How to Shift Your Money Mindset and Finally Knock Out Your Goals Together
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Does it seem like you two keep having the same argument over and over? Do you feel like you’re spinning your wheels with money? You’re not alone.
Today we’re going over how we form our habits and how we can change our money mindsets for the better to finally achieve your big goals together!
Mindsets and Money Stories
It’s funny how unaware we can be about our money habits. When we first began talking about money, it was a real eye-opener and not just because of the numbers.
Here we were ready to spend our lives together and we realized that we had completely different views when it came to money.
But digging into how we pick up those habits and figuring a way to work with what we have so to speak is somewhat tricky – which is why I’m really happy Jen Hemphill is here.
She’s an accredited financial coach and author of her new book, Her Money Matters: The Missing Truths From Traditional Money Advice.
It’s a fantastic book and one aspect I really appreciated is how Jen dives into mindsets and money stories.
In this episode we discuss:
- how your past can influence how you handle finances now – for better or worse
- how to help your spouse to open up and understand their money mindset
- a tip for getting them onboard
Hope you enjoy!
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Resources to Understand and Change Your Money Mindset
If you two are looking to improve how you talk and work together with your finances (and lives), please check out these resources.
- Her Money Matters: The Missing Truths From Traditional Money Advice
- Best Budget and Money Apps: Personal Capital, Tiller, Mint
- Automatic Saving:
Qapital - Free 401(k) Analysis:
blooom - Jumpstart Your Marriage and Your Money
- Her Money Matters
- Conversation Starters and Ice Breakers with Money and Marriage
If you want to discuss talking with your spouse about money, ask questions, or share your own tips please join us over at Thriving Families on Facebook.
Money Mindsets: How Your Past Can Influence Your Finances
What's fascinating to me is that Jen got into personal finance and became an accredited financial counselor based on her personal experience.
In
… I wanted to write a book that was focused on what really is missing because I had that experience when it comes to traditional and money advice.
We tend to focus mainly on budgeting and saving more.
Those traditional money skills but what I've come to find out if that is just a small component of what I call the money headquarters that's really in my opinion and in my experience about 10 percent.
It's only the smallest part but yet we focus the most of our time on that on the budgeting, on the savings, on paying off debt which is nothing bad [they] are great things to do.
But there are other components of the money headquarters which are the mindset piece and or which includes money stories
…. And there's also the money actions piece which includes talking and money.
Jen Hemphill [3:37]
As much as we like to think we're rational about money, we typically arrive at our own way of handling finances based on what we picked up growing up.
Whether it's copying what our parents have done (or going the completely opposite direction), taking advice from peers and mentors, or learning from what we read and see from ‘successful' people, each experience rubs off on us.
It's not always obvious how much we pick things up, but it is important to sit down and see why we do what we do. It can help us build up our finances and reach our goals faster.
Your mindset which is the biggest component your money stories that like the foundation of your home.
…And then you build on the home with your money actions – talking money, creating a dream budget.
Those type of things and the new money skills are like the bricks.
Jen Hemphill [4:34]
Jen herself had to deal with this as her husband and her were working on their finances.
She was frustrated that while they could pay the bills and stash some money away for emergencies, but they weren't making any real progress on their big goals.
She then began exploring the reasons why she handled the way she did and discovered that while her frugality was a handy skill, there was an issue she needed to address.
There's nothing wrong with frugal,but then I wasn't enjoying life as much because I was guilty felt guilty each time if I wanted to treat myself to something there was a lot of guilt surrounded with it.
Jen Hemphill [7:33]
Let's take a step back for a second and think about your mindset and habits growing up.
What did you see and hear about money? Probably got a couple of different perspectives. I know I did but there were certain things I would call kind of an undercurrent to the conversations.
One of them being debt was inevitable. You'll always have a car payment. You always have a mortgage. That's something that you should expect as a part of life.
And even though that wasn't officially said out loud (well a few times the mortgage part was said out loud), it did start affecting me.
I noticed looking back that it led me to make decisions based on whether I could afford the payments rather than taking the time to figure out if I can afford it.
That thinking clashed with my husband's more
The other side of the coin was his hesitation with investing. I saw investing as a priority so you can see that these things can have an effect on the conversations we have now.
So digging into how and why you handle your finances a
When we talk about money because we know where each other's coming from and we can use that to change.
How to Get Your Spouse to Open Up About Money
While you may be excited about what you've uncovered and you're ready to make those changes, your spouse may not be ready to jump on board.
So how do you get them to open up and hopefully encourage them to shift their money mindset into something more positive?
First, acknowledge that the money talk is not always about the numbers.
So we talked about our money story so it could be as easy as getting to know each other at that level.
You may already have hints right front just from being married about what their strengths and weakness are when it comes to finances.
If you have already, it's time to discuss how they picked up those habits.
No judgments or negativity, just supportive curiosity.
To make it easier for them to open up, go out for a date. Mayb you could talk about some goals you'd like to tackle and ask them what they want to do.
You can then mention some challenges you're trying to work out.
Discuss why and how you see money the way you do.
These chats aren't about the blame game. That will shut them down.
It's more about getting to know each other and supporting one another.
And really, that's what we want – to be on the same team, not just with finances, but life.
Support the Podcast!
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast!
- Spread the word! If you enjoyed this episode and think it can help a buddy get on the path to dumping debt and become financially free, please share.
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Music Credit
Like the music in this episode? Our theme song is by Gentle Regime.
Additional music by Lee Rosevere and Logan from Music for Makers in this episode.
This episode was originally released in Febr 2018. It has been updated January 2019.
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my full disclosure for more info.
