Why You’re Not Making Progress With Your Money
The Money Move That Creates the Most Momentum
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No matter how you budget or how hard you try to save, you are not seeing the progress you want with your money. You think why am I so bad with money and what should I do to be successful.
You’re not bad with money, you’re just overwhelmed. It’s time to stop blaming yourself and find the thing that will give you the greatest momentum with your money.
If you’ve ever wondered why you’re not making progress with money or think you’re bad with money, this episode is for you.
In this episode, I talk about how managing money is different as you get older, specifically for those individuals over 40 and 50, and this may be keeping you from making progress with your money.
By the end of the episode, you’ll understand why multiple priorities are distracting and how to find the one thing that will give you the greatest momentum with your money.
What You’ll Learn
Why does struggling with money happen for so many women and couples over 40
The biggest mistake people make when trying to take action and make progress to retirement
How to start defining that one action step for the greatest momentum
A simple way to begin making progress on your retirement journey
Episode Highlights:
00:00 Why You Feel Stuck
02:33 Accumulation Habits
04:25 Old Habits Stall Progress
08:22 Scenarios to Find Focus
10:09 Map the Path and Detours
11:56 What Winning Looks Like
13:27 Reassess and Build New Habits
If you feel stuck and are looking for guidance or support on your next best step on your money journey, join the next Map Your Money To Retirement workshop. This is an interactive workshop to help you take a peek at progress and find a clear focus forward. Click the button below to learn more and get on the waitlist for the next workshop.
Unedited Transcription of Episode:
You're not seeing progress or the progress that you really wanna see, right? The results that you want to see with your money. And because you're not seeing those results, you are believing and blaming yourself for not being good enough with money for overspending, whatever. Shame, guilt, blame. You're thinking it's internal, but I wanna tell you.
The problem with not seeing progress right now is because you're trying to do everything right, all tasks to get the results you want. But the solution is that you need to drill down and just focus on one thing, one traction, not just any one thing, but the one thing that will help you. Get the greatest momentum, and this is the exact outcome that you can get in my map, your Money to retirement workshop.
We take a peek at your progress and we clarify a clear focus for you to move forward. So if you're not seeing progress or if you're not sure where to start, this is a great workshop for that too. I want you to head over to Elevate Finances us slash workshop where you can learn more about the details and get yourself registered.
The next date of the workshop is April 11th. If this is after April 11th, still head over there. There's going to be another date where I will be giving the same workshop. Okay, so let's talk about the problem. The problem is that you're trying to do everything to get the results you want, but how did this problem come to be?
Why, what you did and have always done is no longer working. It's basically what the problem is. So I want you to go back 20 years if you're over 40. If you're younger than that. Yeah. You're gonna have to follow along, uh, 20, 25 years for those of us over 40. And I want you to reflect what age you were, what was going on, and then we're gonna take a trip through time, coming up those 20, 25 years.
Right. You either were graduating high school or college. You got your job, you got your first career, you bought your car, first car, right? Got another car, better car. Um, you might have, got married, bought a house, bought a better house, had kids furnished the house. Remodeled the house. As you're going along, think of the things specific to you.
You might not have done all of those things I shared, or even in that order, but what it boils down to is that we were accumulating, it's what we needed to do, right? Go out, get a job, buy a car, buy a house, raise kids, be responsible, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Those habits and routines for us to survive that that accumulation period.
We are still trying to do that today. Just those motions. Just those feelings, that was good. We were successful, right? We lived in a world of money management and control. As we were accumulating. Hopefully you did. Hopefully you did. But this is advice meant for, again, your 20, 30 year olds, in that state of accumulation where you're just, okay, I know I need to buy a new car in the next two or three years.
I'm gonna be ready for that. Oh, we gotta move. You know, it's just the state of, of accumulation, and you're managing it well. And like I said, so you are used to this feeling and the motion of what you've done for 20 years, 25 years. So why would you think you need to do anything different to get the same progress and results today?
I've gotta keep moving forward. That's how I moved forward back then. And so you just keep going. You just keep going and you're just doing, and you've done it for years, so it's like back of your hand. Easy, simple. You've gotta process and you don't realize that you need to change. You don't realize that while those are great money habits, they are no longer serving your situation, your current life.
Because at this point trying to fix everything will stall your progress. It's crazy to think that something we've learned to do and do well, as I'm sure everybody has, is no longer what we need to do. And so we've gotta teach an old dog new tricks, right? Is what we need to do. But when I was on my money journey.
What I found successful was dialing it down to the individual pieces, right? Understanding where I was at, and then really dialing into each individual piece and making, progress and momentum on that one piece. So yes, I was doing that in my thirties and my forties, hence retirement at 50. If retirement is not too far off from you, you need to really start dialing it down.
But how, how do you find your solution? How do you find your solution? How do you dial in your efforts at this stage of life? Because that's ultimately what we're doing. We don't wanna be feeding everything, managing everything. I mean, we're still gonna be managing, but we're gonna be managing on a smaller scale.
A focused, a really good focus. So as I was thinking about this, I'm like, okay, how do I help them find their solution if they're not coming to the workshop, right? Or even before the workshop, I would love to still have you come, but how can you find this starting point? Basically, it comes down to knowing what you want from retirement, and I know you're like, wow, how does that make sense?
That's the target we're headed to. Initially, we were at a target of creating our life in away from our parents' home, right? Ultimately, that's what it was. Whatever it looked like for you. Married, single kids, no kids, whatever it is, right? We were creating a life away from our parents' home, so now you're creating a life that's going to get you to retirement.
So dialing into what you need and what you want from retirement is going to help you see and better understand the focus that you need to be taking right now. But as you are thinking this, okay, as you're dialing into this, I don't want you to be scared of messing up. If you don't do anything, it's going to be a bigger mistake.
I don't know about mess, right? Bigger mess than if you try something and figure if it's going to work. So I want you to believe in yourself. Then I want you to tell yourself what do I want and what do I need in retirement?
Okay? To help demonstrate why that is important. I want you to think if you are staying put, you are in your, your house for the life, right? I know there's some people that they're like, yep, this is the house I'm gonna die in. And if that's you, doesn't it make sense to pay that house off? Okay. That is, and I'm not saying that's what you should do. I'm just saying that's how you start finding your focus. I don't know everything else that's going on. We're gonna talk through a couple of different scenarios so that you can see and you can lay it out for yourself. But if you are like, well, we're going to relocate, I don't know where, I don't know what it's gonna look like, then the best step for you is going to make sure you have cash reserves so that you can make that move.
Be able to move. I would say even if you're going to downsize and not pay off your house, not put the money into the house, you are going to need money at your fingertips. So obviously not in investment pieces that you can't get out today, so that you are able to make that, that step when you need to.
Maybe you are going to, like I said, downsize, go live somewhere where it's cheaper. So then you're gonna have more cash flow from the house and being able to get there won't be too hard. And planning for that piece, then maybe you do sink it into retirement savings, right? Another piece of the puzzle is going to be age, and we talk about this in the workshop, right?
Defining the timeline and how do you know what account you need when. Right. So as you are like, okay, in retirement I want this, and this, or I need this, and this combination of both, you clearly see the target you are trying to get to. You clearly see what you need to do, and as you do that, as you do that, you are going to then see the path there.
Oh, well if that's in this many years, then we still got, you know, so and so needs to go to college, or, well, we've got this, or what about that? You can then see your path. You have the end, and then your path starts becoming really clear. And then that's how you start seeing, okay, well I gotta tackle this thing first.
I've gotta tackle this one next, I gotta tackle this one. And you start managing that way, but your focus starts long and then your path becomes clear. So the result of painting that big picture is creating that path, and you will see exactly what you need to do when. It might feel fuzzy, might feel foggy.
I want you to stay with this. What do I want? What do I need from retirement? Until you start getting more clear and you start seeing that path, you start visualizing what's going to come up before you get there. That's what we do when we're driving a car. You're looking ahead. What's coming up? Oh, there's a detour.
What does that mean? We will have detours on our path. We've gotta be ready for them. We need to know how to pivot, take action, right? And then get back on that path. So why does all of this matter at this stage of life? It's really important to be planning for that next stage. You've done well. You have created this stage away from your parents' home, right?
I think that's the best description. It's going to be. And then we're going to be creating a life after work, right? Or after our career. Maybe we're pivoting. It's a whole different topic, right? But we know where we want to go. What does actually winning look like? That you become more focused, that you know exactly what you should give.
Progress results, effort two. Take that step, like I mentioned earlier, don't be afraid. Choose the one thing. Make a plan. Do the actions. Measure the results. Hopefully you're seeing them. Hopefully you're seeing them, and if you're not, come back again. Reassess. Are you still on that clear path?
Did something change? Right. Sometimes our money changes, sometimes the cost of reality changes. Sometimes we're presented with a different scenario in the midst of trying to do it, and we forget to come back and reassess it. So what does winning look like? It will become easier. You will see the results, you will feel the momentum.
Even if you're not seeing that exact dollar or that exact result, it will feel easier because anytime something isn't working or you're feeling challenged, it's time to go back to that focus. It's time to go back to what is it that I want? Am I still on the path? Did something new pop up? I hope you're able to dial in your efforts, find your progress, and have that clear path that will get you to retirement.
But you gotta start with some new habits. With some new feelings with not doing what your old 30-year-old self with do. Even though she did amazing, he did amazing. It is time to do something different over 40 so that you can make every effort that you need to reach to retirement. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next week.
