[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back for another Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. These are our short episodes to end off the week to answer questions from you, the lovely listeners of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, the therapists, health practitioners, coaches.

[00:00:19] Today we have a question from Margot Rochester. Here’s Margot’s question.

[00:00:25] Margot: Hi, Linzy. This is Margot Rochester. I also live in Ontario. I think you do, too. When I saw the word scaling, my interpretation was how we would scale for clients, for example, who might not have enough money for our regular fee. And so we agree toallow them to pay less. And this has been an ongoing struggle in my practice, an ongoing piece to think about.

[00:01:00] So there are people who I charge my full fee. And I feel good about the fee that I charge currently. But I can also fall into this thing where I’m like, this is how much I charge. And. at times feel a little bit like, is that too much, and then let them know that I have a sliding scale.

[00:01:22] But there are so many ins and outs, to this issue, as you can imagine. And I do some pro bono work, which I feel is an important part of my work. It is extremely limited, but I’d be so interested in your comments about this.

[00:01:43] If there is a measure that you would use in terms of, how many clients you would only see for a certain amount, or how you think about it, how you gauge it. I hope that’s clear. Thank you so much for all the work that you do.

[00:01:59] Linzy: Margot, thank you so much for your question. And yeah, that does, uh, point out an interesting way in our, in our field that there’s two uses for the same word. The word scaling can refer to scaling up as I was talking about in the Feelings and Finances episode with our question from Edgar about growing your business and expanding what you do beyond that one on one.

[00:02:20] We call that scaling, but then there’s also sliding scale. So that’s what you’re talking about here is sliding, I think, is often the verb that we use to talk about this, which is where, as you said, we offer folks a lower fee. And what I’m hearing is in your practice, there’s maybe many folks on a lower fee.

[00:02:36] So there’s two pieces to this, Margot, that come to mind right away. The first one is knowing your numbers, right? So you mentioned this piece of, is there a certain amount of clients that we should have that we offer these kinds of spots to you? I’m hearing you also do pro bono work, right?

[00:02:52] So that is just work, you know, that is free. So, the answer is that no, there’s not a certain number for everybody, but there is a number for you. So the very first place that I would encourage you to start as you’re thinking about this sliding scale question is how much do you actually need to make to take care of your life?

[00:03:11] Right? To be well, to be able to eat the food that’s good for you, to be able to pay your mortgage, to be able to save for retirement, maybe save for kids’ education, or inheritance for grandchildren, you know, whatever your goals are. What does that number look like for you?It takes a little bit of work to find this number, Margot, because in that mix, we need to think about how much money needs to come in the door of your practice, right? So that you’re sending enough money home to you, and there’s also money to set aside for taxes, and there’s also some money to set aside for running your business, right?

[00:03:43] So the money that comes in the door for your business has many jobs to do. Not just paying you, not just paying to run the business, but it has multiple responsibilities. So, you know, there’s going to be a little bit of sitting down and being with your numbers. That’s really going to be helpful for you here to think about what does your paycheck need to look like?

[00:04:00] What is that number that feels good coming home that covers off your obligations and responsibilities, but also gives you some money to live and save for the future. What is that number for you? Is that 2, 500? Is it 4, 000? Is it 6, 000? That number is different for all of us, depending on our life circumstances, whether we’re in a dual earning household, needs of our family.

[00:04:22] Everybody’s life has its own profile. So that’s the first thing I would have you ground in is sit down and think about what do you need your paycheck to be after taxes? Then we need to think about how much taxes need to go aside for you to get that paycheck, right? What would be, the 30%, that you would add to that number to give you, so there’s enough money going aside for taxes, and

[00:04:42] to cover off the money that’s going home to you, so your tax obligation is covered. Then we need to think about how much money it takes to run your practice. So how many dollars a month do you spend just paying your rent or paying for courses, professional development, your software that you use in your practice?

[00:04:56] What is that monthly net? Is that like 500 bucks a month, a thousand bucks a month? You’re going to add that to the picture, too. So now we’ve got three numbers that we’ve grabbed so far. One is your paycheck to yourself, the taxes to cover off for that paycheck, and the money that you’re spending to run the business, right?

[00:05:11] We’re going to add all those numbers together. It’d be nice if there was also like a buffer there, Margot, you know, for like some vacation time for you and a little bit of profit, profit being just oxygen, breathing room. But let’s just say, you know, for the sake of, of simple, clear numbers that you come to the conclusion that your practice needs to bring in like 6, 000 a month

[00:05:31] to cover off all of those different things. Now we can think about how do you get there, right? And in Money Skills for Therapists, I have a tool that guides you in doing this because there’s a lot of moving parts here, but we’re going to talk it through so you can work these numbers out on paper, right,

[00:05:44] and be with these numbers for yourself. So using 6, 000 as the number that you’ve come to, to cover all those things, thinking about how many sessions a week are you able to work and be well? I think about this, Margot, as your sweet spot number. This is not your drop dead number. This is not like I can do 20 sessions a week, and then I go home and feel like a zombie and cry myself to sleep, and use the weekend to like just recover so I can start over again next week.

[00:06:12] This is the number of sessions where you feel you’re best, you’re doing your best work, you get in the zone, but you can also still go home and be present in your life, engage in some hobbies, still have enough energy left over for you and the folks who love you. So let’s say in this case 6, 000 a month, and you decide that your sweet spot number is 16 sessions a week.

[00:06:35] So I’m going to take the number 6, 000. I’m going to divide it by 16 and then I’m going to divide it by four. There’s actually 4. 33 weeks in a month, but I’m going to play a little bit conservative, which gives us a little bit of, of breathing room if folks can’t make it, or if you’re sick.

[00:06:48] So that gives an average fee of 93.75 an hour. These are made up numbers. You’re going to play with your own numbers. But when I have that number, then I can start to see, okay, based on the folks that I have in the mix now, am I making enough money to get me to that 6, 000 a month? And if I’m not, where can I start to wiggle so that I do get to that 6, 000 a month that I need to see?

[00:07:14] Do I have 12 people on sliding scale that are paying me somewhere between 30 and 60? Can I bring up the bottom of that sliding scale? You have so much opportunity here, Margot, to play with the numbers to make the practice reflect your values. There’s no one way to do it. You’re also doing pro bono work, so I would actually add that in as you’re thinking about your capacity, right?

[00:07:36] So, if your capacity is 16 clients, but you’re doing 2 pro bono sessions a week, that’s actually 14 sessions a week that you’re getting paid for. So now we need that 6, 000 to, coming out of 14 sessions a week. And when I do that, then the average needs to be 107 an hour, right? You need to make 107 on average between all your sessions.

[00:07:55] And then you can start to ground on the mix that you have now, is it getting you where you need to be? If it’s not, start to experiment with, well, what if? What if each week, I had five folks on sliding scale who are each paying me $75, and just add these numbers together. So if I take five folks on sliding scale and they’re each at $75, and then the remainder of my folks, let’s say another nine people, because I’m playing with this imaginary 14, are on my full fee, which I’m going to say is 150,

[00:08:25] what does that get me to? If I do five times 75 plus nine times 150. Okay, that’s getting me to 1,725 a week, so that actually does get me to a number that’s getting me to that 6, 000. I’m just playing, right? And this is so important, Margot, as you’re figuring out the right mix for you that reflects your values and the folks that you love to serve, and your own financial needs, is be curious and play.

[00:08:52] Just do a little math. Right. This is all just, uh, it’s elementary school math, right? We’re talking about addition, subtraction, multiplication. So play with the numbers to see like, what would be a really nice mix that hits a couple sweet spots? It hits your amount of sessions that you can work for a week and still thrive.

[00:09:08] Be a happy human. That’s your sweet spot. It allows you to serve enough folks in your practice that you feel like you are contributing to your community in the way that you want to, or you’re able to serve the folks that you love to serve, who maybe could not access you at your full fee,

[00:09:22] and it’s getting you the money that you need to live and be well, right? So there’s like these three elements here that we are balancing that you get to play with and do a gut check on what makes sense. Once you determine what your sliding scale needs to look like, then you get to set boundaries around it.

[00:09:38] And this is the second part of my response to you. So once you determine, okay, I have three sliding scale spots available in my practice. And those are already taken. I already have three folks that I love who I’ve been working with for a long time. Those spots are taken. They’re not going anywhere anytime soon.

[00:09:53] I’m happy to work with these folks long term. Then you know that you don’t have any more sliding scale spots available. You’ve set a boundary for yourself. Now it’s about holding that boundary. And There was an episode that I did a few seasons ago with Brittany Kipnis, she’s a graduate of Money Skills for Therapists, and we had a conversation about this, about holding that boundary when you’re telling a client your fee.

[00:10:14] Because it’s exactly like you say. We start to, you know, tell a client our fee, and then we start to do some mind reading for them. We project onto them what we’re feeling, so we say, my fee is 150, and before they even have a chance to react in any way, we say, but I do have a sliding scale. Right? We’re not even giving them a chance to say, Oh, that’s fine.

[00:10:33] Or to say, Oh, okay, yeah, just let me talk to my mom because she said she would help me with therapy. You’re not even giving them a chance to solve their own problem when you are jumping in and assuming that they can’t afford your fee. So the strategy for this is say your fee, my fee is 150 an hour, and then stop talking.

[00:10:51] We need to give them space. We need to give them space to process, to respond, to let you know that they’re going to think about it or to say, Oh, that’s totally fine. My last therapist was 175 an hour. This is no big deal, right? We need to let them be the adult. And if there is a problem, we need to let them solve their own problem as an adult and not take that problem on as our own.

[00:11:14] If you have a hard time doing this, there can be some different tricks to help you hold that boundary. One that I find can work for parents is imagine taking that money that you are offering them out of the hands of your child and giving it to them instead. So if you are 150 a session, but you’re going to about to offer them a 75 sliding scale, imagine taking 75 from your own child and giving it to this client instead, because that’s functionally what you’re doing.

[00:11:38] You’re taking money from your own family and giving it to somebody else, which you can do sometimes, right? But if you’re doing it all the time, you really are depriving your own family and setting it up so their needs are not being met so that somebody else can have their needs met or be extra comfortable or not have to solve their own problem.

[00:11:54] So these are the two parts of my response. One, take that time to ground on your numbers, play with your numbers as we’ve talked about here. Two, once you have set that boundary, it might also be adjusting your caseload to start to have some folks who are on sliding scale wrap up with you if they’ve been with you a while to get you down to the number that’s sustainable.

[00:12:13] And then hold that boundary when you are having conversations so that you actually set up a practice that is sustainable for you. That takes care of you, that pays you, has you working an amount of sessions. That has you in your sweet spot enjoying your life. Right, so clarity and then boundaries. Those are the two parts to my advice for you, Margot, on sliding scale.

[00:12:32] I wish you clarity and groundedness. If people are watching YouTube, they’ll see that I’m doing a grounded motion in this piece. It can be a really tricky one, but once you get clarity around it, you are going to find that so many things in your practice and your life get easier.

[00:12:47] Thanks so much for your question, Margot If you, like Margot have a question that you’d like me to answer on a Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, it is super easy. Just follow the link in the show notes. It’ll take you to our podcast page where you can just press record, leave me your question, just like Margot Share your name, share your question, and I would be happy to answer it on a future episode of Feelings and Finances.

[00:13:10] Thank you so much for joining me today.

Charissa: I know I need to let go, but how? And what is the strategy to do that? And just talking to you, I’m having all these insights Simultaneously. So I was like, But there is no use for that, and that’s something that I have to sort of take in. And I know that’ll take time, that I don’t have use for those coping mechanisms. 

Linzy:  Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, where we answer this question: how can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach, and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists.

Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today we have a coaching episode with one of our podcast listeners, Dr. Charissa Pizarro. Charissa is a clinical psychologist based in New Jersey. She specializes in trauma work and she works full time but also has a part-time private practice on the side and is thinking about moving into full-time private practice, but finds that it’s difficult to think about doing that because she struggles with her fee.

So today, Charissa and I get into the challenges that she has with actually owning her expertise. She has more than 20 years of clinical experience, um, but has a hard time holding her boundaries around the fees that she set for herself, both clinically and then with workshops and presentations that she does, and we talk about the challenges with that and it’s linked to intergenerational trauma Linking way back to two generations ago her family experiencing genocide and a dictatorship. The rich conversation here of getting into that kind of like a two-pronged piece of that, you know, the top end of kind of learning skills and numbers and owning what we want and the skills that we have but that on the other end trauma, like true trauma, that gets in the way of our relationship with money and makes it hard to do what we want to do With our lives here is my conversation with Dr. Charissa Pizarro

Linzy: So Charissa, welcome to the podcast.

Charissa: Thank you for having me. I’m very excited to be here today.

Linzy: Yeah, I’m excited to have you here. So Charissa, in terms of what you want to focus on during this conversation together today, what are you bringing that you want us to talk about on this podcast recording?

Charissa: So I do part-time private practice, and my end goal would be to do full-time private practice and to value the services that I bring to the table for clients, all sorts of clients. I have difficulty sort of, for lack of a better word, pricing my sessions or my services, like a presentation, for example. There are some very, very deep roots that sort of, that’s connected to. So maybe unpack that a little. I know we’re, we only have a certain amount of time, but that would be great if you could, help me with that.

Linzy: Absolutely. Yeah. Cause I’m curious, you know, starting in the now, tell me about what it is about pricing. What happens to you around pricing when you’re trying to price your different offers and services? 

Charissa: So I have 20 years… Gosh, I’m so old. I have more than 20 years of experience. I’m a clinical, licensed clinical psychologist. I’m also a play therapist. And then I find myself that clients are negotiating the prices with me. I was like, okay, so we’ll leave it at X, X amount.

And it’s not the price that I deserve. And I’m very quick to say, if you can’t pay this, cause I see some people for pro bono and that’s fine, but maybe I do more of that than I should. And it financially really takes a toll on me sometimes.

Linzy: Okay. So are you… Right now you’re in part-time private practice?

Charissa: Right. And I work full-time. 

Linzy: Okay, yes. In your private practice, are you taking insurance? Are you out of pocket?

Charissa: I was taking insurance. And it wasn’t working out. Sometimes I wouldn’t get paid. I would get paid like 25 for a session. I was like, I, I can’t. Like financially, I just couldn’t. So then I took myself off the panel and I just do, I just have a set fee and the clients pay that.

Linzy: Okay. Okay. Or, or they don’t pay that, is what I’m hearing. Mm hmm. Um, I’m curious, what is the fee that you have set?

Charissa: So  I’m so proud of myself because I raised it recently. Especially after the pandemic with all this stuff that’s going on. So it was a hundred and 175… Anyway, well, what it is now, it’s for the intake, it’s 250 and then 200 for individual sessions.

Linzy: Okay. Yeah. And when you say that, you know, folks start negotiating… What is the conversations that happen? Like, is it when you start working with somebody that they’ll try to negotiate you down on the fee or, yeah. Tell me what that looks like.

Charissa: So for some people, before we start sessions, I say this is the fee… I’ll give you an example of somebody I have in mind. Oh, but I can’t pay that, Can we do this? And then I feel bad because I’m like probably overly empathic. And I was like, oh, okay, what can you pay? And you know, we’re not bartering at a store… So I end up shortchanging myself is the bottom line. 

Linzy: Sure. Yes. Okay. Okay. And of the folks that you’re working with now, how many of them are paying you your full fee?

Charissa: So I have about five, well, one of them is on Medicare, so that’s, that’s separate. So let’s say out of the four, I would say two, so 50%.

Linzy: Okay. And then the other two

Charissa: sounds like a lot when I say that.

Linzy: Well, yeah, there you go. 50%. That’s great. So the 50 percent… of the other two, I’m curious what fees have you set with them? The two that are not paying the full fee. Yeah.

Charissa: I have somebody at 125.

Linzy: Okay. Yeah.

Charissa: Which is also coincidentally almost 50%.

Linzy: Yes, that’s true.

Charissa: I didn’t realize that actually.

Linzy: Okay. One at 125 and what’s the other one? 

Charissa: There’s the two people that pay the full fee and then the other person It’s 175, I would say.

Linzy: Okay. Okay. So, still less. Closer to those two, but for you then.  I am curious. What is it that happens when somebody challenges the fee? I’m hearing there’s maybe this empathic response that comes out. What happens to you when somebody says, “Oh, I can’t pay that.”

Charissa: very, we had food, but we had very limited resources. So I know what it feels like not to be able to pay for something, and I feel like therapy everyone should have access to it. So a part of me is like, oh, I know what this is.

Let me try to help this person. But then, oftentimes in the process, as I’ve discovered, you know, throughout my 20 years, this, it sort of works against me, and I’m trying to, to work on that.

Linzy: And how does it work against you?

Charissa: Well, oftentimes I have to do three jobs… so many more clients than I would otherwise have to do, and then I deal with trauma and childhood trauma, and it takes an emotional toll on me as well. It’s a lot. It’s a lot.

Linzy: Yeah. That’s the work that I used to do as well. It’s very heavy work. You can’t just do infinite amounts of that work by any stretch.

Charissa: And sometimes I do. Because that’s what I do in my full time as well… so I’m just trauma here, trauma there. It’s terrible. I mean, I try to make light of it, but it’s, it’s hard.

Linzy: It is. It’s very heavy work and, with this Carissa tell me where do you? Want to be like as you’ve started, because I know you’ve done some work before on money, you mentioned off mic as we were chatting before, where do you want to be in terms of your private practice? How many clients you see what is that picture of a more sustainable version of this work for you? 

Charissa: In an ideal world, I would have… I don’t know, maybe five clients a day or some presentations. Yes. You know, sprinkle throughout the week and I would have enough money to vacation, 

Linzy: Okay. 

Charissa: and to be able to take that time knowing that I’m not going to get paid if I were in full-time private practice because I love to vacation…

Linzy: yes.

Charissa: And my daughter is going to college in two years, so I also need to set some money aside continue to set some money aside, but I feel like I need to set even more aside now

Linzy: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So there’s the vacation priority money for college for your daughter. Five clients a day. How many clients a week? Okay.

Charissa: I’d be okay with 20 to 25, but if I could supplement with a vacation, not a vacation, 

Linzy: Hmm. That was an interesting slip. 

Charissa:  If I could supplement with a presentation because I go to go into the schools and do presentations, I wrote a book, so that would be some nice side income. To have money to live comfortably and vacation.

Linzy: Lots of vacations, all the vacations. Okay. So 20 to 25, but I’m hearing you have this other, revenue source, or a way of getting yourself out there, which is through these presentations that you do. I’m curious, how much do you charge for a presentation?

Charissa: That’s a great question, because the last one, I sort of gave it away, and then other people in the same, it was for a school, other people in the same school were like, oh, could you come present for us? I’m like of course, why not?

Linzy: Right. Okay.

Charissa: So I don’t even know what the competition charges sometimes.

Linzy: Yeah.

Charissa: And I mean, I was doing this for my cousin. I’ll give you this price. This is a special price. This is not what I charge, which is, you know, completely true. But I wasn’t sure also what I should be charging.

Linzy: Okay. Yeah. What did you charge? Like what’s the special price?

Charissa: It was 750.

Linzy: Okay. Okay. Okay. That’s good. That’s higher than I thought you were going to say. So, I like that.

Charissa: I had started at 500 and I was like, you know, this is… It’s a lot of work.

Linzy: It is. Yes.

Charissa: then I upped it a little bit.

Linzy: Okay, okay. So this is nice because you already have built out this other way of doing your work that’s not one-on-one, right?

You have these presentations that you get to mix into your work week, which is great. Because with this, I’m hearing five clients a day. I will say, I get this little response where I’m like, five is a lot. But that’s totally about my nervous system. But it does make me curious about, for you, how you know that five a day is the right amount for you, your nervous system, and your life.

Charissa: I do not know that, but from my full-time job that I had years ago, we were required to schedule, let’s say, seven, and then five would show, and we had to do 25 a week. So that’s where I’m getting that from. That doesn’t mean that that works with my nervous system at all, given the work that I do.

Linzy: No. Yeah, and this is what I’m wondering, because we all have our capacity, we all have our sensitivities, and the work takes different things from different people. For me, when I was doing complex trauma work, I found that, actually, 16 was my cap four a day, four days a week. My partner would say that three was my cap because he could tell the difference between a three-client day and a four-client day for me.

After four clients I come home and it’s like I had a full day but now I’m tired. Three clients and I come home and I had a full day, and I have energy for other things, right? So it kind of depends on your bar, but this is something I want you to think about as we’re thinking about what you’re building,

cause then we’re going to go into what’s in the way, what do you want? What’s good for you? Cause I’m hearing you’ve had the experience of five clients a day, five days a week. That’s normal, right? That’s what you’ve been conditioned to do by your workplace. But in private practice, especially if you do want to step into full-time, you get to determine what full-time is and you get to determine what your schedule looks like.

Charissa: Linzy I love the sound of that.

Linzy: It’s good. 

Charissa: I love it!

Linzy: Yeah. Yeah. Cause I’m curious there’s this concept that I like to talk about with folks, which is your sweet spot, and your sweet spot in your clinical session. The Number of sessions that you can do that you feel like, yeah, that was a good full work day.

I don’t feel like there was a gap, right? You don’t feel like Oh, I could have seen one more. I wish I had one more client on my roster today. It’s a good full day, but you come home, and you still have gas in the tank to do your hobbies, go out with a friend, and spend some quality time with your daughter.

 There’s still energy for you and your life, right? And you still have some curiosity and spark for things outside of work. That is like the sweet spot where you’ve done the work, you feel satisfied, but you still have something left for you, and something substantial left for you. I’m curious, just checking with your gut what would be that number for you per day? Just think about a day. What’s an ideal client day where you would have the energy to enjoy life after?

Charissa: Well, right now, I do not think I enjoy the life that you’re describing and I would love to.  So, I don’t know, it might be three a day then. 

Linzy: Yeah. Okay. And when you get to the point in this work of starting to visualize how to build what you need, three is probably more of the number that you’re looking for than five per day.

Charissa: Yeah, three sounds about right. 

Charissa: Sometimes I have one person and I’m like, oh my god, I need a vacation, right now.

Linzy: Depending on the session and the content, and how close it is to your own lived experiences, and how you’re feeling that day. Yeah. The relationship, all of those things. Some sessions are very, very heavy. Yeah. Okay. So, three a day, and how many days a week would you like to be doing clinical work?

Charissa: It’d be nice if I could just do four.

Linzy: That’d be nice. Okay. Three times four. I like your smile. It’s good. It’s like you’re lightening up a little bit thinking about this. So three clients a day, four days a week, and then your presentations. How many presentations would you want to be doing?

Charissa: So, maybe, two a month?

Linzy: For some reason, that’s a number that came into my head, too. Yeah. Two per month.

It seems like one a week would be a lot. But especially as you build out more and more of those materials, there’s going to be less, You know, this starting over. You can start to repurpose materials. It’ll be easy. 

Charissa: It is a lot, A few weeks ago, I did like three in one. I need to just sleep all weekend. And I couldn’t, of course.

Linzy: Yeah. No. And that’s helpful to notice, right? Because I think, too, with our work, there’s always, again, that sweet spot of what is exciting and engaging and good, but can become too much, right? We are, we only have the capacity for so much in any given period.

Charissa: Right. And I speak so passionately, and I care so much about the topics that I’m presenting. Which is a plus, but it also takes a toll in its own right. 

Linzy: Okay. Okay. So this would be a dream scenario. And I don’t want to say dream. This is your goal scenario we’re talking about right now, which is three clients a day, four days a week, and then a presentation like twice a month. So every other week doing one of these presentations, because the presentations, too, what I’m hearing is 750 is what you charged.

This isn’t what I charged. This is the friend rate. What do you think you could conceivably charge for one of those presentations? I’m hearing you don’t know what your competition is doing. But thinking about the audience that you’re serving, the pockets that they have, what kind of money do they have to train their staff or to offer services to their community?

Charissa: Well, I saw some numbers because I was doing a little research and I thought they were a little outrageous but I’m five thousand dollars. Oh my god. I can’t charge that, but why not?  I have more credentials than some of these people who are charging .. a couple of thousand dollars, 

Linzy: Sure. Yes. Yes.

Charissa: So it’s about sort of accepting .. what I am giving them is worth 

Linzy: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I’m seeing, hearing that in the space that you’re in, you’ve seen folks charging up to 5,000 for the kind of work that you’re doing. I like that for you. Okay. So, we’re going to.

Charissa: I like the sound of that. I’m getting so excited. I love this. I’m like 5, 000. What?

Linzy: If you think of clinical sessions, it’s like 5, 000 divided by if you were charging your full fee, 200 an hour, which you’re not entirely, that replaces 25 sessions of income.

Charissa: Oh my god.

Linzy: Yeah, I mean a presentation is in the business space we’d call more of a scaled offer where rather than one to one where one person has to pay for that hour of your time, it’s one too many, right?

You’re like serving an organization that has multi million dollar budgets or, you know, school boards or whatever, right, where it’s you are standing in a room and 50 people are getting the benefit of your knowledge, or 20 people, and that is a scaled offer, right? That’s when you get out of that just like one to one relationship into much deeper pockets, because they’re paying to train a whole department at once. So yeah, there’s a lot more opportunity there, to charge for this expertise that you’ve developed.

Charissa: I mean, it makes total sense, but when I get out there and I’m in the position to state what my fee is it’s really difficult. 

Linzy: So let’s, focus there. Tell me about what’s difficult about it. Yeah. Yeah.

Charissa: So I work, so far with people of color, and people with very limited resources, so that’s hence the scaling of the private fee but the presentations are something newer and it’s also to people of color, but they do have deep pockets. They do have a budget, I could present for 120 children with a super personalized presentation. I’m like, why did I just charge them 750? What was I thinking? But there’s a part of me that, that can’t get past that.

Linzy: Yes. And what can’t you get past? What’s coming up?

Charissa: Well, we were talking before we started, I have a lot of my upbringing. As I mentioned before, limited resources, but intergenerationally I come from the Dominican Republic. We had a dictatorship from 1930 to 1961. And there was genocide, there was torture, you name it, it was there.

Now, when I did my dissertation for school, I sort of found out how people survived, because I interviewed people who survived this dictatorship. And one of the things that I was shocked and found out was that poor people were sort of favored, and that is one of how they survived.

And when I made this connection, it was like, the light bulb went off. There were fireworks. This is what I’m dragging with me and I do this work with clients. I’m like this is severe money trauma.

Charissa: Sort of survival versus finances.

Linzy: Yeah. Or survival versus living or thriving, right? Because what I’m hearing is in that dictatorship, if you were, small in a certain sense, right? If you weren’t threatening, I’m going to assume there were all sorts of political… I don’t even know what to call it. Toxicity is too light of a word, but you know, you wouldn’t want to be noticeable, right?

You want to stay under the radar, not a threat to anybody, you know, like barely getting by yourself, get ignored and therefore your life is spared. Am I, am I understanding that?

Charissa: Yeah, right. Very very much so 

Linzy: so. I’m curious, when you think about that now, what do you notice is happening for you? Thinking about that, small is safe. Small keeps you alive.

Charissa: It’s I mean you were describing it. And although I’ve done so much research on this, I was like, oh my god, she hit the nail on the head there. That’s sort of what I’m doing. I’m staying small, not being noticeable. I don’t even do any advertising.

Linzy: Right.

Charissa: It’s so parallel. I mean, I said it was deep, but it’s a lot deeper than I thought. Yes and thinking about this, Charissa, to maybe trace this a little bit in your own life, this idea, this strategy that staying small is how you survive. Did you see your parents or folks in the generation above you living this strategy, or how do you think you inherited it?

That’s a very interesting question. I’m a single mom. My mom was a single mom. My grandparents were together, and they’re the ones who experienced the dictatorship firsthand. But of course, you know, trauma gets passed down from generation to generation. So how did I learn it? I mean, I don’t know the exact mechanism. And there’s like, also the gender role, right? Because my grandmother was a huge role model for me. But she very much stayed invisible sometimes. And my grandfather, as a male, you know, patriarch, got the light. So I don’t know how I got all that. But I know that during the dictatorship, and I think in general in my family, and in my culture, it was also about staying quiet. I mean the same thing: staying small, staying quiet. That’s what we learned to do. 

Linzy: One question that always comes to mind for me, and I’m sure this is a question you’ve probably asked many times being a trauma therapist, is, you know, looking at your situation now, like zooming out and taking some perspective, what is different about your life now than your grandparent’s life under that dictatorship?

Charissa: I mean, fortunately for me, I’m not surviving,  it’s that my life is not on the line like theirs was… So I don’t need that coping which I am clutching and holding onto. So I need to find a way to let go.

Linzy: Yeah. Yeah. And if you think about letting that go, because this is a strategy that your grandparents needed, right? And all the folks of their generation needed… So it had utility, right? It had utility two generations ago. It’s inherited, right? These things we live and breathe it. Who knows, as you said, what the exact mechanism is, whether you absorbed stories or whether it’s biological trauma, but if you think about the idea of letting it go like you had this visual of clutching, right? So if you think about that release of just gently letting it go, what happens to you?

Charissa: I got a little, my body got a little tense when you said sort of let go. These are things that are so deeply ingrained. That’s a good question. I know I need to let go, but how? And what is the strategy to do that? And just talking to you, I’m having all these insights Simultaneously. But there is no use for that, and that’s something that I have to sort of take in. And I know that’ll take time, that I don’t have use for those coping mechanisms.

Linzy: No, I mean, there’s that, that piece of, Another kind of trauma phrase is like, you know, the conditions have changed just catching up, letting that part of you catch up because other parts of, you know, this doesn’t make any sense. I have all this experience. I have 20-plus years of expertise.

You know, I need the money. I need to pay for college. There are lots of parts of you that know that this doesn’t make sense, but the part of you that’s clutching it is slowly letting that part catch up to life now. And what is different about your life now than your grandparent’s life, right? And why that strategy isn’t needed at this moment.

Charissa: It will take a lot to sort of let that simmer if that’s even the right word. Yeah, cause it’s been, that was like 60, 70 years ago, and here I am sort of living a piece of it. This is a testament to the strength of the trauma, but okay, let’s let go of the trauma.

Linzy: Yes. I mean, this may be one of these moments where the way out is through, right? So there are two sides, I think to money in general, and one is the first part that we started talking about, which is the numbers to start. What are the numbers you need?

You know, what is possible here? You know, and we can play with those numbers even a little bit more. That’s that informational piece. That’s logic. That’s the possibility. That’s the beauty of math, I would say. Probably have a hard time getting most of the folks that listen to me on board with that.

But, the other side is this, Folks would call it mindset. That’s a very catch-all term. It is the mindset, but this is trauma. This is real trauma, right? This is intergenerational trauma. This is your family surviving a dictatorship and genocide, right? And that’s not something that, I think we’re often able to just shift, you know, through, cognitive knowledge. This might be worth taking to your trauma therapy.

Charissa: Yes, I agree. I just didn’t realize. This is so deep.

Linzy: Yeah, it is. And what I’m visualizing right now as we’re talking is that’s the bottom-up work to do, right? Which you can do with a therapist and which you can do in your other ways of healing and shifting that, you’ve developed for yourself. And then there’s the more top-down learning to getting your brain online, which is like figuring out what numbers are possible for you and what you want your week to look like.

And if you did step into owning your expertise and saying I charged 5 000 a workshop. I’ve been doing this work for 20-plus years. This is going to blow your socks off. Trust me, the best investment you’re gonna make all year, right? Developing the clarity of what you need, and a little bit of fake it till you make it, and seeing that people will. These two things meet in the middle, right? That is like deep work and the kind of logical strategic business part, to make real change in how you experience your business. And also what’s possible in your life, because I’m hearing there are lots of things that you want, mostly vacations.

Charissa: Yes, you heard me right.

Linzy: Is this survival mechanism going to get in the way of that?

Charissa: Right. And people back then didn’t have those luxuries. Those vacations. And it’s okay for me to have them.

Linzy: Yeah, I mean, something that I think about sometimes is… I bet they would have loved them.

Charissa: Oh, for sure.

Linzy: Right? They didn’t have them. It doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t have loved to go on an amazing trip somewhere and see the world or, you know, I think sometimes it’s easy for us to look at the low bar and think that because the bar has been low, that it should keep staying low. But the reality is everybody would enjoy going on trips, having a home that’s safe and clean, and being able to eat good food. These are things that everybody should have access to, right? The fact that folks throughout history or folks in the world right now don’t have access doesn’t mean that it’s not a wonderful thing that you should have access to or that they would also love to have access to. They’re just good things. So Charissa, coming towards the end of our conversation, we have scratched the surface. I’m curious, what are you taking away coming to the end of our time?

Charissa: I am taking away that I need more therapy, other things, but that doing the math is going to… And I’m not good at math, by the way… doing the math and planning and setting some goals and putting some strategies into place is something that I’m going to need guidance with, too, but it’s something that I need to do.

Linzy: Those are skills, right? That’s the piece around just developing the skills to be able to play with numbers and understand how they work together. To understand what I want. To take 12 weeks of vacation every year. How do I set up a system that allows me to do that, which is completely doable, right? I teach that. Because that is the machine, that’s the strategy part that supports you in being a happy, healthy human. 

Charissa: You said 12 weeks and my heart just jumped for joy.

Linzy: Did it? Yeah. Okay. There you go.

Charissa: At the thought of taking 12 weeks!

Linzy: I think, I think that’s what you need. And I mean, these things like travel… I’m going on a trip in a couple of weeks with some of my business friends, actually, for my birthday. I’m going to London and Iceland, and the levity that brings knowing that that’s coming,

and we’ve been texting about how much we’re going to drink so much fucking tea. We’re all so excited to go to London and go to the hot springs. If you are someone who enjoys travel and vacations it does bring so much lightness and wonder and joy to life, and the cost of those things is not necessarily that high when we are strategic and we build it into the way that we run our business. So I totally, totally see 12 weeks for you, especially with your 20-plus years of expertise that you’re about to step out and own in the world.

Charissa: Ooh, that sounds a little scary, but yes, doable. 

Linzy: Well, Charissa, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.

Charissa: Thank you for having me. It was a true joy.

Linzy: This conversation with Charissa today, which I so appreciate her having, cause it’s a vulnerable conversation to have, highlights something that I think so many folks in the coaching space, or financial space, miss, which is that some of our barriers around money, some of our quote-unquote mindset challenges,

are trauma, true trauma. Not like a little bit of trauma, but in this case, you know, deep intergenerational trauma that was very much about your life being in danger and what you had to do to survive. I always encourage folks, if you notice that you have really deep trauma, if there’s like a deep family of origin stuff, childhood stuff, things around safety and survival and self-worth that is hard for you to think your way through and that doesn’t just start to shift because you notice it, that is the opportunity for taking that to therapy.

And it does not have to be a specific financial therapist. It’s about going to a trauma therapist, or whatever modalities work for you, somatic therapy, to let your body let go of these things. Cause once we take the time to take care of that trauma, let our bodies let go, let our nervous systems and brains catch up to the present, then it is so much easier to learn.

You can still do this work simultaneously. You can still, of course, work on your trauma and learn skills, and think about what you want and own your gifts, a little fake it till you make it at the same time. But certainly, in some cases, that trauma work is essential to actually being able to heal your relationship with money.

So I’m super excited for Charissa. The work that she’s doing for other folks, the work that she’s planning to do for herself. She’s one of those people that I would love to hear from in a year or two about how things are going. If you would like to get my support and work with me, the way to learn about what I do is through my masterclass, the Four Step Framework to Get Your Business Finances Totally in Order.

This masterclass will walk you through the three biggest mistakes that keep therapists from getting clarity on their business finances. We’ll talk about how I went from just getting by in my private practice to thriving financially. If you finally want to take control of your private practice finances, then check out the masterclass.

The link is in the show notes, and that is also your gateway to get an invitation for Money Skills for Therapists, which is my signature six-month program where you get my coaching and support to make real changes around money. So you can check out the link for the four-step framework to get your business finances totally in order in the show notes.

You can also follow me on Instagram at Money Nuts and Bolts. And of course, as always, I humbly request that if you are enjoying the podcast, leave a review on Apple podcasts, it is the best way for folks to find the podcast and be part of these conversations. Thanks so much for listening today. 

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to another Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. These are the episodes where I answer your questions, the therapists and health practitioners and coaches who listen to the money skills for therapists podcast. Today we have a question from Fran. Here is Fran’s question.

[00:00:20] Fran: Hi, Linzy. I have a quick question for you. I use YNAB for both my personal and business expenses, and my personal expenses. I have enough money saved for, you know, whatever, six to twelve months, if I was to be out of work. So the question I have is, I have no idea how much of a buffer I need in my business account.

[00:00:49] Is there a particular calculation for that? All my expenses except for my salary, I’m not quite sure how to come to a reasonable number there. Thanks so much.

[00:01:02] Linzy: Well, Fran, it is lovely to hear your voice again. Fran is a graduate of Money Skills for Therapists. It’s been a few years now. So Fran, a couple of things. First of all, I’m very excited to hear that you are still using YNAB in your personal finances and your business finances, and I’m very excited for you that you have that 6 to 12 month buffer in your personal finances.

[00:01:22] So, that is great. Now, this piece about having a buffer in the business, how much of a buffer to have in the business. So the general guideline for having a buffer in your business is about two to three months of operating expenses. So as you say, that is the money that it takes to run the business without your salary and taxes. 

[00:01:41] It’s just those keeping the lights on expenses. So your clinic management software. Especially if you have rent, you know, rent is something that doesn’t go away if we can’t work. So having two to three months of rent set aside… All of those obligations that if for some reason you can’t work, let’s say you break your foot… Well, you could still work if you broke your foot.

[00:02:00] That’s one of the nice things about being a therapist. Let’s say you end up in the hospital for a little while and you can’t work. The things that you’ll have to pay anyways that, you know, you can’t take a break on, you can’t tell your landlord, “Oh, sorry, I’m not working this month, so I can’t pay rent.”

[00:02:13] You’re going to want to have a couple months of rent in that account. Two months is a good place to start. I generally aim for two months. Folks who are more conservative, in the sense of being more risk averse, want more security, might do three months. I would say no more than that. So if you look at your average operating expenses for, you’re going to have a great picture there, Fran, for, you know, let’s say the last year or six months.

[00:02:36] And you see that on average, it costs you 500 a month to run your business. Then your goal would be to build up a thousand to 1,500 in the business to cover off the business’s obligations if you can’t work. What I’m hearing is that you already have money saved up at home for your personal salary. So.

[00:02:56] It’s the therapist’s choice whether or not you’d also want to save some money in the business as a salary backup in case you can’t work for a little bit. You know, you could have that money in the business as well, but it would be redundant to what you’ve already got at home.

[00:03:08] Basically, you just need some money, an emergency fund somewhere. And it sounds like you really have that quite thoroughly covered at home, so it probably wouldn’t be to your advantage to also have some money for your paycheck in the business, but what I would encourage, Fran, if you don’t have it already, is to have that salary system going in the business.

[00:03:26] So there’s a buffer for your salary, which means that you get paid that regular amount every month. And this is in module five of Money Skills for Therapists. So if you’re not working this strategy yet, I would encourage you to add this in because this is a type of buffer in the business, which is making sure that you have extra money in your salary fund,

[00:03:41] so that if you have a month where you work a little bit less, you can still get paid the same amount for the business. Or so you can take vacation and still get paid the same amount from the business. That’s that regular paycheck system, which is another kind of buffer.

[00:03:53] It’s a salary buffer that allows you to have that regularity no matter what your month looks like. But in terms of more of that emergency fund, the I’m not working and I need to have money saved up, then that’s two to three months in the business. And that’s it. That’s a very straightforward question. I hope that that helps Fran.

[00:04:10] It’s lovely to hear from you again. If you have a question for me that you’d like answered on one of these episodes of Feelings and Finances, super easy, you just click on the link in the show notes. It’ll take you to the podcast page, and you’ll see a little box saying, “Do you have a question for Linzy?,” or something like that, and you can just push record, and leave your question for me, and in a case like this, it might be a very short, clear answer, that will hopefully set you on your way to continue getting your finances working for you in your private practice.

[00:04:39] Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.

[00:00:00] Traci: For therapists especially, we pour into other people, that’s just what we do. And sometimes we neglect to remember that we are people too, and we have to pour into ourselves. So yes, you are deserving to have the life that you want.

[00:00:29] Linzy: Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, where we answer this question: how can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach, and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists. 

[00:01:05] Linzy: Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. Today, my guest is Dr. Traci Williams. Traci is a financial therapist. She’s a clinical psychologist. And today we dig into financial therapy. What is financial therapy? What does she see in her, her practice around financial therapy? What are all the factors that can influence our relationship with money?

[00:01:28] And I get pretty specific with Traci asking her about exactly what financial therapy looks like because as a therapist, I have a big respect and appreciation for therapy, and financial therapy is pretty new. We talk about it’s a pretty new type of therapy in the space. It’s kind of a baby therapy modality.

[00:01:46] It’s been around for about 10 years. And, today Traci and I dig into what that looks like.

[00:01:51] We talk about the stories that we all absorb around money and what to do to start to shift your relationship with money, shift your mindset, and grow your skills. 

[00:02:02] And since we’re talking about our relationship to money today and all those emotional pieces, I want to mention my free mini-course, The Secret to Getting Unstuck in Your Finances. So if you find that some of the ways that Traci and I talking about today, you feel stuck when it comes to managing your business finances, you know you want to do something about it, but you just kind of never get around to it,

[00:02:23] The key is that your relationship with money needs to change. So if you’re ready to shift your mindset and get rid of those negative beliefs and emotions around money, you can check out my free mini-training, The Secret to Getting Unstuck in Your Finances. This is a quick and powerful first step to building a new relationship with money that is essential to getting your finances in order.

[00:02:41] It’s a series of short videos that walk you through step by step as well as a worksheet to get you in touch with your relationship with money. You can check it out for free using the link in the show notes. That’s The Secret to Getting Unstuck in Your Finances. Mini training. Here’s my conversation with Dr. Traci Williams.

[00:02:58] So Traci, welcome to the podcast. 

[00:03:01] Traci: Hi, it’s nice to be here. 

[00:03:02] Linzy: It’s nice to have you here. I’m excited to have you on the podcast today for a few reasons. One of them is that you are a financial therapist, which is still a pretty small world. Does that feel fair or accurate to say that it’s still a pretty niche little space, financial therapy?

[00:03:22] Traci: Yeah, in terms of the lifespan of therapy as a profession, it’s been a long time, right? And then financial therapy has only really existed as its niche for about the past 10 years or so and has gained a lot of traction over the past couple of years. So yeah, we’re babies if you look at the grand scale.

[00:03:45] Linzy: Sure, in the grand scale of things… which is funny though, because when you just said therapy has been around for a long time, I was like, has it, though? I feel like all of this… all the stuff that we’re doing is a hundred years old or even just only slightly more. So, yeah… 

[00:03:59] Traci:  In the way that we know of it.

[00:04:01] Linzy: Yeah. So financial therapy is relatively new, and it’s such a rich area of work because I know for myself, that when I was in therapy, my kind of thought for myself was when I burned out of therapy, which was my plan… I wanted to be, at that time some financial therapists do bankruptcy coaching.

[00:04:20] It was this very specific kind of financial coaching. I don’t even know if that’s the right word for it, but it was very much about helping folks who had gone through bankruptcy, get a budget going, very practical kind of stuff. And that’s what I remember existing about 10 years ago,

[00:04:34] When I was coming into the therapy space as a baby therapist, financial therapy was something else. I think it’s something that didn’t exist when I started. So can you tell folks who are listening, what makes financial therapy financial therapy?

[00:04:49] Traci: The way that I describe it, financial therapy is where we help people shift how they think about, feel about, and behave with money. And that can look very different for different people, depending on their financial situation.

[00:05:06] A lot of how we behave with money is tied to our childhood experiences with money in our families of origin, the experiences that we have had growing up with money. A financial therapist can be a financial professional, a financial planner, or a financial advisor, who has gotten training in mental health as well as financial health, and financial therapy.

[00:05:36] Or it could be someone like me. I’m a psychologist who has additional training in personal finance and financial therapy. 

[00:05:46]  Linzy:Interesting. I didn’t realize that there are those two avenues in the profession. I assumed coming from therapy myself, that it would be therapists who have that, like, full therapeutic training who then get this additional training, right, this focus on money.

[00:06:01] But you’re saying that folks, who are financial professionals can also get certified going the other way? How much training is that for them to go from being a financial professional to being a financial therapist? 

[00:06:13] Traci: Well, it’s kind of about the same training that it took for me to understand how money works, and wills and estates, and personal financial management.

[00:06:23] So I think it’s about the same on both sides. 

[00:06:25] Linzy: Right. Yeah. And is it kind of like a diploma size of work? How much training did you have to do to go from being, in your case, a psychologist to a financial therapist? 

[00:06:37] Traci: Yeah, there are a couple of paths that you can take. So I did the certification in financial therapy through the Financial Therapy Association. That is a self-study program. They say that it usually takes about six to nine months to do. It includes reading textbooks, and college-level textbooks. As well as a video series that they have. And then you have an exam and you have to show that you’ve done a certain number of hours of contact, and so on.

[00:07:07] That’s one route that people can take. Another is the accredited financial counselor program. And that has its requirements. Some people do a master’s degree in financial social work, or behavioral finance, or a diploma, and they go about it that way. So there are a couple of avenues to get there.

[00:07:33] Linzy: Yes, I feel that’s very therapisty at the end of the day. There are like 12 ways to get to this one place and kind of do very similar work to the person next to you, but slightly differently. With the work that you do then, Traci, I’m curious, what do you see as all the different factors that come into influencing how people act the way that they do with money?

[00:07:55] Traci: Yeah, that is a complex question to break down and answer. The way that I think about it, personal finance is personal. Literally every single person on this planet touches money at some point in time, but each of us has such a unique experience in our own lives and with money. So our experiences, our relationship with money, are going to be unique.

[00:08:24] For some people, it could look like, I experienced a traumatic event growing up that impacted our family financially, whether that is housing insecurity or food insecurity. If you think of the boomer generation, if you think about people who’ve experienced war, all of those things impact you financially.

[00:08:50] It can also look like, on the other end of the spectrum, having a windfall of money, and all of a sudden you’re very anxious about what to do with all of that money, and what it means for you to have that money when the people around you might not. It could look like people who are struggling with getting out of and staying out of debt, who are living paycheck to paycheck.

[00:09:17] We know that about half of Americans who have households of 100,000 or more are living paycheck to paycheck, which is a surprising statistic for a lot of people. And so those tend to be the conversations that I am having most often.

[00:09:36] Linzy: Yeah, and I mean that generational piece I think is so helpful to name because as you’re talking about, you know, folks who’ve gone through war, you know, there’s so many impacts and migration like there are all these things that deeply impact folks’ finances, and what I see, and I’m curious your experience with this, too, is like that also gets passed on to next generations.

[00:09:57] Sometimes folks are carrying these experiences, these traumas that are the generation up, right? It’s the previous generation’s experience of money. I’m curious, how often do you see that where somebody comes in to work with you, and as you start to untangle their relationship with money, there is that kind of generational legacy stuff that they’re experiencing?

[00:10:20] Traci: Most people don’t realize where their stuff comes from. And so I might ask, well, you’re struggling with this aspect of your personal finances. Where does that come from for you? And usually, the answer is, “Well, I don’t know.” Because we don’t realize that the experiences that we had in our families of origin or the conversations that were had around us have shaped how we think and how we behave.

[00:10:49] I’m a cognitive behavioral focused therapist and I have a specialization in family systems. So I usually ask questions, okay, if you are anxious about looking at your bills, for instance, when you are looking at your bills, what are some of the things that you’re thinking?

[00:11:11] The thoughts that you’re having around your bills… Do those sound familiar to you? Is there anyone who said something similar? And that usually starts to connect the dots for people. And then they come to realize that, oh yeah, there is this piece that I didn’t realize. Also, just looking at family history, and using genograms is something that some financial therapists do to figure out if there are patterns that we may not recognize.

[00:11:41] Linzy: Absolutely. And I think with money, it makes so much sense to be doing that digging because it makes you think too about the silence around money. And I’m going to kind of develop this thought out loud, but we absorb and inherit all these things from a family of origin, as you say just things that we might have overheard or observed.

[00:12:00] There’s this saying of kids are excellent observers and lousy interpreters. They take in everything, but they’ll make meaning of it that sometimes it’s like not at all what was going on or not what their parents would want them to think or believe. But, all of these messages that we absorb.

[00:12:14] And yet, what I’ve noticed is there’s such a lack of actual conversation around money that rarely have we had the opportunity to realize, Oh, this thing that I’m doing, this is what it is, first of all, and this is where it’s coming from and this is why it was there in the first place. There’s so much silence around this aspect of being a human and of our lives where we might Be starting to have more conversations around other parts of emotional well-being, but money is still something that usually we don’t have a lot of language around and we haven’t talked about with anybody.

[00:12:47] Traci: Yeah, and that makes me think of my graduate training. You mentioned kids hearing things and not necessarily being able to interpret things, but absorbing the message. How many people have graduate training where you heard things like “therapists don’t make a lot of money,” or “We don’t get in this for the money; we get in this because we care.”

[00:13:11] When I was in grad school. I heard on multiple occasions about having a bleeding heart. And so those messages then get internalized and can affect your money mindset, even as you’re developing your own business. 

[00:13:29] Linzy: Yeah. Absolutely. And something I see as well as those messages are usually layered on kind of some predispositions we probably already have to be going into that work in the first place, right?

[00:13:40] Like already folks who are going into the therapy space are caring people who want to help others. And then, yeah, there’s that hum around you, right? That message, which is about money. And yet often, I would say in graduate school, they don’t say that it’s about money. But it’s like this, just like real emphasis on doing it from the goodness of your heart, sacrificing yourself sometimes, making up for systemic injustice and historical injustice.

[00:14:07] It’s all these things, which at the end of the day, mean you can’t get paid well for this work, or you can’t ask to get paid well for this work, because there’s always other more important things. So to me that seems like there’s still almost a silence there. But we know what they’re saying.

[00:14:20] Yes. We know the subtext under the text. 

[00:14:22] Traci: Yeah. For some people, that internalization can lead to experiencing guilt around charging what you deserve to charge, or, for people who want to go into private pay practice, experiencing guilt and shame or even rejection from peers or just in general starting to make money in your practice and not knowing how to manage that money or what that money means to you.

[00:14:51] Linzy: Yes, I think that these are the all too common experiences that we get. Unfortunately. Coming out of the education that we’ve done. So I’m curious to hear about, some of the transformations that you walk through with your clients. Because I was a trauma therapist. That was my orientation.

[00:15:08] So like trauma, EMDR, parts work. I guess I kind of know how I work with folks. Still. I know we’re, you know, we all have our go-to interventions, right, and ways of framing things. I’m curious for you, coming from a CBT lens and family systems, where is often the end goal that you’re going with folks?

[00:15:29] How do folks know, and how do you know when they’re done their work with you? What does it look like in your work with a client? 

[00:15:36] Traci: Yeah, I always start with that magical question. So I wave my magic wand and things are better in your life. What’s different? And from there, we shape goals.

[00:15:49] Usually with my financial therapy clients, they want to improve their financial situation. For them, that might mean having a plan for reducing their debt or paying off their debt entirely. It might mean having a budget in place and a plan for saving for their future. It might mean, being better able to communicate around money, whether it is with just other people in general or in a relationship.

[00:16:24] So I do have some couples that I am working with around that. And so we have very specific goals. But for us to get there, we do have to take a look at the emotional side to the equation, as well as the thoughts that are getting in their way.

[00:16:44] Linzy: Yeah, and I think that’s the beauty, right, of having those therapeutic skills with financial stuff because I think so often folks have had the experience of sitting down and trying to make a budget.

[00:16:55] And it’s so, so hard, or they make a budget and then they never look at it again, or trying to set a goal to, as you say, like pay down debt or think about maybe paying their student debt sooner, and they just don’t get there. Like it doesn’t work. 

[00:17:09] Traci: Yes, exactly. And they don’t realize why it’s not working and from my perspective, It’s likely not working for a reason and so part of my job is to figure out what that reason is. 

[00:17:23] Linzy: So in your work with folks, and I’m asking these questions partially because I also want folks who are listening to start to think about, could I benefit from financial therapy, right?

[00:17:31] Because I do education. I have courses, I’m obviously bringing my therapeutic knowledge into the work that I do but doing actual therapy around money, I think is something that most people would benefit from. Right? Just like we benefit from all types of therapy. So, you know, I’m curious to hear more about the work.

[00:17:50] So folks who are listening can also think about this: is financial therapy for me? How long does your work with somebody tend to look like? How long would a course of financial therapy tend to be? 

[00:18:01] Traci: Yeah, so from what I have seen thus far if you stick with the traditional expectation around CBT, about 8 to 12 sessions, that seems to fit for most people. I think financial coaching can be effective for people who just want something that is a set plan.

[00:18:22] This is what we’re working on. This is what we’re doing but if you want a deeper dive, then it will take longer so I recommend one or the other, depending on what people are showing up with and what their expectations are. 

[00:18:36] Linzy: Yeah, certainly. Sometimes I think we want the shortcut.

[00:18:39] I see this with sometimes the folks that I work with where it’s like, but I just want to be able to do the thing. I just want to be able to finally like spreadsheet or budget, but it’s kind of the way out is through, right? So depending on what you have to go through, sometimes making space, either in your existing therapy, if you have a therapist who’s able to help you hold these financial pieces alongside the emotional pieces, or with a financial therapist, when you say eight to 12 sessions, Traci, I’m actually like, that’s great.

[00:19:04] That’s no time at all. If you think about the impact that it has on your life, because as you say, everyone touches money at some point in their life if they’re not touching money, then possibly they’re being financially abused, which is a different kind of financial issue, right, but it’s such a part of all of our lives.

[00:19:20] And something that I’ve been connecting with more and more lately is when we do this work, whatever that work looks like, whatever we need to be doing for our situation, you make that change forever. Right? Like that is a going forward. This is the new way; these are the new skills; this is the new relationship.

[00:19:36] And even if you do find yourself reverting into old things, you’re able to be like, oh, there’s that thing again. Okay, I know what to do when this thing comes up. I’m a big fan of change. I feel like that’s a prerequisite to being a therapist, but it’s so powerful to do this work and do it as soon as you can because then you’re going to have the effects of that for decades.

[00:19:54] Traci: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. 

[00:19:57] Linzy: So, for folks who are listening, I’m curious from your perspective, if they know that they struggle with money mindset issues, negative stories, they’ve had some of these negative experiences that you’re talking about of financial precarity, trauma around money, where do you suggest people start to shift their money mindset to having more positive relationships?

[00:20:19] Traci: Yeah. The Financial Therapy Association has a directory. And so if you want to work with a financial therapist, that’s a good place to start. Folks on the directory have all types of experiences and backgrounds, so you want to make sure that it is someone who is appropriately trained and Is a good fit for you.

[00:20:42] That’s one. Two, if you’re not really in the space to be in financial therapy right now, or it’s not within your budget, or whatever the case might be, there are things that you can start to do. So you can start to look at, okay, my financial picture: what exactly does that look like? And that’s the absolute basics.

[00:21:06] So how much money am I making? A lot of people don’t know how much money they’re making. How much money am I spending? Where is my spending going? Can I look at the last three months of my bank statements to see where that money is going? I like to encourage people to dream. So if I dream, and I look towards my future self, five years, 10 years, 15 years from now.

[00:21:33] What do I want that future self to be doing? And what do I need to do with my money now to get there? Those are some simple things that people can do to start to make small changes. 

[00:21:47] Linzy: Sometimes, I gotta help people understand the difference between a picture of how they’re just getting by and a picture of their dream client. I ask them to think about what they really want and what their ideal client would look like, instead of just settling for whatever comes along.

[00:22:08] What brings you joy? Sometimes we’ve fallen so far into overworking or believing that we’re never going to have money or we have so much stress that we can’t even imagine what that positive picture looks like. But I feel I’ve recently become a little bit born again around if you do some hard work now. It’s amazing what can happen later, and not kind of giving in and being honest with yourself about what you want.

[00:22:33] Because I think it’s easy to give up.

[00:22:35] Traci: Yeah. Yeah. I think, well, two things. One, we live in a society where instant gratification is embedded in the things that we do. And so we are channeled towards looking at what we want right now and getting the things thing that we want right now. We’re not thinking about the future. The decisions that you make with your money today most definitely impact what your future is going to look like, but you’re fighting against a society that wants you to spend right now.

[00:23:07] So that’s one thing. And the other piece is that for therapists, especially, we pour into other people. That’s just what we do. And sometimes we neglect to remember that we are people, too, and we have to pour into ourselves. So yes, you are deserving to have the life that you want. 

[00:23:31] You know, we are in such an instant gratification culture, and everything is so easy. Sometimes if I need something that I know I can’t get locally and I look on Amazon, I’m like, this will be here tomorrow morning!

[00:23:42] How is this even possible? Like it’s like somebody is taking it off the warehouse shelf before I’ve even pushed send, you know it’s incredible. But it does mean that we are so used to now not experiencing kind of like friction or being able to be like, yes, I’m putting this in now for this bigger thing later.

[00:24:02] But with money, that’s how it works, right? We do have that cumulative effect that happens from what we’re doing today adds up for tomorrow. Like it compounds over time. 

[00:24:11] Traci: Yeah. Yeah. Whether that is Yeah. Compounding debt or compounding assets. Yeah. 

[00:24:18] Linzy: True. Yes. Compounding works in both directions.

[00:24:20] And can you speak to that a little bit for folks who are like, wait, what is she talking about?

[00:24:24] Traci: Yeah. So basically, like I said, everything that you do with your money now impacts you in the future. Let’s just say you have debt on your credit card. You’ve been spending on Amazon, going to Target five times a week, and buying coffee 12 times a week.

[00:24:40] I don’t know. And you’re doing your minimum payments, you’re not necessarily paying your card all the way off over time because of your interest rate, the amount that you end up paying off, in the long run, is so much bigger than it would have been if you were able to just pay it off when you immediately made those charges.

[00:25:04] And what ends up happening, the cost to you of having to pay off an even larger amount means that you are sacrificing the benefit of having your money go to work for you and compound and grow over time for you. So that’s just an example. 

[00:25:23] Linzy: Yeah. And I think that’s one of those great examples of understanding how the system that we have to navigate works helps, right?

[00:25:33] I’ve seen peoples social media posts before saying like, well, thank goodness I took quadratics in high school for this quadratic season, you know, during tax time. Cause it’s like, we learn all these things that are so abstract

[00:25:45] That, you know, help us learn how to learn, but aren’t practical. You don’t need to do quadratic equations in your adult life, but you certainly need to be able to think about, Do I pay this debt down first? How quickly do I want to pay it down? If I put money away instead, is that more strategic?

[00:26:00] We do have to make all these types of decisions, and yet we’re not taught how these things work. So part of what I’m hearing from you is like just starting to understand some of the workings of the system that we’re in, is a big part of starting to be able to make different decisions, better decisions.

[00:26:18] Traci: Yeah, the people who I see have an advantage have had someone show them the ropes around financial literacy. Just that knowledge of how money works can mean so much for what your financial picture looks like. And it is possible to learn. I let people know that I am an alien from another planet when it comes to the world of personal finance.

[00:26:44] I had to learn this language just like maybe you do. And so I know what it is like to start from scratch and be completely confused. And it is possible to learn.

[00:26:56] 

[00:26:56] Linzy: Absolutely. And I think it’s really helpful for folks to hear that because sometimes the story that I hear people tell is like, I’m not a money person.

[00:27:04] No, I’m not good at math. I’ve never been a money person. I’ve always been the spender or like my partner often, hopefully knock on wood, they partnered with somebody who is on top of managing money. So as a couple, there’s kind of being some management, but there can be that really fixed idea of I don’t know how to do this.

[00:27:20] Traci: This that used to be me. Yeah. Believe it or not. 

[00:27:23] Linzy: I’m curious. What changed for you? 

[00:27:27] Traci: Yeah. So I used to be the, I’m not a money person. The Klontz brothers, they are psychologists, they’re financial psychologists, and they came up with the idea of money scripts. There are four scripts; we fall into one of the categories.

[00:27:43] There is no good or bad. They just are. And so for me, I was money-avoidant. That was my script growing up. I became a psychologist because I wanted to help other people. The whole thing that we’ve talked about; is not in it for making money. And during the pandemic, I had an eye-opening experience as a therapist.

[00:28:06] At that time, I was working at the Children’s Hospital locally, and I was helping my families with not only their kids’ development but also how to get food and rent assistance. And I had some families who were riding out the pandemic shutdown in their vacation beach homes. So I was seeing two very different ends of the spectrum.

[00:28:30] And it made me realize that this money thing, it’s not just about dollars and cents. It is about so much more. We saw what insecurity looked like up close and personal. And it shifted, for me, into wanting to better understand my own money picture and making sure that I had things set up in place to take care of myself and my family.

[00:28:57] Linzy: And for you what was the first step in doing that, once you decided that you were gonna learn these things, even though this hadn’t been part of your identity before? 

[00:29:08] Traci: Yeah. Well, luckily for me, one of my closest friends, he’s a financial advisor. And so I immediately asked him, I was like, what do I do?

[00:29:17] And then I found the online financial personal finance community. One really good resource. There is a women’s personal finance Facebook group, and it’s really large. And I love that they exist, and I’ll be working with them next month. I joined and started reading… there were some really good intro to personal finance books that I recommend regularly.

[00:29:44] And that was my introduction. And I took it from there. 

[00:29:48] Linzy: Yeah, beautiful. I mean, there is so much information out there on personal finance it’s a universe unto itself. And I’ve even found for myself as I’m playing with some mortgage pay down strategies and stuff and I really do feel like I’m playing.

[00:30:01] I’m like, what does this feel like? Do I like this? Does this feel like a good place to put my money? Would I rather put it somewhere else? Just on mortgage pay down, there are so many people on YouTube doing education on different strategies and did it like, it’s just an almost overwhelming amount of resources out there.

[00:30:18] But certainly you could dip your toe into any little topic and have so much learning. Disclaimer, if you’re watching people on YouTube, watch a few people, and make sure you’re getting solid advice. Maybe run it by a professional before you make any big moves. But yeah, there is just such a wealth of information out there now that there didn’t used to be 30 years ago if you wanted to start learning about these things.

[00:30:39] Traci: Yes, so I am on social media. I post on TikTok, and I always say in my videos to be careful who you take advice from. Don’t take it from someone’s uncle here on TikTok because not all advice is created equal. Also, I like to put the caveat that if someone is berating their audience, that is not going to be good for your mental health.

[00:31:05] So you may want to stay away from them as well. 

[00:31:07] Linzy: Yes. Yes. Social media disclaimers. Not everybody is there for your well-being. Not everybody’s there for you. Yeah, so Traci, for folks who want to find you, maybe follow you on TikTok, where can they find you and follow you online? 

[00:31:24] Traci: Yeah. So I have two companies.

[00:31:26] Healthy Wealthy Roots is my media, social media company. And so I’m on TikTok on that name. The website for that company is healthywealthyroots. org. And then my private practice is Poui Consulting, P O U I. And you can find me on there as well.

[00:31:46] Linzy: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. 

[00:31:49] Traci: Yeah. It was so much fun.

[00:31:50] I love talking about money.

[00:32:07] Linzy: Thinking about financial therapy, it occurs to me that money is one of those taboo topics. There’s a lot of silence around money. And I think everybody listening would probably agree that we like therapy. We think that therapy is a worthwhile way to spend some time and energy in your life. And it gets me thinking a little bit, if we could each do therapy, some therapy, on each of like the taboo topics, like if we each took some time to do eight sessions of therapy about sex, eight sessions of therapy about money, maybe eight sessions of therapy around

[00:32:42] Religion or politics… I don’t know, pick your taboos, that we’d all be better off for it, just taking some time to explore and be with these things and think about what we want our relationship to be. Notice what’s happening, and do that in a way that is depthful. What I have found with money is that it’s so easy in the financial space for people to talk about money, of course, as being purely skills, like it’s just numbers, whatever, and try to skip over

[00:33:09] this piece that Traci and I were talking about today, like all the history, the trauma, the family legacies that we inherit, the beliefs, the stories. But those things really shape our relationship with money and just thinking about what Traci was saying about imagining the future that you want, I also think that these things can get in the way of actually connecting with 

[00:33:31] the life that you want and what you want money to do for you. And I think so many of us could just default into continuing doing what we’re doing because it’s what we know, and almost a poverty of imagination around what our life could look like if we had money working for us. So, so much there.

[00:33:49] Lots to dig into. Anybody who’s listening, who thinks maybe financial therapy would be for them, I think you should do it. We all would benefit from having some focused support around money from a skilled professional. So I appreciate Traci coming on the podcast today. You can find me on Instagram @moneynutsandbolts.

[00:34:10] And as always, I so appreciate your reviews on Apple Podcasts. They are the best way for other therapists and health practitioners to find the podcast and be part of these conversations. Thanks for listening today.

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to another Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. These short and sweet episodes answer your questions; the listeners of Money Skills for Therapists podcast, the health practitioners, therapists, coaches. These episodes are lots of fun. We just started doing them last season and I’m really enjoying them.

[00:00:23] And today we have a question from Dana. Here’s Dana’s question.

[00:00:27] Dana: Hi Linzy, it’s Dana Corr, group practice owner from Manitoba. I’m loving your Friday Feelings & Finances episodes, and I’m so grateful for another opportunity to learn from you. My question is around expenses. I feel that my relationship and mindset with money and CFO time has made such a positive shift through my time and learning in Money Skills for Therapists and Money Skills for Group Practice Owners.

[00:00:54] I’m tracking and monitoring, I’m consistently forecasting revenue and analyzing the numbers, and this is all feeling really great. What I am noticing is I don’t have the same positive interactions with expenses. At the onset of the year I budget and plan for all the business expenses, but it seems that once I have a general idea of those expenses, I disconnect and hope for the best from there,

[00:01:18] looking at those expense numbers again at the end of the year. I don’t seem to be able to track and predict or to be on top of expenses in the same way that I can with income. I tried doing a weekly projection for expenses, but it felt completely overwhelming with so much uncertainty. My expenses are really fairly consistent, so I feel like this is a more of a mindset issue.

[00:01:40] I’d love your words of wisdom on how to better manage tracking real time or projecting expenses, and how to move through this block I seem to have. Thanks so much.

[00:01:51] Linzy: Thank you so much for your question, Dana. It’s so nice to hear your voice again. As folks listening would have heard, Dana is a graduate of both Money Skills for Therapists and Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, and has this amazing practice in Manitoba. So, Dana, my first question in response to your question is getting clearer with yourself. You might already know this, but I’m not totally clear on exactly where the block or like what the problem is.

[00:02:19] So is it that with your expenses you end up overspending? Knowing you, I don’t think that you do. But is there an overspending piece that starts to come in when you don’t know your numbers? Is it more around that emotional relationship like you mentioned of a certain avoidance around your numbers?

[00:02:35] So there’s a blurriness or a not knowingness there that even though you’re really clear on your income and projecting that forward, the expenses still have this emotional weight to them. I’m going to suspect it’s more the second one, knowing you. So I’m going to dig into that side of things more. But for folks who are listening, who are not Dana, yeah, this is something to look at when you are struggling with expenses is what is the real cost of not knowing the expenses?

[00:03:01] And is it literally costing you? Often when we avoid our expense information, we end up spending much more money than we want, and we’re out of touch with what we’re spending, and it might not reflect our values. And for many of us, probably most of us, that’s where the problems with expenses lie. In your case, Dana, I would suspect, knowing you, that that’s probably not the case.

[00:03:22] So my curiosity then is, what do you notice comes up when you try to be with this part of your financial picture? Cause I’m hearing you’re doing really well being with the other parts of your financial picture. What comes up when you start to look at the expenses? I hear you tried to track them weekly, and that was overwhelming.

[00:03:37] And that makes sense to me. I think that tracking your expenses in some sort of weekly way is probably going to be overkill. I know in my own business, I don’t track my expenses weekly. On my metrics tool, which you also have, Dana,through taking Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, I see the flow of my bank account, which is going to include, you know, money has come in and money has gone out, but I don’t actually get into my expenses every week because when I did try to do that as well, I found it was just too much information and not worth the effort.

[00:04:06] As a friend of mine would say, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, right? The effort of trying to see your numbers on a weekly basis in terms of expenses, isn’t really worth what you’re going to get out of it. But certainly having that monthly picture is really important so that you have a sense of, okay, am I on trend for what I expect my numbers to be?

[00:04:25] Have my numbers gone up? Is there something different happening here than I expect? Am I spending more than I thought? Have numbers gone down for some reason? Usually that’s not what happens with expenses, but who knows, right? So there is a piece there of being with that sounds like it’s difficult for you.

[00:04:40] And I would dig into that curiosity of: what is it about the expenses that’s hard to be with? Because with some of the other tools that you have for Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, you have the big picture tool, which also is going to include your expenses. So are you using that tool? Is there resistance to using that tool because of the expenses piece? 

[00:04:56] Could you go back to using that tool and just getting that nice monthly snapshot of what’s happened? On your team tool as well, there’s also those projections for understanding how your expenses fit into your group practice machine. So there’s a couple places where I know there are tools that you could be using for your group that will involve expenses.

[00:05:15] So it does make me wonder if this is blocking you from having a true big picture, if that’s part of the cost of this. But again, it’s this piece of what is the resistance? What do you notice comes up for you if you try to spend your attention on this part of the financial picture? Right? And this is like a slowing down and tracking that we can all do in all areas of our money.

[00:05:34] Do you notice judgments come up about how money is being spent? Do you notice just not liking that money is being spent at all? Is there a part of you that’s maybe more about scarcity, or clutching money, or not trusting yourself to make good decisions with money, so it’s stressful to see money go out the door?

[00:05:50] You know, what is it that is there that stops you from being able to be in that clear, empowered space that you can be with so many other aspects of your financial picture, that that’s not happening here with your expenses, right? So there’s that digging in piece that I think will be really helpful for you.

[00:06:06] And I know you absolutely have the capacity to do this, to be with what do expenses mean to you? Maybe that’s the question at the core of it, right? What does it mean to you to be spending money? Are there negative beliefs there? Are you comfortable with spending money? Do you like spending money? Could there even be joy that comes with some of those expenses?

[00:06:25] Because this is the other piece is when we’re cut off from a certain piece of our financial picture, just like when we’re cut off from certain pieces of our lives, it means that we might be protecting ourselves from any negative emotions that would be associated with that information, but we’re also cutting ourselves off from any positive emotions that could be associated with that information, right?

[00:06:44] We’re kind of blunting our emotional range. So it also makes you wonder, is there opportunity here for positive emotion for you around expenses of seeing, Oh, wow, I’ve really like got this certain area clear and in control that before I was feeling a little blurry, or I really am very consistent with my expenses.

[00:07:01] I can see that I am disciplined, or, Oh yeah, that investment that I made felt so good. That was so worth the money. Because this is part of it, too, is when we’re spending money on our business, we’re also investing in our business. So by being with your expense information, you get to stop and reflect, you know, just one month at a time.

[00:07:18] Are the investments that I’m making really paying off for me? Am I putting money into the right places? It means that you can choose to stop spending, but knowing you, Dana, it also means you can choose to spend, right? To maybe put money into more places that will pay off for you and to be really thoughtful about how you’re directing that expense side of your business.

[00:07:37] So those are my thoughts for you, Dana, in terms of this expense side. As you said, I think it’s more of a mindset. Knowing you, I seriously doubt that you are overspending, but there’s going to be something else here. And for folks who don’t tend on the overspending side of things, then we tend to be more on the clutching, hoarding.

[00:07:55] It’s scary to spend. It’s scary to take up financial space. And I do wonder if that might be part of this situation for you, Dana. So dig in. Be with these questions. Be with the tools that you already have to look at your big picture group practice expenses, like the big picture tool, and the team tool, and let your curiosity show you what might be here that’s in the way of you having a fully engaged relationship with all of the aspects of your group practice finances.

[00:08:22] It was lovely to hear from you. Thank you so much for your question, Dana. If you also have a question for me that you would like answered on one of these Feelings and Finances episodes, it’s very, very easy. All you need to do is scroll down in the show notes for this episode. You’ll see a link. You jump over to our podcast page and there’s just a little record button.

[00:08:42] It’s super simple. Just record it: share your name, share a little bit of context, if that’s helpful, and share your question. And I would be so happy to answer your question on one of these episodes of Feelings and Finances. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.

Lori: I’ve never been able to sustain cheating myself on sleep or cheating myself on quiet time for any length of time. I’m going to burn out. And I think most HSPs are like that. We burn out fast when we’re trying to cut corners. So it’s really about building some profound acceptance about what our needs are. And working all of the other things around that. 

 Linzy: Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, where we answer this question: how can therapists and health practitioners go from money, shame, and confusion to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach, and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists.

Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today’s guest is Lori Cangilla. Lori is a psychologist. She specializes in working with highly sensitive people, specifically people who are bright, highly creative, and highly sensitive, including highly sensitive therapists. She’s also a graduate of Money Skills for Therapists.

 I record these intros after as you might’ve gathered. It’s been such a treat for Me to talk with Lori today. I was just saying to her, that I was in a grumpy mood before our recording and just talking to her has brought my mood up many, many notches. Today Lori and I dig into how being highly sensitive impacts your relationship with money, how highly sensitive people can create sustainability, you know, balancing that sensitivity with also our drive that we have to, you know, be just and do good things in the world.

That can be a real conflict that I’ve certainly experienced myself where you have basically more ideas and aspirations than you have energy. How do you balance those things? How do you make that work financially? And also we talk about what highly sensitive people have to teach non-highly sensitive people about money. So even if you don’t identify as highly sensitive, there’s lots here today about the gifts of being highly sensitive, which can also be the dark side, the shadow side of being highly sensitive, and the value of being able to be with and connect with values and meaning as we are navigating our relationships with money. Here’s my conversation with Lori Cangilla. 

Linzy: So Lori, welcome to the podcast.

Lori: Thanks so much for having me, Linzy. 

Linzy: I’m very excited to have you. We worked together in Money Skills… I have no sense of time. How long ago now did we work together?  

Lori: I think it was about three years ago. 

Linzy: Three years. Okay. Okay. It’s been a minute. It’s been a minute. And so, tell folks who are listening to a little bit about what you do and what you’ve been building since we worked together. I think this is pretty much the work you’ve done since you finished the course.

Lori: So I am a psychologist in private practice in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I’ve been working virtually since the pandemic. When we started, I was still in the process of really building my specialty and working with highly sensitive people. But I’ve built that out a lot and reframed how I’m working with people.

I have done several things that are outside the clinical room. So I wrote a book. I am doing a lot of freelance writing, and I love having that separate identity as an author, too. So my practice has shifted a lot in the last couple of years since we stopped working together, but it’s because of the freedom that I gained from your program. 

Linzy: Yeah, and this is something that I notice is, there’s many, many students I can think of who I’ve worked with over the years who, when they’re done, they go off and do something else fun. And I’m curious, your perception of like, what about the work that you did in Money Skills has made this possible?

Because I have my analysis, but you’re living it. So how do these things connect? 

Lori: It was about having a lot more intentionality with how I was spending, how I was earning money, too, not just how I was spending, but, the whole process of running a business became something that was much more intentional. And because I was looking at the numbers more frequently, and because I was thinking about, you know, Do I need to buy another course that’s going to sit on my computer and I’m never going to do it and I’m out 300 or whatever,

I was able to start to be a lot more thoughtful about what I want my spending to look like. What kinds of clients do I want to work with? What hours do I want to work? And make those adjustments and not have that fear of scarcity and lack and what if I do this and I don’t make enough, or what if this ends up not being the right direction? I had a lot more confidence to be able to say, I will know. I will catch it on time, you know before it’s a catastrophe in my business. And then I can shift gears, and nothing has to be permanent.

Linzy: Yes. 

Lori: right? Nothing that we’re committing to has to be the last word on what we do with our business. And that was part of the confidence that I got from the program. 

Linzy: And I feel like that too. I think that when you have the groundedness in your numbers you’re able to trust yourself because what I’m hearing is you trust yourself. You trust that you’re going to catch something. If something’s not working, you’re going to know. You’re not going to find out when it’s too late.

When you have that groundedness, then I think also we can be friends with impermanence. To be like, I’m going to try something, and I’m going to see what happens. And maybe it’s going to be great, and maybe it’s not going to be what I want. But, you know when we’re grounded then we can reach and bend.

I think of it, you know… That tree metaphor that I come back to again and again. I have this huge tree tattoo on my leg, which usually is hidden, but just this morning, one of my son’s teachers commented on it. That imagery for me is so powerful. It’s just when your roots are solid, when you have a foundation when you have that confidence and groundedness, you can reach and bend and expand, and you’re solid. You can trust yourself to try things. 

Lori: Yeah. I think what was helpful about the program, too, was that I saw that I was never really in any kind of bad financial position. You know, I was sort of hitting the success markers, whatever those are, for my business, but it was about the difference between being rooted like a tree versus being planted, building that where the foundation is there, and it’s erected, but it’s rigid and it doesn’t change with time.

I think I’ve moved out of that mode of my business as this monolith that has to stay a certain way and into a much more organic, expressive kind of space, which feels good to me.

Linzy: That’s beautiful. So let’s talk about the work that you are doing now. Because you are now focusing on working with highly sensitive people. So let’s talk a little bit about the book, a little bit about your approach, and then I want to chat with you about HSPs and money.

Lori: Yeah. So I’m a highly sensitive person. There are a lot of therapists who are. I think we are sort of set up as highly sensitive therapists to tune into what people need, what people are feeling, and maybe what they’re unable to express. And that’s always been something that I’ve been good at recognizing in other people and teasing out as, I made friends as a kid or, in my first career as a teacher, I was very good at, you know, finding the kid who wanted to come and talk to me in office hours and tell me their life story.

But as a therapist specializing in highly sensitive people, I’ve gotten to dive deep into that idea of how deeply highly sensitive people process things and what helps us get out of our heads and out of our emotions, out of our bodies, and start to take action because that’s ultimately what I want to see from people. I don’t care if it takes people a while to get to that readiness to take action, but I want to help them get to that stage because highly sensitive people always have brilliant ideas, really like pro-social, lovely things that they want to do that are very much oriented towards helping other people and helping the world.

And so that’s the work that I want to support as a therapist. And it’s been really fun to build that out. I work with a lot of creatives. So I have writers and musicians and designers and these brilliant, creative people on my caseload, as well as a lot of therapists, and people who are active in social movements and change organizations and things, and need that support to keep going when the world around them feels like it’s burning down.

Linzy: Yes, yes. So, let’s zoom in then on money and highly sensitive people. Because this is really like where you’ve kind of carved out your work. This is your zone. And I consider myself an HSP light. Which I think I’ve probably chatted with you about before. So I have some of the traits, but I don’t think I have 

all of the traits. So I’m curious, from your perspective and experience, how does being an HSP impact how somebody relates to money? How does this show up in our relationship with money?

Lori: I think a relationship with money… What I’ve learned over the years is it’s just like any other relationship. And so whatever places that a highly sensitive person struggles in other relationships, they’re going to struggle in their relationship with money. So for me, it was really about showing up with an ability to be vulnerable, an ability to show all of my stuff, like come in with my money stories with, with feelings of shame, with difficult things, and be in that process in an open, honest way. And I think for other highly sensitive people, it might be around getting too close to their money. So kind of getting lost in the details and unable to take a step back and say, “Okay. Well, this is what I could do or this is how I can manage those feelings that come.”

Linzy: Yeah, because there’s a phrase that I’ve started using more and more for the last few years in Money Skills for Therapists, which is getting lost in the weeds, right? Where we get lost in the details. It’s this stage that can come up with folks because part of what I teach is for you to understand your numbers and be able to actually know what they say.

But then some folks get stuck there, right? You can get stuck in it’s overwhelming, right? It can be overwhelming and as you’re saying this, this is Making me think about what you were talking about earlier about how HSPs, there’s almost so much going on that you can just be paralyzed, stuck.I don’t know what the language is that you find best describes that experience.

Lori: I mean, I think the language depends on the person. Some people do experience it as a paralysis or a stuckness. For other people, I think it is that lived-in experience of being lost in the weeds. You’re just not able to figure out what is it that I need to prioritize. And for me, I remember that stage of going through the numbers and especially with spending tracking, being completely stuck for weeks around what system I pick and wanting this perfectionism of wanting to, to know that I’m making the best choice and I’m going to know how to use it exactly.

And not being able to say, well, why? Well, you know, I think that’s where a lot of highly sensitive people kind of stumble is: why are we doing this? I’m not tracking my numbers to be able to say at any, you know, at noon on a random Thursday, this is what my bank balance is. That’s not

important, but it’s easy to get stuck in that because .. brain scans have shown that our brains are just more active all the time. 

Lori: So we’re having more brain activity. We’re taking in more of this stuff. We’re carrying it with us outside of, whatever our planned money time is. Our brains are just working, working, working.

And so we need a way to sort of settle our systems and be able to say, okay, wait, stop. I’ve got to get out of this lost in the weed space and figure out what my next move is. You know, do I need support? Do I need help? Do I need to just stop and think about something else for a while? 

Linzy:  Yeah, because it’s interesting what you mentioned earlier, what is the purpose of the thing. A grounding element can certainly be the right thing.

Another word that I’ve started using more and more, which very much vibes with who I am as a person, is meaning. What is the meaning of this? What does this mean to you? And meaning though is sometimes a spot where I think HSPs can spin off, right? And also get like lost… especially when I was younger, and I was not as regulated as a person, I sometimes would feel crushed by the concept of meaning.

What does something mean? As you’re talking about the world is burning down, I very much lived that for many, many, many years of my life. You’re kind of a bit raw, right? A bit impermeable as a sensitive person. And so the meaning piece. I’m curious from your perspective as an HSP then… Cause we’re all different. Everybody’s got their blend of things going on, but. How do folks turn that into movement, right? How does an HSP keep going when they’re in that space from your perspective working with HSPs? 

Lori: So The way I think about it is that when HSPs are thinking about what the meaning or purpose is in their lives. How do we connect that back to a person’s values? When people get clarity on their values, then it’s really easy to figure out from there, what actions do I want to take.

You know, what’s that purpose lived out look like? So I do a lot of work… and I did this before I specialized with HSPs, too. This is just sort of how I see the world too, is, is helping people to clarify those values and get nitty gritty because there are always times when those values conflict, right?

So where I see this coming out with money is sort of that conflict between I want to have a certain standard of living, and at the same time, I want to be able to do good in the world. Maybe I want to be able to provide certain kinds of services at a reduced cost, or maybe I want to work with populations that need pro bono services.

So how do we explore the ways that not only do we have those values, which most HSPs already know what their values are, but what do we do when they conflict? Or do they seem to

conflict? How do we build out from there? And that’s oftentimes a way for people to get unstuck by thinking about how to put those things in a different arrangement.

Linzy: Yes. yes. Yeah, and there’s that, that movement piece. What do these things look like? When do these two things come into conflict? Yeah. How do you choose? What do you do? How do you balance? Because as you’re talking about this as well, something else that I’m thinking about is HSPs, we tend to be very attuned to what’s wrong with the world, the needs of others, injustice, and systemic issues.

But also we tend to be people who can’t necessarily do as much in the world energetically, right? I have friends who feel like their days are twice as many, twice as long as my days in terms of what they’re able to do and accomplish. And when my son goes to bed at 8:15, I’m out that’s the end for me.

So. Yeah. I’m curious, too, how can you see HSPs getting their, own needs met in sustainable ways? Because often we have just kind of less energy in the bank in the first place, but we’re also trying to accomplish all these different things at the same time.

Lori: I think that’s such a great point. And I know for me, that’s always a struggle, too. My desired list of things to do is always longer than my energy and my ability to just sort of be in the emotion of some of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it’s really about getting very precise and intentional about how you’re spending your time.

And I think that can happen for people when, when we can get settled, when we can be doing those baseline things, I’ve never been able to sustain cheating myself on sleep or cheating myself on quiet time for any length of time. You know, I’m going to burn out.

And I think most HSPs are like that. We burn out fast when we’re trying to cut corners. So it’s really about building some profound acceptance about what our needs are. And working all of the other things around that. But it’s also about kind of taking advantage of the way that we are good at looking at the details.

So we can say, I look at this part of my life and maybe I need to bring in some automation. Maybe I can’t do all of this myself. Or maybe I need a support person. Maybe it’s time to hire someone. I have to tell you the best decision I made a couple of years ago was looking at my finances and going, I can hire someone to manage my social media.

It’s not something I enjoy doing. It’s something that I don’t do effectively or efficiently. Canva can suck up too many hours of my time. So it’s much better for me to allot some of my finances to having someone who does that work for me. And then I free up that time to do the other things that I want to do and that do feel more meaningful to me. 

Linzy: Yeah, that acceptance piece. There’s so much wisdom in that because I think, we can spend decades of our lives trying to work against our nature and try to pretend that we are, you know, capable of things that we’re not or that we’re someone that we’re not. And I love that as a frame for a starting place is first accept who you are, right, and accept what is possible.

And then what I’m hearing is HSPs especially are great at, you know, solving the problem of how to then work within that frame. I see so many therapists, highly sensitive or not, set up private practices but also live for themselves that are not sustainable, right? It’s something that maybe they could do for three months, maybe for six months, but there’s no way that this is your five-year plan or your 10-year plan, right?

And I think that sometimes we can almost take for granted how precious that emotional energy that we have is. Because when it’s gone, when you experience burnout, it’s terrible, right? The cost is so, so high. But yeah, sometimes I do think as therapists, we tend to fly a little bit too close to the sun, maybe take for granted our superpowers and not think about the potential cost of not being honest about our actual capacity.

Lori: That resonates so much with me because I think. It’s so easy to fly too close to the sun. You know, the do as I say, not as I do kind of mentality, we would tell our clients, this is not a great move. But yet we go, Oh, no, I can do this. I can push past this. So yeah, I think it’s really about just acceptance, but it also is this honesty with ourselves. I think that’s become easier for me as I’ve gotten older, and further into my career, where I don’t feel like I get anything out of lying to myself about how much I can do. 

Linzy: It’s If X number of clients is the max I can do in a week in my life, then that’s the number, and I need to work with it.

Lori: And I’m not going to continue to be like, no, I can take 35 people this week,  I did in community mental health when I first started. No! That’s why I lasted nine months in that job. 

Linzy: Yeah, seriously, I would not have lasted nine months. I do have, I find in myself this very strong, it’s, it’s a part that’s a bit catastrophic, I’m sure. But like, if I think about doing 35 sessions a week, there’s a part of me truly, Lori, that believes I would die. I’m like, no, I would die.

I would die at the end of the week. I would lie on the floor and it would be the end of my human life. Because I can’t even imagine the emotional cost of that. So I’m amazed you did nine months of that, frankly.

Lori: Desperation. I think, and I was too young to know that I could quit. I did. Cause I thought the flip side of it was I would come home every, you know, at the end of the week, I would think I was going to die and I’d get up on Monday and I’d, and I was in graduate school at the time. So I was doing both. So as much as I thought it was going to die every weekend, I also thought if I quit, it’s the end of my career. No one will hire me. Every professional in this little town that I’m living in is going to think I’m a terrible person because I couldn’t hack it there, and it’s going to be the end of my career. So it was this, pressure from both sides, this internal pressure of knowing I can’t do this, knowing this isn’t sustainable for me. And this presumed pressure, or in some cases, real pressure from people in the community to just keep doing, doing, doing.

Linzy: Yeah, it is funny how we tend to get treated as factory workers, as therapists, as though this is kind of some sort of industrial setup where we’re just plugging ourselves into a machine. It does not honor or align with what it takes to be a therapist and what it takes to be a good therapist at all.

And yet, yeah, some systems will ask you to give yourself away, right? And to act like you have endless energy. So, you know, compassion for young Lori going through that. Cause that sounds like a very rough way to start your therapy career.

Lori: It was. And I feel fortunate that it only took me nine months to figure that out and that it didn’t burn me out entirely. I don’t take credit for that. I just, I think it was a combination of circumstances and I had some good people around me who supported the decision for me to get out of that work.

But I think, you know, it’s alarming to me when I see not only that sort of mentality continue in community mental health, but then all the tech companies that are buying out practices and building out these systems that just seem obscenely cruel to the therapists who are in 

Linzy: Yes.

Lori: Like I have deep, deep compassion and kind of the spirit of I want to liberate you and get you out of these horrible places.

Linzy: Yes.

Lori: I want to see them fail because I don’t think they’re providing good services to clients because how could they? How could therapists be doing their best work in those situations? And, it’s unfair to therapists. We don’t deserve to be turned through a mill like that.

Linzy: And this is why, too… this is a little side tangent, then we’ll get back to HSPs, but I think this is, too, why we need Therapists who are skilled in business and who do want to create great groups where folks are well taken care of and get mentorship and are given a caseload that makes sense.

We need those folks doing this work, right? Because I think that in the therapy space, group practice owners can get a bad name. Some of them have earned a bad name, no question. But I will say when I run money skills for group practice owners, I specifically attract the folks who are too nice to your staff because you want everybody to be happy and you’re making zero dollars.

Let’s come work together and find the balance point, but I want folks who start there because if folks aren’t starting from that compassionate spot… Yeah, you, you can become an exploiter yourself and these tech companies, they don’t care about therapists. They don’t know what it takes to be a therapist.

They’ve never been a therapist for a minute in their life, right? And so it’s like, we need folks in our space who have the skills to be offsetting this trend that’s happening because otherwise a bunch of great young therapists or even not young therapists are going to be eaten alive by these systems that do not understand what we do and do not value what we do. So it is a concerning trend for sure.

Lori: Absolutely. I’m so excited that you have the group practice program because I think you’re right. We do need these other models of what mental health delivery can look like and it needs to be a resource that therapists who need a job can look to. Not everybody wants to run a solo practice. 

Linzy: They don’t.

Lori: I didn’t for years either, but when your options are really limited, then it is a prescription for good people to get out of the field. You know, and that, that’s the part that breaks my heart is when I hear about therapists leaving because they’ve been working in these truly unsustainable systems.

It’s not their failing or shortcomings. It’s the systems that aren’t sustainable. And I think what you’re talking about is probably tapping into some of the highly sensitive people who might be fabulous group practice owners and leaders, but probably are avoiding it because that sounds overwhelming. You know, because now not only do I have to manage my experience of being in a private practice, but I’m managing it for other people who I feel a loyalty to.

So being able to do things to empower people like that, to be in positions of leadership, and to create these work environments is so important. It’s part of what I like about working with highly sensitive people. They need to be in leadership positions. 

Linzy: Absolutely. Yeah. Because they naturally have that compassion. They’re not going to accidentally exploit the heck out of somebody.

Lori: Right? Or if they do accidentally exploit it, they are, you know, humble enough to say, Oh my gosh, I was accidentally exploiting you and let’s fix this.

Linzy: Yes. So true. So true. So true. So from your perspective, what do HSPs have to teach non-HSPs when it comes to money management?

Lori: Think it’s really important for HSPs to be able to share that way that they are deep processors, right? That’s sort of the defining characteristic of, of what it means to be an HSP on a brain level is that there’s that deep active processing, but on a lived level, it’s that way that HSPs are asking the hard questions.

They’re willing to step back and say, there was something I didn’t know, or I don’t know the answer right now. And, I’m going to stay with this process until I figure it out. That’s something that I think is beautiful. And when I compare it to the way that I’ve seen some non-HSPs make business decisions or money decisions, I think, oh, there’s, there’s a piece missing for those folks.

Yes, they take action quickly. And yes, they, you know, they can be decisive in some ways. And there’s a part of me that admires that. But I think that willingness to be in the weeds for a while… hmm, It’s so important, and I think it is a good lesson that HSPs can share with, with non-HSPs, at least people who aren’t inclined to make decisions that way. 

Linzy: I’m thinking of other words too that go with that for me, which is presence, just being able to be with… curiosity, right? Thinking about these pieces we’re talking about values and purpose and meaning. What is this for, what are you doing? What is the ultimate purpose? And I will say in my relationship, I’m married to somebody who is not highly sensitive, which probably is a good thing. But he’s like an action-taker. There’s no contemplation. It’s just action. So he’s really good at making things happen. But I have noticed, in our 10 years of being together, that If I want something to be discussed, I have to hold it back until I’m ready for it to potentially happen.

So I will process, sit with something, look at numbers if it’s something financial, or sit with and contemplate internally until I bring it up. Because if I bring it up, it’s probably going to happen, or not happen, and that decision will be made. I’m kind of laughing at myself thinking about that. The difference between folks who do more of that deep processing, being with curiosity until you settle on something versus folks who are fast action takers, is a very different way of making decisions, and being in the world.

Lori: I think what you’re talking about speaks to me because I think it’s, it’s that way that we need different kinds of people in our lives. I need my fellow HSPs where I can talk about something for six months and bat about all the little details, and they’re able to be in it with me. And then,

I’m glad at times that I have my husband who is much more, let’s just make a decision. Okay. We’ve looked at things. If we’ve looked at the numbers, let’s go forward here. And he doesn’t agonize and there’s definitely a place for that, you know, and I need people like him in my life to say, go for it. You know, get off your feet and get going. You’re like, do this thing. But not too soon. Not before I’ve come to my decision.

Linzy: Of course, of course, yes, yes, because yeah, because this being with the piece that you’re talking about, and, and that, that’s the language I’ve just put on it. You use different language, but, yeah, that ability to kind of be in it, and that is a skill. And it’s a skill that sometimes I do see folks have 

to build while they’re doing their money work, like in Money Skills for Therapists or in Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, that ability to come back and be with something that is not clear and that brings up maybe icky feelings that you haven’t figured out, like having to almost be with that not knowing, I think is an HSP gift, but I’m also hearing can be an HSP trap.

But I think it’s essential for money because if you’re not tapped into the values, the purpose, the meaning. What is this all for? You could end up living a life and living your money out in the way that’s been prescribed to you that does not serve who you are at all. And you get to the end of your life and that’s it. You did it. You don’t get to go back and do it over later.

Lori: Yeah. I think that’s such a good point, Linzy. It’s the way that all of these qualities that we’re talking about with HSPs can be a strength and can be riddled with a shadow side that can take

over. And I think what I loved about your program, the reason I chose money skills as opposed to something else was because I think there was that space to be present, be with these things as they were unfolding.

It wasn’t a pressure of, you must get to a certain point by a certain date. That was why I knew I could be in your program and I could muck around for however long it took. And a lot of the growth did come after the program. My program officially wrapped up for me, but the foundation was there. The roots were there, to use that language from earlier.

Linzy: Yeah. And, you know, the program, it used to be a six-week program when I first started it, if you can believe that. I know.

Lori: No, I had six months and…

Linzy: I was going to say now it’s six months, and sometimes folks do, like if there may be faster processors or, you know, they’ve already got some pieces in place,

sometimes folks do move through it faster, but what I’ve also seen happen is people say at the end of their time, I didn’t understand why this program was six months because at first, I was like, I’m moving through it quickly. But then there’s so much that comes up when you’re living it, and if you can keep that presence and be with, and being like, hey, I set up my system this way, but something’s not working, but if you still are online and learning, and you’re not just like, well, I guess that’s how it is, you’re still in that building out phase, then you get to make all these tweaks, or you do a level of work and then something else comes up and you do a deeper level of work, you know, and then you do a deeper level of work. There’s just so much there because it’s a relationship that we live out over and over and over again.

That’s what that six-month container is for. And as you say, there’s much more growing to do even after that six months, but it’s that you’ve got to just keep being with it. And keep, almost keep being curious and fresh about it. Not thinking that, well, I did it. Money’s finished. I’ve locked in my business. This is what it’s going to look like until I’m 75 years old. 

Lori: A Horror thought.

Linzy: I know. Isn’t it? I’m glad to hear that you felt like you did get that space to do the work that you needed to do in the course.

Lori: Yeah, I think it’s Vital

Linzy: yes, I agree. I can always tell when somebody is not going to be a fit for the program if they’re like, I don’t need all of this. Then it’s, well, you might not need all of this. And also this is what makes it special is that we do have this container to get into the stuff of it. Maybe you’ll think about the stuff about your mom and money for two months. And then you’ll spend another month and a half learning YNAB. And then you’ll decide you don’t want to do YNAB. And then you’ll go over to the spreadsheet, and then you’ll raise your fee. There’s so much to do. And so having a container that honors. Some of that work, because it’s not even all of that work, I think is essential at this point, in the way that we do the work.

So, Lori, it is such a treat to be with you again. It’s so nice to see you. For folks who are listening, who want to get further into your world, can you tell them where to find you?

Lori: Yeah. So my website is singularly sensitive.com and it has information about how I work with HSPs, what the singularly sensitive approach is, and has a link to my book. I also have on there a chance for people to sign up for a free five-day journaling stretch. I do a ton of journaling with people because I think with highly sensitive people, it’s helpful to go in that way and have some time to reflect on paper or, or screen or canvas or music, however they want to reflect. But that idea of getting that container for going deeper and being in things for as long as you need to be. So that’s all on my website.

Linzy: Great. Okay. So singularlysensitive. com. We’ll put the link for that in the show notes. Thank you so much, Lori, for coming on the podcast today.

Lori: Thank you so much. It’s been so great to reconnect and kind of get to share how things have gone since we last formally worked together.

Linzy: Thank you. Thank you, Lori. I so genuinely enjoyed this conversation with Lori today. And one of the things that I like about it is I’ve worked with so many wonderful, wonderful therapists in Money Skills for Therapists. And often, you know, it’s like I get to see them at the end of that period we’ve worked together, which now is six months,

I get to see them with their skills, kind of almost like a backpack loaded up with skills. And they’re heading off. And when we do closure posts in our online community and people post, what they’ve taken away from the course, often I can’t help but use the word excited when I send them off.

I am so excited because I know that they have this backpack full of skills and they have this new way of being with money that is going to serve them so well in the coming years, but I don’t always get to hear how that went. So it’s such a gift to be with Lori and to see and experience how much she has grown around money and what that’s made possible for her in terms of, as she talked about, her business and being able to be more intentional, not just in how she is managing and spending money, but how she makes money and how she’s using her energy.

And yeah, in the three years since we’ve worked together, she has grown so much into this other area of writing her book, creating her singularly sensitive approach, and zooming into this niche in her practice. It’s just so exciting to see how the skills that she built three years ago have unfolded this whole other area in her business and just, you know, settled her so much more into her gifts and herself.

It was such a treat to talk with Lori today. If you are curious about working with me, and also loading up your metaphorical backpack with some money skills, and heading off on your way, you can check out my Masterclass, The Four Step Framework to Get Your Business Finances Totally in Order. This is a masterclass that’s going to lay out how I work with therapists in Money Skills for Therapists, and my approach.

It’s going to give you a sense of who I am and how I work to see if I am the right person to help you develop these skills and build that confidence so that you can also be intentional and clear in your business. And maybe even start a whole new branch in your business and do whole new things with that clarity, confidence and intention.

So you can check out that masterclass. I’ll put the link in the show notes, the four-step framework to get your business finances totally in order. That’s how you can learn about my approach. And also that is how you can get an exclusive invite to Money Skills for Therapists. You can follow me on Instagram at Money Nuts and Bolts, and if you’re enjoying the podcast, do tell your friends.

If you have a friend from grad school who you know is starting a private practice, send them an email, and let them know about the podcast. They can start listening to the podcast and absorbing the stuff even well before they step into practice. That always makes me so excited when I hear somebody thinking about and working on these things, even if it’s just internally starting to have conversations with themselves around money before they start practice at the beginning of practice because that allows them to lay this foundation that will serve them for years and years to come.

Those roots that are going to allow them to reach and bend and be creative in their business. So if you have somebody like that in your life, let them know about the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. I would appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining me today. 

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Feelings and Finances mini series on the Money Skills for Therapists podcast.

[00:00:09] These episodes are all about me answering your questions. The wonderful therapists, health practitioners, coaches, the listeners of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. And today’s question comes from Jennie Vila. Here’s her question.

[00:00:23] Jennie: Hi, Linzy. This is Jennie Vila. I graduated from Money Skills for Therapists about a year ago, and I have been continuing to improve my regular maintenance of my finances. And one of my big goals that we had discussed when I was finishing MSFT last year was to pay off my student loan by my 40th birthday, which is now about five months away.

[00:00:49] And in this time, I have had some health issues come up that have prevented me from working so hard toward that goal. And I’m feeling really frustrated and bummed out about It’s a likelihood that I’m not going to pay off that debt by my 40th birthday. And so I think that talking about the feelings and frustrations of having to readjust when life happens would be something that I could use your expertise in.

[00:01:21] And it’s so hard because the finish line, that zero dollar amount is so close, yet it feels so far away. So if this is something that you think we could discuss and help other people with, I would really appreciate it. Thanks. Bye.

[00:01:37] Linzy: Hi, Jennie. Thank you so much for your question. I feel like that was an emotional rollercoaster for me, that question, hearing and then remembering your goal and then hearing that you’ve had health issues. I’m sorry to hear that. And then to hear that that has impacted your life. likelihood of hitting that goal and like the frustration that comes with that, seeing that it’s so close.

[00:01:57] And yet at this point, you’re probably not going to kind of make it by this deadline that you set. So, I mean, the first thing that comes to mind for me is how we think about goals. My good friend, Maegan Megginson, who’s been on this podcast many times… We’ve had this conversation many times, Jennie, as things have happened in the business.

[00:02:16] I like set, say like a launch date, for instance. At one point I set a launch date for a mastermind called the Intentional Therapist Mastermind. And I was like so excited about it. And then I also had a series of health issues.

[00:02:31] I had a series of pregnancy losses. It was quite devastating and kind of the third one happened right when I was about to launch this mastermind, this goal that I’d set, right? This is going to happen now. And I launched… and when you launch a course, you know, you put it out to the world, people start responding, and people are responding.

[00:02:51] And I realized I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I don’t have this in me. Life has served up something else, right? Something that we haven’t anticipated. Lauren Selfridge, who’s another colleague of mine, she had a great podcast called This is Not What I Ordered for folks living with chronic illness.

[00:03:06] And that’s very much the experience of that kind of moment where you’re like, this is not what I ordered. This is not my plan. I was supposed to be doing X. In my case, I was supposed to be launching this wonderful mastermind. I’m supposed to be excited about all these folks, you know, applying to work with me.

[00:03:19] In your case, it’s like, I’m supposed to be paying off this debt. I had this amazing plan. I’m going to pay off my debt by the time I’m 40. It’s like such a beautiful, tidy goal. And sometimes that is not what life is. serves to us and it is frustrating and it is grief inducing. There’s grief there, right?

[00:03:35] Because not only are we grieving that we’re not going to do this certain thing on the timeline but we’re not doing that because something shitty has been happening, right? There has been issues. There’s been health issues, there’s been loss and so I think there’s a two pronged approach here. Like the frustration is probably part of grief, right?

[00:03:53] The frustration is you had this beautiful plan, you were working to this plan, and then these really hard things have been happening, right? And I’m sure there’s many losses that have gone with these health issues, Jennie, probably not just this particular goal, but part of it is being with that grief.

[00:04:08] And I know for myself, I grieved those pregnancy losses for a long time. Very long time. And I also had to not do that mastermind. I had to cancel it. I just realized like I did not have the capacity, and I had to let that go. And ultimately I actually let go of that program, period. I never ended up running that program because by the time I went to run the next program, I decided to do something different.

[00:04:28] So that just never happened. In your case, it is going to happen because you have a goal of paying something down. That debt is still there. It’s not going away. So part of it is accepting, right? It’s getting to that more like acceptance place with grief of the shitty thing has happened. It’s not what you wanted, but it is what happened instead of what you wanted.

[00:04:48] The second piece is, to go back to, as I was referencing my friend Maegan Megginson, she’s always reminded me that deadlines are arbitrary. We made them up. You made up that goal, right? It’s such a cool goal. And I remember talking with you about this goal, and it’s such an exciting goal to like hit a big milestone like that and line it up with another milestone.

[00:05:08] Like what a nice, beautiful synchronicity, a beautiful package. If that is not going to happen, you get to make up a new goal because you made up that first goal, right? Like you get to have the power over the narrative of what happens here, right? We could have the narrative of this thing never happened.

[00:05:25] It was terrible. it was a big disappointment. I’m still disappointed about it. Or we can have a narrative that’s something to the effect of this really shitty thing happened. It was hard. I worked through that, and then I made this thing happen in a different way. In my case, my story is and then I ran the Money Boss Mastermind instead the next year, and it was great, and it was awesome, and I had so much fun.

[00:05:45] And you know, it’s… The ending, you’re not there yet, but it’s like, what do you want the ending to be? Is it that you had a goal to pay down your debt by your 40th birthday? And you didn’t quite get there because you had some health problems, but you paid it down by, I don’t know, your 40th birthday and four months, right?

[00:06:00] Or your 40th birthday and six months, or some other milestone, but you paid it down by your anniversary of that year. Like you get to make it up. Goals are made up. We make them up, and we get to remake them up if life gets in the way of us hitting them in time, right? And so, this is my curiosity for you, Jennie, is like, if you can be with that grief, if you can start to think about what is the new ending? What is the different ending for this story? Is there another exciting, positive way that you could frame this?

[00:06:28] Not to fall into like a toxic positivity thing, but this makes me think about, this image of, like a gymnast going through the air and like kind of like, Oh no, like losing balance. She’s doing a flip, but she’s kind of like a little off kilter and like, Oh gosh, right? But it’s like, you can still stick the landing, right?

[00:06:45] So how do you stick the landing on this? And what would be fun for you? Is there like another milestone coming up this month? Is there like a fun number you can play with where it’s like, Yeah. You’re going to pay it off by 40 years, four months and four days. How can you reframe this goal to adjust to your life and still feel empowered and clear and still see yourself winning? Because you are winning.

[00:07:05] This is an amazing goal, and you are so close to being there, and you get to adjust it. You get to make up a new thing that still makes this a big win and success in your life because it is a big win and success in your life. And even if it doesn’t happen exactly as you planned and envisioned, it’s still going to happen.

[00:07:24] And I know it’s going to happen because I know you and I know that you’re working hard towards this. So, those are my thoughts for you, Jennie, on this. I hope that your health is improving, and I’m excited for you to know you’re going to be hitting this goal in the near future, even if it’s not exactly on the day you originally planned.

[00:07:43] If you have a question for me, like Jennie, you can leave me a question on our podcast page. I’ll put a link in the show notes here. All you need to do is go to the little box that says, Do you have a question for Linzy? Push record. Share your name, share a little bit of context, like Jennie did, if context makes sense for your question, and ask your question.

[00:08:02] And I would love to answer it on one of these Feelings and Finances episodes of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:00:00] Amy-Lynn: I work with a phenomenal team of people. They are truly exceptional, and all of us genuinely care about what it is that we’re doing and the support that we give. Jane’s mission is to help the helpers, and we take that to heart, I can promise you. We believe in what it is that you as practitioners offer. And we want to support you while you are making a difference in the world.

[00:00:29] Linzy: Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, where we answer this question: how can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach, and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists.

[00:00:49] Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. Today on the podcast, we have Amy-Lynn from Jane. I’m very excited to have Amy-Lynn on the podcast so that we could nerd out about Jane. Jane is the software that I used in my own practice when I was in private practice, and it is Canadian. So this is a little bit of a Canadian invasion, maybe, on the podcast for folks who are American, you may or may not be familiar with Jane yet.

[00:01:17] I will say that Jane is a clinic management software that in Canada is kind of the default. Like whenever I go to book with my osteopath or a massage therapist or a naturopath, they all use Jane, and it’s such a great tool, great system. It has so many wonderful features and more and more, they are like moving into the States, and they have made it now so that they have American insurance features.

[00:01:40] And so it’s a really, really nice addition to kind of the options that we have around clinic management softwares. And so today in my conversation with Amy-Lynn, we talk about Jane E. itself. We talk about the features of it. What does it do? How does it make your life easier? We talk about the places that as health practitioners, we tend to lose time, all those kinds of administrative tasks or places where there can be friction around payment collections and bookings and notes, like all these little things that add up in the course of a clinical or treatment day to suddenly make it so that you have way more work to do, either like after hours, or your day just ends up being way long, or there’s often what I find with clinical notes, often we just don’t get to them when there’s a lot of friction. When you’re spending a lot of time doing administrative tasks, we end up putting things off that need attention like clinical notes, or maybe like working on your finances, for example.

[00:02:33] So we talked today about the features that Jane has to give you back your time, let you focus on the work that you love to do and making the other parts of your work, all those admin pieces so much easier. And then we talk about what it looks like to switch to Jane, the supports that they have in place.

[00:02:49] If you are curious about checking out Jane for your clinic management software, here is my conversation with Amy-Lynn from Jane.

[00:03:12] Linzy: So Amy-Lynn, welcome to the podcast.

[00:03:15] Amy-Lynn: Thank you so much for having me. It’s such a pleasure to be here, Linzy, and to talk about Jane.

[00:03:20] Linzy: Yeah, I’m so excited to have you here. I used Jane in my own practice for years, years and years. And I was such a fan of what you folks do. So it’s actually really nice now to be able to like, share you, with the world, especially we were chatting off mic about how a lot of Americans don’t know about Jane, cause it’s started in Canada and is in the States, but like is newer to the Americans, American market. If I want to talk businessy. So I’m excited to be able to talk about what you folks do today on the podcast,

[00:03:50] Amy-Lynn: That’s so exciting. I’m excited. I’m always excited to talk about Jane.

[00:03:54] Linzy: That’s a good sign. You’re in the right job.

[00:03:55] Amy-Lynn: Yeah. Yes.

[00:03:56] Linzy: So I’m curious, Amy-Lynn, about you. Can you tell me a little bit about you and your background and how you got started at Jane?

[00:04:03] Amy-Lynn: Absolutely. So my background is administrative and office management. Actually before I started doing customer service more in the tech space, I actually managed an equine veterinary clinic. So I am used to the idea of scheduling and booking, and while there’s definitely some differences between animal practices and human ones,

[00:04:22] there’s a lot of things that are the same. My journey to Jane started with me as a patient. My local massage therapist uses Jane, and I was able to book an appointment online, and I was able to fill out my intake paperwork on my phone, and I was like, this is the coolest thing.

[00:04:37] I don’t have to sit there with a clipboard for 15 minutes and, you know, so I scrolled down to the bottom of the page and I saw that it was powered by Jane. And so I clicked on that link, and I learned more about Jane and their mission, and their values. And I thought, wow, this would be like a really great place to work, and here I am.

[00:04:55] Linzy: Look at that.

[00:04:56] Sometimes things just call to you. You just know.

[00:04:59] Amy-Lynn: Yeah, absolutely. And I definitely felt called to it for sure.

[00:05:04] Linzy: So what is your role at Jane?

[00:05:06] Amy-Lynn: So my role at Jane, I started in support, and I am still in support, but I have recently become the manual therapy advocate at Jane. And the advocates, our role is basically because Jane is multidisciplinary… So we are the advocates for the disciplines to make sure that, you know, the voice of our practitioners is

[00:05:26] being heard. So,when we focus on, for example, in the manual therapy space, I will take feedback from chiropractors, and I go to conferences and that type of thing. And then I’m the person that takes that information back to the wider team. So to our product team, to our developers and to the support team, so that as we work to make Jane better, and we introduce new features, we know that the voice of the practitioner is being heard and considered in those changes.

[00:05:53] So. It’s an exciting role. I’m very excited to be part of it.

[00:05:57] Linzy: Yeah, and we’re going to talk about what Jane is for a sec, just for folks listening, just so you know. If you’re like, what are they talking about? Don’t worry. We are going to dig into that. But I will say, that is something that I so appreciated about Jane as a user. Like I started with a different clinic software that’s actually out of Australia.

[00:06:12] There were a few options. I used one and it had all these bumpy glitchy kind of features about it that were just so little, but they add up, right? Like when we’re using a system every single day… I remember my clinic management software had it so that You had to write your notes in the order that they happened.

[00:06:28] So I had to actually line up my note taking with the session. So if I just had a session, and I wanted to write the note, but I hadn’t written the note for the last time, I can’t write today’s note and have it be in the right order. I’d have to go back and write like the last note. Otherwise my notes show up in the order that I wrote them rather than the order the appointments happened.

[00:06:45] And it’s like such a little thing. But when you’re a little perfectionistic, which perhaps I am, recovering or not, and which folks in my audience tend to be like, we like things to be clear, organized. Just something little like that is such a headache. Like it makes a big difference, and then it interrupts your workflow.

[00:07:04] So then my, you know, response to that would be like, well, I’m just not going to do this note because I haven’t done the note before yet. And then I actually ended up literally hundreds of notes behind because we’re doing that same little thing over and over every day. Yeah. And it has these big ripple effects.

[00:07:17] So I will just say something I so appreciate about Jane is like, I know that it was developed by practitioners, right? It was developed by a physio. Do I have that right?

[00:07:25] Amy-Lynn: Yeah. Well, actually one of our co CEOs, because we have two CEOs, Allie and Trevor, and Allie opened a multidisciplinary clinic in North Vancouver. And so definitely there was that… it was like multidisciplinary, so physios and all of that wonderful stuff. And she realized really quickly that she wasn’t going to be able to find a software that was going to be attractive, first of all, and secondly, so many things were so siloed.

[00:07:49] Like if you were a chiropractor, you needed chiropractic software, and if you are a mental health professional, you need something specifically for that, and that type of thing. So she ended up going to Trevor, who is the other co CEO, and he had an independent business at the time. He was working on her website, and they just sort of like bespoke, built it in,

[00:08:08] to her website, and started using that. Because she wanted to offer online scheduling and she wanted everybody to be able to use one platform. And that was the beginning of Jane. That’s sort of how that started.

[00:08:19] Linzy: And you can feel that. Like, you can feel that it is made for practitioners, like, for folks to actually use it. Okay, so let’s dig into what Jane is. Because I’m talking about it and I said we were going to tell the people what it is, so we should do that. We should be integrity. So for people who are unfamiliar with Jane, what is it?

[00:08:36] Amy-Lynn: Jane is an online practice management platform for health and wellness professionals… or, electronic medical records, or, you know, EMR. So Jane basically will help you tackle everything from online booking through to your scheduling, all of your session notes and charting, email and text reminders.

[00:08:56] It takes care of it all, and our goal is to reduce the administrative burden of running a practice, right? Because we want to do those things for you that are so time consuming. And that’s what the focus of Jane and its features are.

[00:09:12] Linzy: So you have like the scheduling aspect, there’s like the online booking, there’s your schedule on the backend that you can control, there’s client notes. There’s payments, like it tracks payments that are outstanding to you, what you’ve collected, what is still owed, all of that kind of stuff. So it basically does most of what you need software to do.

[00:09:32] And I know you folks have also integrated video calls into it, like around the time of the pandemic.

[00:09:36] Amy-Lynn: We absolutely have integrated telehealth in Jane. We have insurance integrations. We have payment integrations, and all of that wonderful stuff as well.

[00:09:45] Linzy: There’s so many components to Jane. It’s kind of like a little universe of all the things. Can you highlight a few of the features that you think make Jane so good, that have made you want to work for Jane even?

[00:09:56] Amy-Lynn: Oh, yeah. Well, definitely, what really made me want to work for Jane was the ease of things from the client side. Like, I found the ability to be able to book an appointment online and be able to fill out my intake paperwork. So I feel that’s a really great feature of Jane because it gives you the ability to create, like, customized intake paperwork… That’s automated.

[00:10:18] So it’s going out to your clients when they’re booking. The other thing that I think is a really awesome feature is when you’re doing session notes, cause you were talking before about session notes, and the frustrations around making sure they’re in the right order.

[00:10:30] And Jane has… Like our notes are customizable, our templates are completely customizable, and if you want to build one from scratch that works just for you, you absolutely can. But probably one of the coolest features I think Jane has is just our massive template library where other professionals have created just some truly incredible templates, and you can pull them into your Jane account, you can change them and work with them and make them You know, your own is to work with a flow that works for you and saves you time, which is really fantastic.

[00:11:03] And that same template library also includes intake form templates as well. So you’re not starting from scratch when you’re building those critical forms for your clinic.

[00:11:14] Linzy: Which is so helpful. Like, I think notes are one of the more stressful parts of being a practitioner, especially a mental health therapist. And I think part of that is that folks in the mental health space, like we tend to be quite narrative and verbose. We like the words, the details. Like when somebody’s telling you a story, like I used to write literally a whole page of notes for every client.

[00:11:36] And my handwriting is tiny. Like I used to have high school teachers joke about needing a microscope to read my writing. It was a lot, but it’s like, it all feels really important, you know, and depending on the modality that you’re using, you’re catching all these different little details and you have your own, as you say, like you’re almost like having little templates in front of you and your written notes. And something that I did with Jane,

[00:11:57] as you’re referring to, is like I had my own template that I eventually made as I settled into like, okay there’s all this information, but to distill it into my

[00:12:04] formal, this is “the note” for the session, I had like, you know, those three or four boxes that would pop up automatically if I said it was a regular session, but I had a different template for like an administrative note or a different template for a call with another practitioner. And having that kind of structure in place, like I think it’s easy to underestimate how much bandwidth that eats up when we have to kind of make something fresh every time or remember how to do it, but like baking your needs into

[00:12:33] your software, and have it so that your software is just like, oh, here’s the template for this. This is how you like to do it. You’re like, oh, that is how I like to do it, just creates so much more ease in the process. And so, yeah, that’s a feature that I myself have used. I haven’t seen the template library, but that also sounds very cool.

[00:12:46] Cause I was always thinking, am I doing my notes right? Should I change how I do my notes? Like I would chat with my colleagues a lot about, how do you do your client notes? So I feel like that’s also an opportunity to even change how you do things, and see if there’s a way that you would want to do them differently by having other folks’ brilliance, having access to that.

[00:13:04] Amy-Lynn: Absolutely, because there are thousands, like literally thousands of really amazing templates in there. And, you know, other people have put in the work, and they’re just generously sharing that with you because they know the struggles. And they found something that worked for them, and put it out there and said, I hope this works for you, too.

[00:13:22] And then you can certainly take that and make it your own, which I really think is an awesome feature.

[00:13:27] Linzy: Yeah. Yeah. Another feature that I’ll say that I loved as a practitioner, and as a client that I love, too… Because as a Canadian, I do find that almost all my practitioners use Jane. Like it is the default. In fact, my challenge has been remembering my Jane password for all my different practitioners, right?

[00:13:43] It’s like, wait, is this the password for my naturopath? No. That’s my osteopath password. And so, especially when I was pregnant and having my son and had a lot of, you know, manual health needs. Yeah, I find like the default is Jane, but something that I loved when you folks rolled this out a few years ago when I was in practice, and I loved receiving it as a client, was that credit card on file. It’s so simple. but it felt kind of revolutionary at the time. And I noticed for myself as a client, my osteo has my credit card on file. And that means when I see him. And usually, to be honest, I’m sorry, Mark, my osteo, I only see him when I’ve already put my back out. So I already see him when I’m basically in crisis, like, I’m like, “Hello, I cannot sit. Please ease me onto the table.”

[00:14:26] And so he has my card on file. So when I go to leave that session, rather than having to pull out my wallet and give that information all over again, he’s just like, okay, I charged your card. I was like, thank you, sir. I will see you hopefully not for a long time. Again, just that like smoothness, like that removing friction as a client is great.

[00:14:44] Cause there’s no reason that I should have to give him fresh payment information every single time. And so it’s just like, it’s just an automated thing that makes the flow faster for him, but it also makes it faster for me as a client.

[00:14:54] Amy-Lynn: Absolutely. And it also leaves your interaction with that practitioner, not on, oh, and by the way, here’s your bill. Right? It leaves it on that, you know, the good positive feelings that ideally you have when you’re leaving there. And it leaves you being able to like, live in the moment, even as a client being able to just walk out and know that everything’s taken care of, you know, and you don’t have to worry about standing there and giving payment and because it’s just taken care of for you.

[00:15:20] Linzy: Well, because the other piece too that I see my students, like the therapists and health practitioners who work with me in Money Skills for Therapists, what they struggle with sometimes is also billing their clients, right? So like, sometimes it’s like the session ends and you’re like, okay, great. See you next week.

[00:15:36] But like, there’s no invoicing that happens. There is no bill that’s given. And then, that can actually create a lot of tension in that relationship because then sometimes by the time the clinician gets around to being like, Hey, I finally sat down and did my billing. You owe me 500. The client is like, I don’t have 500 right now, right?

[00:15:55] And now you’ve created an issue in your relationship, right? And now you’re starting to think about payment plans, or the client is resentful because they’re like, why didn’t I just pay you as I went? I do see this happen a lot where our avoidance actually hurts our relationships with our clients.

[00:16:10] We’re trying to protect them. We’re trying to be like, Oh, I don’t want to bring money into this. I’ll just, we’ll just talk about it next week. And then next week, of course, we’ll just talk about it next week. We’re trying to create harmony, but we actually end up creating discord because we’re not

[00:16:22] withholding the boundaries of the relationship. And the boundaries are we’ve just had an exchange. I gave you skills and gifts and treatment, and you give me money. So when we haven’t billed them and when they haven’t paid us when they left the door, there’s actually this like kind of unfinishedness to that interaction, which is not good for any relationship to have kind of these loose ends hanging out.

[00:16:44] Amy-Lynn: No, absolutely. And I think the nice thing about like Jane’s process of being able to get credit cards on file, even that part of the transaction doesn’t necessarily have to be face to face or part of your session,

[00:16:55] Linzy: Mm hmm.

[00:16:56] Amy-Lynn: which can feel a little icky, you know. So the ability to collect that information on your intake paperwork and have like a nice little blurb about why you’re collecting it and the importance of collecting it.

[00:17:08] So expectations are set during the intake process before they even come and see you for that first session. And that can be really key to not feeling bad about it.

[00:17:19] Linzy: Yes.

[00:17:19] Amy-Lynn: Either on the practitioner side or on the client side.

[00:17:23] Linzy: And it just bakes it into that relationship from the start of like, yep, this is, we have got your credit card info. This is how I use it. Done. Finished. Yeah. Which is really nice. I’m curious. What other features would you want to highlight for us?

[00:17:39] Amy-Lynn: Oh, terrific. Well, you know, like I mean coming from my administrative background, I absolutely love an efficient process. So one of, I think, my favorite things really is a lot of the things that Jane automates. So like on, on top of things such as the intake paperwork that we’ve been talking about, there are also automated notifications, and unlimited text and email reminders, and wait lists, and all of those things that just reduce administrative lift.

[00:18:07] You know, whether you are a solo practitioner or you have people in your clinic that do the admin, everyone is going to love the fact that they don’t have to… It’s not an extra step to get these things sent out, and it’s not an extra step to use these features because so many of those things are automated in Jane.

[00:18:26] So, that’s a good one. And then, if anything else, I would say, so Jane has some insurance integrations in both Canada and the U. S. We actually have a direct relationship with a clearinghouse in the U. S. that we just were able to introduce bringing eligibility checks directly into Jane, which is exciting.

[00:18:44] So, that’s another feature that I think is really exciting.

[00:18:48] Linzy: Yes. And another thing I’ll say about Jane, and this is not inconsequential, is that it’s pretty. Jane is pretty. For folks listening, a lot of folks in my audience, I’m sure, share my like sensitivity, right? Like if something is, you know, ugly and glaring, that actually detracts from my ability to be able to focus, right?

[00:19:08] It’s just like if it’s like, or too much information, right? That kind of sensory overload that can happen when you look at something and there’s so much information that it’s like, wait, where am I supposed to look? What is this? Why am I seeing this? I don’t want to see this information. Is there a way not to?

[00:19:21] I find Jane is so streamlined and clear in your design and also the design for the booking page itself, you can make it feel very brand aligned. So when somebody goes on your website, they click over to the Jane page, and it feels like they’re still on the same website because the colors all blend. Those kinds of things make a really big difference.

[00:19:38] And I definitely notice when I’m using software that has not had that kind of thoughtful design, you notice. You notice it. Yeah. And then the other geeky thing that I want to add then now that I’ve talked about things being pretty is, I want to talk about reports. The Jane financial reports are so good.

[00:19:54] And as somebody who teaches finances, right, and teaches therapists how to have financial clarity. I do find that there are some softwares that I look at, and I am having trouble discerning what information the report is giving me, and how to get the information that I want. And Jane, I never had that experience as a practitioner.

[00:20:12] Whenever I went into Jane, and I wanted information, it was always very clear how to get that information. It’s always like, it was super clear and super easy to run a report of like how many folks I had seen that week, how much I billed, how much money is outstanding. Who are my top clients, right? Like who’s paid me the most over time.

[00:20:28] It’s just like those report features are not what we usually think of when we think about like, what tool am I going to use every day, but for the kind of skills that I’m teaching folks to use where you zoom out on your practice, and you look at what’s happening and you start to understand the trends, and you start to understand where you can make little decisions that make a big difference,

[00:20:47] having that clear report information available is essential, like that is foundational to be able to be strategic in your business.

[00:20:55] Amy-Lynn: Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:20:57] Linzy: So administrative tasks are kind of the bane of health practitioners and therapists because most of us do not have a love of administration, which might be strange to you as someone

[00:21:09] Linzy: who does have a love of process and operations. Right. But like, it ends up being one of those things that like you have to do in order to do what you really like to do, which is, you know, IFS or helping folks with TMJ issues or whatever it is, right, that your passion is. 

So what are some of the common pain points that you notice private practice owners struggling with when it comes to that? admin stuff. And how does Jane help to ease that? 

[00:21:22] Amy-Lynn: Yeah, you know, one of the key things I would say is definitely spending a lot of time doing follow ups. So when we talked a little bit before about things like those automated notifications and those unlimited SMS and text reminders. Also like return visit reminders. So, you know, you’re not spending that extra time with Jane, doing those follow ups. You know that your clients have those links, you know, if it’s a link to their telehealth call, you know that they have it. You know that they’ve been notified by email and by sms that their appointment is coming up. So you don’t have to kind of have that weight on your shoulders about, “Gee I need to follow up with them and make sure that they got everything they needed,” because you know that they’ve got it.

[00:22:15] Probably another key thing would be You know, managing your schedule, a lot of practitioners sometimes, you know, like you work all day doing what you love. And then you’re, when you go home, you’re not really home because now you’re thinking about, like, you’re scheduling and, you know, you’re taking calls and you’re answering emails and all of that wonderful stuff.

[00:22:32] And one of the key things that, that Jane does is that online booking piece that you were talking about before and the ability for you to have control over what you offer in your schedule online, but to just be able to sit back once you’re confident that you’ve got that time up there that you can sit back and just let people book that time.

[00:22:53] And you don’t have to worry about, you know, following up with emails and making phone calls. You can also give them the opportunity to be able to handle some of those things, on their own. Right? So with that, we have a pretty amazing client portal, and they can go on and see their upcoming appointments.

[00:23:11] If that appointment is past your late cancellation period, they can reschedule or cancel that appointment with a reason on their own. Again, not having to call and put that kind of time out of your day for dealing with scheduling.

[00:23:24] Linzy: Yeah, because scheduling can be this very painful puzzle, too, that we carry in our brain where it’s like, okay, this person can’t do Tuesday at 10 and they can do Thursday at 4, but then I also have to pick up my kids. So maybe… like, it’s a lot of bandwidth that we end up holding. And like, I do really love having a tool that lets your clients be empowered to manage their side of things, right? It’s not all on you. It’s like they get to look and they can see, Oh, okay. There’s an opening Tuesday at two, but there’s another opening Wednesday at three. And they can go through their own process of like, Oh, well I have a meeting at three, but I can easily move that meeting to one.

[00:23:57] And then I can make it. And then it’s like all of this decision making is happening, but you as a practitioner haven’t actually had to be part of it. Yeah. Because they’re an adult. And they can figure it out without having to go back and forth with you, to figure out, you know, where they can see you in the week.

[00:24:10] So I think that is also empowering for your clients to be able to handle stuff without you having to be in the middle of everything.

[00:24:16] Amy-Lynn: Yeah, absolutely. Things like, you know, the note taking process. We talked quite a bit already about, you know, session notes and charting notes and the fact that that process can sometimes be daunting, overwhelming. It can take too long. You know, you have a busy day and sometimes you’re feeling like well, you know I may have to end up going to work back to that last note, and the ability to be able to do that easily and the ability to be able to have, you know, a charting system that allows you to save yourself some time because just beyond the templates that we were talking about earlier, we also have some really cool things where you’re able to, if your device has speech to text, you can dictate into any note field.

[00:24:55] on a chart in Jane. We have something called smart narrative, where you’re actually able to build out rules around different things. So my client had pain in his right elbow and that type of thing. And it’s better or worse since the last time they came in. And as you’re answering those questions, Jane is actually building a narrative for you.

[00:25:16] So you’ve got quick little button presses, but Jane is creating a whole paragraph. Another key thing in that is that if you find yourself, you know, and I’m sure that we all do… I know in a day, I’ll be typing things out and I’ll be like, geez, you know, I think I’ve typed the same thing four times today.

[00:25:33] And, in the notes, you’re actually able to highlight it and turn it into what we call a phrase. So we have these quick phrases where you’re able to just type in a couple of key words and, boom, that entire sentence or that entire paragraph appears in your notes. So some of those things really kind of lift that administrative lift off of that fact that those session notes can take a long time.

[00:25:57] Linzy: They can. They really, really can. And what I love about that, too, is it’s starting to think about what is the same between client sessions? Like what is automatable? Cause I think, too, in the mental health field, we’re really good at seeing everybody as unique individuals and everybody’s complex.

[00:26:15] And, you know, we really notice what’s different between our clients, right? And what makes them unique. But there’s also lots of things that are the same. Right. So as you say, like, there’s going to be phrases that we write over and over again, like, it’s been a minute since I’ve written a clinical note, but as you were saying that I was thinking like, oh, yeah, I had a certain sentence that I would write something about, like, use a calm place for like grounding and containment, something like that, right?

[00:26:37] Because I was an EMDR therapist, and I probably wrote that phrase. hundreds of times over the course of my time in private practice, right? So that’s one that it sounds like that would be an example of a phrase where like I could just click into like the complex phrase and like plunk in that whole sentence in two clicks rather than writing out those words maybe three times a day because that was a common intervention that I used in my clinical sessions.

[00:27:01] Amy-Lynn: Absolutely. The ability to build those and, you know, you can edit them once you’ve created them. So if your language changes or something of that nature, but they’re always there for you to just speed up that process. And there are certain things even at the template level, you can choose, if there are some key things that you know need to be a part of a specific type of session note or chart note.

[00:27:21] You can actually add them at the template level, too. So we give you lots of options to make sure that, you know, you’re as speedy as possible, but as accurate as possible at doing those notes because the, you know, the key part is the treatment and the care that you give. The note taking is a requirement.

[00:27:36] So if we can make it as easy as possible, then, you know, that’s best for everyone,

[00:27:42] Linzy: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And any other spots where you see practitioners losing time that Jane can help them with?

[00:27:49] Amy-Lynn: You know, definitely. And we did touch on this quite a bit, before was the idea of the payments, being able to… You know, doing the accounting side and the bookkeeping side and dealing with your AR, finding ways that you can improve that process, make it a little bit quicker and easier.

[00:28:07] You know, we talked about the idea of it being, you know, less transactional. But aside from that, when we step back from the, from your actual sessions or treatments, with your patients and clients. It’s the step back to look at your business and say, this is what my current AR is and how do I deal with that and how can I reduce it?

[00:28:26] And, you know, we have some things from that online booking side where you’re actually able to create payment policies. So you can… If you’re not collecting credit cards on the intake paperwork, you actually have the ability to collect them while people are booking online, so you can collect credit cards. You can charge a deposit.

[00:28:42] You can even get paid for your entire session up front. And you can also have different rules between… If it’s a very first time client, maybe that first time client is paying for your session entirely up front the first time. And then after that, they’re able to book sessions without having to pay.

[00:29:00] Right. So for those follow ups, so that we give you a lot of control around that. But those types of things, you know… Being able to make sure you’ve got those cards on file, or that you’re charging for things prior to appointments, all of those give you that little bit of financial security, you know. Being able to deal with things like no shows and late cancellations… In Jane, you’re able to put in a pretty comprehensive cancellation policy where you can tell people, you know, if you no-show, we’re charging you for the cost of the appointment, or you can do a percentage of that.

[00:29:31] Jane gives you full control over what type of no show and late cancellation fees you’d like to have. But the fact that the card is on file, again, eliminates that friction of having to reach out to them and say, Hey, you no-showed. I need a card so I can charge this.

[00:29:45] Right.

[00:29:46] Linzy: Yes. Yeah, it streamlines the processes, but it also streamlines them in a way that’s really customizable. Right? So you can really set it up to reflect the client population that you work with. What are your policies? How are you communicating? Yeah, being able to do that, that follow up, about sessions not paid, like an automatic message.

[00:30:04] Like, I remember writing that message. I had an email I used to use because I didn’t, I don’t know if this feature existed back when I was using Jane. But I used to be like, Hey, it was great to see you today. As a reminder, your payment is 150. And I would like, again, write out that email myself. I could see how handy it would be to have that

[00:30:18] language already prepared in a note that I can just send if for some reason somebody forgot to pay me, or the transfer didn’t go through. Again, just streamlining, automating, and making it very professional and boundaried, right? So there isn’t like that room for it to become messy or an issue between you and the client.

[00:30:34] And just to go back a minute, Amy-Lynn, you’re using the phrase AR, which is a business term, which for folks listening is accounts receivable, right? We want your accounts receivable, the money that is owed to you by clients. I would say we want that number to be as close to zero as possible. And I would argue the only times that it shouldn’t be zero is if you’re dealing with a third party payer, like an insurance company, or in Canada, there’s like lots of programs from the government around like victim services or like services for indigenous folks where there is somebody else paying that bill.

[00:31:04] In those cases, you are going to have an accounts receivable that adds up because of that third party. owes you money. But generally speaking, I would argue that between you and an individual client, there should be no balance that is adding up. And it sounds like Jane has so many ways to keep that from becoming an issue.

[00:31:20] Amy-Lynn: Absolutely. We even have a pay balance feature on our statements and a pay balance email that can be sent from the client profile. So if you’re not charging that card on file, or you did not collect a card prior to, after the session, you’re able to send a very professional email. This is your balance for the session so that can be dealt with and they can go online and enter their information and pay it, which is really nice.

[00:31:43] Linzy: Yes. Yes. Yeah. The more that we can make these interactions professional and clear and pretty. Did I mention that it’s pretty?

[00:31:50] Amy-Lynn: Very.

[00:31:51] Linzy: That keeps you in a good relationship with your clients, right? That is a way to take care of your clients. So what other types of support does Jane offer folks who are using the program?

[00:32:01] Amy-Lynn: Yeah, that’s a terrific question. And, at Jane, we are here to support you. Like I think support is a very key part of what makes Jane, Jane. So, alongside being able to talk to a real person on the phone and over chats and by email, we also offer things such as account setup consultations.

[00:32:20] So if somebody does sign up with Jane, and they’re brand new, you are not alone. We are there to help you walk through things like getting your schedule set up, and getting those intake forms set up, and helping you navigate through the chart template library, and the template libraries for those things. And just making sure that, you know, if you’re going to offer online booking, that things are looking the way you want them to… All of that stuff, our support team is there to help you through that.

[00:32:47] We also have,like for those DIYers, and the people who don’t like to make phone calls and love to do things themselves, we have, our Jane guides are really comprehensive, and we have some absolutely amazing videos and step by step walkthroughs. There’s just a ton of information out there to support you as you’re working with Jane that way as well.

[00:33:07] We also have a really great little magazine called the Front Desk Magazine. And it is a physical magazine, but you can also see it digitally as well. And that is a focus a little bit more on clinic life. So for example, our last issue was talking about, you know, business visibility, and how to manage your no shows, and that type of thing.

[00:33:27] So not so much Jane support specific, but you know clinic life specific. And then our last thing, and probably one of the coolest things, too, is because my focus is just so much on getting that feedback from the community… Jane has an absolutely amazing Facebook community.

[00:33:43] There are like 14, 000 practitioners that are either Jane users and some are non Jane users, and they’re there not just to support each other with Jane, but they’re also there to ask advice, or give advice on things like the business of running a practice, with Jane in ways, like, “how have you worked to reduce your no shows,” and people will talk about different Jane features around how that works and how they’ve utilized it to be successful.

[00:34:11] It’s a really cool community for sure. So, a vast amount of support. 

[00:34:17] Linzy: And I mean something about my experience with Jane when I was a practitioner and like accessing support and now that I’m part of your ambassador program is Jane is so human. Like as a company, you’re a very human company. So for instance, when I was on maternity leave with my son, I did not have a subscription at that time.

[00:34:36] I had stepped away. I wasn’t practicing for a year. Because I live in Canada. And I remember midway through I got an email from a client being like, “Hey, I need my notes” for some reason. And so it’s like, I think she was maybe seeing a new practitioner or maybe it was court. I can’t even remember now, but I was just like, Oh shit, I need notes.

[00:34:53] So I was like, okay, I might just have to pay. Like I might just have to eat it, and I might just have to pay Jane for a month to get this note for practitioner. And I emailed your support team and I was like, Hey, this is a situation. I’m on mat leave. I’m not practicing, but I have a client who needs a note.

[00:35:06] You know, like, what can you do? And I remember I got an email from a human, a person, very quickly being like, Hey, no problem. I’m going to open up your account for the day, get in there, get what you want. You might also want to get this information while you’re in there. Like happy mat leave, take care.

[00:35:19] And I was like, what? Like for a tech experience, that is exceptional, right? Because so many companies, like so many tech experiences that we have are faceless. It’s like a chatbot that I’m like, that’s not the question I asked, chatbot. But the chatbot is like, I’m sorry, you don’t qualify for support.

[00:35:37] Like I got that message recently from Zoom. I was like, how much money do I need to give Zoom to be able to talk to a human? I don’t know. Infinite amount of… I don’t know. I’m not there apparently. and

[00:35:44] Amy-Lynn: My goodness.

[00:35:45] Linzy: That human element of Jane is so helpful, so helpful when we’re navigating tech and setting things up and accessing things and learning how to use it.

[00:35:57] And you folks do that so, so well. Like I really commend you on your lovely humanness that you’ve managed to maintain despite being a company that serves lots of folks.

[00:36:06] Amy-Lynn: Yeah, I, you know, I’m so glad to hear that. And I absolutely love that. It makes me preen a little because I’m a member of the support team. I just love hearing when people praise… I work with a phenomenal team of people. They are truly exceptional and all of us genuinely care about what it is that we’re doing, and the support that we give. You know, Jane’s mission is help the helpers and we take that to heart I can promise you And you know, I think all of us really want to genuinely be helpful, and I’m so glad that translates into how you feel when you call us because we are a group of humans, and we’re a group of some pretty great humans, and we believe in what it is that you as practitioners offer.

[00:36:51] And we want to support you while you are making a difference in the world.

[00:36:57] Linzy: Yes. Yeah, I think when you work with a team, you can feel if they work in a good workplace. Like you can feel if you’re working with a happy team.

[00:37:04] Amy-Lynn: Absolutely.

[00:37:06] Linzy: You can also feel when you’re working with an unhappy team. and there’s definitely some companies that we’ve worked with where I’m like, Oh, they… I would never suggest anybody work there.

[00:37:13] You know, where there’s like massive turnover all the time. you’re always talking to a new person cause nobody seems to stick around, but like, yeah, you folks seem to really have locked down to like being a company that is doing great things and also taking great care of yourselves as well as your clients, which is a beautiful balance to strike.

[00:37:31] Amy-Lynn: Absolutely. And that’s amazing because definitely like even going back to my journey with Jane, it was reading about their values and their mission and then becoming a part of Jane, which I’ve been for almost two years now and realizing they genuinely do live that vision and mission every single day.

[00:37:47] We all do. And yeah. We’re happy to help.

[00:37:51] Linzy: The love fest is almost over…

[00:37:52] Amy-Lynn: It is!

[00:37:53] Linzy: For those who would be interested in learning more about Jane or who are thinking about switching from their current EMR to Jane, can you explain what that process looks like?

[00:38:02] Amy-Lynn: Absolutely. Well, one of the first things I would definitely recommend if you’re thinking that Jane might be a good EMR for you is please do one of our free demos with a support team member. So you would get somebody like me on the other line. You give us a little bit of information about your practice. You know how many clinicians you have if you’re a solo practitioner, what type of disciplines that you are going to offer and all of that wonderful stuff.

[00:38:26] And we will customize a little demo for you and walk you through how Jane could work for your business. I always suggest that everybody starts there because it is really key to get a good idea of how Jane could function for you. We want happy people coming to Jane. If you’re switching from another platform, that process will include getting some data out of your current platform, and Jane does have a dedicated imports team of our own, and we also have some wonderful guides as well that talk about, you know… we try to help you get the data from your current systems and give you an idea of what to expect from what you can get out of the current systems that you have.

[00:39:05] And then our import team, you upload that information into a secure area, they hop in and they work really hard and they get all of that information into Jane for you. And that process is also included. It is part of you becoming a Jane customer. That import side of things is taken care of for you.

[00:39:23] And then after the import, you have unlimited support. So you can phone us, book those accounts, set up consultations to help get you up and running, and phone us whenever you need us, send us emails, chat with us. We are there to support you while you get started with Jane.

[00:39:41] Linzy: And that’s at every subscription level, to be clear.

[00:39:43] Amy-Lynn: That is at every subscription level.

[00:39:45] Linzy: Not only the super premium subscription level. So that’s for everybody. Beautiful. And for folks who are interested in signing up for Jane, we do have a code, uh, Money, Nuts and Bolts, which is M N B 1 M O. And that gets you a one month grace period.

[00:40:02] So you can always do a demo. And if you decide, yep, this is it. When you go to sign up, there’s going to be a spot for you to put the code. So you can do the code after the demo. Or if you know, you’re interested now, that’s a way for you to try Jane for free. And Jane is month to month, right? So folks could try it for that month.

[00:40:15] It’s not like they’re signing up for a year and getting a month off. that’s your one month grace period to like check it out and play with it. And then if it’s not for you, you’re not like locking in for a long period of time.

[00:40:25] Amy-Lynn: Absolutely.

[00:40:26] Linzy: Yeah, because sometimes that’s the trick, right?

[00:40:28] Amy-Lynn: Yeah.

[00:40:28] Linzy: It’s good to be clear about that because I recently got locked into a subscription.

[00:40:31] And I was like, what? I’m paying monthly, but if I try to cancel, I have to pay out the rest of the year? Like, this is insane. This is not like that. This is month to month. So that code MNB1MO is a way to try it. And what I always encourage, Amy-Lynn, is curiosity. Just like being curious, just trying it out and poking around and seeing.

[00:40:47] So if you’re curious, I encourage you to try it out and get in there and poke around and see how you like it, see how it works for your brain. Yeah, because there… I have literally nothing bad to say about you folks, which says a lot. Cause I used Jane in my practice for many years. So there was lots of opportunity for bad things to happen, and nothing ever did.

[00:41:04] So I’m very, very appreciative of you being here today.

[00:41:07] Amy-Lynn: Oh, that is so amazing. It was absolutely my pleasure. It was my pleasure to meet with you. It was my pleasure to talk with you about Jane and how it can help your listeners. And I am very excited, and hope to be able to talk with some of them. If they do sign up, that’d be awesome.

[00:41:21] Linzy: We’ll put the links in the show notes, to be able to book those demos. We’ll put a link to the signup page. If folks know they’re ready to jump in, we’ll put the code there. It’s all going to be in the show notes. So check out the show notes, so that you can go explore Jane. And thank you so much, Amy-Lynn, for joining me today.

[00:41:35] Amy-Lynn: You’re so welcome. You have an amazing rest of your day, and thanks for having me.

[00:41:53] Linzy: Thanks so much to Amy-Lynn for coming on the podcast. Today, I got super excited. I know it was a love fest, but I hope that folks feel the genuineness of the love fest, because having a tool that works for you, especially like our clinic management software that we use every single day, so much of our time is spent interfacing with that software.

[00:42:15] And if it works, life is easy. And if it doesn’t, life is hard. So I’m a real fan of things being smooth and easy and stable. I’m just a real fan of things working. And so, if you are curious about Jane, I definitely suggest checking it out. Again, you can use my code M N B 1 M O, to get a one month grace period to check it out for free.

[00:42:37] And then if you decide that you don’t like it, you can just cancel. So, I would suggest… This is what I do when I’m doing something free. I sign up and then I put a reminder in my calendar to say, okay, 26 days from now, a little reminder to be like, Hey, do you still want to keep this thing?

[00:42:50] So if you’re curious about Jane, there’s a little tip for how you can set it up so that you can explore it for a month, play with it. I think you’re really going to like it.

[00:42:59] So if you have any kind of headaches at all with your current EMR, I would suggest checking out Jane, and see if that’ll work better for you. You can follow me on Instagram at money, nuts and bolts. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, it’s so helpful for me if you mention it to your colleagues, your friends, your office mate across the hall, to let them also be part of these conversations about money and feelings and admin work and software.

[00:43:27] Some of the things that might not be very sexy, but definitely make our life better when they are working. Thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to a Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. These are the episodes where I answer your questions, the lovely therapists, health practitioners, coaches, the listeners of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. And today’s question is from Sara Walls.

[00:00:19] Here is Sara’s question.

[00:00:21] Sara: Hey, Linzy, this is Sara. Thanks so much for the opportunity to ask these questions. My question is regarding having multiple businesses. So maybe a therapy practice and a coaching practice or some other kind of business. What are some good things to keep in mind regarding the financial management of two businesses?

[00:00:43] Linzy: And within that, one of the questions that came up for me is, how do you handle business expense that might apply to both businesses. So something like a business lunch where you talk about both businesses. Any thoughts you have would be really helpful. Thanks so much. Okay, this is a great question. Thank you, Sara, for submitting this question. I know this is something that is on lots of therapists’ minds. I’m finding more and more therapists, especially, and health practitioners, are building, or thinking about building, that second thing, that coaching practice or that course.

[00:01:16] And the very first thing that comes to mind for me, Sara, the word that like, boop, pops up in my mind right away, always is separation. It’s all about separation and boundaries, right? Good boundaries are good for everybody, and they’re good for your businesses. And especially if you are practicing therapy, you want to make sure that your other work that you’re doing, your coaching work, your teaching work is legally distinct.

[00:01:41] So that’s the first thing is making it legally distinct. So if you’re in Canada, like I am, you know, I had my therapy business as a sole proprietor. I just practiced under my own name. I just filed it as part of my own taxes. But once I started doing this teaching business and actually realized I was going to keep doing this, I made a corporation, right?

[00:02:00] I created a corporation. So there’s a separate legal body. And in the United States, depending on where you are, your state, you’re going to be looking at creating an LLC, a PLLC. You want to make sure that there’s a different container that your second business is in so that it’s super, super clear to anybody who’s even remotely curious that your business as a therapist, what you’re practicing using your license, is not connected to this other work that you’re doing, this coaching work, this teaching work.

[00:02:28] For instance, with my license in Ontario, I am a social worker, and as a social worker in Ontario, you can’t use testimonials from clients. You can’t sell packages, right? And in my course business, in teaching, I do that all the time, right? Like I’m always using testimonials from students who talk about their experience in the course.

[00:02:47] I use those on my sales page. I use them in my masterclass, you know, where I talk about the course, and I sell things as a course. It’s a bundle; it’s a bulk. I’m not allowed to do that as a social worker, right? So I have to be super clear that what I’m doing over here is not me practicing social work as a registered social worker.

[00:03:05] Otherwise, I could be imperiling my license. So that’s the first thing. That’s the legal piece. So if you have any questions about that, if you have any concerns, definitely talk to your accountant, talk to a lawyer, do research for your province and state. Just make sure that you set up the container properly from the beginning.

[00:03:18] So there’s no possibility later for blurriness or questions about whether or not you’re properly using your license. The second piece, now we’re getting into more of the practical money pieces, is you want to create financial clarity between those two businesses without getting in the weeds, right?

[00:03:35] So we want to create enough separation that it’s clear what is what, right? You, those legal boundaries are being aligned with financial boundaries. So you’ve got different bank accounts for those different businesses, ideally at different institutions, just super clear, super separate. That allows you to see financially how each business is doing as well.

[00:03:52] Right? So like if the coaching business is new and it’s just starting at first, there might not be much happening in that bank account. Maybe you’ll get a couple hundred bucks here and there. Maybe the expenses for it are higher, but you can track your finances in such a way that you know, okay, so far this year, I’ve actually spent 500 more on running the coaching business than I have made. That lets you know how the coaching business is doing, right?

[00:04:13] Having those financial distinctions, those two separate bank accounts and two separate sets of records. Also, it helps you be clear on what’s happening in each business so that one business isn’t propping up the other. You might choose to have one business prop up the other for a while. You know, like while a course is getting off the ground, it’s fine that it’s not making that much money, but if this is something you’re going to do longterm, you want to make sure that there’s financial sustainability in both businesses, right?

[00:04:36] One is not leaning on the other one. So, that’s the one piece. But when we get to the second piece, like, as you mentioned, the great example of what if you go out for lunch and you have a conversation with a colleague about your therapy business and your coaching business, how do you write that off? I would suggest that that’s one of those, like, moments where it’s better to be practical than to get into the weeds.

[00:04:58] By getting into the weeds, I mean, you could, if you wanted to, write off half of that lunch to each business. But I don’t think that’s a great use of your time, right? So probably what I would think about instead, Sara, is like stay more zoomed out, more big picture. And it’s like, okay, this lunch, I talked to this colleague about both practices.

[00:05:16] I’ll write that off to the therapy business. But next time I go out for lunch with a colleague and we talk about both businesses, I’ll write it off to the coaching business. Like I’ll put it as a coaching business expense. That just keeps things simpler. There’s always the possibility of getting lost in the weeds, just getting into too much detail where you’re not really getting a lot of return.

[00:05:33] Frankly, the IRS or the CRA is probably not going to care whether you write off the 30 lunch here or there, right? But you can spend a lot of time and energy and waste a lot of bandwidth getting too into the details. So it’s like create enough clarity and separation that it’s clear how each business is doing.

[00:05:51] You can look at each business’s financial performance with clarity, but we don’t want to get into kind of splitting hairs to the point that you’re just creating a big headache for yourself. So you can ask your accountant when you come to filing, how they would suggest writing off certain things that you might share, like a home office, for instance, you can ask your accountant, how they would suggest you writing that off.

[00:06:09] Do you write it off just for the one business? Do you write it off split? There’s things like that, that are bigger that you can chat with your accountant about, but little things like that, I would suggest making your life simple. Because ultimately you’re going to get more return on your energy on focusing on getting some new clients, having another networking lunch with somebody else, doing some great marketing, figuring out a new way to talk about what you do, or to like package up a coaching offer.

[00:06:33] That is going to be a much better use of your energy and bandwidth ultimately than getting into kind of like very small details, like splitting a 50 expense into two and then having on both businesses and having to remember that you did that. I think that that’s not a great use of your time.

[00:06:46] So I would think about evenness and splitting, but in a more general, light way that allows you to focus your energy where it really needs to go, which is going to be on building that second business. Cause I’m going to guess that the second business, which is exciting to hear that you’re talking about having a second business, that second business I’m sure could use more of that growth focus and energy, than you need to be in the weeds with the finances on that.

[00:07:07] So thank you so much, Sara, for your question. For listeners, if you also have a question, you can do exactly like Sara did and leave a question. We’ll put a link in the show notes. You will just go onto our podcast website. You’re going to see a link there to record. All you need to do is literally press record, and record your question.

[00:07:24] Just introduce yourself. If you have a little bit of context that’s

[00:07:27] important, you’re welcome to give that context. And then ask your question. And then I can answer your question on one of these feelings and finances episodes of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:00:00] Jenet: My next step would be to create a two year plan, which, I mean, we’ve kind of already done. That feels very safe to do. And then also think about how I can leverage that 5K to set a foundation.

[00:00:24] Linzy: Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, where we answer this question: how can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion to feeling calm and confident about their finances and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach, and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists.

[00:00:48] Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today we have a coaching episode with a recent Money Skills for Therapists grad. Jenet Dove is an LPC who supports overfunctioning perfectionists with managing burnout and depression. And today we get into a topic that, as we talk about a bit in the episode, we also dug into a bit during her time in Money Skills for Therapists, which is her relationship to debt and managing debt.

[00:01:15] We dig into perfectionism today, perfectionism around debt, and talk about Jenet’s aggressive debt repayment strategy that she’s using and kind of the costs for that. We explore some alternatives to that, and explore her other successfully saving in the business, like having a business financial system that is actually really working,

[00:01:35] but having some financial struggles or seeing debt grow at home and what to do about that. This is a very actionable podcast. By the end, we really get into some very specific, next steps for Jenet to make changes to her system and the way that she’s managing her money to alleviate the stress about debt.

[00:01:53] Here is my conversation with Jenet Dove.

[00:01:56] Linzy: So Jenet, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:15] Jenet: Thank you for having me.

[00:02:17] Linzy: I’m excited to have you. I was excited when I saw your name on our list of folks who had asked to come on the podcast, because as I was just saying to you off mic, it’s exciting for me to get to talk with grads because I want to know what’s happened since I saw you last a few months ago.

[00:02:33] So yeah, we were saying that you probably finished up the course about four months ago, three months ago.

[00:02:37] Jenet: Yeah, I would say maybe around October, November, of last year. Yeah. Tail end of last year.

[00:02:44] Linzy: Okay. So it’s been like a quarter at this time of recording. So what do you want to focus on, on our time together today?

[00:02:51] Jenet: think overall just kind of the bigger picture with confidence and finances, specifically,having grace for not knowing what we don’t know, but then holding ourselves accountable for what we do know, like once you know, you have to do better. And I think that that piece can be very challenging to balance as well.

[00:03:14] Linzy: Yes. Okay. Okay. So tell me what things are looking like then. Like, what is coming up around this tension between grace and holding yourself to what you know? Where’s the pain?

[00:03:26] Jenet: You know, I took the course and I’m feeling, uh, there’s were a lot of big insights from that course for me in terms of not only just managing the money, but also in terms of some foundational pieces like you and your business are two separate entities.

[00:03:42] And while my practice might be generating six figures, it doesn’t mean I’m paying myself six figures and like keeping those two things very separate. But even within that, the budgeting piece and the cash flow management, all of that, that’s a lot for, for practice owners, especially given that

[00:03:59] That’s really not our forte, you know? And so the grace is knowing that mistakes are going to happen. And I’m sure there’s some type of timeline for, finally getting to where you want to be. in terms of being able to manage your finances, but also, being responsible and accountable for, like I said, when you do know better, you do really have to start being intentional and doing better.

[00:04:24] And that’s a lot of effort.

[00:04:26] Linzy: Mm hmm. Yeah. And I, I feel like what you’re talking about is almost like a bigger philosophical tension that we all kind of grapple with in life, which is like, when are you kind to yourself? When do you give yourself a break? When do you push yourself or hold yourself to a boundary that you’ve set? So zooming in, tell me right now, what are things looking like in your financial management?

[00:04:45] Jenet: So I am kind of at a place now where I’m, I’m kind of expanding my team with this. And so, I’m very big about not necessarily practicing within my scope cause that’s my practice, but like focusing on what’s passionate for me. And that really is just the work within my clients and disseminating information and outside of my practice in any ways that I can as well. But the financial piece is one of those things that I’ve realized… now that I kind of have a better grasp on what it actually is going to take to manage it and get to where I want to go with it… you know, I’m outsourcing. I’m hiring an accountant.

[00:05:25] Linzy: Great.

[00:05:26] Jenet: To just really help me kind of manage my cash flow And really helped me get on top of that, outside of what I’ve been able to do with You Need a Budget, and the software, and obviously the skills that I learned within your course, I just think that it’s going to take, some more initiative and steps and what that is acknowledging that.

[00:05:50] I’m not going to be able to do this on my own and that’s okay. That’s part of like where I give myself grace, because if I keep going through it as if I’m on my own, as I am doing now, I think that’s where I struggle with the grace and the accountability.

[00:06:04] It’s like, I’m trying to hold myself accountable for something that I’m just having so much difficulty with.

[00:06:10] That’s where the realization of, okay, I need, I need more help with this.

[00:06:14] Linzy: Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think there’s, there’s a couple of pieces that stick out to me here right away. One is you’re saying that you’re expanding your team. Are you bringing in other clinicians? Tell me what

[00:06:24] that looks like when you say

[00:06:25] Jenet: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not. What I meant by expanding my team was like on the back end.

[00:06:30] Linzy: Gotcha. Your support. You’re expanding your supports. Gotcha. Beautiful. Okay. Great. Great. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So that’s good clarifying. Cause I was like, is your business getting a bunch more complicated? No, you’re expanding your team around you.

[00:06:42] Jenet: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:06:44] Linzy: So then the second piece, I think, of this question of, you know, you’re talking about giving yourself grace about needing support.

[00:06:52] Jenet: Hearing that reflected back to me, I can kind of see where you’re going with that. Yeah.

[00:06:58] Linzy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because when you mentioned grace at the beginning, this is a total assumption. I assumed that it was like, maybe you had forgotten to do some things or like, you know, like having to forgive yourself for making a

[00:07:08] mistake in your practice, or those kinds of things, which also is an area that we all need grace.

[00:07:12] Jenet: Absolutely.

[00:07:13] Linzy: But what you brought up right away is that, like, you’re giving yourself grace that you’re hiring an accountant and getting more support to help you solidify your skills.

[00:07:22] Jenet: Yeah, because I think there’s just, you know, I’m a self proclaimed recovering perfectionist, so we really struggle with, you know, we’re just supposed to know how to do things, and do them right and perfectly. And being able to look in the mirror and say out loud, you know, this is what I want to do.

[00:07:37] This is not my forte.

[00:07:38] I’ve tried.

[00:07:39] Linzy: Mm hmm.

[00:07:41] Jenet: And I, I tried very hard. And I need more help.

[00:07:45] Linzy: Yes.

[00:07:45] Right. And perfectionism is also where your clinical focus is, right? Like a recovering perfectionist. Do I remember that right?

[00:07:52] Jenet: Yes.

[00:07:52] Linzy: Yes. Okay. So yeah, not surprisingly, you’re very insightful about this part of yourself, because that is what I’m hearing is part of it is coming to terms with the fact that you, you can’t do something all by yourself.

[00:08:07] Jenet: Correct.

[00:08:08] Linzy: And I’m curious, Jenet, like, what is the story that comes up when you have to confront not being able to just handle something all by yourself?

[00:08:16] Jenet: Just, oh God. Linzy, is this supposed to be a tearful session? Because I already feel it coming.

[00:08:24] Linzy: Tears are welcome. Tears are welcome. I mean, this is where it is, though, right? Like, this is the stuff feeding into this.

[00:08:29] Jenet: Yeah, it is. It’s so because… absolutely. so what comes up is Well, you, you took on more than you can handle yeah, you don’t know what you’re doing. And this is why you shouldn’t have… This is what you get for, you know, trying to branch out and, you know, start your own practice and do all these great things for yourself.

[00:08:49] And look, now you, you can’t handle your finances.

[00:08:53] Linzy: So what does this prove? For, according to this voice, this critical voice, like, what does this prove or show you?

[00:08:58] Is this about not being worthy, not being safe, not being good enough? Like what is this telling you?

[00:09:06] Jenet: This is more so, this is why you should stay small.

[00:09:12] Linzy: This is a story I know well. Yes. Okay. This is why you should stay small because you can’t handle all the complexity of being bigger and wanting more. So this is reinforcing for a part of you you got to stay small.

[00:09:26] Jenet: Yes, yes.

[00:09:27] Linzy: Okay. I have a question for you and for, for that part of you maybe. Just to flip it on somebody else, I have a team that supports me of, I don’t know, maybe like six people who do all sorts of things that are not my zone of genius.

[00:09:47] Like my marketing, my tech, I don’t know how my tech works, Right? Like managing my email inbox, all of these kinds of things.

[00:09:54] Jenet: Right.

[00:09:55] Linzy: Does that mean that I’m not equipped to run a business?

[00:10:00] Jenet: I would say no, probably that you’re more equipped because you’re able to assess your strengths and weaknesses and then outsource and fill in those gaps as needed.

[00:10:10] Linzy: So, I mean, this is not the most, you know, revelatory intervention, but doesn’t that just say the same thing about you?

[00:10:17] Jenet: Yeah. But, you know, it’s always harder to apply it to… Things don’t apply to us, Linzy.

[00:10:22] Linzy: I know. We’re the exception. We have to do it perfectly and alone, even if other people get help, right? Because Part of what I’m hearing too is like… Well, first of all, I always want you to have an accountant. Always, right? We all need accountants. I have an accountant. There’s no way I could possibly know a tenth of what my accountant knows about tax codes and things that frankly I don’t want to know about.

[00:10:44] So that’s really important. I’m really glad you’re bringing on that team member. Something else, Jenet, that we talk about in the course that I want to emphasize and dig into here is like, you can outsource tasks. You can’t outsource the leadership and the big picture decisions.

[00:11:00] I wonder how it would sit with you. If you think that you’re outsourcing the tasks to this accountant, I’m not sure exactly what your relationship with them is going to be, but you’re outsourcing the tasks, helping them share their expertise with you so that you can be more grounded as you know, a financial leader, you know, making the big picture decisions for your business.

[00:11:22] How does that kind of framing sit with you?

[00:11:24] Jenet: I think that, that feels very settling.

[00:11:27] Linzy: Because part of the… You know, Money Skills for Therapists has evolved over time. And I think when it first started, because I was a small business, because I started this course in 2018, I was teaching people to be their own bookkeeper. Because I was like, we’re little, we don’t make a lot of money. Why would you pay a bookkeeper?

[00:11:43] You could do it yourself. You know, something that has evolved and changed as the course has grown over time and as my business has grown is now, my goal for students is that you have the financial literacy and the groundedness and that like big picture to understand like, these are my goals, this is what I want my paycheck to look like.

[00:12:01] But if bookkeeping is causing you almost any friction at all, I want you to outsource it as soon as you feel like you’ve got your feet under you in terms of that financial grounding.

[00:12:10] For you, how is the bigger picture stuff feeling at this moment? Of your ability to like, think about what you want for your life.

[00:12:18] I know you were paying down some debt when we worked together. Tell me about those pieces of money right now. What’s happening there?

[00:12:25] Like, do you see yourself being able to hold that big picture stuff more and just see this as like outsourcing a task? Is that a framing

[00:12:32] Jenet: I

[00:12:32] Linzy: possible for you?

[00:12:33] Jenet: I think because… If something is not working the way it is now, you obviously need to be doing something differently, right? And so I think that’s kind of my mindset of, okay, this is me doing something differently, in, in hopes of getting a better outcome. And so I would say. Yes. I think what your course helped me do is, you know, there’s a lot of big insights within that work, but also it did give me the tools to try to manage my cashflow on my own.

[00:13:06] And, and through that, I realized I can’t manage my cash flow. I need someone else. And so, that block is still kind of there in terms of like not quite being where I want to be with that piece. I think what gives me hope is that, you know, my practice generates six plus figures. So I know the money is there.

[00:13:31] Right. And so that part is not… I think it would be even more daunting if the money wasn’t there. But because it is, it’s like this feels manageable, but there’s something I’m missing that I’m not able to see. And someone else needs to come in and look at this, and

[00:13:48] shed some light onto what that piece is.

[00:13:51] And I’m, I’m very hopeful that that’s what this accountant is going to be able to do for me.

[00:13:56] Linzy: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

[00:13:57] Jenet: It feels like the puzzle piece is almost like clicking, but it’s not quite there yet.

[00:14:02] Linzy: It’s just slightly off kilter. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So tell me what does feel like it’s not working in your cash management?

[00:14:12] Jenet: So I currently have an S-corp set up and that was something that was provided as a strategy for me for tax purposes and cash flow management as well, to an extent. And so what that S-corp set up has allowed is the creation of a very tight budget. This is your set paycheck that you receive from the S corp and that is it.

[00:14:35] So it’s like a very, very tight budget for that piece. And so it has allowed me to see, okay, I can live on a lot less than I thought that I once originally needed. And also, and this is actually through your course as well, just being more mindful of spending habits.and just kind of tightening that up as well.

[00:14:56] So doing the things that are within your control. I think where I… where my frustration comes in is that, okay, I’m doing these things. I’m doing these things Yet something just feels like it’s… it’s not quite gelling, you know, I know life is going to keep like lifing in terms of like, I just had to pay, you know, almost 2, 000 yesterday for my car.

[00:15:22] We talked about this in the course, you know, the AC went out and then this happened and that happened. And so, you know, life will life. And I think some of those things also kind of contribute to this. I’m not prepared, like I am not, you know, I’m not ready, you know, I’m never, there’s never going to be a moment in life where I do not have debt.

[00:15:45] I know I’ve unpacked a lot about my relationship with debt in the course, and it’s still frustrating for me. It’s still frustrating for me that it’s there. It’s just there. And I know some of the things that have been helpful in your course is that debt provides us a way to, you know, take care of things that we need to take care of.

[00:16:05] My debt has always been manageable. But at the end of the day, it’s like it’s not stopping.

[00:16:14] Linzy: Mm hmm.

[00:16:15] Jenet: And that’s the cash flow piece that’s frustrating for me. It’s like I mean, it may not ever get down to zero, especially, you know, as a small business, you do need to, you know, invest in yourself.

[00:16:24] I get that.

[00:16:26] Jenet: But what is that manageable number? You know, what is, what does that look like? That is kind of the piece where I’m looking for a little bit more expertise and like more strategy around.

[00:16:37] Linzy: Mm hmm. Yeah. And I will tell you, that that is more of a personal finance.

[00:16:44] Jenet: Yeah.

[00:16:44] Linzy: Just as you’re thinking about who’s going to help you kind of crack the code on this. An accountant will be helpful in helping you look at things like your systems in your business and your obligations. And they might be able to make some suggestions there.

[00:16:54] But part of what I’m hearing is like, you’re not paying down your debt at the rate you want to be. And it’s feeling hopeless. It feels like it’s always going to be

[00:17:01] Jenet: Yeah. Well, yeah. And then also

[00:17:04] Linzy:

[00:17:04] Jenet: life happening. How do you balance that? You know?

[00:17:07] Linzy: Yes, for sure. Because with that, Jenet, like something that makes me think of is building that buffer at home, because as you said, life happens, you said life, life’s right, like there’s so many ways to say this, like, you know… We can only expect the unexpected, you know, like I had a January like this where my car had 3, 000 of unexpected repairs needed.

[00:17:28] I found out that summer camps, you pay for them in January. I didn’t know that. So suddenly we had to register my son and like a few thousand dollars for summer camps. I was like, God, January, that was terrible. Next year I’ll know that, you know, summer camps happened in January, but this year I just didn’t.

[00:17:42] Right. So it was just like that suddenly this big pile of expenses just to manage life. And what I’m curious about is in your personal finances, what are you doing right now to anticipate that?

[00:17:53] Jenet: Nothing.

[00:17:55] Linzy: Okay. Okay.

[00:17:57] Jenet: And you know, other than the tightening of the budget, that has been the biggest thing I’ve been able to do. And I think that’s where a little bit more strategy is going to be helpful is everything… And I, this is something I still haven’t worked on from your course, but everything that comes in that’s extra goes to the debt.

[00:18:14] I don’t put it in savings. I’m not creating a buffer. It just goes to the debt. And so, yeah,

[00:18:22] Linzy: Yeah. Because we talked about this in the course. Like, it’s kind of like this thing where you put so much on the debt, cause you’re just trying to get the debt down as much as possible, but then there’s no buffer. So then if your fridge breaks, your car breaks,

[00:18:32] it has to go back on the debt.

[00:18:34] So you’re watching the debt shrink, grow, shrink, grow more. Yeah. And tell me like for you emotionally, what happens when you have to put more money on the debt again?

[00:18:45] Jenet: My response to it is, it’s a lot better than it was. So I think, your course for sure, has really helped me with my emotional response to stress, money stressors. And so nothing ever feels like a crisis anymore. so that has been very… Like my nervous system might go into flight for a minute, but then I’m able to like get it regulated

[00:19:10] Linzy: Yes. Okay. So I’m glad that emotionally it’s not feeling so intense anymore.

[00:19:16] Jenet: It’s more so practical now when I have to do it, it just has to get done, like you, you know, your car’s not starting, what are you going to do? It just has to get done,

[00:19:25] Linzy: Okay. So with that, then like what I’m hearing is it’s kind of like you’re, you’re still just living life normally, right? I don’t think you’re necessarily spending more because you’re putting a lot of money on the debt, but it just does mean that when those unexpected things come up, the credit card is the tool or that you have to pay it down because there isn’t this cash buffer, right?

[00:19:44] I don’t know if the issue is that you’re paying it off too aggressively and then needing it.

[00:19:52] It sounds to me like that causes the emotional duress which used to be much worse. Now it’s just kind of like, ugh, okay, I got to use the credit card again because I need my car to start. So, but it doesn’t sound to me like it’s actually costing you more financially.

[00:20:03] Right? It’s not kind of like when people go into the like the restrict and purge with money where by restricting you actually end up spending more because you’re denying yourself. To me it just sounds like where the money is, if you’re putting it on the credit card, and you’re putting money on the credit card more and you’re taking money off the credit card more.

[00:20:18] You’re just using the credit card more.

[00:20:19] Jenet: Yeah,

[00:20:19] Linzy: But what I’m hearing overall is this debt is not going away as fast as you want it to, which is more a question of having extra money that you’re not going to need, right? Like that extra money in your household budget that isn’t going to be called on to take care of your life.

[00:20:32] Jenet: yeah, I think what’s, what’s coming up for me is, you know, I still use the Profit First, structure.but as I’m talking this through, I realized that my profit line, anything that comes up in that, whatever that number is, it goes to my debt. I’m not putting it away for profit. part of this might be, Talking it through, part of this might be a man made problem…

[00:20:56] Might be, you know, very self-inflicted. But it’s also, I kind of hear one of my clients’ voices now, you know. It’s like, so what am I supposed to do? I’m just supposed to, you know, stay in debt forever?

[00:21:07] Linzy: Mm hmm. Yeah. And the answer is no. Definitely not. Right? What it makes me wonder is where’s the actual problem and where’s the actual spot where an intervention can happen to make the solution? Right? Because, I know that your practice… You said you have a six figure practice, which is awesome.

[00:21:24] You’re also, if I remember, like a solo earner, right? And you have a child.

[00:21:29] Jenet: Yeah.

[00:21:30] Linzy: Yeah. Okay. I’m just going to say, as a starting place, that makes life harder. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. But it’s like, there isn’t that second income to like, share the groceries. It’s like, it’s all on you.

[00:21:42] Are you still using your profit first calculator?

[00:21:44] Jenet: I do. I do. And so, the S-corp pays me two times a month and then everything that is remaining from that month, from my business gets put into the profit first calculator and then distributed accordingly.

[00:21:58] Linzy: Okay. Yeah So you’re getting those distributions after your set paycheck, then everything else gets divided. Okay, great.

[00:22:04] Jenet: That set paycheck that you’re getting home, how much is that per month?

[00:22:08] Yeah, so I’m only paying myself 2,600 two times a month.

[00:22:12] Linzy: Yeah, okay, yeah. And

[00:22:13] Are you taking extra money out of the business then, like that profit money that we’re talking about?

[00:22:17] Jenet: Yeah, and so there’s taxes that are on the 2, 600. And then I put away for taxes for the profit as well. So taxes are another line item. Even though my accountant pulls taxes for the 2, 600, I have a line item for taxes for the profit.

[00:22:33] Linzy: Yes, which is great. And how much is that? That profit money that you get to take out?

[00:22:38] Jenet: So let’s say about, there’s an extra 5,000 after payroll, right, remaining, in the business for the month. And so that will come out to about 1,250 in profit.

[00:22:49] Linzy: So what I’m adding up is 5,200, like two 2,600 dollar paychecks, plus an extra 1,250 is 6,450.

[00:22:58] And I’m curious, like, how much is your basic cost of living? Like for rent or mortgage,

[00:23:04] Jenet: Yeah. I would say the 52 pretty much covers my cost of living, including my daughter, grocery, mortgage, et cetera.and

[00:23:19] Linzy: base living.

[00:23:20] Jenet: Yeah.

[00:23:21] Linzy: And then the 1250?

[00:23:22] Jenet: The 1250 is typically going to debt.

[00:23:24] Linzy: Debt. Right. That goes onto your debt. But then something else comes up and then you end up taking out the debt to pay for something else. Okay. So, with this, two things that I’m thinking about. One is, with money as it is,

[00:23:37] can you look at putting more towards the debt, right, and keeping that money on the debt, right, like basically reducing your living expenses so that, you know, your life is costing you a lot less than 6,450. Because what I’m hearing is the 5,200 covers like your normal living expenses, but of course there’s these annual expenses that come up, these one time expenses, the emergency expenses, right?

[00:23:59] And so that’s, that would be one angle on this, Jenet, right? Is like, how do you bring down your living expenses more so that the 6,450 is like more than enough. And even if your car breaks,

[00:24:11] you can still pay for that and leave money like the pay down on the debt is still going steadily. That’s one thing.

[00:24:18] Do you see spots for wiggle in your personal living expenses?

[00:24:21] Jenet: I’m not going to say no. Because when I started your course, I felt the same way. Like there’s no room for wiggle. And then somehow I’m living off of 5, 200, you know? And

[00:24:32] Linzy: 5,200. Yes.

[00:24:33] Jenet: Yeah. So I will never say never. I’m pretty sure it’s possible. I just don’t know what that looks like.

[00:24:40] Linzy: Okay. Okay. So there’s a maybe there. There’s some possibility, some curiosity. Maybe there’s something, a few things that you could eliminate because something we talked about in the course is like this kind of slow and steady with debt, right? Like, how do you set a slow, steady pace with a goal?

[00:24:56] Which is like starting to look at my debt is 8, 000. I want to pay it down in two years. I’m going to slowly pay it down and

[00:25:04] Jenet: Okay, see I’m glad you said that. Because when I hear paying down 8, 000 in two years… we’re taking two years to do that?! Thank you.

[00:25:15] Linzy: Maybe, I don’t know. Tell me what was that? What just came up?

[00:25:17] Jenet: Yeah. So that’s, I mean, I’m curious about that. Like, where do we get the two years number from? And I think that is the problem where I… I have probably just such a poor relationship with debt that even though I can acknowledge that it gets us to a place to be able to do certain things temporarily within our lives that we weren’t able to, it’s still like, you need to pay, you shouldn’t have it.

[00:25:40] You know, like it shouldn’t be there. And so when I hear like a two year goal, honestly, when I hear the two year goal, I’m like, okay, there’s, that’s relief. That’s the relief I needed to hear, but I’m also, there’s that part of me. That’s like two years. Linzy, no! There’s eight months left in this year.

[00:25:57] We need to use those eight months to pay off the rest.

[00:25:59] Linzy: You gotta like, get her done. And part of where I’m suggesting this, Jenet, is the get her done strategy is not working for you.

[00:26:06] Jenet: it’s not, it’s

[00:26:08] Linzy: It’s not. For some people it works. I have known people before who can be very self sacrificing, eat very simply, not buy any new clothes, wear stretched out old clothes, you know, cause they don’t care.

[00:26:21] Cause they’d rather, you know, pay down debt and have money in the bank. What I’m hearing is for you, it doesn’t seem to be giving you the results that you want, So let’s talk actual numbers. How much debt are you paying down?

[00:26:33] Jenet: Okay, I just pulled that up.

[00:26:36] It has increased. We’ve had some big expenses with my car recently. I just mentioned so… When I was with your program, it was only like, you know, 6k. No big deal. Now it’s at 9k unfortunately. Like 9. 8 is where we are. Mm hmm

[00:26:57] Linzy: Okay. So almost 10K if we’re going to be rounding.

[00:27:00] Jenet: Yeah.

[00:27:01] Linzy: Your debt is growing with this strategy. Yeah. And what emotions go with that for you?

[00:27:07] Jenet: Laughter.

[00:27:10] Linzy: Yes. Not an emotion. Probably more of a coping, but…

[00:27:14] Jenet: yeah. Because it’s, you know, I think you said it, like it’s not working for you, that you want it to work for you. I’ve sacrificed what I believe I can sacrifice to make it work for me. And, it’s growing. Like you said, it’s growing, you know?

[00:27:31] Linzy: It’s going the wrong way.

[00:27:32] With this in mind then, I think there is going to have to be a two pronged solution here. Slow and steady. What if we just give your nervous system a break? What if your goal is to pay the debt down in two years? And, and to look at that, you can look at a credit card repayment calculator online. In fact, let’s look at one together right now, because I think it’d be good for us to have actual numbers here.

[00:27:53] Okay. So here’s one from Experian.

[00:27:56] want to find one that lets you set an amount of time and tells us how quickly you can pay it down.Okay. So your debt is 9, and I’m going to share my screen with you.

[00:28:05] Jenet: I was looking to see what my interest rate is on this card.

[00:28:09] Linzy: Yeah. That’s great.

[00:28:10] Jenet: That has to be a factor in it as well.

[00:28:12] Linzy: Okay. So, yeah. What’s your interest rate?

[00:28:15] Jenet: Here it is. Okay. 22.

[00:28:17] Linzy: 22. Okay.

[00:28:18] Jenet: 22.24.

[00:28:23] Linzy: So pay it off within a certain time frame. It automatically put two years. Just saying the calculator likes that number. So if we put this in, we’re just going to be curious, Jenet, of what’s going to come up. I’m going to calculate. And it’s saying you’d have to pay 510 a month. How does that number land with you?

[00:28:39] Jenet: I mean, that’s beyond manageable.

[00:28:41] Linzy: Okay. Beyond manageable is a good thing.

[00:28:44] Jenet: Mm-Hmm.

[00:28:45] Linzy: Okay. Okay. So beyond manageable. And what do you notice it feels to make a plan that is beyond manageable?

[00:28:50] Jenet: I’m more curious now as to… I think I’m a little frustrated now because it’s like, why have I been so resistant to that? Mm-Hmm.

[00:29:02] Linzy: So let’s… we’re going to pull it apart a little bit. We’re going to say part of you is frustrated with the part of you that has been like resistant, wanting to pay it down faster. The part that wants to pay it down faster. Why? Why does that part want to pay down as fast as possible?

[00:29:18] Jenet: I think it’s more so about my messaging around debt. Even though I feel like it’s not as emotionally charged as it used to be. I think it’s just more so, I don’t know where it’s at right now. It’s in a confused spot right now. It’s very gray right now.

[00:29:35] I can’t find the words to really articulate what my relationship with debt is right now.

[00:29:40] Linzy: Yeah. Maybe it’s in transition. Maybe it’s settling into something different and you don’t know what that is yet. Because part of what it makes me wonder about is like, you’re a recovering perfectionist. You like progress, right? Like we like to see shit getting done.

[00:29:52] It makes me wonder, What if you put no more money on this particular card and you just pay down this like 520 bucks a month so you see it shrinking and you keep the rest of the money in your personal bank account, and then you see what happens in terms of your personal expenses. Does that money give you enough to pay for the car repairs?

[00:30:12] Actually start to have an emergency fund at home where it’s like every month you’re also setting aside 400 bucks for emergencies, 500 bucks for emergencies, so three months later or four months later when that 1500 car repair comes up, you’re like. I got that. If we just separate these things out so that the debt is only going down, you get to see yourself make progress and you get to start to develop this money management system at home that anticipates that life lives.

[00:30:38] How does that sit with you?

[00:30:39] Jenet: The frustration is very prominent right now, Linzy. I’m not even going to lie. Like that’s just, I…

[00:30:44] Linzy: Don’t lie.

[00:30:46] Jenet: I’m very frustrated right now.

[00:30:48] Linzy: Tell me about the frustration.

[00:30:49] Jenet: I think it’s, I don’t know. I’m upset with myself. Listen, this is one of those things where it’s like, Okay, Jenet, you should have known, you should have done better. It’s like, why was I so resistant? Maybe I’m frustrated that my aggressive strategy didn’t work, isn’t working, didn’t work, you know?

[00:31:06] Linzy: It sucks.

[00:31:07] Jenet: Yeah.

[00:31:08] Linzy: It sucks. It’s like, we want to know that when we make sacrifices, that when we make life hard, we’re going to get something back for it.

[00:31:15] Right.

[00:31:16] Linzy: And it didn’t work.. So I’m hearing frustration at the strategy.Is there more frustration at yourself, too?

[00:31:22] Jenet: I think it’s more frustrating… Because I’ve heard you say this. This is not my first time hearing you say slow and steady, you know? And so it’s also frustration for like, not listening, you know, So there’s some of that coming up and, and then also frustration because like, is it really that easy?

[00:31:46] Linzy: Hmm. Mm. Right.

[00:31:49] Jenet: It’s been feeling so hard. And then When I see it this way, it’s like, yes, it’s two years, but where are you gaining? You know, what are you getting from that?

[00:32:02] Linzy: Is there a belief that money is hard? So you’ve been making it hard. And so just thinking that it could be easy, it just doesn’t fit with what you’ve believed or what you’ve learned or what you’ve experienced.

[00:32:15] Jenet: I think it’s a belief that, well, not even a belief, just my experience with it has been hard. And so that’s my reality. It’s been hard. And then to see this laid out as an…

[00:32:27] Linzy: yes.

[00:32:28] Jenet: it’s relatively simple to see that. And so that is also frustrating. Like, You’ve been, you know, like walking through quicksand by your own choice, you know, by your own choosing, you know?

[00:32:42] Linzy: Yes.

[00:32:43] I’m hearing a lot of self judgment here.

[00:32:52] Okay. So if we could soften this a little, if you can be kind, if you can be kind to Jenet of every moment in time up until three minutes ago. Because we like her.

[00:33:05] Jenet: yeah.

[00:33:06] Linzy: What would be a kinder perspective on how you’ve come to be in this place?

[00:33:11] Jenet: You’re learning how to make your money work for you.

[00:33:16] Linzy: And why did you end up where you were, where you were making things hard or being hard on yourself? Like, where did you learn that money is hard?

[00:33:23] Jenet: So part of me wants to say that I don’t know that I’ve learned money as hard. It’s just that it’s been my experience.

[00:33:31] Linzy: Which is learning.

[00:33:32] Jenet: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Just through my experience,

[00:33:36] Linzy: Yeah. It’s been hard! Yes.

[00:33:39] Jenet: It’s been hard as a private practice owner, you know. I think it’s also discouraging to see all this money coming to your practice. But… So your business is thriving. I get my business savings looks amazing, you know, but it’s like, okay, on the other end, That’s where the disconnect is for me.

[00:34:04] And that’s, that’s frustrating as well.

[00:34:07] Linzy: For sure. that experience of money having been hard for so many years…

[00:34:12] it makes sense that it’s going to take you a minute to catch up to your new situation,

[00:34:16] to all that you’ve built, which I’m sure has been hard earned, right? To get to where you are, where now you can have a private practice and you can charge fees that get you paid well, right?

[00:34:27] Like all of that is decades and decades and decades in the making. So it makes sense that this becoming a possibility in the last few months that maybe this would have started to become possible that you could have the stability and connection with like, okay, I could do a slow and steady thing, and my money could serve in these other ways.

[00:34:45] That’s brand new compared to what’s happened in your life.

[00:34:49] That’s one piece that I’m thinking about here. The other piece is systems.

[00:34:53] Jenet: Mm.

[00:34:54] Linzy: You’ve built a system in your business that’s working for you,

[00:34:57] right? You’re talking about your business savings. So it also makes me curious about, you know, What are some systems that could be added in at home?

[00:35:02] So your home is getting the same kind of intentionality that your business is getting.

[00:35:08] Jenet: Absolutely. I don’t know if it’s… if there’s a way to like do like a microcosm of profit first with my personal expenses, you know,

[00:35:18] Linzy: For sure.

[00:35:19] Jenet: And a lot of my intentionality with my business has been to like. Over prepare and over save because of my former CPA, the 20K in debt. I think I told you a little bit about that. And so like making sure I have enough in savings to cover, this tax season or whatnot, which I do, which is great.

[00:35:41] I see how I am able to save, and I am able to prepare, and I’m able to pull from that. So I see that. I think it’s frustrating that it’s not translating to my personal life.

[00:35:51] Linzy: Yes. It hasn’t translated yet. Two questions. One,

[00:35:55] Linzy: you said you have lots of tax savings, like so you’ll be ready for this year. Do you think you might have some extra

[00:36:00] Linzy: that you saved last year?

[00:36:01] Jenet: Yes. I’ve saved way more than what I need.

[00:36:04] Linzy: Well, how much is way more?

[00:36:05] Jenet: I would say over 5k. Yeah. Extra.

[00:36:09] Linzy: Thinking about that 5k.

[00:36:10] If half of that 5k became your kind of emergency fund, your buffer at home, and half of it went on to your debt?

[00:36:20] Jenet: And so does that mean I’m not going to just have anything in my savings then?

[00:36:24] Linzy: You’ll be saving for this year’s taxes.

[00:36:26] Jenet: I mean, I know it’s going to regrow again, but Linzy!

[00:36:29] Linzy: Yeah, I know. But like, what I’m pointing out to you is like, first of all, there’s no reason to hold tax money from a previous tax season. Once your taxes are settled out and you know, okay, last year I over saved by five grand. I’ve already got my quarterlies like locked and loaded and started for this year.

[00:36:43] That money is not serving you sitting in your business because you’re not going to suddenly owe extra, extra next year because you’ve got a system locked in. You know that you’re saving an amount. You have an accountant keeping an eye on things with you. It’s not serving you. So what I’m hearing is your business is getting this like, super disciplined Jenet, who’s like, no, no, no, we will keep it there.

[00:37:03] And your home is getting this tightness and scarcity and like, Oh shit, I put money on the credit card again. Right. There’s a lack of integration there.

[00:37:12] Jenet: Yeah.

[00:37:13] Linzy: So part of it is a disciplined private practice owner, you know, like blossoming money boss Jenet over here. She needs to spend time at home.

[00:37:22] Jenet: Yeah.

[00:37:23] Linzy: Needs to make sure that you spread the wealth, like literally, that you’re spreading the wealth between your business, once you know those funds are available, and these personal pieces at home that have a serious impact on your daily quality of life.

[00:37:35] Jenet: Right.

[00:37:36] Linzy: What do you think about that?

[00:37:37] Jenet: I mean it, that is the goal

[00:37:39] Linzy: Yeah. Okay. Is there anything in the way of that goal?

[00:37:42] Jenet: I heard you say to disperse the remainder of the savings. I’m hearing you say like, that’s the strategy to do?

[00:37:50] Linzy: Not just savings, but your tax money that you saved from last year. Yes. So, I mean, in your business, it’s also to your benefit to have some operating expense buffer as well, right? Like, we don’t want you going down to, like, nothing. I also want you to have a bit of a buffer in your OpEx so that there’s a bit of money for next month or the next couple months.

[00:38:08] But otherwise, there’s no advantage to you just holding 5, 000 of cash in your tax account that you actually know you don’t need for last year’s taxes because you will be saving for this year.

[00:38:18] Jenet: Okay. That’s true. That’s true. That is true.

[00:38:22] Linzy: Future Jenet has this locked down, right? Like you have a system that’s working.

[00:38:26] Jenet: Okay.

[00:38:27] Linzy: If you can see that 5, 000 coming from your business, crossing the barrier into home and being dispersed between your credit card and starting to create, Like an emergency fund. How does that feel?

[00:38:41] Jenet: It feels unnerving a bit. Yeah. I don’t know why.

[00:38:44] Linzy: What’s unnerving about it?

[00:38:45] Jenet: It feels unnerving to like… I’m using the word mess up and that might not be the appropriate word, but that’s what’s coming up… Like mess up what I have over here at my business. to clean up what’s over here, you know,

[00:38:58] Linzy: I’m going to challenge you.

[00:39:00] You’re not messing up what you’ve done in your business. Your business has done exactly what it’s supposed to do, which it’s helped you to save and actually over save. And now your business’s job is to take care of you. Like you are the beating heart of your business.

[00:39:14] Linzy: You need to be well, and there’s no higher purpose that your business could serve

[00:39:18] than to help you have more ease and less stress at home so you can show up even better and even more present in the business.

[00:39:26] Jenet: Yeah. I’m a little apprehensive, Linzy, but I’m hearing you.

[00:39:31] Linzy: it. I hear it. I hear it. I hear it. Yes. Yes. So let’s think about action steps coming out of this conversation because we’ve covered a good amount of ground. Thinking about your next steps. What do you need to do coming out of this conversation to start to put some of these pieces in action?

[00:39:45] Jenet: You know, I think the other thing is a part of me, I don’t know that I trust myself anymore now. That’s the part of me is like, I don’t want to do anything until someone actually looks at my finances because like I, you know, and I hear, see you shaking your head. Okay.

[00:40:03] Linzy: And now that we have YouTube, people will see me shaking. My hair is bobbing in a funny way when I do it too. No. I mean, I hear that you’re hesitant. I want you to own your badassery. That’s not a word I use very much. But like, you have built a system in your business that works.

[00:40:16] It’s working. It’s continuing to work. Right. So like, I’m not saying like, jump right away. I’m saying once your taxes are settled out, your accountant says, there’s your tax bill. You’ve paid it. You can look back and see, okay, this is how much I put aside for last year. I’m already saving for this year.

[00:40:32] Maybe even revisit your percentages. Maybe you could bring it down a

[00:40:35] Jenet: I think I could bring it down 100%. This is very aggressive.

[00:40:38] Linzy: Because like, you should not be over saving in your business when you are hurting at home. That’s not integrated, right? We want separation, but we also want you to be okay.I wouldn’t like, actually challenge you to trust yourself and take action, right?

[00:40:57] I think you need to really settle into your power. Because part of what I’m hearing is you’re waiting for this accountant to tell you what to do.

[00:41:04] They can’t, they can’t tell you what to do,

[00:41:06] right? Like they could also make suggestions, right? But like you’re the boss, like, you know where the money is going to serve you well, you know where things are working, you know where they’re not.

[00:41:16] Linzy: Nobody, nobody can make that work except you, right? So I, part of it is I’m challenging you to own… own the skills that you have developed that I don’t think you’re really owning yet.

[00:41:29] Right? Because we started, obviously this is a coaching session, so we’re not coming just to talk about everything that’s working.

[00:41:34] But we started by talking about at home, how you feel like you’re kind of failing, falling behind, this debt is growing. Meanwhile, in your business, you have more than the extra debt that you’ve accumulated sitting in your business in cash. So both of these things are true. Both at home, this strategy has not been working and in your business, you’re kicking butt. You’re a disciplined queen of the universe. Right? Like both of these things can be true.

[00:41:56] Jenet: Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:41:59] Linzy: So if you could trust yourself, what would be your next step coming out of this conversation?

[00:42:04] Jenet: My next step would be to create a two year plan. Which, I mean, we’ve kind of already done.?? That feels very safe to do. And, and then also think about how I can leverage that 5K to set a foundation.

[00:42:26] Linzy: Yes, What do you think about the idea of not using that credit card anymore?

[00:42:33] Jenet: Oh, that’s fine. I have no problem not using a credit card. 100%.

[00:42:39] Linzy: Okay, so you’re going to stop using that credit card. Let’s even say if you need to have a credit card for something, use a different credit card. Let’s almost like separate out these two bits of debt,

[00:42:51] Jenet: Okay. When you say that, tell me what you mean.

[00:42:55] Linzy: What I mean is you have been feeling this defeat because you’re not seeing progress happen on this card.

[00:43:00] What I want you to get the experience of is a card that’s just going down. You’re just seeing yourself pay it down, pay it down. It’s not growing again. It doesn’t mean you’re not going to have to use a credit card sometimes, but you could have a different credit card use at home. You put your car payment on it, you pay it off in cash.

[00:43:15] You start to develop that habit of paying down that card in cash every month. So it can still be part of how you manage cash, but it’s not a debt that’s growing. It’s just like another tool you have in your bank, but you pay it off every month while this credit card with the 9, 800 is steadily going down 500 bucks is going on it every, every month, and you’re seeing it go down, down, down over the next two years.

[00:43:36] Jenet: Okay. I think I get it. I, but tell me why I would need another credit card again.

[00:43:41] Linzy: if you need a credit card to make online purchases or… Yeah, that’s all. You might not need it. You might not need it at all. If you have a visa debit, you just might not need it. Was that a sigh of relief there?

[00:43:52] Jenet: Well, yeah, because what I don’t want to do is create the problem on another credit card.

[00:43:56] Linzy: Exactly. If you can get away with not having another card, I would say do that. Do that. Because what you are going to be doing is keeping more money in your bank account. You’re going to be starting to build a cash buffer in a savings account, which means that when the car repair comes up, you’re just going to pay in cash.

[00:44:12] So yes, I think that that is beautiful. If you can just… Your credit card is just going to go down. There’s going to be no other credit card. You’re going to be dealing in cash in the future. Okay. So that’s the next step. Stop using the credit card. So what I have here is create your two year debt repayment plan,

[00:44:27] which could be just like walking in the numbers that we just looked at or playing with them a little bit on a calculator, leverage that 5, 000 to set your foundation at home.

[00:44:35] Stop using that credit card. And just start paying with cash at home.

[00:44:39] Absolutely. So, what are you taking away from our conversation today?

[00:44:43] Jenet: You know, that aggressiveness, that professional aggressiveness is… It no longer serves… It hasn’t served me in a while in other areas of my life. And I’ve come to terms with that, but I think this is probably one of the last places where I was holding onto it.

[00:45:01] Linzy: Yeah, and part of me wonders, you know, like, from kind of like a parts of self perspective, where this is a part that’s trying to take care of you. How can you thank that part for what it’s been trying to do for you? Because that part cares about you, right? But you’re going to start going with a different strategy.

[00:45:14] Jenet: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:45:16] Linzy: What do you notice when you think about that?

[00:45:19] Jenet: Tearful. You know, I get it. It’s more about trying to keep myself safe and be proactive, but it’s not working.

[00:45:29] Linzy: Yeah, and you have, some new strategies that you can try now.

[00:45:32] Jenet: Absolutely.

[00:45:33] Linzy: Awesome. Jenet, thanks for coming on the podcast.

[00:45:36] Jenet: This has been great. I appreciate it. 

[00:45:53] Linzy: At the beginning of the podcast today, Jenet mentioned this piece about grace and giving herself grace. And she started by actually talking about grace, about needing help and like more support with her finances, having to give herself grace for that, because as a recovering perfectionist, she wants to be able to do everything herself.

[00:46:10] But now that I’m reflecting back on our conversation, I think the grace that could really serve her, and all of us as we’re managing our finances, is more of that grace around your goals and debt and setting a plan that gives you breathing room, especially as a solo earner, a solo parent. There’s so much that Jenet’s money needs to do for her, and this aggressive strategy that she set, which might work very well for some folks in certain situations, was not working for her.

[00:46:39] So I think a lot of the grace that’s actually called for when we are doing something really difficult that’s not working is the grace around letting ourselves make it easier, not make it painful. Make a plan that’s actually doable so that we can be paying down that debt but still also taking care of our life.

[00:46:57] And this is something we’ve talked about before on the podcast. This episode also reminds me of the conversation that I had with Erin Davis earlier. And in both these cases, we’re also talking about parents, right? Like people with young kids and that’s such a specific period of life.

[00:47:08] There’s definitely going to be times in your life where a more aggressive debt repayment strategy can make sense. When you’re in your 20s, you know, when you’re partnered with no kids, or when you’re single, or if you’re not planning to have kids and that’s not part of the equation, or if you’re older, and you’re ready to like really power up your savings, there can definitely be times that we have the bandwidth and the ability to be more aggressive and be very single minded about our finances, if that’s something that feels helpful to you.

[00:47:34] And there’s also times when we can’t. And when we do, as Jenet was experiencing, it just causes pain. And it causes that experience of failing, right? Because it’s like she’s trying to pay down her debt so aggressively, but there’s no cash, so then she’s having to put money back on debt.

[00:47:48] And even though, as I mentioned, logically, it’s still means that she’s paying less interest by doing that, the experiences that she’s losing, right? And so what we’re setting her up for now is an experience of winning where she’s going to be able to actually see that debt disappear and see herself saving money at the same time.

[00:48:04] The cashflow might actually look very similar to how money is being spent in some ways, but her experience of it is going to be so, so, so much more positive as she sees that credit card debt shrinking and that emergency fund, that buffer at home, growing. I think that’s going to be a very different felt and lived experience for her.

[00:48:22] And as she mentioned, something we’ve had to talk about a couple of times, which is true for all of us. We all have things that we need to revisit a few times until it shifts and it sinks in. So I’m very excited for Jenet implementing this new strategy around her debt. And I’m very grateful for her coming on the podcast today.

[00:48:40] You can follow me on Instagram at Money Nuts and Bolts. And. If you’re enjoying the podcast, leaving a review on Apple podcast is super, super helpful for us. Just so you can share what episodes you’ve been enjoying, what you really appreciate about the podcast or any big takeaways you’ve had from the podcast.

[00:48:56] That is the best way for other therapists and health practitioners to find us and be part of these conversations. Thanks for listening today.