Your Ultimate Small-Business Spending Decision Tree

As a small business owner, you have to make a lot of decisions. Most of them are pretty important. Your spending decisions are no different. Especially when you’re getting started or working with a small budget, it’s important to view your business spending decisions as investments. These investments influence the value you offer your customers, and the overall success of your business.

One of the biggest worries I frequently hear from the small business owners I work with is about their spending decisions. Whether they’re concerned they overspending on the wrong things, oversaving and not investing enough, or spending at the wrong time, it all boils down to concerns over spending.

To help diffuse these worries, I’ve created this decision tree to help you make business spending decisions. Turn to it when you need some guidance or are faced with an important decision. Even if this guide doesn’t walk you through everything you may want to consider when making a spending decision, it’s a good resource to get you started!

Keep Your Expenses Low

Let’s start off this guide with a note about where this perspective is coming from. From all my experiences working with solopreneurs and small business owners, I personally can say I believe it’s almost always advantageous to keep overall business expenses low whenever possible. The lower you keep your business expenses, the closer you get to creating a supportive and financially sustainable business. 

Speaking of sustainability I also believe that incremental change is better than radical change and incurring a bunch of expenses all at once. Even if a certain expense doesn’t make sense for you right now, you can always make a new decision or scale up in the future.

What needs have I identified in my business that will be satisfied by this investment? Is this solution the best fit for my business?

Ask yourself: Is there another product/service/offering that is lower cost that could still satisfy my business needs? If you’re not sure, consider doing a bit more research before proceeding. 

Have I had any experience with this solution, direct or indirect? Was it satisfactory?

For example, perhaps you’re wanting to invest in some scheduling software. Maybe you’ve had an opportunity to try a free trial or have spoken to a colleague who uses the same software. Consider what you know from this experience and whether the software would be best for your needs. If the answer is yes, move forward.

Remember not to be a perfectionist here, though! You can always change your mind and make a different decision later, and there’s no harm in trying something out. The goal of these questions is help you make balanced decisions.

Can I afford this expense?

If you’re not sure, take a quick look at your cash on hand. (This is something you can do regularly in a weekly money check-in to stay on top of your business finances.) Refer to your business spending plan for the month and any plans you have for business savings you might have.

Taking all of this into account, can you afford to make this investment right now? And if not, how are you planning to finance it? How quickly will you be able to pay that financing off? Make sure you are comfortable with these spending arrangements and that they make sense for your business before proceeding.

Do I have a reasonable expectation of seeing a return on my investment either financially or in my own personal growth or capacity?

These questions are last, but definitely not least! It’s important to essentially ask yourself with any business expense you’re considering, “Will this help me make more money?”. If the answer is no, this is a good place to stop and reconsider. If your goal is to run a profitable business, then financial concerns need to be considered as a top priority.

If you’re not sure, think about how this expense will affect your work life. If, for example, it’s an investment that will save you time and allow you to do more of the income-generating tasks related to your business, then this could be a great investment. Consider how much time it will save you and try to quantify that when thinking about what your return on this investment will be.

To consider the second part of the question, refer back to your values. Ask yourself, will this investment bring more of what I value into my work and life? It can be difficult to quantify how much money something like this might be worth to you, which is why it’s important to consider your answer to this question alongside your answers to all the others in this guide.

Special Note About Impostor Syndrome and Spending on Education/Training

Especially when it comes to spending on things like trainings and certifications, many small business owners, and particularly women, sell themselves short when it comes to their own expertise and feel like they “need” more training. This same phenomenon can also apply to branding. Some business owners can spend themselves into a hole trying to make sure their business branding looks professional.

This spending behavior often stems from an emotional root of not feeling good enough, commonly referred to as impostor syndrome. If this is something you know you struggle with, I encourage you to refer to a couple more resources along with this guide when making spending decisions. Here’s a great decision tree shared by business consultant Shaneh F. Woods, and my article “Don’t Let Impostor Syndrome Fuel Overspending in Your Business.”

Both of these will get you started off in a right direction. Perhaps you’ll find that you can make your own decision tree to encourage yourself to make balanced spending decisions!

If you enjoyed this article, then I bet you’ll love my free E-Book, “Reach Your Life Goals: A Business Owner’s Guide.” Click here or below to download your free copy.

Why You Don’t Need to “Spend Money to Make Money”

A big myth that many small business owners fall victim to is the idea that you need to “spend money to make money.” This couldn’t be further from the truth – there are many ways to be creative when starting a business that don’t demand a huge amount of startup capital. Let’s take a look at a few different ways this myth can show up in small business spending, and why you don’t need to repeat the same mistakes in your own business.

You Don’t Need a Huge Amount of Startup Capital

Starting a business can be much more financially accessible than many of us might believe. Depending on what type of business you’re starting, you can begin to pilot your business idea and make a profit with only a little bit of startup cost.

Many service-based businesses require very little upfront investment. Product-based business will require expenses for inventory, but these can still be managed and kept low.

Evaluate what your goals and values are for your business, and be thoughtful about how you can achieve your goals while keeping your expenses low.

You Don’t Need to “Keep Up with the Joneses”

Teddy Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” and he was certainly right when it comes to small businesses! Comparing your branding, your website, or any other aspect of your business’s appearance can lead to emotional spending decisions and a desire for perfection.

The irony of comparing your business to another is that you usually have no way of knowing how other businesses are doing financially. For all you know, they could be close to bankruptcy, no matter how slick their branding or packaging is.

Instead of trying to “keep up” with other businesses and striving to achieve a perfect image of what you deem is professional, evaluate what’s truly important to your business. With each spending decision, ask yourself a couple questions: “Will this help me make more money?” and “Is this aligned with my goals and values for my business?” If your spending decisions are being influenced by comparisons to other businesses, take some time to ask yourself why you feel the need to do that, and how you can take that pressure off. Your business is yours, do it your way!

You Don’t Need to Take Every Training

Being experienced and well-trained is important. However, there is a strong tendency, especially among women who run service-based businesses, to over-invest in trainings, masterclasses, and certifications in their field. This typically stems from impostor syndrome, or some other version of the feeling that they are “not good enough.” This can prevent a variety of issues for the small business owner, but one of them is definitely overspending.

Reconnecting with your values can help you see past this impostor syndrome pitfall. Take some time to take stock of what you already know, and any certifications or experience you already have, before spending money on another. It might be helpful to keep a compliment file of positive feedback you’ve received on your services for when you need a reminder of the value of your abilities. Any or all of these ideas can help you re-evaluate overspending on education.

I hope that breaking down these 3 myths helped you see that spending money to make money is not necessary. If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also probably like my eBook, Reach Your Life Goals: A Business Owner’s Guide. Click here or below to download your free copy.

 

How Overspending Can Affect Your Small Business

We tend to think of overspending as a personal issue. A scene from Confessions of a Shopaholic might come to mind when you read the word – we think of this behavior as relegated to emotionally-motivated shopping sprees. But the truth is, emotional spending, and the resulting overspending, can easily happen in our business finances too.

What Does Overspending Look Like in Business Finances?

Overspending in business can show up in a variety of different ways, but there are two keys to recognizing it:

1)The spending behavior is emotionally motivated.

The emotional landscape underlying overspending is often one of insufficiency – we feel like there’s something about our business (or ourselves) that is lacking, so we rush to spend to make up for it. This can manifest as easily-labeled emotional issues like impostor syndrome, or perfectionism, or the myth that you need to “spend money to make money.”

As a general rule, it can be helpful to do some emotional inquiry around your finances. When making spending decisions, try asking yourself, “What emotions are coming up around these decisions?”

2) The spending on one area of the business is detracting from others that may also need some monetary resource.

This can be hard to spot. Especially for small business owners, there are often not clear industry standards for how much a business “should” spend on a particular category, and even if these do exist for your niche, they may not be helpful or accurate. However, if there is a clear difference between the amount you’re spending in one area and others, and there is an emotional component to that spending, then it may be overspending.

How Can Overspending Affect Your Small Business?

This is the interesting paradox of overspending – it creates deprivation. Karen McCall summarizes this idea beautifully in her book Financial Recovery when she explains how overspenders are likely to spend it all on “pretties” while neglecting the “necessaries.” This can show up in a business in situations where certain pieces, like aesthetic branding or top-of-the-line equipment, are easily prioritized, but there isn’t enough cash on hand to pay for a business license or save for tax expenses.

The result is not a financially functional business. While there are some elements covered, without a money system that prioritizes important logistics and gets you paid, the business will soon become draining to run and simply eat cash.

You Know Best

It’s important to remember that when it comes to your business, you are the best expert. Nobody can decide that you’re overspending on a certain category except you. A good bookkeeper or a money buddy can help observe financial patterns in your business and give you some advice, and this can be an extremely helpful resource! But ultimately, you call the shots around spending in your business – it’s important to remember that and to stay confident in your choices.

If you liked this article, you’ll probably enjoy my free EBook, Reach Your Life Goals: A Business Owner’s Guide. Download a free copy here.

How Oversaving and Underearning Can Affect Your Business

Have you ever considered how your personal money behaviors affect your business? Oversaving and underearning can have drastic effects on your personal finances, but they can also affect your business. 

If you are a solopreneur or small business owner, it’s important to consider the ways these behaviors might transfer into how you interact with your business finances. Let’s take a look at some possible ways your business can be affected, and what you can do about it:

Restriction 

Underearning and oversaving can deeply limit your business from growing. Both can limit the amount of cash on hand to work with, which on its own can have challenging effects on a business. 

With both underearning and oversaving there is often a deep sense of financial anxiety. This anxiety can bring an edge of fear into the way you handle your business. This fear can be deeply restricting, and limit what you feel comfortable doing in your business, while also taking a toll on your mental health. If you identify with this, I encourage you to read my piece on reducing money stress in your business and my article on working with affirmations to influence your mindset. 

Missed Opportunities 

The restriction and anxiety that come along with underearning and oversaving can cause you to miss key opportunities in your business. Web designer and business mentor Yarrow Magdalena often talks about how perfectionism could be costing you money, and my observation is that the same anxiety underlying perfectionism often dovetails with anxious financial patterns. When we block ourselves from trying something new, taking a chance, or accepting a new project in our business, we can miss valuable opportunities to grow and find success. 

One key to overcoming these behaviors can be to think about the opportunities that spending can help you open up to. In my interview with digital marketing consultant Tracey Lee Davis of ZingPop Social Media, she shared that the way she makes spending decisions in her business is by considering the question “Will this investment ultimately save me time in the long run or make my life easier in some way?” She reported that making changes in her business by hiring a bookkeeper, VA, and CPA have all made a huge difference in her business because they’ve freed her up to do client work. This type of investment also gives business owners time to work on their businesses, not just in them. This can create space for strategic decision making and more opportunities for growth, change, and fulfillment in your work life. 

Embrace the Flow

I’d like to share my own personal experiences with oversaving and underearning. My childhood consisted of a fair amount of financial instability, so anxiety around money became something that felt natural to carry around. I would often feel guilty spending money on things that felt “frivolous,” but through the years with all my work around finances, I have been able to neutralize those fears. 

I noticed this one day when booking a massage with Liz Di Guilio of Myomotive (who I highly recommend if you are in the San Jose Area). I realized that instead of feeling guilty and scared because I was spending money, I was thinking, “I’m grateful to be able to support this business owner.”

This thought immediately brought me back to Lynne Twist’s book Soul of Money and the ideas she shares about embracing the flow of money. If you’re curious about her ideas, read my book review here! Embracing the flow can be a great antidote to the fear and insecurity that mark oversaving and underearning.  

If you enjoyed this blog post, you’ll probably really like my free e-Book, 9 Secrets for Financial Self Care. Click here or below to grab your copy today. 

How to Manage Your Money Like a Pro with Automation

Have you heard of decision fatigue? The idea is pretty simple. According to this article from the AMA, decision fatigue refers to “the idea that after making many decisions, your ability to make more and more decisions over the course of a day becomes worse.” Thanks to this phenomenon, it pays to reduce the number of decisions you need to make in a day. That’s where automation comes in.

Automation = Better Financial Habits

Automation is your money’s best friend. By automating your finances, you reduce your opportunities for decision making and decision fatigue, thereby reducing your chances to change your mind about saving money or paying a bill in full. By reducing your decisions you set yourself up for success! Automation can build up your savings and pay off your bills, without any extra effort on your part. So, how can you use automation as a financial tool?

Automate Your Bill Payments

There are many different facets of your finances which can benefit from automation. Automating your bills is a good place to start. Many banks have online bill pay options available that help you pay your regular monthly bills on time. In particular, automation is a good way to ensure you always pay your credit card balance in full, so that you don’t accrue any interest fees. However, one important thing to be aware of when automating your bills is that you will need to stay aware of your bank balance, to avoid over-drafting your account. As long as you keep an eye on your balance, automating your bills is a good way to avoid late fees, build good credit, and stay on top of your finances.

Automate Your Savings

The other major arena of your finances that definitely deserves some automation-attention is your savings. I touched briefly on automating your savings in an earlier article, which you can read here. The most important thing about automating your savings is that if money automatically gets moved out of your spending account, you have no chance to spend it. That makes saving that much easier! We do this with our retirement savings, and it really helps us keep it up. A great resource for further information about automating your savings is The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach.

If you liked this article and want more tips on financial organization that will make your life a LOT easier, you’ll probably enjoy a free copy of my eBook, 9 Secrets of Financial Self Care. Click here or below to download it!

My Top 5 Best Apps to Track Your Finances

Keeping track of your finances can be life-changing. The impact of paying better attention to your money and spending is not to be underestimated, whether this is in your business or personal finances.

There are several different options that I like to recommend to clients to help them track. Check out my top 5 recommendations below and try out your favorite.

Good old-fashioned manual tracking.

You can do this with paper and pencil or in a spreadsheet. Some people who have a lot of cash transactions in their business or personal finances might prefer this one. Especially in your personal life, it can be nice to keep a notepad or a note on your phone to record cash transactions so you don’t forget about them. However, this is definitely the most laborious way to track your money, and the amount of time you need to put in to do it effectively can prevent people from keeping up the habit. For this reason, I generally don’t recommend it, unless you know you’re someone who will keep up with this system at least once a week.

Mint

I have personally been using Mint for the last five years. It’s free, it connects to all your accounts and automatically imports your spending information, and it’s very easy to use. It has an app, which is really convenient. However, what I don’t like is that in order to get all the info that’s really valuable, I need to download the data into a spreadsheet. I personally do this at the end of every month to wrap-up my finances. It’s also important to note that as a free program, they are keeping (and likely monetizing in some way) data on your spending habits, and they are constantly advertising to you on this platform. It’s important to be wary of the barrage of credit card offers, banking deals, etc. It’s very basic, but it’s a great tool to get started with tracking your spending. 

MoneyGrit.(R)

MoneyGrit.(R) is a software I now use from Karen McCall that I love working with for a couple of reasons. The interface provides a more intentional and hands-on experience when it comes to planning your spending. They actually lead you through a process of reviewing your intentions when setting up your spending plan! This emotional dimension can be really helpful in creating a connection between you and the decisions you make with your money.  The program also includes extras like worksheets to set goals and plan out financial self care action items. Lastly, this software factors periodic expenses into your spending plan, which is something a lot of money tracking software misses completely. MoneyGrit.(R) offers both a personal and a business version of their software.

Your Need a Budget

YNAB does a great job of emphasizing putting your money to work for you by getting you thinking about long term wealth-building. While I’ve personally never used this tool, a lot of people love it for that reason.

Quickbooks Online

QBO is the standard when I’m working with clients on their business finances. The reporting in Quickbooks is second to none and a lot of information can be derived from using their system. Whether you work with a professional like me or DIY, there are a lot of resources available to help you and almost any bookkeeper is going to be very familiar with QBO.  Using QBO can also make tax time extremely easy for you or your tax preparer. This isn’t really a personal finance app, but it’s worth mentioning because your business and personal finances are definitely interrelated

If you liked this post and want more pointers towards financial self care, download your free copy of my e-Book, 9 Secrets of Financial Self Care! Click here or below to get yours.

 

4 Simple Tips for Keeping Your Small Business Finances Organized

 

In the midst of tax season, a lot of us are looking to do better on our finances. Maybe you got a big tax bill and are now wondering where your earnings went. Perhaps you were a little less organized than you would have liked. Or maybe this time just makes you extra aware of where your business is financially.

Whatever the case, mid-points like this are great times to give your finances a makeover! Here are my 4 simple tips for keeping your small business finances organized and intentional.

Review Your Goals

After a big financial event like tax season, the financial goals you set earlier in the year deserve a revisit. Check in with them and ask yourself if they still fit. If not, give your goals a nice update! Make sure what you’re aiming towards is relevant to you. You can check out my article on doing a mid-year review of your finances right here.

If you don’t have any financial goals, now is the time to set them. Harness whatever financial fervor tax season (or whatever other financial situation brought you to this post) has instilled in you.

What are your ideal financial conditions? Dream them up, write them down, and come up with a plan. If you need some pointers, here’s my article “4 Strategies for Setting Doable Financial Goals.”

Set Up a Weekly Money Check-In

So much of creating the life you want is about habits. One of the best habits to adopt, in my opinion, is regular “money time”. Find time each week to check in with your finances. Start with a short chunk, to make it feel more manageable. Fifteen to thirty minutes should suffice.

Use this time to check in with your expenses, upcoming bills, IOU’s, and more as needed. Here are my suggestions on what to look for during your weekly money check-in.

Make a Plan to Stay on Top of Your Books

Especially if organization was an issue this tax round and you run a business, making a plan to stay organized until next tax time is a great thing to do right now. Ask yourself what you need to be able to do this.

Do you need to work with a bookkeeper? Do you need to get some training on how to do your bookkeeping yourself? Identify your needs and take some steps to set yourself on the right path.

Find a Money Buddy

It’s my personal belief that anything can go better when you have an accountability buddy. Find someone in your circle who has a financial goal they’re working on too, and join forces! This might be a fellow business owner, or someone from your church, or another mom from a play group.

“Why You Need a Money Buddy”

Once you’ve found your money buddy, establish the terms of your accountability partnership. How often do you want to meet? How do you want to do check ins? Do you want to learn about finances together, or just trade tips on goals?

These 4 tips will help set you on the right path. If you’re a small business owner looking for more ideas, you might like my free eBook, the Cash Flow Reboot Guide: A Guide to Thriving in Uncertain Times. Click below and get your free copy.

Maximize Your Profits With Bookkeeping: How To Get the Valuable Info Your Financial Records Are Hiding

Your financial records hold the key to profitability in your business. Want to know how to find that key? Any time of year, but especially during tax season, this valuable insight is available to you. All you have to do is review your financial records.

Let’s take a look at the steps you need to take to get this information. Good bookkeeping practices can help you unlock profits!

Step 1: Review Your Financial Records

This is something you can do anytime of year, but it may be particularly easy to do during tax season, or at the end of the year when you’re reviewing. Take a look through your past financial records, with an eye to sales.

If you do not have your bookkeeping up to date, this is a good time to pause and get that done first! This will help you move through the rest of the process.

Specifically, it’s important to take a look at two things: which time of year and which offerings bring in the most revenue.

Step 2: Take Note of Time Cycles and Best Offerings

By studying your financial records with an eye to times of the year, you can learn a lot about how your business behaves over time. Whether your business is product- or service-based, it is likely subject to fluctuations. It’s likely that these fluctuations are seasonal, or else focused on specific events.

For example, let’s say you own a craft business that brings in the most revenue in the spring and early winter. If you look closely at your records and what you’re doing in your business throughout the year, you might realize these spikes in revenue come from particular sources. In a craft business, it might be that there are several public craft fairs you like to attend in the spring. In early winter, perhaps people buy your products as Christmas gifts. (For some advice specifically about craft fairs, please check out this post!)

By analyzing your financial records, it becomes more apparent to you what times of the year and what offerings bring in more revenue. This makes it easier to direct your energy towards maximizing your profits.

Step 3: Using this Info

Now that you’re clear on the products or services that bring you the most revenue, as well as the time of year, events, or other factors that effect this, it’s time to put this info into action. How can you re-create these conditions to bring in more revenue?

For example, perhaps you have one product that’s particularly popular – can you create variations of this product? Maybe it’s especially popular during summer – can you do extra promotions or bring in more stock? How can you expand here?

Ask yourself the questions above, and think about what results you’d like to achieve. Would you like more revenue? More sales of a certain offering? Or perhaps you’re just not clear about what’s working best in your business. Analyzing your financial records can help you figure this out.

Once you’re clear on what your goals are, and what offerings and times of year are the moneymakers in your business, you can put together a strategy based on your findings to create more profitability in your business.

Conclusion

To maximize your profits, focus your business’s energy towards your most profitable offerings and times of year. Reviewing your financial records will help you determine this information.

This is also one of many things a good bookkeeper can help you discern from your records, and something that I regularly do with my clients. If you’d like some support in this process, you are welcome to schedule a curiosity call with me.

Money Talk Matters: Why Talking About Money Can Help You Learn Financial Literacy

When you read the title of this post, how did you react? Did you nod your head in agreement, or did you start to squirm? We all have different attitudes about money, and different attitudes about talking about it. Although it’s culturally considered a taboo to talk about money, I believe it’s important.

Whether it be with our friends, children, family members, or neighbors, there are many reasons why talking about money candidly can positively impact both you and those you discuss it with. Here are my top 5 reasons to talk about money more.

Gain Financial Knowledge & Skills

Everyone has a different perspective on money. Everyone grew up with different attitudes and assumptions around it, so everyone has different strategies and tools for working with it. This means that the more conversations you start with others about money, the more you will naturally learn about different money styles. This can also be a great way to stay in the know about current financial issues.

Ensure You’re Valuing Your Work

Whether you are self-employed or an employee at a larger company, it pays to talk about how much you make. For self-employed people, it can be very important to learn what other people in your industry are charging and making. This helps you get a better sense of your industry and what you can charge for your products or services. Many people, especially new business owners, have a tendency to undervalue their work. Talking about money with other small business owners can help you avoid this pitfall.

If you’re an employee of a business, talk with your coworkers to ensure you’re not getting underpaid for your work. This can help you gather the information you need to ask for a raise or seek a higher-paying position.

In either situation, I highly recommend reading my article, “To Increase Your Earnings, Take Action” to help inspire your next steps.

Find an Accountability Buddy

Talking about money goals and spending plans with others can help you stay on track with your financial aspirations. Similarly, you can help provide a level of financial accountability to whoever you talk money with. This is one of many great things you can do with a money buddy. Many people are highly motivated by social accountability, so you may find that this works well for you.

Lower Stress & Anxiety

Talking about money with others can release a lot of emotional burdens. You might have the chance to unpack some shame around your finances, find out that your conditions are normal compared to your peers, or get recommendations for resources that can help you along your financial path. Many people find their stress levels elevate when they think about money. Thinking and talking about it with others can reduce your stress.

Ease Your Relationships

Money can affect your relationships. Talking about money with those close to us in an open, honest way is a skill that pays dividends. You may find that the more you are able to open up and talk calmly about finances, the more at ease your relationships feel.

If you enjoyed this article, you might like to grab your free copy of 9 Secrets to Financial Self Care! Click here or below. Enjoy!

Is Your Money Affecting Your Relationships?: 3 Tips to Cultivate A Healthier Money Relationship

How we interact with our money can affect how we interact with others, and ourselves. So it’s important to tend to our relationship with money, in order to keep things clear in our other relationships! Today, I’m talking about three different ways that money may be affecting your relationships, and how you can begin to cultivate a healthier relationships with your money. I’ll be referencing The Soul of Money, an amazing book by Lynne Twist, throughout. Check out my book review if you’d like to learn more!

1. Dissolve the Competition

“Money has become a playing field where we measure our competence and worth as people. We worry that if we stop striving for more, we’ll… lose our advantage.” – Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money

As this quote highlights, money in our society is a high-stakes game. The competition and the need to always be getting more, buying more, earning more, and doing more can creep in and take over our lives. This can and does affect our social relationships. The phrase “keeping up with Joneses” is direct proof of how competition around money can affect how we interact with our neighbors, friends, and community members. At the same time, it’s also evidence of how we tend to measure ourselves and our efforts – against our earnings.

To cultivate a healthier relationship with money, and in turn, healthier social relationships, I suggest beginning by removing this element of competition. Work with affirmations or turn to mindset work or journal prompts to find ways to uproot this tendency. Talk openly with other people about your money. That’s a perfect segue into my next point!

2. Practice Transparency

“Our behavior around money has damaged relationships when money has been used as an instrument of control or punishment, emotional escape or manipulation, or as a replacement for love.” – Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money

Find some people who you can really trust to talk to about money. I call this process building a Money Team. In particular, it’s great to have a friend or two who you can open up to about finances.

 

Having a Money Buddy can give you a space to practice financial transparency, and get more comfortable bringing up money in your social relationships. This can be a great way to work on the feelings that come up around money in this arena. Eventually, you might find yourself feeling more comfortable sharing about your financial situation in general!

3. Create a Spiritual Connection to Your Money

“Your relationship with money can be a place where you bring your strengths and skills, your highest aspirations, and your deepest and most profound qualities.”  – Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money

The Soul of Money is definitely an excellent resource in this area. Lynne Twist writes about how money is like water, it’s a resource that’s meant to flow. She encourages us to recognize that money itself is not problematic, and that it is instead the interpretation of money that brings up so many issues.

Doing some personal work around our connections with money can be a great way to prevent it from interrupting our connections with ourselves and others. If you’d like some resources for this pursuit, I have a couple suggestions:

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This post was originally published in 2022. 

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