Money is something that makes a lot of people uncomfortable - it’s something that can be a big source of overwhelm for so many of us, but once you face it head-on, you feel so much better and can truly set yourself up for success.
Our guest, Laura Davis, will reveal the one thing you should begin doing today to feel more confident with your personal finances. Laura is a Financial Planner with Cuthbert Financial Guidance and founder of Laura D. Money, an educational platform where regular people, like you and I, can learn about personal finance.
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For more info visit: www.motherhoodaligned.com/podcast
Visit Laura's website: https://lauradmoney.com/
Laura Davis on Instagram
Find Katy/Motherhood Aligned on Facebook & Instagram
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Money is something that makes a lot of people uncomfortable - it’s something that can be a big source of overwhelm for so many of us, but once you face it head-on, you feel so much better and can truly set yourself up for success.
Our guest, Laura Davis, will reveal the one thing you should begin doing today to feel more confident with your personal finances. Laura is a Financial Planner with Cuthbert Financial Guidance and founder of Laura D. Money, an educational platform where regular people, like you and I, can learn about personal finance.
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For more info visit: www.motherhoodaligned.com/podcast
Visit Laura's website: https://lauradmoney.com/
Laura Davis on Instagram
Find Katy/Motherhood Aligned on Facebook & Instagram
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Katy Weade: 0:03
Welcome to Motherhood Aligned. I'm your host, Katy Weade and this podcast is for moms on a mission to bust through the overwhelmed and live life on purpose. If you're ready to feel in alignment with who you're truly meant to be, then you're in the right place. And if you're anything like me, then I know you're a busy mama juggling a 1,000,000 things at once. But we can't just let life happen to us and get lost in the business. We need to take the reins and live proactively. This show is about real Mom's focused on family, feeling good and finding ways to not just survive but thrive in motherhood and life. Sound good, Awesome. Let's dive in. Hey, everyone. In today's episode, we are going to be talking about something that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. It's something that could be a big source of overwhelmed for so many of us. But once you face it head on, you feel so much better and can truly set yourself up for success. I'm talking about money and, more specifically, how to become confident in managing your money. Our guest, Laura Davis, is a financial planner with cutberth financial guidance and founder of Laura D Money, which is an educational platform where regular people like you and I can learn about personal finance. You guys, Laura is not your typical financial planner. She recognized that most financial planners cater to the wealthy who already have a lot of money and that the middle class families were left with little to no support. She's super passionate about taking the mystery out of personal finance and makes talking about managing your money easy and so much less overwhelming. With that being said, I'm excited to introduce all of you toe one of my new friends, Laura Davis. Hi, Laura. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Laura Davis: 1:43
Hey, Katy, I'm so happy to be here. It is very exciting for me. And thanks for that awesome introduction. They really appreciate it,
Katy Weade: 1:50
of course. No, I'm so glad our paths crossed recently and we got on the phone and just hit it off. And now we get to share it with everyone listening.
Laura Davis: 1:59
I know it is so exciting to create a genuine connection with someone right now in this time where we don't get to see anybody in person. I was thinking this the other day because I had a zoom meeting with someone in the connection was terrible. And I felt like if she and I had sat down in a coffee shop before this, I would have been in love with her. But because we have this junkie connection and it was so anyway, so I I'm just so grateful that you and I had this really great connection right away.
Katy Weade: 2:31
You asked me to. So let's start off with a little more about you so the listeners can get to know you a little bit better. Who is Laura Davis? And how did you end up where you are doing what you're doing in the financial planning space?
Laura Davis: 2:45
I am a career changer. So about five years ago, I changed careers to become a financial planner. Prior to that, I had three careers. I guess you would say, right after college, I sold copy machines for a year for company in Southern California, which was a terrible job. I mean, I sold copy machines door to door. It was character building, but also terrible. And then after that, I, my husband and I moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where we still live, and I got into real estate. So I became an agent, and I wound up selling foreclosures during the financial crisis back in 8 2009 when we had the giant amount of foreclosures and this huge drop in the price of residential real estate I. That's when I when I was selling those foreclosures. And I guess that was also when my sort of love of personal finance began, because in seeing all of those people who who were losing their homes, you know, either because they were being foreclosed on themselves or because the landlord who owned their home was foreclosed on and then they were subsequently evicted. It just really showed me how precarious people's financial situations were, and it gave me this huge interest in sort of trying to figure out how to help people. So after the foreclosure started to sort of dry up because the market started to return, I wound up becoming a recruiter. I had I had my two Children during that time as well, but being a recruiter didn't really fulfill my sort of passion or my desire to do something that was really, really meaningful to me. And so through a lot of sort of soul searching and reading books, I found out that there was this thing called a certified financial planner. And a certified financial planner is basically a holistic planner. We way we pay attention to all these different aspects of personal finance. So we pay attention to budgeting and insurance and estate planning and taxes, and also we have a big focus on investments. And then the other thing that we do is we also pay it a lot of attention to sort of behavioral finance and the things that can sabotage people when it comes to doing the best that they can with their money. I've been doing this for about five years, and I I enjoy every minute of it. So I'm really grateful toe have this opportunity just sort of hopefully spread Cem some good knowledge to your listeners.
Katy Weade: 5:36
Yeah, and that's awesome. I just a little side No, also started. I didn't start in copier sales, but I started in postage meter sales, so yeah, right. So if you are sort of in this middle class, if you don't have a financial planner and you're feeling overwhelmed of all the different things that you need to be thinking about, what's a good way to break it down, and where do you start? That's a
Laura Davis: 6:02
really good question. So I kind of want to back up for just a second and talk about this idea that that most people just feel like they don't have enough money to get started with, with someone like me, who's who's a financial planner. And the truth is is that they probably don't. So in order to sort of buy a service like mine, I mean, most of my clients are in the top 5% of income earners because that's how much it takes to afford Teoh work with me. So even my clients, who I think of a sort of more normal people, are still in that sort of very upper upper income bracket. So it is. It is really hard because I think that in order to get objective advice, it is expensive. Andi, I wish that I could do this for a whole lot less, But but But that's why I'm trying to sort of work on this other side of things. So But if you if you feel like you're in that place where you don't necessarily earn enough money or have enough assets to engage a fee only financial planner or someone who doesn't sell product. So ah, lot of people will work with you. But they will sell you things that you may not necessarily need on, and that's how they earn. Their commission probably shouldn't be working with people like that. And it's not that there's not good people who work that way. But over time you're paying for something that isn't necessarily gonna serve you in the long term. So so and I have a bias. But that's my that's my particular the Han Han that so? So if you can't afford a financial planner, it really does fallen. You just sort of self educate because we haven't extreme lack of financial education in this country. If you have a four year college degree, you probably did not take a personal finance class in college like did you take one? Katie,
Katy Weade: 8:07
I do not think that I did know, and if it was an option, I probably opted out. So I don't need that. No, I mean I'm just one of those people where I gloss over a little bit. That's why I was really interested in talking to you Is somebody who does get overwhelmed by some of this, like, where do you begin? So I
Laura Davis: 8:29
think that one of the really best places to start if you don't do this already, is to track your money. So in tracking just really means that you're writing down or keeping track of, in some way everything that you spent, whether it's $50 at the grocery store or, you know it's a dollar 50 at, uh, you know, a convenience store or whatever it is tracking each and every expense is really important because most people don't really have a good handle on sort of where their money is going. And that's where a lot of that overwhelm comes from. It comes from the just not knowing, and so tracking is just a really great place to start. If you if you haven't done really anything,
Katy Weade: 9:15
Yeah, I think you're right about that. That the overwhelm probably comes just from the not knowing, and even if you sort of think you know where your body is going once you start tracking. You will probably be surprised how many coffees you spent your money on or a little thing going here and there Until you start tracking, you're not really getting a full grasp of the picture. Yeah,
Laura Davis: 9:37
exactly. And this is not about you judging yourself or or saying or trying to compare yourself. I mean, I I saw a post on instagram the other day where this woman had spent $167 on her groceries, which was more than half of her monthly budget for a family of four. And she said that she was just gonna make her $167 in groceries last over two weeks. And, you know, I couldn't help but compare her to myself where I spend at least $300 every single week on groceries for my family. Especially now during Covad. Something about that has increased my grocery spend. I haven't figured out if it's just because I'm not paying attention or because I'm buying more wine. Um, but it doesn't. My grocery bill has definitely increased. So so, you know, try not to do that. Try not to compare and judge, just try to look at it is a sort of, you know, you're you're just looking at sort of what's going out Without judgment or or censure.
Katy Weade: 10:42
My grocery bill has also increased drastically. It might be the wine. It might not be what we'll find. Guess we'll find out when I start tracking. But I have to say, How do you
Laura Davis: 10:52
know that it's gone up if you haven't been tracking?
Katy Weade: 10:55
Well, that's what I'm saying is like, I have a general idea in my mind and I know like, Okay, we're spending more, but I don't know for sure. Is it balancing out the restaurants or are we actually spending more? But if I was tracking it, I would I would truly know what we were at. And admittedly, I'm not tracking as I should.
Laura Davis: 11:13
Yeah, well, and that is OK. I am not judging, but I'm going to challenge you, Katie, and also your listeners that if you're not, you're probably not creating all that money transactions during the day. So if you if you swipe your card or you put it in online or whatever 3 to 4 times a day, that adds up to sort of 25 or 30 transactions a week, and you should be able without, like, a terrible amount of time. Like I don't want people to think that if they start tracking, they're gonna have to spend hours and hours a week. It really shouldn't take but a few minutes if there's not all that money transactions. To really track that and the other thing is, is when you're tracking, you may not want to swipe your card because you don't want to write down that transaction. So it's sort of similar to like, if you're if you're trying, If you're dieting and you're trying to lose weight and you're tracking what you eat, you know you may be less likely to like put that Snickers bar in the mouth because you don't want to write down that you ate the Snickers far eso. So it's sort of the same with tracking your money. If you If you commit to writing down everything you spend or tracking it in some way, then it does does make you think before you spend
Katy Weade: 12:34
yeah, and that is such a good comparison, because I have done that before, where I'm tracking my food in an app but I'm like you. But I don't want to add that chocolate chip cookie so I don't eat it. Such a good motivator. Are there any other tools besides just writing it down that you could recommend for starting to track your finances? Yeah,
Laura Davis: 12:54
definitely. You can. You sort of go old school with, like, a pad and paid in a pen. You can, if that's if that's sort of what floats your boat. But there are a lot of tools out there a swell if you want to start tracking your money. What a normally recommend is that if you're gonna track through an app, get one where you can link your accounts to it because it just makes tracking those transactions so much easier. I am a big mint dot com user, so mint is an Intuit product, and they also do TurboTax and QuickBooks, so you might be familiar with them. But the mint is, You know, you can hook your accounts up. It pulls in all of your transactions. So so you'll, you know, you connect your checking account and your your credit cards and also your savings accounts on retirement accounts. If you want to kind of watch those as well, But then you can go through and see what you're spending money on. So so mint dot com is a good place to go. I also have clients who swear by this other app called You Need a Budget. They really love that one that it can also bring in. It can also bring in your transactions. And then Dave Ramsey has a product called Every dollar. Uh, which is free except for if you link up your accounts, there is a cost associated with it. So mint is free. And I think that most versions of you need a budget or Frias Well, so there are a lot of different places where you can go for those But those air those air three really established, you know, long term ones that at least work up to come out with sort of updates and things.
Katy Weade: 14:33
Yeah, that's awesome. And I just had a flashback. I used to use mint a long time ago back in the day, and it was really simple. So I think that's where I'm going to start, is took everything into mint and start tracking.
Laura Davis: 14:45
Yes, and you know, all
Katy Weade: 14:47
software has quirks ready like it?
Laura Davis: 14:49
It's not. It's not always perfectly simple, I find meant to be easy in a lot of ways, but but it also has its sort of like things that you have to navigate through. But again, you know, going back to this idea of overwhelmed once you've set it up and you get the hang of it again, it should not take you but a few minutes a week to kind of figure out where you're spending your money as long as you're not swiping your card 20 or 30 times per day, fish fidget and take you all that long to figure that out. The other really great thing about having an app like that, and this has helped me a couple of times. So, for instance, last year sometime I got all in a row like five uber charges and and four charges from match dot com and oh boy, yeah, and I'm a married. I've been married for 15 years, and I'm not on match dot com. No judgment if you're married and are on match dot com, but I just I'm not on there. But if I hadn't been tracking my money if I hadn't been doing that, sort of, you know, categorizing every week and looking at my meant and seeing where the money was going, I probably would have never known that those charges existed. And all in all, they added up to, like, maybe four or $500. Of course, it was all a you know, it was it was a fraudulent charge where they were using these names of common ish cos t grab money from people's accounts in this in this fraudulent way. But but it does help in so many ways to keep track because you and and that happens maybe once every couple of years, where I'll get a fraudulent charge in the only way that all know that it that it's fraudulent is because I actually look in my accounts. So it's really useful in that way to
Katy Weade: 16:38
that's been done to me before as well. And what I learned is that a lot of times they'll take just a small amount at first to see if they get away with it and see if you notice it on your bank account or what not. And if they do get away with it, then they'll slam you with a larger charge later on something else. So if you notice it from the get go, if you're tracking your much, much less likely to get a bigger fraudulent thing happen on your account later.
Laura Davis: 17:02
Yeah, absolutely. And just relying on your bank or your credit card to figure out what's fraudulent does not always work. Has a lot of times when they applied. Something is fraudulent and something that I spend. And there are times when, when they when they really were fraudulent, there was no flag. So again it pays to pay attention to your money
Katy Weade: 17:22
you mentioned. So right now we're in the middle of we've got Cove in 19 happening and people aren't swiping their cards as much. So I would assume this would be probably a good time to get in the habit. What do you think?
Laura Davis: 17:35
Yeah, I mean, I have been really hesitating his Teoh to sort of put something else on people's plates at this time. I mean, I've been irritated when I've sort of seeing these, uh, these communications from people
Katy Weade: 17:52
about yeah, take advantage
Laura Davis: 17:53
of all this time you have and for your listeners. I'm assuming that most of them have Children like we do, and I don't have more time now than I had before, so I have a lot less time in a lot less energy. And it's really hard to do the context switching that needs to be done in order to get work and childcare and home school and, you know, working on your relationship with your spouse, all those things. So it's hard for me to tiu sort of say, Yeah, I really think you need to do an extra thing. But that being sad, even even with that, if you congest do one small thing during this time, I am such a strong believer that the little tiny pieces of progress balloon into really, really positive outcomes when it comes to personal finance and and negative decisions or sort of sub optimal decisions, even if they're small, conserve balloon into really negative outcomes. So if you can just do one small thing like learn how to track your money or just organize your account so that you know where your money is during this time, you're gonna be in such a better place in the future, Teoh to take advantage of that knowledge base that you built today and expand on it when times are better again.
Katy Weade: 19:24
Yeah, so just taking a baby step right now. I'm with you. There is no extra time for a lot of us moms. On top of everything you listed full time cook for three meals a day like there's just so much cooking
Laura Davis: 19:38
and the cleaning. I mean, it feels like it never ends. I don't know how we're eating mawr. That doesn't make any sense, like we fix our child Childrens lunches for school before. But somehow we're just all eating more, and I think also not being able to go out to a restaurant where someone cleans up after you like even if we do take out right, you still have to do the dishes. In
Katy Weade: 19:58
addition, they just never, and it's just like laundry. It just keeps on building up. So it's a great time for baby steps because on top of everything else, it's not like you're doing a full financial makeover. It's just start with the little baby things that you can do now while you are at home and go from there.
Laura Davis: 20:15
That's right so and don't And again, Just don't beat yourself up over over the things that you're doing right now. And I think the general consensus is that is that we're all going to somehow, you know, spend a whole lot less right now than we did before. And I'm not so sure That's true because most most people weren't spending, you know, a ton on major discretionary items anyway, because most people couldn't afford it. I mean, there are these statistics that most people don't have $400 for an emergency, so you can't imagine that people were actually spending a whole lot of extra stuff. And the spending, I think that's really going to decrease is on travel and possibly, I mean, possibly clothes or something. But But again, it will be interesting to see if we really are spending less or if it just feels like we could spend less.
Katy Weade: 21:16
Yeah, or if it's shit, it's just shifting based on lifestyle changes,
Laura Davis: 21:20
right? Exactly. That's that's sort of my point. So so and there's so much that we won't know until after this is all over, and there is also so much that we don't have control over right now to
Katy Weade: 21:31
Yeah, what are some misconceptions that people have about money? Oh,
Laura Davis: 21:35
there's a ton of them, but I think that a lot of us receive the's money messages on a lot of a lot of the misconceptions about money have to do with sort of mindset issues. I think so, for instance, this idea that that rich people are evil. I mean, I don't disagree all the time, but it's certainly not universal, the idea that if you become wealthy that you will also be, you know, a jerk. Sometimes that attitude actually prevents us from doing well with money, because we think, well, if we ignore our money and we don't do very well, then there's no possibility that we will ever, you know, become one of those. I just think of a word appropriate that I could say right now, but you know what I mean? I think that the that often times these messages that we that we send to ourselves about being wealthy or about what's important are sort of self sabotaging. So thinking that money itself is evil, I think, is another one of those things. No money is not evil in and of itself. Money is just a tool. Um, and you can do good with it, or you can use it for things that are not so good, but but at the end of the day is the tool. And there's nothing wrong with wanting money and the stability that money provides.
Katy Weade: 23:00
Yeah, not only does it provide stability, but it gives you an opportunity to do good with it. If that's what you want. I think you're right that having a mindset of like, you see all these rich billionaires and you can pass a little bit of judgment on how they're using their money. But there's genuine people out there like you and I, who if money comes our way, we're gonna pay it back to the world and do good things with it. So the mindset could really make a big difference.
Laura Davis: 23:22
Yeah, it could be. It could be a huge game changer or if you if you if you start thinking of money not as something negative, but it is something that can provide abundance for you and the people around you and the things that you believe in and into having that piece, I think is really important because I don't know, I am not a super sort of woo person. But I do believe in energy. I do believe in the power of attraction, and I think that it's very difficult toe earn the money that you think that you deserve. If in deep down you think you really don't deserve it.
Katy Weade: 24:02
Yeah, absolutely. And that's so true in so many aspects of our life. Yeah, I think what kind of touched on this, But if someone's like okay, I understand. I need to start tracking my money and like that's my next best step. Then once they start tracking it, where do they go from there? So I think that the
Laura Davis: 24:18
tracking itself will give them a really good idea of what their next step needs to be, because tracking will show you. There's a very important piece of financial planning, which is whether you have a surplus or not on a monthly basis. So, for instance, my take home pay is $4000 a month, and I know because I've been tracking that I am spending $3600 a month and then I know that I have that $400 a month cushion that I'm that I'm sort of that I can use for other things. Where the stress in finance comes in is when people have a shortfall. So and that example is you have your $4000 in income, but every month you're either dipping into your savings or you're checking or your credit card Teoh and you're really spending 42 or $4300 a month. And again, that's the difference between spending a little bit less than what you make, and spending a little bit more than what you make will determine sort of the long term future of your money. So So I think that, you know, if you if you are not tracking, if you're not really saving right now, which is totally understandable, especially if you have lost your job or your income has been reduced or you know you're not getting the unemployment benefits that you were promised things like that. I mean, this is a really hard time to tell yourself to start to save, so I would let people off the hook there completely. But at the end of the day, your spending has to be less than your income, no matter what that income is. If you're bringing in $2000 a month, you have to spend less. If you're bringing in $20,000 a month, you have to spend less. I mean, that's why there's a lot of broke rich people because because they bring in a huge amount of money. But then they spend every last penny. So So I know I don't feel bad for them either, but but I'm just saying that, really, it's that basic. It's that basic of map, so it works the same way as if you know, going back to the weight loss analogy. No, it it really is not. It doesn't feel a simple a sort of calories in and calories out, but at the end of the day, that's sort of what it comes down to, and it's the same thing with money. You know, at the end of the day, it it comes down to money in and money out, and while there's a whole lot of you know behavioral stuff in there, and it's not that easy to actually execute, you have to have that surplus in your budget to save long term.
Katy Weade: 26:57
I totally agree with the simplicity of the calories in calories out. It's such an easy way to think about it. And I had actually never really thought of it that way before, but it makes it so much less overwhelming.
Laura Davis: 27:09
Yeah, yeah, well and again, I wouldn't pressure you to do something about it right now, especially anybody who's listening, who is in that really tough place that we are, where things are very uncertain. We don't know how long this is gonna last. I mean, I have always thought that it's really unhelpful to just say we'll spend as little as possible. Um, right. It's like, Well, great. I mean, I anybody could just spend as little as possible, but what does that even mean? But again, if you if you start to really track your expenses, you'll you'll know you'll know where you're spending a little bit more than you have to. In most cases, there is an exception for people who are very much sort of at the bottom. You know, the maybe, you know, 200% of the of the poverty line here in the US saying that that's a really, really tough place to be, no matter what I mean, if you think about an interesting statistic that people don't often know is that the median income for a family of four in the U. S is around $60,000 a year, huh? And at that rate, your sort of taking home Probably that $4000 a month, maybe a little less, depending on how much your health care cost. And, you know, and when in big cities like here in Atlanta or worse, you know, in San Francisco or New York, Los Angeles, we have our median rent is $1500 you know, eats up a whole bunch of that take home pay. So in order to actually make it and be able to save on that amount of money, which again, 50% of people make less than that in our country, it becomes really, really tight and really, really difficult. So so and I and I just don't want to underestimate the difficulty that the majority of American families are in especially right now. So you don't beat yourself up over, You know, if you if if you feel like you're not making progress, or you can't quite get to that break even point. It's really hard right now, especially
Katy Weade: 29:15
it really is. And I think that definitely no one needs to beat themselves up or feel like pressure that they need to do anything but still sort of knowing where you stand so that you can make better decisions is going to make all the difference.
Laura Davis: 29:29
That is such a good way to put it knowing where you stand and because what is that hosting like knowing is half the battle? Exactly. And it really isn't that it is so true with personal finance. And if you know again, if it's just that one thing, if it's just tracking, if it's just organizing your money so you know where your accounts are, then then you're gonna be so far ahead of the game.
Katy Weade: 29:53
Exactly. And hopefully at least one person I know I'm gonna walk away from this with Okay, I'm going to start tracking and make sure that I know exactly where we stand. Yes, Hey, I'm
Laura Davis: 30:03
so happy. I mean one person, I just it's My whole goal in life is to figure out how Teoh help motivate people. The hardest part of of my job is motivating people to do what they need to do before it's too late. And I know that there is this idea that, you know, it's never too late. You can always start to save, and most of the time that's true. But sometimes it's not and right if you get into your sixties and you haven't done anything and you haven't saved and things have gone really terribly for you. But I have specific examples of people who have come into my office like this, and there are a lot of tears and a lot of really difficult decisions that they have to make because they didn't do something in there earlier, age and the earlier. You start this, the better off that you will be and anybody can do it. You know that you can. It's hard, but you can't and it is. It is possible. And if you don't, you're not gonna be able to realize your ultimate goals of, you know, maybe not living in a Medicaid nursing home. When you get older or maybe not moving with your Children, sit right so I don't know, whatever motivates you. Whatever scares you into doing a little bit of something is I think is what I want help people understand, and again doesn't have to be big. The smallest progress is still progress.
Katy Weade: 31:29
Well, I'm so glad that there are people like you out there who are making this their mission to make it easier for people like me and like our listeners to actually go out and do something about it. And you actually have your working out a book. I really want to touch on this because you were telling me about it, and it's like no other personal finance book I've ever laid eyes on. So can you tell us a little bit about what's coming with that?
Laura Davis: 31:53
Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited. I can't even tell you how excited I am. So a lot of my like to get a little bit more personal, like a lot of my personal goals have fallen by the wayside during Cove. It and I I'm very much a perfectionist. I have beat myself up over this, but the one thing that I decided that I was not going to let go of was completing this book. So part of my motivation for writing it was that I felt like I've read it dozens of personal finance books and I feel like a lot of them tell people a lot of things that they don't actually need to know and again contribute to that overwhelm on. And my goal is to lessen the overwhelmed. So So what I did was I wrote a book where I where I put in everything that I thought that you absolutely need to know if you have a middle class income and I left out everything that I think that doesn't pertain to you at all. And and then I I took it one step further because I feel like people struggled to read ah, bunch of words that have to do with personal finance. But I thought that if all of the personal finance concepts that I was talking about were illustrated, that it would just be a lot more relatable and people would be more likely to sort of latch on and be interested in it. So I engaged in illustrator. She is the best. Her name is Colleen Finn. And so right now we're sort of simultaneously working on editing the words, and she is doing all of the illustrations and layout, and I just I'm so excited. It's gonna be a few months before it's ready to be published. But I am thrilled about it coming out because I just think it's It is. It's not like anything else out there
Katy Weade: 33:43
that is so cool. And it touches a whole new market because there are so many people who I don't want to be looking at a bunch of words and numbers. Instead, they want to be looking at the illustrations. That's why I think this is so cool. Brings a visualization to everything and a more playful aspect of personal finance. So I love it. Brilliant, Yeah,
Laura Davis: 34:03
I mean, I am really excited about it to anything. Most of us are visual learners, and so so having that aspect again, like focusing on that whole idea that making that overwhelm be less overwhelming is you know, anyway, that I can do that. I mean that it's my mission in life. So So I'm really every nice to so appreciate you being here and shedding light on this because I think it's a topic that everybody needs to know about
Katy Weade: 34:34
Yeah, I agree. So if somebody wants to learn more from you or find out when your book comes out, how can they find U
Laura Davis: 34:41
S o just goto laura D money dot com l a u r a d money dot com And sign up for my newsletter and I won't send out very many communications, but I will let you know when the book is launching and how you can get a coffee.
Katy Weade: 34:56
Perfect. I am all signed up, so I can't wait for it. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here, Laura.
Laura Davis: 35:02
Thank you, Katie. I so appreciate your time and your insight and your willingness to listen to all of this, even though, you know, again, it's a scary topic and something that people don't love to talk about. But I hope that I hope your listeners have gotten one little nugget. That's the most important thing. Just walk away with one nugget.
Katy Weade: 35:20
Absolutely. Thank you so much. Now that wasn't so scary, guys. Was it? Money is something that could make all of us feel uncomfortable. But once you face it head on, you feel so much better. Here's a quick recap. Most people feel like they don't have enough money to get started with the financial planner. And if that's true, and you're feeling like you're in a place where you don't earn enough money or have enough assets to engage a financial planner in the best place to start, so you feel less overwhelmed is with tracking all of your spending, whether it's $50 of the grocery store or a dollar 50 at the convenience store. Whatever it is, tracking each expense is imperative to getting a handle on where your money's going. Most of the overwhelm in regards to personal finance comes from just not knowing In all reality, you're probably not doing that many transactions throughout the day, so it should be pretty manageable to start tracking your spending in just a few minutes a day. Once you're set up properly, doing this may actually deter you from swiping your card too many times because you'll be conscious of it and not want to track it to get started tracking your money. You can just write everything down that you spend or use a tool that you can link your accounts to, like mint dot com that you need a budget app or Dave Ramsey's Every dollar. Using a tool like one of those is also really effective in helping you catch fraudulent activity on your accounts. If you could do just one small thing during this time without adding too much to your already full plate, start there with tracking your money or even just organizing your accounts so you know where all your money is. Remember that little pieces of progress balloon into really positive outcomes. When it comes to personal finance and small sub optimal decisions can balloon into really negative outcomes. Tracking will show you whether or not you have a surplus of money or not, and you'll avoid the stress of money if you're able to spend less than your income. Most of all, be sure you know where you stand with your money so you can start to make better decisions. And remember the earlier You start this, the better off you will be, and your future self will thank you. So if you're feeling motivated and ready to take the next best step and start tracking your personal finances, I would love to hear about it. Come, let me know on Facebook or instagram @motherhoodaligned. I answer all of my dm's and hope to hear from you soon. Bye, everyone. Hey, real quick before you go. I just wanted to say thank you so much for listening. If anything you heard in this episode resonated with you, I would be so grateful if you leave a review on iTunes so more people can find us. Also check out motherhoodaligned.com for more resources and be sure to say hi on Facebook and Instagram at motherhood aligned I'll talk to you soon.