If you've been struggling with your finances, then you won't want to miss the latest episode of our podcast. Our guest is a Financial Coach that you can relate to, as walking the talk is what led her to her line of work. Your jaw will drop when you learn how quickly she and her husband paid off $245,000 in debt, and the list of other expenses they were still able to cover while doing it.

We keep the conversation relatable as we discuss such things as the feeling of shame that many of us attach to how we handle our money. For me, I have a hard time working around this belief that if I work hard, I deserve nice things, when in fact our self-worth should never be measured in material possessions, and working hard doesn't always equate a bank account that can afford those things. We don't just look at beliefs though, we cover a variety of topics related to money management, including planning for retirement, reducing debt, and setting financial goals.

Our speakers also share some inspiring stories of people who were able to pay off significant amounts of debt and create a better financial future for themselves. It is an encouraging reminder that it's never too late to turn around your finances and create the future you desire.

As a financial coach, and speaker, Amy Greene guides her clients to financial possibilities they never knew were within their reach. She guides her clients to learn sound money management skills, behaviors, habits, and mindsets that lead them to the life they desire. Amy is passionate about helping active families live without the stress, fear, and worry of money issues so they can live a life they love and leave a legacy for future generations.

Connect with Amy:

Website: www.amygreenefc.com

Social Media: Instagram and FB- @amygreenefc

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Amy Green is a financial coach and speaker. She guides her clients to financial possibilities they never knew were within their reach. Her clients get to learn sound money management skills, behaviors, habits, and mindsets that lead them to their life, that lead them to the life that they desire. She is passionate about helping active families live without the stress, fear, and worry of money issues so they can live a life they love and leave a legacy for future generations. I'm so excited that we get to chat with her today because I feel this is a topic that touches each and every one of us. Thank you so much for being here with us today, Coach. Amy, I'm glad to have you.

Thank you so much, Shawna. It's a pleasure to be here.

So how did you first get into this line of work and coaching folks around their finances?

That is so exciting and it's so important, I feel like, especially for people to realize they have the power to control their finances, because I feel a lot of people feel like they're being controlled by their finances and their financial situation. So just what you shared that you were able to do that at a time when you lost your job and then be able to choose to be a stay at home mom because you guys got your finances in alignment is just such a gift to be able to do that.

It is. And I look at it as financial freedom. When I hear the term financial freedom, to me it means choice, it means options, the ability to choose. So if we have our money organized and secure and stable where we hopefully don't have debt, we've got emergency funds, we're in control of our money, living a less than we make. If we say, hey, I want to quit my job, I can't take it anymore, we've got that choice. But so many people live straps, living paycheck to paycheck. They have nothing in savings, they have nothing in retirement. They're either late on bills or they're robbing Peter to pay Paul. And they're just playing this game. They don't have a choice. They don't have a choice. They can't quit. So you open up so many doors to a different life, if you will. Right. You get to choose what you want to do with your life instead of having your money tell you what you're going to do.

Yes, exactly. And did you find that it was as easy as following a plan? Or did you feel like there was a lot of you having to look at your way of thinking about things and looking at things that you had to examine before you could even follow a plan to figure out how to do things?

Yeah. So for me, I am very much a rule follower, so if you give me directions, I'm going to follow them to a T and I tend to lean towards being a saver. So when I heard about this plan and heard of the possible results, that fired me up. I learned a lot, though the challenges were more in. I'm married and so my husband and I manage money and view money differently. So it was working with my husband to find a common ground. What's going to be the compromise? He was on board with the idea of getting out of debt, but then when it came to the actual doing, what do you mean you want to go do X? That's going to cost money, but that money is going to debt. Like making those choices to kind of decide where we're putting our money. And so we had to come together and learn. I had to learn to compromise a little bit and work with a partner, work with a spouse. That was different.

Yes. I think it's hard to figure out your own priorities for your money and managing your money and then to have a partner that you're figuring those things out with just doubles and complicates it. Because I feel like some of our views about money and how to manage money come from our childhood and the way we were raised and the way we saw things. And then you're dealing, like, double all of those things, and you had to figure it out with somebody else, too.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's definitely something that I teach with my clients. It's understanding each other's backgrounds. And so I look at my background. I grew up in the land of no. We were savers. Everything was kind of scaled back. We were conservative financially, and my husband grew up in the land of yes, and they got lots of trips, and anything new that came out, they got it where I was told no. And so how do we come together to make our relationship work and make it something that works for us, where we're both seen and heard and feel that our needs are being met in terms of the money, I definitely feel better when we say we're more on the saving side and more on the practical side than the frivolous side. And he encourages me to have more fun and be more experiential and do things that are frivolous right. Because sometimes that is enjoyable. So we balance each other out in that way, and I think understanding your strengths and your weaknesses when it comes to money is so key, especially if you're married.

And do you start with that? Like, figuring out what your priorities as a couple or even as an individual? So me personally, figuring out when I was single, do I want to travel more? Do I want to save for a house? Do I want to be out of debt? What are my priorities? Felt like the first thing I need to figure out before I even knew where to put my money is what do I want? Do I want to go out to eat every night with friends? Or do I want to be putting that money into a bank account so I can save for a house one day?

Right? And so I do ask that on my very first coaching session with clients, it's to really outline those long term goals. People will say, Well, I want to travel. Okay, well, why? And we really dive into the why behind it. And a lot of times we'll say a lot of people, like, I want to spend time with my spouse or my family is to create memories. It's to explore. There's lots of deeper reasons to travel than just that. I need to get out of the rat race. I need to escape. It's usually a deeper, more soul filled reason for that goal. It could even just be, I don't want to end up like my parents. If they came from a household of financial struggle and strife, they are like, well, I don't want to end up like them, living on Social Security and not having a lot of money and all the things, or I don't want to work till I'm dead. That kind of thing. So everyone's got a different reason we dive into those goals because that will define the why. We want to know where are we going. And this is for everybody, married or not, but where are we heading? We had to put the destination to the GPS to know like, what's the route to? And then the GPS will give you a couple of different options. Right. And they'll always tell you, here's the fastest, here's the one without tolls, here's all the things, and we do the same thing. Here's our destination. And then we kind of say, okay, well, where are we today? And then what must we do to start to get there? And I asked, are we going to go fast? Are we going to go slow? I usually slow things way down to start because we do work on mindset. We do work on some of these other things and some skill building and communication. But once we start to get some things under control, we start to shift. We'll start to see a pickup on speed towards those goals, whatever they are. We have to know where we're going. That finding the why and knowing what you want is important big time.

And do you find once you get into that conversation, you do find a lot of the mindset pieces from people's past that they're dealing with and making those decisions?

I do. One of the mindsets that I come across often is when I ask people what they want, what do you want to create? They say, I just want to be comfortable and take a vacation once a year. And it's so hard because I want to just tell them that that sucks. I want more for you. More is possible. You can do so much more than you ever thought possible if you just started to make some shifts and they don't see it yet. We're still so new in our coaching. They don't see what's available to them outside of their own world right. What they've known for so long. And so I hope to work on lifting the lid on this box they place them in so they can see that, hey, we can become millionaires. We can actually have a net worth of a million dollars or more. We can actually live a life that's more than just comfortable. It's actually extraordinary. But we have to just make some changes to get there.

Yes. And it's incomprehensible when you're still in that place of like, I don't have savings to pay when the heater goes out. I don't have savings to pay for the new roof. I don't have savings to pay for a house because I know with the housing market right now, buying homes seems out of reach for a lot of people.

It does. And I think it's great that I see a lot of from what I see, I see a lot of people shifting towards the mindset that renting is not bad, homeownership is a lot more expensive than just the mortgage payment. And as a homeowner I can attest to that. While homeownership is ultimately a goal I will want for all of my clients, that when you're in retirement, your house is paid for, so you no longer have that mortgage payment or rent payment. You just pay property taxes. Property taxes will continue to go up forever, but that stabilizes that expense when you're in retirement. So I like that piece for retirement. And then you have a paid for assets right, of this home. However, it's not the end all, be all. And people think that they need to own a home by the time they're 26 or whatever. And I'm like, Whoa, chill out. You've got time. And it's okay to rent because renting, you don't have to do any of the maintenance. You don't have to worry about the furnace or the water heater or the roof or anything that needs to be done. And the rent payment is the most you'll ever pay. And you're paying for a place to live. So it's not like money thrown out the window because you have a roof over your head. If you want something free, go live in a tent. That's your choice.

Well, you have to buy the tent and then you to figure out where you're going to pitch it, right. So good luck pitching it somewhere free. So you have to pay for a place to live regardless. Home ownership ultimately, at the end of the day is a good idea, but it's not something that needs to happen in a certain time frame. And I think we've been sold this belief that you need to have a house that's bigger than your parents and sooner than your parents and all the things, and it's hard. It's a really tough thing. And then the market right now, I live in New Jersey, so housing is ridiculous. So I get it. I absolutely get it.

Yes. But there's steps to get there. So you need to focus on one step at a time and not give up because everything feels like it's so far away, right?

Exactly. And we're so anxious to get to this end destination that we forget kind of where we are and what can happen in the middle. Right. And so we have to focus on the day to day and know that, okay, if that's my long term goal, let's do it. Right. Number one, I bought my first condo. All wrong, right? Like 5% down. I had two mortgages, so I would never do that again. But it's having that delayed gratification to say, I'm going to work hard and save up the 20% down payment, which sounds like crazy pants when houses are 500,000 plus, so that's $100,000. And everyone thinks, well, how am I ever going to do that? It's slow and steady. Slow and steady wins the race. And if you're intentional and you start young enough, it won't take as long. But we have to get to this place where we are living below our means and being super intentional so that.

We can get there, and recognizing that the younger you are, the sooner you start to put towards that, the better off you are. And so it's a good idea to start putting that aside and start working towards that if that's something you want to eventually have.

Absolutely. But there's never any hope loss, regardless of your age. So I have clients that are 70 and still work with them, and they recently paid off their house. They worked with me a few years ago, and she's in her 60s, she's about to retire. Her goal was to pay off her house before she retired. And so she was able to pay off 121,000 in two and a half years. Yeah. All while still, like, her husband was already retired. So already they took trips, they did some little weekend getaways, she got washer dryer, they did some bathroom renovations. They still did life, but she was just being super intentional. That was the goal, to pay off the house.

Yeah. So being intentional is really the biggest thing, and to start paying attention to where your money's going, whereas a lot of people just avoid it and don't pay attention because they don't want to pay attention.

Yeah. It's the ostrich syndrome. They stick their head in the sand and they think that by ignoring it, it'll go away, but it's never going to go away.

Yeah. Yes. I think that's the freedom people want to have is that they feel like freedom is to not pay attention to their money. And in fact, freedom is paying attention so you have control and know what your money is being spent on. So you're spending on what you want it to be spent on, and not wasting it in places you're not even expecting to be spending on. Five different subscriptions, one to Hulu, one to Netflix, one to HBO, all those places you're spending it. And wait, I don't need to have that many. I only watch one episode a night on the same channel, on the same streaming service every single night, and I'm paying all this money. Then I could be saving this and putting this somewhere else and not realizing the power of the money and the power of saving it.

Right. And people think, well, it's just $10, it's just $5. It's not a lot, but it adds up so much over time. If you think if you pay for that Hulu subscription, that's $120 a year times ten years. Now we're talking 100. That's a lot of money. And so we really want to make sure that we're being very intentional. Am I putting the money where I in the places that I value? Right. Is what's most important to me. Am I putting my money there and am I putting the money towards the things I want to accomplish in the future? No.

That makes great sense. That's exciting. Can you tell us one of I loved hearing, like, the little snippets and stories of some of your clients. Can you tell us some other exciting stories of other clients you've had that have been able to accomplish exciting things?

Yes. So I have a client who worked with me three years ago, and she reached out recently to tell me she's debt free, so she paid off $74,000 in three years as a single mom. And she's a school teacher, so she works in education, and she really just hustled. I mean, again, this is all about getting intentional. She has a young daughter, and she had her parents help with childcare. She would babysit other kids. She would coach volleyball teams and referee basketball games and do anything she could in the school to pick up extra subbing classes and things that she could make extra money on. And so she really worked her butt off for three years. And it's harder when you're a single income earner with a family. She had a daughter, has a daughter, and she was able to do all of that. And so her goal right now is to she's saving up to take her daughter to Disney World as as a reward right. For their hard work. And she's building up her emergency fund, too. And so, yeah, it's exciting to hear those stories. I have another couple, another woman. Sorry. She is a nurse, and she paid up 238,000 in a year. I worked with her for a whole year. She sold her house, so that was a part of it. But that house was co owned with her ex husband, so she was married with him, and then they got divorced, and then she finally sold the house, had to give him his half of what was what equity was there. But paying that off and paying off a lot of debt was so key, and she had a lot of mindset with spending and money and all the things. So we really worked on. And she kind of came to the conclusion herself because she started to see the Amazon boxes pile up around her, and she's like, I haven't even opened them, and so what am I doing? And so seeing them really kind of change. I had a couple, young couple. They're probably in their young 30s. They just had a baby when we started working together, and they were just loving life. They make good money. They spent good money. Right. And so they bought a house, and the house seemed to work, and they were starting to feel it because they had the baby. And so the wife was working part time. They're paying a nanny. They're just like, oh, my gosh, what is happening? But by working together with me, we were able to get them to really change their mindset on money so much that they actually canceled a trip with friends. When we got to the end of our time together, they said they went on a trip earlier this year. And then they're like, we canceled our trip to Mexico with friends, even though it would have been paid for on points. We know that there's going to be so much more money spent on other stuff other than the flights and the hotels that were like they were like, we don't want to go. We don't need to go. It's okay. And so they were understanding that if they spend the money somewhere, it's just gone. Like, now it's gone. And so they had other goals and dreams, and they were so excited because she was able to stay home for a full year with her daughter working part time. That felt good to them. That's what they wanted to create, and it wasn't stressful. They got to be in control of their money, and they started to have potlucks over. Instead of going out for sushi every time with their friends, they were like, hey, come over. Let's make pizzas. Let's have a potluck. You bring some stuff, we'll have some stuff. And that was so great. They started to shift how they interacted with their friends and really held those boundaries. And no one said it wasn't like it was like, oh, we're not doing sushi. Everyone had a great time. They said everything was fantastic making pizzas at home. The DIY pizza thing was a hit. And so they've just shifted how they interacted with money. They're like, going to Starbucks now is a treat. Well, before it was almost a necessity. It was like, well, I have to I have to go to Starbucks. No, now it's a treat. Going out to restaurants is now a treat.

Yes. Actually, my partner and I were just talking about we don't do the Uber eats or any of those delivery services. We do a lot of cooking at home, and we do do the box deliveries of meals to make at home because we found that was worth it for us. And we've looked at how much we spend on our grocery bills when we do or don't do that. And we actually save because when we go grocery shopping, we get food that goes bad and et cetera. So for us, it makes sense for us to get the food service. So we get every plate is the one that we found is the most economical and works best for us and has the best amount of vegetables and everything for the cost. So we get every plate is the one we prefer to use. So that's what we found works well for us. But we were talking about how many people we know because we went out to a nice dinner the other night, and there's like, no one in the restaurant. And I was sitting there going, oh, I wonder the restaurant is doing okay. And he's like, Shawna, everyone's ordering the food as takeout. They're getting delivery from Uber Eats, and I don't know all the names of all the services because I don't use any of them. And Grubhub and all those other ones, they're all getting delivery. And I'm like, that is such a waste of money. I can't believe people do that. And he's like, that's what everyone does. And I'm like, I'm so glad I've never tried it, because I think I would just go there and my mind would just go, oh, let's just order in. Let's just order in. And that's just a mindset that I don't have that. That's something I do. But I could see how fast, when you're spending an extra $10, it's already so expensive to eat out, right? And you're spending an extra $10 or whatever on getting delivery. And I see on my credit cards all the time, they say, oh, you get a free year of this, or you get a free XYZ of using the services, how easy it would be to get hooked on that extra convenience and how much you spend on that convenience. And we were talking about where we live. We live somewhere we can walk to three to five well, more than three, or like a block. We live a block walk from three very nice restaurants, and there's like, more that are further away that are a ten minute walk. There's probably another seven restaurants right from where we're at. And we have a tenant that orders out a lot. And we were talking about how funny that is, that even if we didn't have a car, we would just walk to these places instead of pay for that because they're all so close. It's kind of crazy to spend all that money on ordering out, but once you get used as conveniences, that's just part of something you've integrated. Just like we are guilty of having multiple subscriptions because we do have the Apple TV and the Hulu and the HBO Max and the Amazon. We have all of that. And the Disney and the ASPN, we have all of those. We should definitely do an audit and get rid of those. We did that once and then got them back because another show, The Mandalorian, came back on Disney Plus, and so we got it again. So we do that audit and then get them back. So we're guilty of that one. But it's funny how those things creep in and how much money you spend on them.

They do, and I find a lot of it, too, is just we need to plan better, because what happens is we go through the day and we get so tired of making decisions. We haven't decided what's for dinner. And so by the time we get home, number one, we haven't taken anything out to Thaw if anything is frozen. And then we just go, I don't know what to make. I don't know what to do. So we just go to the easiest solution, which is to order or do take out or just go out. And so I always encourage my clients to really start to meal plan. And I had a client, she's living by herself, empty nester. She works from home. So she's like, hardly ever leaves the house. And she's like, it's my way to leave. I just go to Chickfila and I'm like, girl, you're spending like $400 a month eating out. You don't have $400. And she started to meal prep on Sunday. And I would be like, send me a picture of your meal prep of what you're doing. And so she did, because she proved me. And so she started to eat salads and eat healthier. And she was saving so much money. She would save her eating out for when she was with her boyfriend or on the weekend, right? So she would make it very intentional when she would go out. We just need to plan because my fridge has a weekly calendar and we put the meals down there. I'm like, what are we going to do for dinner? Because then it takes the guesswork out of it. Now I know what we're doing. And if I want to, I can swap the two. Like, if I want to swap Thursdays with Wednesdays and just be like, I'm going to make that tonight, that tomorrow. We can make that choice. But at least I don't have to think through the beginning of like, oh, what to make, right? That just becomes exhausting and people give up.

Yes, exactly. And it makes such a difference. And it's funny and it's harder when you have a family and when you even have a partner. Because I know that when I lived alone, I actually did meal planning so much easier. And part of it was that I had in my freezer, I had the salmon steaks that I liked and I had the chicken that I liked, that it was really easy for me to just pull out of the freezer. And I would roast vegetables on Sunday or make soup on Sunday and take that for lunches. And I had the salads I would take for lunches. And I actually did much better eating healthier and doing eating from home. And then when I went out, it's when I was going out with my friends or when I went out on dates, is when I would eat out instead of going out to eat by myself. Because it's not as much fun to eat out by yourself. And I'm not a big fan of takeout or whatever else. So it was very intentional when I would do that. Which is why it's so funny then as a couple, it's like, you got to figure out what you want, what they want. Which is why for us, honestly, that's why every plate was such a great answer. Because it is like, we get the delivery, there's three options, and we have the options sitting in a certain place in the kitchen, like what's for dinner? Which the three do you want? Okay, done. And then the food is there and all the ingredients are there, and you just make dinner. And so that's why we went with that, because it was and it's affordable option for us to do that's. Much cheaper than doing that. And like I said, we save on our grocery bills because I don't buy all the things that I end up throwing away because of the best intention to make kale chips and the best intentions to make all these things. And then I end up throwing away the kale.

Yeah, and it depends, like you said, how many people are in your house, because with these box services, they're so easy, and they're usually portions just to make two or four portions. And so then if you make dinner for two, then you have two but leftover for lunch and you're good. Or you can have leftovers the next day where if you're making like a pot of chili for two people now you're freezing a bunch of it because it's going to go bad, bad. I've frozen stuff before and then I forget about it and it's like a year later, I'm like, what is this? Oh, yeah, this is a little old. So there's still waste involved. It's all about being kind of intentional and planning ahead and doing what works. So sometimes those meal deliveries, like you're saying will be more economical based on your situation.

Yes. And knowing you and what works for you. My other secret about that is that my fiance cooks all the time when we get that delivery service because he knows what to make and has all the ingredients and just follows the recipe, whereas I do better just randomly cooking in the kitchen with what's there. So it's my favorite because then he makes me dinner, which I love.

There you go.

Yeah, you can delegate. You can teach your teenage kids to cook when they can just follow the recipe.

Exactly.

Other bonuses.

Yes. So you actually have group classes you teach, but also tell us more about what you do with your coaching.

Yeah, so I do most of my main business is one on one coaching. So I'm either working with a couple or I'm working with an individual. Just working with them over the course, typically six months to get to them, to where they want to go. Some clients work with me for many years just as we keep going for ongoing accountability and we just keep tweaking the plans. And I just launched a Marriage and Money Mastery program, which is a course. We're doing it live right now. So tonight is lesson two, but the Marriage and Money Mastery program. I've collaborated with a local therapist here who she was an ex client of mine, and she and I she's a relationship expert. She helps she does couples counseling and marriage therapy. And so I reached out to her saying, hey, I have clients who had one couple that I worked with, and there was just a disconnect. I was like, the wife is going through the motions. She's kind of phoning it in. And I finally got to this point where they weren't making progress, and the husband was extremely frustrated, but the wife was just, like, kind of going through the motions and being like, well, this is just the way it is because they're expensive. And finally I found out that she had already reached out to a divorce attorney before we started coaching. So she was 1ft out the door and was just kind of going through the motions right, with this coaching. And so I knew that I had to do something to help couples because I had another client that said, hey, just working with you has allowed us to talk about money. They didn't make a lot of financial progress, but now they were talking about money together, which was just a massive shift. She's like, this has been so incredible to allow us to talk about money together. And so I knew that there's goodness in what I'm doing with clients. I just needed that extra support of a marriage therapist to really say, how do we bring couples together to talk about the hard stuff and to really work on the relationship? Because money problems and money symptoms really are symptoms of deeper rooted issues. And if you're married, it's usually a marriage issue or relationship issue. It could be one partner might have an addiction that you don't know about, or it could be that you have some stuff that you're not willing to share. There's something happening between the two of you that's affecting your money. And so we want to get to uncover that. So once we can uncover that, we can start to really then make headway on the money piece. So we collaborated to create this program where we do we talk about the marriage, we talk about the relationship, we talk about the money piece. And we're guiding our clients to really make changes in their life right, in terms of how they connect. And there's exercises that we give them and tools and resources to help them have these discussions and talk about some stuff, but also get to understand themselves too. When we talk about the what do you want? That was our first lesson, was this whole create your dream marriage, then what do you want money wise? And to really dive into that. And we can kind of go deep with some of that and say, well, what does life look like in five or ten years? Describe a day in the life of you. If you have everything that you want, what does it look like? Right? And so we do some really cool exercises like that with the group. So, yeah, this is our first round of really doing this class, and we're looking to make it an online program as well.

So exciting. I really think, yeah, folks should definitely. We'll make sure we have your instagram, obviously, and stuff in there so people can keep an eye on when you're going to launch that again. I think that's so valuable. Relationships are complicated. As money as everyone knows, it's one of the top challenges you have in relationships. Why do you think that money is such a route of challenges for couples?

I think it's very personal. So money is extremely private. We're a society that we don't really talk about money. I know. I grew up in a household that never talked about money. We don't share that. We don't do this. Nobody needs to know how much we make. And I didn't know how much my parents made forever. And there's also a lot of shame, I think, that we live in a society that no one teaches us how to manage money. Our parents were probably bad examples of managing money, and then society is telling us that we should have it, we should have lots of it, and we should be able to spend it however we want. Right? So there's this tension between what society says we should have. You should buy a house when you're 24, and you should be driving fancy cars and going on lavish vacations. That's what we should be doing. But then we're like, but that's not reality. Yeah, because we graduate college probably making 60 grand a year with $200,000 of student loan debt, and we can't afford all those things. And so how do we bridge that gap? Money is so personal that we're always kind of wrought with guilt and shame, and I should be, but I'm not. And we often use money as an identifier as who am I? Right? Am I someone who makes good money? We use it as a way to identify ourselves. And so a lot of couples don't want to share their money secrets, if you will, with each other, or there's a lot of distrust or fear between the partners of one wants to really be a saver, and they're like, that's a spender. She's going to spend everything. Right. There's fear, lack of trust. And so how do we bridge those gaps with money when it comes to being able to fully commit to our partner and to trust them and to work together? I think often we say, I'll just do it myself, but is that really the best answer?

Yeah. That's so important. I feel like the shame, I think, hits the nail on the head really well. And this piece around our worth and our value somehow being attached to that. I love my mother. My mother has since passed, but I remember when I was in graduate school and her being like, oh, you deserve go buy this because you deserve it. Go buy this because you deserve this. And for her. There's this deserving fact when it came for me to be able to buy nice things for myself. And there's this piece that I still think sometimes like, yes, I do deserve this, but that's actually not how it works. Whether I have like, yes, I do deserve the trips and I've taken amazing trips and done amazing things and I own beautiful things and I'm very grateful for everything that I have. But it's one of those type of things that not necessarily an equation. Just because, yes, I deserve all those things doesn't mean I necessarily have the income to buy them. And with my piece, because I went to graduate school at Boston University and accomplished really great things, but social work, my degree was in social work. So when I finished with a master's degree from Boston University and it was some time ago, but my first job out of graduate school, I think I was 30,000 a year, and my big rate, I was up to 36,000 after a year, you know, after a year. It was amazing that I, like, made that much of a raise, but that's how much I made after going to graduate school at Boston University. That was not cheap. My tuition was probably more than that with everything included. But that was one of those things that, yeah, that's all that I made when I got done. So, yes, I accomplished great things and I deserved lots of great things. My salary did not commiserate with what I deserved. Yeah, as much as my mother thought I deserved all the beautiful things.

And I think that's so true. I think there's a point there that we deserve nice things. We deserve all the gifts that we can ever imagine for ourselves. However, when it comes to money, we have to earn it. We have to either save it and delay the gratification to be able to pay for it. So we have to make sure that we're making financial choices that are wise. But it's also knowing the opportunity cost of spending money on a night out with friends or dinner or clothes or spa services or whatever it is. New iPhone versus do I save that money and put it towards a house down payment towards my retirement? Just to an investment towards I want to take a training class at some point, get a graduate degree, whatever those other things are. We have to do this opportunity cost of what's the return on that investment. Now, I'm not saying we're not meant to spend money. We're supposed to have, enjoy money. Absolutely. But we have to get to this place that it makes sense in our budget, right? And so that we're taking care of ourselves because we're adults. We have two adults and we have to plan ahead. And I see so many older couples have absolutely nothing in retirement. And it's just heart wrenching when you're understanding that they're going to live on like two grand a month. How? And still pay, whether it's a mortgage or rent or whatever they have to do in food. And just to see people struggle with now, they can't take trips, they can't do anything fun and they're in the prime of their life or they're just trying to enjoy life and they want to do things and they want to school grandkids and they can't because they don't have anything left.

Yes. And your worth is not attached to whether or not you have those things and do those things. And you can still enjoy life doing plenty of things that don't cost anything. And so you can definitely find your way to do that and to balance those things. And I think there's a belief you have to have all the things and do all the things and it's more a selective way of doing that, of what you prioritize and knowing what you want to save up for. And is it worth it to have a Starbucks every single day or to be able to go to one nice dinner once a month? Right, so trying to what you want to exchange out or do you want to go to that one trip to Morocco or to Australia every five years? Or do you want to be able to go to the beach every other weekend or whenever it is to trade those things out sometimes.

Right, absolutely. And I do think that you mentioned it and I want to say this in that everyone is worthy of wealth.

Yes.

You think you deserve the nice things, you deserve to get a massage, all the things, yes. But if you can't afford them, that's fine. But you're worthy also of building wealth. And there's discipline in that. And discipline is such a beautiful thing because you're proving your identity that you are worthy of wealth by being disciplined with your money, by being disciplined to save, by being disciplined with an intentional I'm going to meal plan. I'm going to only go out once a week and have a nice meal once a week versus every day. It's that discipline to create this life that you want to create. And then over time, that discipline becomes habit, like brushing your teeth. And so it's this initial shift, maybe, or downscale of lifestyle if you're living a little in excess of your income. But once you start to get used to that, there's a shift that happens and you start to realize that, yes, you can have wealth. Wealth is what you don't see. Rich spending is what you see. You see people spend money, but real wealth, you don't see it because it's all in investments and it might be in a home equity, it might be in other places, but you don't see it necessarily.

Yes. And instead of having the ten Amazon boxes you don't have the time to open, you get the one thing that you actually enjoy and savor, my word of the year is savor. So you get the thing that you savor and that you actually enjoy and you take the trip that you actually instead of like, oh, we do this all the time, it means nothing. Like the Starbucks every day that you actually savor the thing and build the things that will last and be impactful and mean something to you.

That's great. That's a great point. Love it.

Yes. It also valuable. Thank you so much, Amy. This has been so wonderful. So one thing we always do with each of our guests is talk about what you do for self care. And one day I will get the better term that it needs to be like maintenance. Like what you do to maintain yourself because it's more than something to soft, like self care. So what do you do to maintain yourself and make it so that you can give back to others and be present in your family and in your world? What do you do for self care on a regular basis?

So I have two. One's going to be contrite because it's what I do, but I think honestly, budgeting to me is self care. If you can say where's my money going? And I want it to go here and I'm tracking words, it's actually happening. That is self care. Right? That is one. Number two, I'm going to say working out. Working out is it gives me energy. Like this morning I did not want to do it. We started to work out and I was like, I don't feel like it. But once you get through it, it's so much better. Once you start, after a few minutes, that feeling goes away and you're just in it. So creating this identity that I do, the hard things necessary to maintain my body and my money and my health, it's so important to longevity and into the things that I care about. So to me, that's self care.

Yes. That's excellent. And fits into that self maintenance piece as well. Those things you do to maintain yourself and take care of you for you and your family as well. I love it. And then what is the one thing that we can kind of give people something they can implement and start doing immediately that they can do, as we call it, our grit wit that they can kind of take away with and apply immediately into their life?

Sure. So I think one thing I'm thinking about is I want people to really dream of what they want to have in life. And so everything costs money. So whether you want to travel, buy a home, you want to start a business, you want to stay home with your kids, it's all about money, right. Can you financially make that happen? So define that. What does that look like? Where do you want to be in five years? What does life look like to you and really get very crystal clear as to what you want to create, because that's going to be a driving factor for you to know kind of where you're going. Right? We enter the destination GPS. On top of that is where am I now? And so this is getting real, knowing the truth, the facts. Where am I? What is my monthly take home pay? How much debt do I have? What am I paying a monthly minimum payments to all of my debts? What could I do with that if I didn't have it? Where's my money going? How many subscriptions do I have? Right?

Like all of it, looking at it. And you can look back at bank statements, you can look at credit card statements, but just starting to really get an idea. Picture a broad view, picture 30,000 foot view of what's happening with your money, right? And so you can even calculate your net worth, right? But looking at where you are with money today and where you want to be will give you some clues as to what you need to fix in order to get to where you want to be.

So really getting real about what you want and about where you're at and getting a good solid picture of that. To start doing that.

Absolutely.

Like that, start imagining seeing that's. Wonderful. And you also have a really great tool that you have this kind of a challenge that couples can use to kind of get them in your world and acquainted with you, but also to get them started. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Yes, absolutely. So my partner Stacey and I created a five day marriage and money transformation challenge. It's a series of emails that you'll get over the course of five days that give you actions that you can do on your own, that you and your partner or your spouse will do on your own. But then you'll come together to talk about that together and what you've discovered, right? You'll get clear, you'll get connected, you'll get on the same page when it comes to money. So it's really about how do we stop fighting about money? How do we understand our spouse? They do money so weird, I don't like it. How do we get to understand them, look at them with love and affection and empathy, and how do we start growing together to create a plan for that life that we want to create together? Right? And so you can go to my website, amygreenfc.com/challenge, and sign up for that challenge there. And green is G-R-E-E-N-E all the e's. But yeah, that's a great tool to really just get into my world. And then you'll be on my email list and we'll send you lots of other information as we move forward. So a great place to start, especially if you're engaged, married, committed relationship. It's a great fun project to walk through.

No, that sounds wonderful. I think people need a place to start the conversation. It's not an easy conversation to start, so having the conversation starter is probably a great tool for you and your partner to have to get started. That's a wonderful gift to give folks. Wonderful. We'll make sure we have that in the show notes as well. So if you just go to the show notes for this episode, the link will be right there for you guys to grab that so you can get connected. Thank you so much, coach Amy. This has been so valuable to have this conversation and give people some ways of looking at things and ideas about this, and I really feel that you're doing great work. So thank you your knowledge with us.

Yes. Thank you so much for having me, Shawna. It's been fun.