THE OUTLINE
0:00 Welcome back & Erin’s introduction
1:10 Why “I’m not good with money” is so common
3:00 Life gets busy: Parallels between podcasting and money management
5:12 Feeling overwhelmed and stuck with money
7:08 Where do money beliefs come from?
10:40 The impact of family, upbringing, and lack of financial education
13:20 Choosing to let go of old money stories
15:30 The discomfort of change and stepping into the unknown
18:00 What does a “rich girl life” mean to you?
20:15 Looking for evidence that you CAN learn new money skills
23:00 The consequences of holding onto limiting beliefs
25:30 Progress over perfection: The grounded rich girl approach
28:00 Practical steps for building money confidence
31:20 The power of community and safe spaces for women
33:00 Final encouragement: You are not behind, you are building your rich girl life
THE ERIN DAVIS SHOW
Welcome back to the Erin Davis show. I am Erin, your money mindset and grounded rich girl coach, helping women get in control of their money so they can create their own version of a rich girl life, one that feels spacious, secure and totally aligned with what it is that is important to them. So today, we are going to be jumping into a topic that I have really experienced myself quite a lot over the years, and that is that, what if I am not good with money? And maybe you've thought that before, so maybe it's been playing out in the background for a long time, maybe that low hum of doubt and whispers You know that you really should have all of this stuff figured out by now, and in this episode, we're going to unpack where that fear really comes from, how it keeps you stuck and why being bad with money is usually just a story. It's not usually the truth. I'll also share with you some really gentle but practical steps that can help you shift the way that you speak to yourself and start to build that new kind of confidence without a heap of spreadsheets or shame. So if you have ever felt behind or embarrassed or like money just isn't your thing, this episode is definitely for you.
So if you're ready, let's jump in.
It has been a while since I've been on the podcast. Life has gotten busy, and we went on holidays, and I just wasn't quite organised enough before we went to get everything ready and get everything scheduled. And that sort of left me feeling like, where do I start? What should I do? How do I need to do it? And I think that that can be really related to how we feel about our money as well. It can feel like, you know, maybe you've started to do some things, or started to put some things in place, but then all of a sudden, life got in the way. Life got busy, everything got too hard, and then all of a sudden, a couple of months have passed, or a couple of years, whatever it is, and you find yourself back in at the very beginning again. And this is exactly where I am with the podcast. I absolutely love doing the podcast. I love showing up here, but it does take a lot of work, and it takes consistency, and it can take really being very planned and very structured so that you stay on track, you stay on schedule. And I need to make sure that it's scheduled into my calendar, otherwise life gets in the way and it gets busy and I just don't get it done.
Same with money, right? It can feel like it's so overwhelming you don't know where to start. It can feel like I always mess it up, or I should be further along by now, which then makes us feel into this emotion if we're not enough. We're not doing what we should do, we then start to think of things as good or bad, feeling unsafe, totally overwhelmed, and not really sure about where to start or where to get going. And so I just want to share with you that this is totally normal. It is okay for you to be on a path of up and down. It's on. It's okay to be on a path of not having it all figured out, or not everything going smoothly all in one go. And that has definitely been me. Things have been very up and down. But I suppose the most important thing is that I keep showing up. And while I haven't showed up on the podcast for a while, I am back. I am here. I am committed to going through the process and doing the boring stuff, doing the stuff that I know is routine. It's not fancy, it's not stuff that makes you want to keep showing up all the time, but that's the stuff that you need to do in order to move yourself forward. So when we are talking about money, when we are talking about, well, I'm just no good with money, I really want you to take a step back and have a think about where this thought is coming from.
You know, why are you thinking that you should be further along by now? Why is it that you think that you always mess it up, or you're not good with numbers, or it's too hard, and I don't know where to start? What's happened for you in the past that has led you to believe this stuff? And sometimes it's something that you can pinpoint and you can say exactly, well, that's what happened. Or this person said this when I was growing up, or this. What happened in our family. So this is everything that I've experienced. And so this is where my money beliefs come from. You may have also had very little financial education growing up. I know back in the day, it was not very common to be talking about money, particularly for women, and I know in our home, it wasn't a topic that was openly discussed. It wasn't hidden, but it just wasn't openly discussed. I know a lot of women find themselves in a position where maybe the partner has taken care of all the money in the past, and now they find themselves in a position where they need to take control of it, and they need to be doing everything with it, but they don't know where to start. So I think you know where these beliefs come from.
They are important, but it's up to us to choose. Do we want to keep holding on to these beliefs, or are we ready to move forward and step into a new space. And I'm not saying that that space isn't going to be hard and it's not going to be uncomfortable, absolutely it could be, but it may also be the thing that makes you decide that now is the right time. Now is the time to leave those old stories behind, leave those old things back and really just step into this space of where you are open to learning and open to experience what it is to actually feel like you're good with money.
So I really want you to take a moment to think about where this belief come from. I want you to sit in that emotion for a bit. It can be really uncomfortable and it can be really messy, because what we've experienced in the past is a place that is safe, this is familiar. This is what I've always known, even if money has been very chaotic for you and it has felt overwhelming and out of control. Those feelings are familiar, so to step away from those feelings can mean that you're stepping into the unknown, which could be very scary in itself. So I get that this stuff is hard and it can be overwhelming in itself, but I really want you to think about what's serving me and what's not serving me. How are you feeling with money? How do you sleep at night? How do you make your decisions when you go to spend is every decision based on, oh, can I afford it? Can I not afford it? And we talk a lot about this in my programme, the grounded rich girl in that when you are creating a life that is a rich life, it is not necessarily the amount of money you have in the bank. It is about what a rich girl's life looks like to you now that may be more time, more freedom, more choice, because money provides those things for you then to be able to do what it is that you want to do.
So when you are thinking about this whole idea of, well, I'm just not good with money, I want you to take a step back and really ask yourself, Is this the truth? Where is the evidence that shows you that you can learn new skills? Where is the evidence to show you that you have done good things with money in the past, and now that's not to say that you have made perfect decisions in the past about money, and you've got 100% right all of the time. Because we, none of us do. We all make money mistakes. We all have those impulse purchase purchases. We all do things that we later regret. But I want you to focus on Well, what did you do right? What are the things that you have done right in other areas of your life? Where is it that you have learnt a new skill? Where is it that you can build some confidence with money? That is not from a money story or not from your family, but the things that you what are the things that you can do yourself to help you to prove to yourself that you are good with money, and you know, nobody is born with knowing how to budget or invest or manage their debt or manage their spending.
All of these skills are learnt. And I think if we allow ourselves to drop that belief that we had had, that we're just no good with money, and start to step into this space as well, I can learn it. I can learn something new. I may not be the best at it, and it may take me a long time, but that's okay, because it is about learning that new skill. I also then want you to think about what are the consequences of holding on. To this belief, I'm just no good with money. How is that making you avoid things? Or how does it make you feel very, very disconnected from your money? It may make you feel very reluctant to make financial decisions, and it may keep you in this space of feeling very stuck and like there is a weight on you, and when you're able to remove that weight, that it is invisible. We can't see it, but when you are able to lift that up, it is like just the whole world shifts. Everything moves, and you move out of this space of feeling stuck and out of control to actually being the one in control. It can if you don't move this thing of I'm I'm just no good with money. Having that stuck feeling can really make you feel very fearful of the future. And my whole aim with the work that I do is for you to feel safe and secure, both now and in the future. I want you to feel in control and to feel like you have a choice.
It is not about getting everything right all of the time, but it is about trusting yourself and learning to lean into I am good with money, and I can do this. It is really about emphasising progress, not about being perfect, not about having everything, all right, all the time. But when you are a grounded rich girl, this means that you are showing up in a very calm and intentional way with your money. But it's not about having it all figured out now. It's about being in a space where you feel very supported, very safe, very secure, and it's really just one step at a time. I like to tell my clients that we don't overhaul everything all in one go. Change can be really scary for a lot of people, and when you are talking about money to start with, that can bring up so many insecurities.
I don't want the women that I work with to feel like that. We're just going to throw everything out and start all over again. What we do is go back to the beginning. We start to look at exactly where they are right now. Look at what they have. Where is the money coming from? Coming from? Where is the money going? And then we really connect into what's important to them. What does that grounded rich girl life look like? Because that is the driver for all of these decisions when we're talking about money, I like to make things very practical, because I really believe that we need the strategy to meet the purpose. We need to be heart driven. We need to be in this space of connecting to what's aligned to us and what's important to us, but we also need the strategy and the systems and the processes behind that to then allow ourselves to step out of it, because we're the ones that get in amongst it and bugger everything up. We have our emotions, we have our thoughts, we have everything coming in that takes us away from just sticking to the plan. You know, if we were able to do everything that we needed to do, we would create a budget, and we would just stick to it. But we don't, because of the emotion that we attach to the money, to the transactions, to ourselves when we're dealing with money.
So what we want to do is remove ourselves from it as much as possible, remove the emotion, and think of money as just the transaction. We give it meaning. We give it emotion. And it's that emotion which makes us feel like we're derailing everything. So when I work with my clients, I like to give these really practical, easy steps to follow that we just do one step at a time. And as you know, I do a lot of running, and for me, it is really one foot in front of the other. It's just about keeping moving. And we may run fast at times, and then we may walk at other times. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how fast you go. And the most important thing is that we keep moving forward. So when you are looking at these things about, well, I'm just no good with money, how can we start to reframe that so that we are learning to be good with money. We are learning to be very intentional with our money. We're learning to track it without any judgement or harsh self-talk, where we're using really positive language when we're talking about ourselves. And I think the most important thing is you. Are you put yourself in a space where you are able to feel seen and heard and understood? There are so many women who struggle with the weight of money issues behind closed doors. It is a space where we feel like we should know more. We should be further along. And I have felt this for a very long time. And if you've been to one of my free challenges, you would know that I talk about being an accountant. I have felt for a very long time that I should be a lot further ahead. I should be, you know, having all of my money systems in place, everything figured out.
There should be no money issues at all, because this is the work that I do, and I help a lot of clients do it, yet, when we put ourselves in there and when we're doing it for ourself, I have all of these emotions and backstory and history and perspective that influences the way that I show up and the way that I behave with money. And so it is a very safe place for you to come into my Facebook group, the grounded rich girl, or come into my free challenge and just be yourself, because I know that there are so many women just like you who want to get better with their money, but who think they are just no good with money. So I want you to take away from this episode today that you don't have to identify as I'm good with money, or I'm bad with money, or I'm just no good with money. You don't have to take on that identity. You don't have to take on that belief. We do get a choice. We get an option to reframe it, we get an option to change our beliefs, but it does take the initial step of owning what's what beliefs are working for you and what beliefs aren't working for you, and so I really want to encourage you to feel calm and empowered when you are dealing with your money, when you are talking about your money, and that's what I do in the grounded rich girl programme and my face my free Facebook group. It is all about empowering women to feel calm with the right tools and the right mindset. It's not just about mindset, though, I believe that we need the practical tools, we need the practical support, we need the systems as well as the mindset to be able to move forward and really change this narrative that we have, that we're just not good with money.
So I want you to jump into my Facebook group. I will put the link in the show notes. I want you to connect with me on Instagram. I want you to jump into my next free challenge. These happen every month, and those communities are just so important to know that you are not alone in this space. We all have the ability to be able to change this narrative, we can all learn something new. We can all change the way that we're doing something, but it all starts with being open at the very beginning.
That's it for today. I hope this episode reminded you that being good with money isn't just about being perfect. It's about continuously showing up with curiosity, courage and compassion for yourself. It's about asking questions. It's about opening yourself up to learning. I want you to know that you are not behind. You are not broken. You are just building your version of a rich girl life, one grounded, empowered step at a time. And if this resonates for you, come and join us over in the grounded, rich girl Facebook group. We're having real, honest conversations about money mindset and really just creating a life that feels so joyful, so aligned, easy and abundant. And I would really love to see you over there.