Top 7 Money Questions Women Ask and Why They Have Trouble Finding the Answers
Top 7 Money Questions Women Ask and Why They Have Trouble Finding the Answers
by Liz Carroll, Financial Life Coach
After years of coaching, I have identified seven primary questions women have about money. Feeling calm confidence in making the money decisions required to answer those questions is how women build wealth ---impactful, legacy wealth. However, it requires a decision making method that accounts for both math and mindset.
I coach women that feel alone in their financial decisions. Maybe they are divorced or widowed, never married or feel the weight of financial decisions on their shoulder in their committed relationship. Regardless, they are the primary breadwinner of their household and want to build wealth by making responsible and wise financial decisions.
Because women haven’t been educated about managing money historically, money can feel overwhelming and when we feel overwhelmed, we avoid addressing the issue or researching answers to our money questions. In addition, we can have a negative narrative like “I am not good with money.” “I am so behind financially.” “I’ve made poor choices and can’t recover.” “I’ll never have enough.” These kinds of unconscious, scarcity statements running in the background of our mind creates our money mindset and keeps us stuck in avoidance or indecision.
Seven primary questions that require a financial decision are:
- How do I create and follow a budget?
- How much is enough for an emergency fund?
- How do I sequence my payments to eliminate debt?
- If I have debt, should I be investing for my future-self?
- How much money do I need for the kind of retirement I desire?
- When can I leave my career, doing something I love and be financially OK?
- How do I structure my money goals to create greater impact through legacy wealth?
* While budget and emergency fund are more commonly searched words. I prefer to call a budget a cash flow plan and an emergency fund a safety net. I believe words matter. Words have the ability to trigger or motivate us. In the Mindful Money Method, we use motivating words.
When women make the time to review facts and honestly answer these questions from their deep inner knowing, their soul, the decisions become clearer. The best way to access the wisdom of the soul is through awareness.
I use mindfulness practices with my clients to gain awareness. Awareness to the thoughts, feelings and actions of the current financial habits creating the existing results establishes a baseline, a starting point. From this baseline, simple analysis can be done to predict future results or identify opportunities for improved outcomes. That is a fancy way of saying, “Are your current actions serving you and are they going to meet your financial goals?”
Abundance is a state of awareness. – Deepak Chopra, MD
Mindful awareness allows you to access your own intuition, your values and desires. What do you really want to accomplish? The answer to this question can’t be found in a Google search; it can only be found within.
Once we identify values and desires along with the current results, we can establish short and long range money goals and create a plan to achieve those goals. It is rather simple but clearly not easy to implement or we’d all be millionaires.
Achieving financial goals can take determination, time and accountability along with an abundant money mindset. Overriding a negative money mindset requires intentional action.
While every woman’s financial plan is as unique as they are, a financial coach provides the plan outline. Your best financial plan is one you create so that it is in alignment with your values and desires. That way you will love and follow it. Plus, you have the ability to modify it should your circumstances change.
The plan created within the Mindful Money Method is call a Financial Freedom & Relief Plan. It’s my experience, and hundreds of clients agree, having a plan offers freedom to spend money in alignment with your values and desires. A plan also offers relief from worry by knowing where you are headed and roughly how long it will take you to get there. You feel more in control having a plan.
The Mindful Money Method provides a practical process for making money decisions focused on the facts and emotions of money. The repeatable method creates calm confidence in making wise financial decisions for you and others.
When you are ready to answer these questions for yourself, I’d love to help you either 1:1 through the entire nine module method or you can learn the Mindful Money Method on your own. Either way, you'll gain knowledge and cultivate enough calm confidence to answer the questions for yourself.
