Click Here to Listen on Apple Podcasts                Click Here to Listen on Non-Apple Devices

Shownotes:

Hey, hey, y’all!

Oh, I’m excited because today we’re diving into Abundant Money and I’m sharing some strategies, systems, and mindset I know you’re going to love!

In this episode, we’re diving into:

1. Clarifying your financial needs and then adding extra for spacious money 😉
2. Taking a holistic view of identifying your financial needs because when we “forget” a few, this is the easiest way to interfere with abundant money
3. Saying your BEST NO so you can say your BEST YES
4. And the biggest assumptions we make around what abundance really is and isn’t!

Links mentioned in this episode:

• The DreamMoney™ Blueprint and Calculator. Get yours today!!
• Ep 104, The Skill of Having Money, on the Money Love Podcast with Paige Pritchard and her guest, Germaine Foley
• Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap
• The 2% Pledge

Transcript:

Hey, hey y’all!  And welcome back to the show!  Whew – last week was a whirlwind getting the brand new DreamMoney page launched and then I went into balance mode which is basically me having a few days of high output followed by like 5 days of low to no output 😉  I’ve had multiple people close to me over the years tell me I’m exceptional at taking care of my energy because I do big things, but then do nothing for awhile, take plenty of vacays, etc.  And I thought that was important to share because sustainability looks different for each of us.  Some of us sprint and then rest.  Some don’t do sprints at all, but work at a consistent pace we can maintain.  Maybe some of us do a bit of both.  Either way, energy management is where it’s at and I’m now in a new groove of creating all kinds of content for the DreamMoney launch happening all this month!  

Other than that – a few life updates over here before we dive into the A of DreamMoney, which is all around abundant money.  

So as you may recall earlier on the show, I shared that my husband and I were trying to figure out where we want to move after he retires from the military in May.  We’ve been considering Las Vegas, Charlotte, or Charleston and are now considering simply staying in Omaha for a year or two and my heart feels pretty content about this.  We have a great house and more importantly a low mortgage, our kids are starting to make a lot of friends this year, and I dig the no mosquitos and the four seasons.  

I think we’ve been in a season too of working to get to this place of abundance, and the idea of moving to a new city where we’d pay three times as much for what we have now, not to mention three times as high of an interest rate feels like not the best financial decision even if we could make it happen.  The housing market still feels wild and as much as I am excited to move to our forever city, I’m in this season of having plenty of cash flow and enjoying it, which I’m so excited to dive into!!

And just to put some real numbers in perspective here, we have a 2700 sq foot house with a mortgage that’s just over 12% of our total income. And we own 3 cars that are just over 12% of our total income too.  So between our mortgage and our vehicles, we’re just shy of 25%, which leaves 75% for utilities and extraneous spending.  We’re credit card debt free.  We’re able to save every month.  And both of our kids are now in school, which means no childcare tuition.  It’s rad!  

Now, we didn’t have any of these margins clarified before we moved to Omaha.  We actually moved from a mortgage in TX that was at the top end of our budget and because we figured Omaha wasn’t going to be our forever home, we decided to buy something at the lower end of our budget and now I’m so glad we did.  We did a huge renovation in 2020 putting another $100k into our house and although our home is far from my dream house, it is everything I need in this season.  

I think it’s so easy to get swept up in better and more in this country and trust me – I have dream house dreams with one of those accordion doors that opens the whole house to the outside that looks out onto an infinity pool and hottub with mountain or lake views and a Jaguar F-Pace parked in my garage, but abundant money doesn’t live in the more or better.  It lives in the more or better still feeling spacious where you have more than enough money left over after you’re done paying your bills.  And so although I want those things, I only want to upgrade to them when their margins make sense for our monthly income.  

Because I’ve been house poor. I’ve been car poor.  I’ve also been team poor in my business, which I’ll talk about more in just a second.  Experiencing the opposite has been really great in this season.  And of course, part of what makes this all possible is one – living in a dual income household, having health insurance through the military, and living somewhere where the cost of living is super low (or at least low to me).

If we moved to Vegas, Charlotte, or Charleston – we’d for sure be paying double to even triple and there have been many times in our house and city search where I’ve been so frustrated that the cost of living is so high. I know at some point, we’ll make the move, but my plan is to have a down payment large enough to keep our mortgage and vehicles around 30% of our income, which will not only mean having a fairly aggressive savings goal because my dream house is easily over 7-figures – but also earning more between the two of us.  Both/and. And even then, putting $500,000 down on a house, for instance, also makes you think about what else that $500k could get you and if that’s the smartest financial decision, but I digress. 

I think one of the most common fallacies many of us have when it comes to abundant money is that when we’re making more than enough or have more than enough – we won’t need to pick and choose what to do with our money. We can have it all.  But no matter how much you’re making or how much extra you have – you’ll still need to make decisions about your money.  You’ll still have to choose between one thing or another.  

Even Kim Kardashian, for example, has to choose between one mansion or another and you might be thinking, “poor Kim, I’d love to have that problem”, but the decision still has to be made.  People are still going to make smart decisions with their money.  

So, as I was preparing for this episode, I’ve of course been thinking a lot about abundance and how we create it. And I’m excited to dive in here because one part of abundance is having a spending plan where there is money left over, but this isn’t the easiest thing to create for most people. I think the age ole advice is 1 – live below your means.  

But to be honest, that’s never felt sexy to me, luxurious to me, or abundant to me.  It’s felt like sacrificing or settling.  I also think living below your means is only possible when your means aren’t too low to begin with, which has also made me question where that advice was coming from to begin with.

Was it coming from people who were earning enough money that living under their means still provided a good life?  Likely.  And I definitely don’t subscribe to Dave Ramsey’s perspective on living on beans and rice to get ahead.  I subscribe to enjoying your life now, which I think is a balance of having a spending plan where your money is going in directions that bring you joy and make a meaningful difference to your lifestyle while also being grateful for what you have and still dreaming of the things you want.  At least, that’s where I’m at in this season.  

But that’s not where we’re going in this episode.  Because when it comes to abundant money, what I want to invite us into is the strategy & systems of abundance as well mindset.  So, let’s dive in! 

I know I’ve told this story before, but I think it’s worthy of repeating.  For most of my life, I’ve been focused on not-enough money.  Every time I’d open my accounts, I’d want to see more money there.  Every time I’d go out shopping, I’d wish I could buy whatever I wanted.  And before I did a lot of my money healing work, money stress was a common theme for me.  

I grew up with money stress and experiences of “not-enough”.  Both my parents worked and even though we lived in a middle class neighborhood where things were in no means extravagant, there were definitely times when things were tight.  We had to cancel cable for a bit or pair back on extracurricular activities and there was one particular week that I remember clear as day that there wasn’t a lot of food in the house, but when it came to the big things, I always had more than enough.  

My parents’ money stress, though, definitely filtered down to me and you’d be surprised just how much that becomes an unconscious pattern because that’s how you’re used to relating to money. 

So “never enough” money was a well-ingrained money belief I carried most of my life.  

I don’t have a single memory of feeling like there was more than enough money and of course, when you grow up with constant money stress, our little brains decide money must be hard to make, get, receive, or manage. Otherwise, why would this be so stressful?  

It’s fascinating when you start to dig into your own conditioning around money.  Anyway, never enough money was my primary orientation. 

But then one day in the fall of 2015, after months of doing enoughness work, which was really about my own enoughness and worthiness as well as grounding down into the belief that there’s always more than enough time and I was also enough regardless of how much money I made, I had this experience with money I’ll never forget. 

I remember exactly where I was sitting when I opened my checking account that day. I had overdrawn my account many times as a teenager learning to manage money so I was used to seeing my account in the negative. Not that this happened all the time, but enough times where you know what it’s like to overdraw an account.  

On this particular day, I was still feeling some shame and feelings of not enough around my earning.  I was in the first year of my business and spending every single dollar I made.  Not because I was necessarily overspending.  But because there simply wasn’t a lot being made.  

In those feelings of not enough, I opened my account and the balance was $0.00.  And for some reason, seeing that balance NOT in the negative and NOT in the positive, but literally 000 was a HUGE moment that shifted my brain chemistry because for the first time, instead of my immediate thought being “not enough money”, my thought was…

Huh,” just enough money”.  Now, that’s not to say that became my new automatic thought.  I for sure had to work at it, but this experience of having “just enough” money was a very distinct bridge to having more than enough money because on paper, when math “maths”, the definition of abundance is having more than enough whether that’s an extra dollar or an extra million.  Obviously, the more extra there is, the more abundant we think we’ll feel – BUT as I’ve stepped into more and more money and watched my clients step into more and more money – what I notice most of the time is that when we have more than enough, hell – when we have more extra money than we’ve ever had, many of still don’t feel abundant. 

Why?  

Because the feeling of abundance isn’t created through numbers alone.  It’s also a perspective, a mindset, and even a practice that has to start alongside your journey to more money.  Whether that’s acknowledging when you have “just enough” to be provided for or “more than enough” to be provided for, if you want to feel abundant with money – we have to acknowledge when there’s first an abundance to begin with.  And then getting more and more comfortable with becoming more and more abundant.  

I was listening to a podcast episode the other day on Money Love with Paige Pritchard and Germaine Foley about the skill of having money and although they didn’t approach this from the lens of abundance, I couldn’t help but think about the very real experience of abundance making some of us uncomfortable.  What’s it like to have more than enough?  Is it okay to have more than enough?  

So just a little aside here that abundance will also tap dance on what’s okay, what’s allowed, and what’s safe for our nervous systems to receive, which is all the more reason to start paying attention to when you have more than enough and your comfort level having it.  

Every single time I give myself a pay raise from my business, for instance, I notice the discomfort of stretching into more abundance, which is all the more evidence that abundance isn’t just a numbers game. It’s an energetic game. It’s a capacity game.  It’s a belief game.  And just because there’s more to receive doesn’t mean it automatically feels safe to receive it.  I think this is so fascinating!  And also reminds me of Gay Hendricks work around Upper Limits, but I digress. 

When it comes to stepping into Abundant Money, I approach this in a few key strategic ways with my clients. 

1. The first, is inside the DreamMoney Blueprint, one of the first exercises we’re going to do is calculate your key financial needs.  We do this for both your business expenses and how much it’s costing you to run your business every month and for your personal expenses and how much it’s costing you to live your life every month.  When we have all of your expenses listed out, we add one more piece that starts to take a step into the abundant direction, which is adding what I call “wiggle room” to each of these spending plans.  

I ask you to intentionally add a little extra to both your business spending and personal spending that feels spacious for you.  In this way, we’re not budgeting ourselves down to the penny.  We have extra money because we’re intentionally designing our money that way.  

2. The second is when we’re calculating revenue goals, we aren’t just considering how much you need to make to cover your business expenses and personal expenses, but we’re also zooming out on the other additional financial needs such as:
   

• Making sure you have business savings so there’s literally always extra money stacking up at the bank
• Your taxes so those are good and covered
• Your team so you know your people are taken care of
• Your investments (as in making sure your business is setting aside a certain amount to be reinvested back into the business)
• Debt payoff if you’re currently paying back debt, which is super common
• Long-term investments so you’re prioritizing your future
• And baking a small give-back into your business, which I’ve found over and over again is so incredibly key for stepping into abundant money because there’s always enough to give 

When we take the time and the math to consider each of these financial needs, this is what helps us step into more than enough money because everything is accounted for and then some.  

The quickest way to not have enough money is to estimate how much you need that doesn’t consider the full picture.  That’s why this step is so key!! 

3. The third is conscious spending and I think it’s here where most people have the hardest time because when it comes to abundant money – having to pick and choose is what puts a lot of us into scarcity.  In fact, the reality of having to choose between one thing or another vs having them both feels like the opposite of abundance, but when you align your spending choices so you have more than enough – it’s a pretty rad thing to experience a surplus.  Not to mention, the way stress decreases about your finances. 

Now, this is also where capitalism can come in and do some major toxic bypassing because we can’t budget our way out of poverty.  Only more earning can do that as well as dismantling the systems that create inequity to begin with, which is no small feat.  

What I want to invite us into though is not seeing the “having to choose” as a limitation because remember – we will always have to choose and make decisions with our money. But rather see the elevated experience in our choices.  

Are you having to choose between a new car that’s $50k or a luxury car that’s $100k, for example?  

Are you having to choose between the pair of shoes you really want or a pair that gets the job done, but also gives you money left over to be allocated in a different direction?   

Obviously this is a completely different experience than having to choose between paying your rent or feeding your family.  There’s little abundance in that.  

But what I want to shift us into is the perspective that the things we’re choosing between don’t have to bring up feelings of “not enough”.  They can bring up feelings of liberation, alignment, and yes – abundance.  

Making conscious choices that are aligned with our values is the easiest way to feel more joy with your money even when those conscious choices carry with them a lot of “no’s”.  

For instance, I’m in a season of really honoring my business’s margins right now.  I’m being more mindful of my investments vs investing in the things I want, but don’t necessarily need.  I’m being mindful with my team margin right now even though there’s another hire I really want to make.  

I’m honoring the margins I’ve set for myself so I can pay myself more and even though I’m intentionally saying NO to things I really, really want, I’m also saying YES to receiving a higher take home salary in this season and there are gifts upon gifts in that decision for me.  I’ve never been happier in my business than I am right now – especially having low financial stress, having really healthy margins, and getting comfortable receiving more from my business, which on an energetic level is going to be major for all that is to come as I build a multiple 7-figure app.   

My point is our NO’s also create YESes.  And when our No’s are aligned, they’re conscious, they’re prioritizing the things that are most important to us – this is such an essential ingredient to feeling more abundant.  

I remember in 2018 when I paid off $30k in debt in 10 months, I said a lot of NOs that year.  I invested in very little and also paid myself very little in order to reach this goal, but it never felt like sacrifice.  It felt exciting! Exhilarating even because I was so focused on my vision and personal definition of financial success and best believe, being debt free that year, seeing that balance go down more and more every month made me feel so incredibly abundant that there was more than enough to pay off that debt and then I got to reallocate all that money into my paycheck afterward.  It was amazing!!  

So from a strategy perspective, we have to get clear on our financial needs first so we’re seeing our full financial picture. Then add some extra wiggle room that helps your money feel spacious.  

Then, we need anchored revenue goals that are considering all of our key financial needs.  These numbers inform so much when it comes to sustainable price points, sales goals, your marketing, literally so many things!!  

And then make conscious spending a thing.  What’s most important to you in this season?  How can you make aligned decisions that prioritize those things?  

The greatest shift I’ve made this year is chasing my margins vs. more revenue.  And interestingly, I’ve been gradually increasing revenue month after month this year.  Having healthier margins has been so good for me, which has invited me into saying NO to things I would prefer to say YES to, but it’s only a “no, right now”.  Not forever.  As revenue increases and the margins say YES, I’ll be making some moves on those additional investments I want to make as well as new hires.  

But those No’s are giving me some big Yes’s that are creating even more abundance for me.  There is nothing more liberating than directing both your money and energy into the directions you so choose. 

So if you’re in the beginning stages of abundant money, start by focusing on when there’s just enough money because I can almost guarantee you’re likely already there.  You might even be experiencing more than enough money whether that’s an extra dollar or an extra million.  But abundance doesn’t live in a number. It lives in the noticing, the naming, the acknowledgement of there being more than enough.  Where can you start finding that right now? 

We’ll chat again about clarifying your enough numbers and how your attachment style to money intersects here, but for now, I definitely encourage you to take this first step with me in getting clear on your financial needs and calculating revenue goals that consider your full financial picture, which is the work we do inside the DreamMoney Blueprint and DreamMoney Calculator.  Find out more at meganhale.co/dream-money in the show notes.  

Until next time, here’s to the courage to keep showing up even when clarity is still forming – knowing, trusting, believing, the next right step is always on its way.  See you soon!