Stop The Worry With 3 Steps To Better Money Decisions

0:05Kathy Fettke:Welcome to the Wealthy After 40 podcast, the show for Gen X women and couples who are ready to ditch financial stress and feel confident about retirement. I'm your host, Dailene Higgins, a money coach and retirement strategist to help you gain clarity and confidence with your money by creating a spending plan that aligns with your financial goals and dreams so you can spend intentionally, save consistently, and feel at peace about your future. Join me every week to understand your money, simplify your decisions, and take intentional steps toward the life you want.

0:48You work hard, you're smart, you even save, but you still feel confused about money. And you're asking yourself why? Because managing money isn't just about earning or saving. It's about knowing what to prioritize, what to track, and how to make decisions that will get you momentum. That's what we're talking about today in this episode. I'm excited to help you learn how to build confidence to make better decisions or to make any decisions. Because it's a lot of you are just, you're staying stuck, you're making it complicated, you're not taking action. And it's, it just amazes me in my many conversations I've had in the last few months, and even over the years, the smart and intelligent people on the other side.

1:47Their area of expertise, I feel humbled to even be talking to them. We all have an area of expertise that we know well. We're smart. And so I have thought about it and I'm like, why is there such a lack of confidence with money? Right? Now, I did say it's not just about earning or saving. And so it's true. We all know how to get a paycheck. We all know how to use a bank account and spend money and put it into savings if it stays there. But those are the things we talk about. When we talk about talking about money, that's what we do. And that's what everybody does. Everybody pretty much does these things that I just mentioned.

2:42And then from there is where the confidence starts waning. And when you're trying to make bigger things happen, you're trying to get bigger results, I just see the confidence wanes. As individuals are talking and then they're like, I just... And it's at this point that our lives are different money-wise. One person may be trying to invest in property. One person may be just surviving for the day. One person may be, right? And so these bigger results, these bigger decisions we need to make are not talked about. They're not common because it doesn't involve the whole masses. And so as you're looking at it, number one, I know it's scary.

3:33Number two, you're like, I'm really trying to make something happen. And so then you think, what if I try and mess this up? and it's this thought that keeps many people from taking action or making progress. I've heard this on calls many times. I do it, but I'm just worried I'm going to mess it up, or I would like to do this, but what if I mess it up? So let me put on my coaching hat for just a quick moment. If this is you, whatever the thought was, if I'm going to mess it up, I'm short to do. I don't dare do it. If you have the best of intentions and you have taken your time to evaluate the decision, right?

4:21Evaluate what you're wanting to do. You might make a mistake, but you're not going to mess up. Okay. Best of intentions. You've taken some time. It wasn't just spontaneous or sporadic. Yeah, you might make a mistake, but it's okay. Even a mistake is progress. A mistake just means we didn't get the results we wanted. We didn't end stuff and we're never going to come back from it. That's what I think we have in our heads. Because the result is big or what we're trying to achieve is big. We think if we take a step and we don't work, that it's just going to crumble and fall. You're just taking the first step.

5:09okay? If you take action and get a result you don't like, the quote mistake, then you just choose to take a different action. You solve the mistake and you make progress. So instead of originally having the three and you took action on one, you now have two because you know that one's not going to work. And you just, that is how you process things. And I know you know this, but it just feels so complicated with money because it's in an area that we don't talk about. People don't talk about. It does become scary, but it's not going to be a mess. So don't make it more complicated than it is. And I'm going to help you do that by sharing with you three steps to confident decisions.

6:01All right, so obviously practice makes perfect. Kind of heard that in the beginning. But there are three things to get you started, to help you start making this confident decision framework. Step one, decide what it is you want or what you're working toward. You're like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. But you need to clarify. Clarify the goals, the priorities, the values, the little details. Maybe not too many, but you're going to need to know what and when. For example, say you want to pay off debt. Okay, that's what you want. But it's not clear. Okay, I want to pay off debt. We need to clarify the details.

6:48So what debt and when? So say you want to be debt-free. Maybe that's the overall goal. Great. But I need you to get more detailed than that. What debt and when? Okay, micro decisions here. Big task, micro decisions. So that you know what it is and when you want to do it. And that might change as you kind of go through this process, but that's what this process is helping you do. Okay, step two, I want you to create a plan and a system to support your money. Okay, using the same example, creating a plan would be a debt payoff plan. Okay, it's going to have the details, right? It's going to be, I'm going to pay this much to this debt for this long.

7:47Great. The system to support that is say you have$200 every paycheck that is going to go towards the debt. The system is every payday, I make the payment onto the debt, right? The system is what makes it happen. And it can be just as simple as you taking action. Trigger, payday, send$200 to debt. Done. Trigger payday. Send$200 to debt. That is the system. We have the plan, but the action is the system. So we've got to specify what it is that we're doing in step two. Step three. So these steps are a cycle, a circle, and step three does not happen immediate. Okay? Step three is where we're going to review.

8:46We want to review results, but we've got to wait for results first. So hopefully you kind of have an idea about how long. Maybe you're gauging. Maybe you're reviewing, just looking at it, watching it. Maybe you are like, okay, I'll give it two, three months and then see what the results are. We've got to wait for a minute to see if it's going to work. And so then you want to review those results. Okay, what are you looking for? I know this is where most of my clients say, I don't know what I was looking for. I had tracked my numbers, but I didn't know what to look for. So as you put into play your plan and your system, you're reviewing your results.

9:30Is it big? Is it small? Is nothing happening? Is it going backwards? There's a lot of different things with money, but it still should just be parallel. And you're like, okay, it's going through. And if you're like, you know what, nothing's happening. And I know for paying off the debt, it seems a little, I can't even think of the word. It seems like it's not what you would do, but you're going to review it. Make sure you're on track. Make sure you're waiting for or feeling things, right? Every payday for that$200. dollars. If you're like, I don't have$200, those are results too. What happened?

10:11What was the shift? Maybe you're 18 months on this plan and this system, and now you don't have the$200 every paycheck. You got to go, those are results. What happened? What do I need to do? Go review, adjust, and repeat. Right? So you're going to sit right in step three for a while. and then with the results that are yay, nay, or you're not able to implement the plan anymore, then you've got to go back to step one. So step three becomes the holding pattern and then step one and a two, and then you hold it three and you go one and two, right? So it's a cycle, it's a circle, and you keep on going.

10:55Review, make adjustments, keep going. Review, make adjustments, keep going. And I want you to know, nothing is ever perfect. You can hope for it to work out the first time. And maybe it does. And then the second time it doesn't. And that's okay. The only way you're going to build your confidence is to try. See the results. Because what if it does work? What if it does work? Then you can get excited. This is what I tell my clients. I'm like, just try. Just try. And as soon as you see something, you get excited and you want to keep going. So you do. And maybe you're like, this is working. I want it to work faster.

11:40Okay, that would be a review and result. Adjust and keep going. Every step forward is going to teach you something and strengthen your money muscle. Taking you out of that stuck. We don't want to stay stuck. We We don't want to just say, it's going to be fine. No, we want to see things happening. We want to know that we're making progress somewhere. Somewhere. So take, choose. I know we talked about focus last episode, but just choose somewhere you want to make a difference in your money. That's something you can do very simple without having to be a big overall arching plan. Just be like, I want to do something better here.

12:24Decide what it is you want to do, what you're working towards. create that plan, set up a system, and then wait for results. Wait for results. What are you seeing? What is happening? So choose something today and start implementing these three steps. But if you need help knowing what that first step should be, I would love to have you inside my Map Your Money to Retirement workshop. We are going to peek at your progress first, right we're going to peak there we're going to create a plan get a focus once you have that focus we're going to create a plan on what you're going to do for the next 90 days but I'm also going to help you implement one of my money systems that I teach inside my coaching so excited to bring that to the workshop this time and help people understand the functioning of money and how it flows.

13:24Cash flow is a word that I have had coaches tell me. Nobody knows that word. Now business owners do. I get that. But the way your money flows around doing the things it needs to do, that is cash flow, right? It's just money otherwise. So I am going to help you implement a cash flow system for savings. So I hope you'll join me. I hope this was helpful. Just know your money doesn't need to feel complicated and you don't need to have all of the answers. First step is clarity. Just take a step, choose an area you want to do better in, get clear on it, make the plan, take action and review your results.

14:09I hope this episode has been helpful and we'll see you

14:12Kathy Fettke:next week. Thanks for tuning in. I hope today's episode helped you feel a little clearer and more confident about your money and reminded you that progress doesn't have to feel overwhelming. If this episode was helpful, I'd love it if you followed the show, left a quick review, or shared it with another Gen Xer who could use this kind of support. And if you're ready to stop guessing and want clarity around what to focus on next, I invite you to book a free financial clarity call at elevatefinances.us backslash clarity. And remember, retirement isn't just a dream, it's a plan. Let's make it possible together.