panicked and jumped out are the worst thing you can do. The market is on sale. If you’ve got some extra cash on the sidelines, look at maybe putting that to work if you don’t need that for a long time.
You talked a little bit about behavior. Mindset is a big piece of money and success. People say that 80% of automatic and 20% of your actions make a difference. Can you talk a little bit about how you teach your clients about money mindset? What are some of the maybe 2 or 3 things that you talk about when it comes to mindset and money?
I have an entire module on the mindset. If you look at some of these lotto winners, athletes or actors, I’m thinking of industries where they make big millions then yet you see that they have gone through those funds or the lotto winners who are back to where they were a year later. A lot of that is around their money mindset and what they believe to be true. I use the analogy of an iceberg. Above the water you see a very small portion of the iceberg but below is the massive piece of ice that you can’t see. That massive piece of ice is your subconscious mind and the top part of above the water is your conscious mind.
Ninety-five percent of external reality comes from our subconscious. We’ve been programmed as young from 0 to about 8. We absorbed everything. We heard things from mom and dad, aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers or coaches. We had these stories. We didn’t have the ability to filter out a particular fact. If mom said, “Money doesn’t grow on trees. We need to save.” We couldn’t say, “Money doesn’t grow on trees. What are talking about?” There was no filter. We took it as fact.
“95% of our external reality comes from our subconscious.” — Patti Handy Click To Tweet
Our parents are born in The Great Depression. We have this lack of mentality and fear. What we do in the program and also I recommend to your audience is to take some time, reflect and write down on paper what it is that you heard growing up. What are some of your money stories? What are your beliefs about money? Is it scarcity or abundance? Is it, “Money doesn’t grow on trees?” Is it you have to work your butt off to be able to make anything? “Rich people are greedy.” These are those common things that we hear and then we turn around and debunk it. We say, “Is that true?” You look at the abundance in the world. It’s everywhere. We talk about the energy of money.
Also, which is important to me is why is it important to have wealth. Is it because you want to buy a fancy car and a bigger house to prove to the world that you’ve got money or is it to have choices and freedom, be able to give back and make a bigger impact on those people that you love or other people? Your why has to be super important to you. There are many pieces and changing that subconscious mind and that programming in our brain does not happen overnight. It takes time. There are a lot of processes that have to go through to be able to unwind but it starts with being mindful and acknowledging that what you heard was baloney.
My parents are very opposite when it comes to money. My dad is more of a spender and my mom is more of a saver. We always got these thoughts of like, “We have enough money. We can spend it.” “No, we don’t have enough money.” It was very confusing growing up. My mom was the one that handled the budget and the money. She would be like, “We don’t have money for that.”
That’s the kind of thoughts and ideas that I grew up with. I was 1 of 5 too. Back then, my dad was the only one that was working. My mom was home. She was good with money. She was always like, “We don’t have enough.” I remember my parents both came from very humble beginnings. There was one time that my mom had cut the napkins in half because we ran out. I vividly remember thinking, “I am never going to cut napkins.”
When I started working, I made sure that it was me working and I had a good job. I always made sure that I filled my tank of gas full because I remember her like, “Let’s do $5 of gas.” She was doing the very best that she could with the means. You do have these ideas that are like, “This is not the way I want to be when I grow up.” It’s interesting how your upbringing impacts so much of what you do or don’t do when you’re an adult.
The stories I can tell you are very similar. I’m 1 of 5 too so I have a similar thing. My mom is at home and takes care of the money. Similar in a language I’ll share this. She’s saying, “We don’t have the money for that.” If we were to say, “That isn’t a good use of our money,” that means we are in control of it. We’re just choosing not to do something. It may be that we don’t have those funds but we have the funds but it’s not the best use of our money. It’s better to put food in your mouth than it is but for us to go buy this whatever.
It’s some of those things that you change personally if you’re bringing up kids. If you’re a young mom and you watch that language that you use with your kids, that gives them the indication that you have control and that doesn’t control you. That’s important to turn that. I remember going to restaurants with my siblings and it was seven of us. Five kids, mom and dad. We couldn’t buy soda because it was expensive. They are like, “We have soda at home.” I’m like, “I know but we’re here at the restaurant.” They are like, “Order water.” No fault to them at all. It’s expensive raising five kids. Those are funny stories.
I like the way you position it because language is everything. You are constantly saying, “No, we don’t have money for that,” and you shifted to, “That is not the best use of our money.” It changes the entire landscape of the conversation because you are in control of your choices and decisions much better than, “We don’t have money for that.” You talked a little bit about a component of one of the programs that you run. You talked about energy. Can you expand a little bit more on the energy piece when it comes to money?
That’s all within the money mindset and story component module. It dies deep into the energy that we have with money. It’s fearful of losing it. We’re hoarding. It’s mastering us versus we’re being the master of the money and the energy that we give it. If it’s something that we can’t let go of because it’ll never come back, that’s a very unhealthy energy.
If we let the money flow, we know that money is everywhere and abundant. Money is there for the taking. It’s hard to get your head around that when raised in scarcity and lack of household but it is doable. I’ve seen people who have been raised and experienced already growing up and turned their life around. All that is the whole money mindset piece. We talk about our internal thermostat and how we have this comfort level. Once we hit it, we do things subconsciously to bring it back down.
It’s a fascinating piece. Understanding our subconscious and why we do, what we do with money and the relationship are the foundation. I can teach you simply the mechanics of money, how to get your credit score up or invest in a particular fund and what to look for in terms of expense ratio or what this index fund versus that index fund and all that stuff. I can show you how to buy a house on your own. All that is simple and once you know it, you know it but if you have that mindset that’s still murky and you haven’t worked through that, you’re going to fall back into the same old habits.
Let’s talk a little bit about the woman that’s more established. We both had a divorce. Fifty-five percent of people are getting divorced. When we shift a little bit about what’s in the middle of her career, she probably may have children or she doesn’t and she gets divorced. I had to start all over again from ground zero and rebuild. That doesn’t necessarily happen to everybody but what are some things that you recommend if you are in a divorce situation that you need to start focusing on for that woman that maybe is going through a divorce or a breakup of some sort?
If it’s very early on or you’re in the midst of it, I would focus on your mental and emotional healing first. You can’t make a good financial decision when there’s so much upheaval in your life personally. You’re emotionally distraught and you’re trying to comprehend and process all of the divorce. Especially, if you’ve got kids and you’re trying to manage the household and make sure they’re okay. Don’t do anything big financially.
“You can't make a good financial decision when there's so much upheaval in your life personally, and you're emotionally distraught.” — Patti Handy Click To Tweet
If someone tries to talk you into buying a particular product, do something. Invest in something right out of the gate. Be careful about that. Make sure that you take some time to step back, take care of yourself, fill your cup again and get grounded again. With my divorce, things were a mess for months. I had unfolded at the time and my focus was on him.
Divorce can be expensive. You lose half your assets and all kinds of upheaval. It is a mess. Once you become right up and you’re back on track, then take your time. If there are some decisions you have to make financially, you’ve got to make those but if you can, you’re looking at your assets and you go, “How should I invest this? What percentage should be in the market versus fixed income versus cash? How much do I need for maintaining my house? What’s my budget or my spending look like?” Get a roadmap in place. That’s a lot of what we cover. Where are you now? Let’s get a good hand on where you are from the beginning and then where you want to go. We fill in those gaps or holes to get you from A to B.
Don’t be in a rush to try to figure it all out. Pick this because you want to get it figured out. Make sure you do your due diligence and homework. Talk to someone that you trust. I always share this with people, “If someone’s trying to sell you a product, service or something and you can’t turn around and tell a fourth grader about this particular product, then you shouldn’t be buying it because you don’t understand it fully.”
If you don’t understand it with all of its nuances, expenses, all hidden costs and whatever else, invest in it unless you 100% understand what it is. There are a lot of products out there that are great but they’re very confusing and there are many moving parts. The recommendation is to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.
I like your initial recommendation that you need to deal with the emotional part first and you shouldn’t be making decisions. I had a four-year-long divorce. It’s a long story but I found myself holding pan because I couldn’t make any financial decisions. I couldn’t buy anything until that whole finish. During the divorce time, my career came standstill where I couldn’t focus on it 100%.
Once I got divorced and had all of the financials in order, I was able to buy a house and re-shift my thinking to my career. You can’t think about it all. You can’t put your career first and go through a divorce and not know where you’re going to be living next year. There is so much that you have to continue. If you’re going through a divorce, take care of yourself and your children first. Take care of your mental health. Once all that’s settled, then that’s the time for you to start focusing on making financial decisions and continue to look at your career from that point. There’s a lot of fear during that whole process.
Also, the sadness and the grief, you’re not 100% going through that. I’ll speak for myself. There’s like a big cloud. I was driving in a fog. You can’t think straight. If you are looking at someone who lost a house, you don’t have the divorce financial issue as bad because there’s no split of assets but you’re still going through this horrible grief and trauma and trying to figure out your next steps that you’re by yourself and all that. It’s that same philosophy and thought. In that case, get yourself right and well before you make any big decisions.
You talked about a lot of online tools. How do you suggest we filter through all of the online tools so that we could figure out what are some good tools that we can use for the spending plan?
There are so many apps and online tools. They all have pros and cons. Depending on what you like, you have to choose. There are some people that love the good old-fashioned Excel Spreadsheet and don’t want online apps. They want to see it on paper. I’ve heard great things about Mint.com. My recommendation overall to filter through that is to speak to friends or family who are using these and say, “What is your experience? Tell me what you like and don’t like about it.”
There are some people who don’t like the online app because they don’t feel like it’s safe and not secure. They don’t want to be involved with that. Talk to people who you trust, see what they’re using and what it is that they like because if you were to go budget apps, you have oodles. It’s like, “How do I even know what it is?” Every website proposes how wonderful their thing is and I’m sure that’s the case. If you like an Excel Spreadsheet, that’s great too.
Your spending plan is going to be very much like if you are on a diet and you have to record all of your food. Any diet or eating plan works as long as you use it. It’s the same thing with any financial online plan or your setup spreadsheet. Any plan works as long as it is used.
It has to be implemented. That’s why people like Mint because it’s tied to your bank accounts. Automatically, that’s happening with your debit cards. It’s automatically linking. That’s built-in for you. I don’t use Mint. I couldn’t tell you how it intimately works, honestly. I’m one of those that likes the paper. I use my Excel Spreadsheet. Once I handle things, I don’t track them every month. I don’t like to document everything that I spend every single month. I’m aware of where I come from and what I’m doing.
How did you go from being a financial planner to a financial coach? I want to know a little bit about your story and how you ended up being a coach and you’re a former financial advisor.
The seed was planted when I went through my divorce, which is going on for many years. At the time of my divorce, my son was very young. I remember laying on the floor in a fetal position sobbing 1 week or 2 after the divorce going, “How am I going to do this?” The overwhelm, everything. I was distraught. In a very strange, weird down lot, it was very random.
I wasn’t thinking about money or the financial piece of it but this thought came into my head, “You’re going to be okay. You know how to manage the money. You were the one that took care of it all. It’s going to be okay.” I thought, “That was strange but okay.” After I came out of the fog, I remember thinking to myself, “I want to someday take this pain I went through and somehow turn it around and help women.”
Over the next many years, I would have conversations with ladies. I was in the mortgage business for many years. In that role, you’re getting deep and dirty with everyone’s money and you’re getting qualified. There are lots of conversations around money and lots of coaching in that role. I found that to be very transactional but I wanted a deeper relationship in the longer term, which is why I went to become a financial advisor.
I enjoyed that role. That was something that I did get deep with clients. I became friends with lots of clients. There was a relationship but I continued to have these same conversations come through the door of women who were distraught. They were scared, overwhelmed and fearful. A lot of times, they couldn’t hire an advisor because they didn’t have the minimum portfolio size.
A lot of advisors have minimum portfolios. I had to send them away and this is not right. That’s why I decided to finally pivot and do the coaching. I don’t do any financial advising. I don’t manage any assets anymore. It’s purely coaching. We talk about the whole behavioral side and quite frankly a lot of what I do advisors don’t do.
I’m a complimentary service to a financial advisor. I’m in talks with some advisors where we’re going to do things together because what I do they don’t do and vice versa. It’s the best of all worlds but the journey came from that seed planted many years ago. It got reinforced by hearing these stories over and over again. At the end of the day, I look back and thought, “The fear of regret of not doing this was greater than the fear of losing a comfortable salary and benefits to going out on my own and taking that leap of faith.” It was a big jump.
“The fear of regret of not doing this and taking that leap of faith was greater than the fear of losing a comfortable salary and benefits.” — Patti Handy Click To Tweet
It’s amazing how our stories create what we want to do in the future. In that fetal position, you are thinking of having that download what an amazing moment for you to have that thought and then years later, you’ve become a financial coach where you’re helping women in that same situation. I have heard that women that don’t have a relationship with their financial advisors. If something happens to their husband, they go and find their financial advisor.
One of my family members is a financial advisor and they make sure to meet with both the husband and the wife so that they can have that relationship because one thing as a female, you don’t want to be out of the loop on your finances. You want to make sure that you’re aware of what’s happening. A lot of women rely on partners to take care of things and then when things go south, they’re left holding the bag and have no idea what is happening. You have to be informed about what’s happening with your finances. Whether you manage it or not, stay informed because it’s no good if you’re left without any information and you’re going through this terrible divorce or I should say generally divorces are not very amicable.
Also, if you lost your spouse suddenly, which I’ve seen as well. I had a client when I was in the mortgage business whose husband passed unexpectedly. She didn’t know where anything was. She had no idea where her statements were, where her assets were or how much they had. She doesn’t know any of it. She trusted her husband, which is great. You trust your spouse to take care of the money.
Fortunately, her attorney uncovered an account with $600,000 in it that she didn’t even know she had. Lucky for her versus a credit card pile that she didn’t realize. I always encouraged couples to have what I call money dates. On a quarterly basis, go to dinner, have some wine or whatever it is that you guys enjoy. Don’t make a big thing out of it. Spend 30 minutes or so talking about where things are at.
Are you on track? How are your assets? What’s going on? Are you attacking dead? Do you have any whatever it is that you have to? Make sure that you have everything in one location so that your spouse or whoever it is, husband or wife, whatever happens, all know where everything is and there are no surprises.
When you’re coaching people in general, are there any money pitfalls that you have identified that people generally fall into? Do you have anything like that that you’ve identified?
The biggest pitfall that comes to mind is that there’s a lot of emotional spending with life. There’s a lot happening in the world. We’re turning a lot of weight of sadness. There are a lot of things that are making us feel sad and not in a great place. A lot of people do emotional spending. I call it retail therapy. I’m sure you’ve heard that term before. Suddenly, their credit card bill comes and it’s like, “How did all that happen?” Even eating out fast food and coffee. It’s not about constricting life. Sure, you can have your latte. I don’t care. You work hard, go have a latte but it’s a constant thing in your credit card debt and you’re trying to get out from under it.
It’s like, “Is that the best use of my money? Is it better for me to focus on getting this credit card paid down than buying this $200 pair of jeans?” It’s that kind of awareness. A pitfall that I’m saying is being mindful and aware of what you’re spending and why you’re spending it. Is it coming from a place of sadness or emotional trauma? If that’s the case, it’s a short-term fix and then you want something else. Take some time to reflect on why that’s happening but that’s probably the biggest thing that I see, especially where there’s a lot of poop in the air.
Emotional spending makes total sense with everything that is happening in the world because if you want to feel good, it’s like that study many years ago of the kids with the marshmallows where the researcher would be like, “You can have one marshmallow.” They film all the kids. One of them smells of marshmallows. Some of them eat the marshmallow because they can’t wait. If they don’t eat the marshmallow, then they can have 2 marshmallows 15 minutes from there. They were first graders. 15 minutes felt like 15 years.
That’s that delayed versus instant gratification. It’s easier said than done. There’s no question.
You’ve given us a ton of information but are there maybe two actionable tips that you can share with us that could help women in the corporate world to continue to advance in their careers when it comes to taking care of their money?
First off, if you don’t feel confident in your money and you are feeling embarrassed, you don’t want to talk about it, give yourself some grace. Even with the financial background that I had going into the marriage, because I was the one that took care of all that, I still made some decisions that were not the greatest after my divorce. I was going through emotional stuff and I didn’t do always the best thing. Give yourself grace and understand that you’re learning. You’re on a journey. It’s okay. We all make mistakes. We learn and move forward.
“Give yourself grace. If you don't feel confident in your money, and you are feeling embarrassed, you don't want to talk about it, give yourself some grace.” — Patti Handy Click To Tweet
Some of our biggest challenges and heartaches create the greatest lessons for us and the greatest opportunity for us to move forward. Have that in your mindset. What I mentioned earlier is to do your due diligence, do your homework, reach out to somebody and we can have a conversation. I offer a 30-minute discovery call. That’s complimentary. Find someone that you like and trust and have that conversation. Do your homework and be mindful that that’s full of a lot of stuff. Be careful when you’re running around online.
Those are two great tips. Someone can have a consultation with you. What do you do typically in the consultation? Is it something that you have standard or is it case by case basis for the individual?
In our 30-minute discovery meeting, typically, I’ll ask lots of questions to get a good understanding of what is going on in their work, what the point is, what minimum child and what they’re hoping to achieve in life. We certainly can’t cover everything in 30 minutes but I can give them some guidelines as to some direction in ways depending upon what their situation is, then we can decide if potentially my program makes sense for them. If it doesn’t, I’ll tell them. If it does, wonderful. I’ll share the program with them. It is about trying to help them make one more step toward getting back on track.
Everything that we would do is we’re trying to get to that financial freedom. That’s one of the things that you said. Be not a hungry individual but be able to have time or money freedom. If you do want to support one thing, you’d have to be like, “I can choose to spend my money on that.” We want to be comfortable. We want to be happy, content and not in all this massive debt, which is why we’re having this conversation.
It’s all about peace of mind and sleeping at night knowing that you’re not going to have money, your kids are going to be okay and you can do everything that you want. Take baby steps and celebrate those baby steps. Money gives you choices and freedom. It isn’t about buying crap to impress the neighbors that you don’t know and you don’t care about anyways.
That is the perfect ending there. Patti, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and talk to us all about money. I appreciate you very much.
Thank you, Rosie.
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One of the things that is so critically important for us to keep in mind is that the way you think about money was impacted by how you grew up. If you were told over and over that there was never enough money or you never had enough money, that might be why you are operating the way you’re operating regarding money.
One of the things that Patti recommends is for you to reflect on the thoughts and the ideas that you grew up with about money and ask yourself, “Is this true?” Debunk that idea so that you can transform the scarcity mindset into an abundance mindset. She says, “Changing that subconscious is going to help you but it’s also going to take time. You can’t do that overnight.” Patti has a couple of gifts on her website, PattiHandy.com. One of them is called Minding Her Money. The other one is called 50 Ways To Flourish After Divorce, which I wish I had many years ago.
She also leaves us with two great tips. Tip 1) Give yourself some grace if you are not savvy with money. You are on a learning journey. You’re going to make mistakes along the way but the important thing is for you to learn how to manage your money. Tip 2) Do your due diligence. Do your homework about where you are financially. Keep track of everything and be mindful about not making any rash decisions, especially if you’re going through some kind of emotional situation such as a divorce or losing a partner. I hope that you take advantage of her gifts on her website. With that, remember to be brave, be bold and take action.
After spending a combined 20 years as a Financial Advisor and Mortgage Advisor, and having countless conversations with women, I decided to pursue my dream of Financial Coaching for Women. I’m a teacher at heart and I love to educate and empower women with money smarts! Understanding that money can be an overwhelming topic for many, I’m audaciously passionate about creating financial confidence when it comes to your well-being. This has been the catalyst to follow my passion of empowering and educating women in their financial journey. I am a Certified Executive Coach, Certified Life Coach, hold a Real Estate Brokers license and published author of four books.
