The 4 Financial Foundations You Need (+ the Missing Catalyst)

0:05Welcome 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, 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.

0:50Welcome to the episode. So we've been talking about retirement quite a bit. And in the last five episodes, I've shared with you the framework I use to help clients like you get to retirement. But I also want to share with you the things we specifically work on inside that framework, because I've heard from many of you saying, I'm still trying to, and I get answers like, get my kid to or through college, pay off student loans or other debt, and wanting to buy a second home that they don't have time to think about retirement, or that isn't something they're trying to accomplish right now. I understand that.

1:34We're going to have an episode about, I don't have time to think about retirement in the new future. But I decided that it was best for us to go back to the basics so that you understand the financial foundations of money. And this doesn't change anything that we've been talking about. It's just been a while since I've dove into these specifically. And to name them, they are savings, debt, managing debt, emergency fund, and then systems. Those are your financial foundations. And understanding these and the simplicity of these is where you're going to want to be. Now, in this stage of life, most of you were over 40, you're juggling quite a bit.

2:27A lot is going on financially, life-wise, changes, all of the things. And so I think in this stage, you feel like you need to complicate the system because life feels complicated. Life actually is complicated. Then they're done that. It's all of the things. You're becoming an empty nester, getting the kids off to college, or you're transitioning to maybe downsizing or career, what's happening there. All of these things as we progressively get older, it just becomes complicated there. And so we're busy. We've done okay with money. You've done just fine. But there's some things that aren't quite pegging into place, helping you get to those goals easily.

3:16You're striving, you feel like you're just, and you're like, okay, I've just got to make this more complicated and you don't. So let's go back to the foundations or the basics. And to do, I've given you the list. Here are some things I want you to start thinking about. And we're going to cover those and then I'm going to share what's going to be coming up on the podcast. Are you saving consistently and in a manner to make those goals and dreams a reality? You want those things to happen, but are you saving in that direction, intentionally saving for the things you need and want to do? Next question, are you managing debt so that you still remain in control and it doesn't control you.

4:08Remember, I don't believe debt is bad and I don't believe you have to be debt free, but it doesn't need to control you. Do you have an emergency fund? I still don't like that word, but we're using it here because everybody knows what it is for the most part, future episode coming. And if you do have an emergency fund, have you defined its specific use or uses. That's probably more key than what we're calling it, the specific use for that. And the last question I want you to think about for this episode is, do you have savings for not only your dreams and goals, but your unexpected expenses as well?

4:56Are we preparing? Are we planning? Are we remembering those? So again, as I said, the financial foundations you need are, and these are just listed very broadly, we're going to discuss them, but savings, debt, emergency fund and systems. Now when I say systems, that is going to be your budget and tracking. There's a few other pieces in there. If you remember from my framework, I talk about your money systems. This really gives you the control. It doesn't deal with any mindset pieces that's done in your money decisions. So really, that is key. So these are functionally is what we're talking about the foundation things you need.

5:39So as we are revisiting these topics, these foundations, I'm going to bring past episodes into the mix here. But you're also going to want to look for some very bold episodes where I share why I believe some traditional financial advice is not serving you well. So we'll take those will be the takes on those subjects as we move through them over the next few weeks. Now let's stop here for just a quick second. In January, I held my retirement ready workshop, and I'm still hosting that same workshop with similar content, but I have now called it Map Your Money Workshop. Mapping your money, we're going to evaluate your financial foundations, and we're going to determine where your gaps are and what action steps are going to serve you to move forward.

6:36This is very much the prequel to my framework. Part of that framework of your money reality is clarity. It's understanding where that is. So that is coming up. I will share more in the next few episodes. The attendees at the workshop in January said it was very informative and helpful. So I hope you will join me. That is on April 4th, but head on over to elevatefinances.us backslash workshop to learn more. If that date doesn't work, there are two more dates posted on that. So yeah, go check that out, be sure to visit that and see if it's a good fit for you. All right, so going back to the basics, we've talked about them.

7:21I've given you some questions to get your, hopefully the thoughts moving, the juices flowing. But really these basics are the anchor in what will help you make any dream happen, any goal happen. And so understanding that, that you don't need to complicate it, even though life feels complicated. And so you want to match your money flow, your money routine, your money strategies to that, and you really don't need to. So going back and understanding if you have those foundations in place, if they are supporting you in the way you can use them. You can Google budget templates, how to budget, whatever your search terms are, and it's going to give you many different ways.

8:13How am I different? Let me tell you a little story. For 15 years of my career, before I retired and became a financial coach, I worked with 22 individuals every year in government to put a budget together. So these were law enforcement officials. Okay, individuals who they joined because they wanted to be a cop, they didn't want to do numbers. But their promotion and the work, they needed to do the budget. I was brought on to help be basically what I called a translator. So I was the middle person between those individuals knowing what they needed to do the work on boots on the ground type of thing.

8:59And then I worked with the auditors who are your accounting number nerds, and they're like, we need it this way. But they didn't have the time to work with everybody in that government agency. And so I was tasked with these 22. These 22 had very different personalities, abilities, desires, all of those things, I heard from one end of the spectrum of, I don't want to understand that, or I don't want to do this, I want you to do it for me. And I said, I need you to understand it. So having that level to another person who says, I want to learn this really so that I can do it on my own for the next number of years, and everything in between.

9:44So being able to help you create not only a budget, but a tracking system that systems have gotten pretty good at that. We can make that work for your abilities and understanding that going out and Googling it and doing the template, it might work for you. It might work for you. Even if you're busy and complicated in this life, and I tell you to make it simple and you go do that, then it works for you, great. It's like understanding there are many different ways to approach what needs to be happening with your financial foundations. But the beginning spot, the catalyst for your success, the catalyst for all of these things is clarity.

10:31Clarity. I know we talk about that a lot. That is something I talk about in my coaching container throughout. It's a theme that's woven throughout. Because if you don't understand what is happening or what you want to happen, it just becomes, there's no sense and no purpose. I could do that for anybody. But it's really important to understand that your work clarity is the catalyst for you to be able to put these things into place and one part of it to achieve your goals. Like you are responsible to pay for things. And so you make it happen. That's easy. But for those things that you desire, those things that are more like goals or things you're trying to achieve, if you don't understand what to do and when, and that is the piece that is most of the time left off, you are essentially creating a moving target.

11:27Thinking about your goal, kid going to college, you do have a date, but how much, where, all of those, that's the when portion. But if you're like, I want to buy a second home, or I need to pay off my debt, when you have to get specific. So that is the element that you want to start. And then you can define which one of those financial foundation pieces you can start working with first. Those financial foundation pieces are all the pieces of day-to-day money. Those support your investment piece that usually a financial planner or you do on your own, and that's fine. I did mine. But these day-to-day money pieces exist even in retirement.

12:15So it is essential for you to get these in order sooner than later, having that system set up, understanding that flow. I had a client come to me. She was about five years away from retirement. Her financial planner was saying, how much do you need to live on every month? She had done fine, paid off all of her debt, but hadn't had a system for many years. Life got caught up. She's raising her kids, getting them off, doing all the things, working hard. And so she really needed that. We worked, we helped her put in a system, we helped her understand what was still missing, so that she would be successful in retirement as well.

12:59So I'm excited to go back to these pieces, really talk about them, and understand them in a way that helps you understand them. Now, what do I mean by that? So like I just said, there's lots of budget templates. There's lots of point of views. So I said, I will be sharing that, but there's ways to come in and make this work for you, make it happen. Really my goal for any client I work with is I want to simplify the system so that everything is coming in and you don't have to spend a lot of time because you are in a busy time of life. And even if you're not, even if you're like empty nesting, you're probably, hopefully if you've transitioned and shifted, there's a transition period for that.

13:51Another story for another day. But you're enjoying life. You don't want to spend hours upon hours managing your money, following the numbers, making sure that each little dollar is going to debt. Each little dollar is going to savings. That's why we create a system. That's why we create a system together. It works for you. It works for your schedule and it gets you accomplishing any goal, any dream that you want. So if you feel one or more of these financial foundation pieces are causing you problems, schedule a financial clarity call. You can do that at elevatefinances.us backslash clarity. And I'll help you determine if the one you're thinking or cut to is truly the root cause of your problem.

14:40And I will also share with you how my coaching program will help you solve that problem and what system piece you should put into place to do. All right, so we are headed for the next couple of weeks. You'll hear some repeat episodes, which they are probably ones you haven't heard, if you're new to the podcast, then you don't have to go into the backlog. There's lots of episodes that I've released. I will put my little spin, my little takes on them so they are not just dropping as they were, but I'm also wanting to share with you some point of views, meaning I've got some ideas and some thoughts about each of these pieces, and so I hope you'll be on the lookout for those as well.

15:26Thank you for listening each week. And if you love the podcast, please leave me a review. It helps me get noticed by others like you in the same phase of life, struggling, juggling, chaotic mess of money. So thank you for being here. 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.

16:14And remember, retirement isn't just a dream, it's a plan. Let's make it possible together. The Boo本欠.