The Simple Secret to Having Stress-Free Money Conversations In Your Marriage

My husband swore he was right.  I just as adamantly swore he was wrong.  “No, the fence needs to go right here!”  I yelled as I stomped my foot firmly on the ground for added effect.

“I can’t stand it when you don’t to listen to my position!  It’s like you’ve already made up your mind and you refuse to hear any other perspective!”  He shouted back.

I hated to admit it (and I certainly wasn’t going to in the heat of the moment) but I knew he had a point.

“Here we go again,” I thought to myself. We were trapped once again in our same, familiar pattern of arguing.

My husband and I have always been great at expressing ourselves and holding a space for uncomfortable feelings and emotions.  And because of this we don’t stay angry at each other for long and we don’t carry deep-seated resentments.  But our arguments leaned towards the explosive side of things, almost as if we were using each other to vent and purge our uncomfortable feelings, rather than working towards understanding and compromise.

My desire is to support you in having courageous, stress-free, connecting and productive money conversations with your partner.  It is commonly known that finances are the number one source of conflict for couples.  However, did you know that the cornerstone of financial success for couples lies in improving your communication with your partner?

The quality of your money relationship with your spouse is directly related to your communication skills.  The first step to creating a wealthy relationship is to listen to your partner.

Listening is more important than talking.

Okay, repeat after me, “Listening is more important than talking.”  Did you get it?  I mean did you really get it?  It’s counter intuitive to how we’re wired.  Most of us have a desire to talk first, listen last.

For now I want to invite you to absorb this simple, yet profound concept. Holding the intention to listening, instead of talking is guaranteed to improve your relationship with money in your marriage.

In the heat of the moment when you’re upset it can feel virtually impossible to be receptive to listening, and you’ll probably find yourself saying things that you’ll only regret later.  When you notice yourself doing this it’s best to just stop and request a time out so that both of you can re-group and talk later.

Please keep in mind that these are the listening basics.  My intention is to keep this process simple so that you will actually use it when listening to others.  Remember that in order to transform your financial relationship with your spouse you have to move from KNOWING this information at an intellectual level to actually practicing it.

• Don’t interrupt.  This is still a challenge concept for me to keep top of mind! I’m a really great listener when it comes to listening to my clients, but unfortunately not as great when it comes to listening to my husband.  However, because of my commitment this is something I am working to constantly improve.

  Notice all the times you feel an impulse to interrupt when someone is talking – and choose not to.  Wait to comment until they have fully completed their thought before commenting.

• Really listen.  Focus on listening to what the other person is really saying.  Be present with the actual words they are sharing instead of being preoccupied with what YOU want to say next.  Don’t be in a hurry to share your wisdom, instead focus your attention on being eager to hear what THEY have to say.
• Seek to understand the other person’s feelings.  As you’re listening try to get a sense of what is going on for the other person at a deeper level.  Seek to understand the essence of what they want to convey and what they’re feeling.  Remember you don’t have to agree with what they’re saying you’re simply seeking to understand them.

These steps are fairly basic and straightforward. Practice your listening skills with fairly benign topics at first, so that you’re able to listen when discussing more stressful and volatile issues (like money).

You can choose to make a game out of listening to others.  Make it fun!  Decide that you will really listen to every person that you interact with over the next week (including friends and family members).  And notice how it changes and alters your connections. After one week has passed, commit to listening in this way for another week, and then another.

You’ll find that when you set the intention to be fully present during each interaction – especially the benign ones, that you’ll feel better equipped to hold the space and maintain your listening awareness during money conversations with your spouse.

7 Mistakes Women Entrepreneurs Make With Their Money and How You Can Successfully Avoid Them!

In coaching entrepreneurial women and their spouses to create financial success in their marriages I’ve noticed that there are 7 common money mistakes that women make that cause them to seek financial help.

1. The first mistake they make is constantly arguing with their partner about money and getting stuck in a blaming and complaining cycle – and they feel clueless as to how to get out of it.

2. Mistake number two is barely making enough money and feeling like they’re just scraping by each month. That begin to feel resentful that they have difficulty meeting their monthly expenses and resentful that they don’t have enough money to put toward savings, retirement funds, education funds or to put towards their big dreams and goals.

3. Mistake number three is that they struggle with not be able to increase their income.

4. Mistake number four is that they end up relying on their spouse to generate the monthly income because they don’t see themselves as being powerful money creators. They tend to see themselves more as money managers and so they rely on their partners to bring in the income difference. Eventually the main breadwinner feels resentful and this puts additional stress on the relationship.

5. Mistake number five is having a business that is more like a hobby. They experience inner conflict because while they are passionate about their business they’re not clear on how to generate serious income from it. They feel like they need to buckle up and get serious about their business or give it up for good.

6. Mistake number six is that they get stuck in perpetuating money problems because when they talk to their partner about money, they find themselves becoming reactive and frustrated because they feel like their partner isn’t supportive of their business, let alone supportive of them investing in growing their business. And they feel like their partner doesn’t take their business very seriously.

7. Mistake number seven is waking up in the middle of the night stressing about where the next months income is going to come from. This creates a huge drain on their ability to focus their creative energy on growing their business.
   Getting on the same page with your partner makes good financial sense and business sense.

The solution to these 7 money mistakes is to get your personal and business financial life in order. This approach can dramatically increase business income as well as improve your financial relationship with your partner.

You can learn more about how to overcome these 7 common money mistakes that entrepreneurial women make and turn your business and your financial life around in my “Easy and Effortless Millionaire Money Secrets” 4-part teleseminar series.

You’ll also learn my “Secure Cash Flow Money System” that I personally developed and designed that will allow you to take control of your income! Get more info and sign up for this financial-life changing teleseminar series here.

How to Budget: Priceless Budgeting Tips For Women Who Don’t ENJOY Budgeting Podcast

“Been there – done that, and it didn’t work.” This is a common response women have when it comes to budgeting. The problem is that it feels restrictive– like trying to stick to a diet. And no one wants to feel limited or restricted!

As soon as we tell ourselves that we’re going to be watching and restricting our spending it immediately brings up an inner desire to rebel. We want what we want when we want it!

Click below to listen to the podcast.

How to Budget: Priceless Budgeting Tips For Women Who Don’t ENJOY Budgeting

You can listen to the article here. 

 

"Been there – done that, and it didn’t work." This is a common response women have when it comes to budgeting. The problem is that it feels restrictive– like trying to stick to a diet. And no one wants to feel limited or restricted!

As soon as we tell ourselves that we’re going to be watching and restricting our spending it immediately brings up an inner desire to rebel. We want what we want when we want it!

And because of this we plunk down cash to buy something impulsively – only to discover that we’ve increased our suffering later because we don’t have enough left over to pay the monthly bills. Another big temptation is to resort to using a "good ole’ trusty credit card" – which inevitably results in us feeling anxious and overwhelmed when we open up the statement the following month and see how much our balance increased. We experience serious doubts about whether we’ll ever be able to make enough money to pay off our rising pile of debt.

Knowing how to successfully create a system that provides you with ample money to pay the bills and also gives you some freedom to have a little fun is imperative to getting your money under control – especially for women who don’t like budgeting.

To help you get started, here are 3 essential tips…

Tip #1: It is imperative that you have some FUN money! Many women mistakenly give themselves very little extra spending cash beyond their necessary monthly expenses. They do this either because they’re strapped too tight for cash, or because they are used to living extremely frugally.

I want to be completely honest and share that in the past I was guilty of doing this myself. I only ended up feeling more and more resentful and restricted when I ‘starved’ myself with being ultra frugal.

It is essential that you plan for some fun money each month. Sure, you want to be careful that you don’t blow it all at once. But you must have some fun with your money. Otherwise you’ll feel like all you ever do is work and that you don’t get to enjoy the fruits of your labor. I believe it is healthy to have the experience of money bringing you joy. Decide on an exact amount that you will give yourself each month to "blow" or have fun with so you can spend it without feeling guilty.

Tip #2: You must get a birds-eye view. The reason many women overspend and under-earn is that they don’t have a clear birds eye view of their current financial situation at any given moment. They walk around in a fog with some sort of hope that somehow their financial situation will work out.

Because they don’t have clarity around their actual expenses, their current spending and how much money they need to get through the month – they don’t know what their current shortage is (or surplus) and how much they need to make up the difference. It’s critical to have a system in place for maintaining a birds-eye view from moment to moment.

Tip #3: Believe it and you WILL eventually see it. Mastering your money takes a level of deep commitment. Most women say that they want to master their spending and make more money. But when push comes to shove they’re not willing to do the work that’s required to get them there.

You must be truly committed to turning your financial situation around. Otherwise, when money isn’t coming in, or when you’ve overspent you’ll be tempted to give up. I remember when we had over $40,000 of debt and there were times when I wanted to throw in the towel.

But I knew that we were going to do whatever it took to get ourselves out of our "financial mess." And we succeeded. And so can you. As Les Brown, the popular motivational speaker says, "You’ve got to be HUNGRY." You’ve got to be committed. If you believe it, then you will be willing to take action and NOT give up.

Combine these three tips and you will be well positioned for becoming a master of your money. With commitment, perseverance and the willingness to take the next steps and learn essential tools for helping you move forward you can and WILL succeed!

To get more tips make sure you sign up for my free call. It’s happening TONIGHT on Thursday, August 11th…

Complete Money Makeover: 3 BREAKTHROUGH STRATEGIES to Gain Control of Your Erratic Cash Flow, Reverse Under Earning, and Have More Money For the Things You Really Want TODAY! Click here to get more info and sign up now.

How to Turn a Cash Flow Crunch Around So You Have More Money

You can listen to the article here. 

 

One of the biggest problems that I’ve seen clients struggle with is how to make it through a cash flow crisis.

When you run your own business a cash flow crisis can occur when a client unexpectedly quits, when you don’t end up with as much business income as you had anticipated or when the money that you said you were going to generate in the next month just doesn’t manifest (remember how you were excited to increase your income by several thousand dollars and it seemed quite doable when it was one or two month’s away but when the month arrives you suddenly don’t feel as confident about your ability to create income?)

You’re left with pinching pennies, freaking out and getting into arguments with your spouse about where the money is going to come from. And to make matters worst you have to deal with the perpetual question of, “how do I buy groceries or get clothes for the kids while making sure that I have enough money to pay the mortgage?”

If this describes you, you are dealing with the Cash Flow Crunch. It’s the clumsy dance of the struggling entrepreneur.

So what can you do to break free from this cycle of desperation?

The solution is to get out of financial denial and step fully into the waters of financial clarity. You absolutely must get 100% committed to being aware of your spending behaviors. Many of us are familiar about what it means to be conscious in our personal lives. You can use very similar principles to increase your awareness of your spending and to understand where you’re money is going.

We do this by creating a spending plan or budget. This may seem like a difficult task ¬–especially if you’re married. It’s often hard to stick to a budget for yourself – but how do you get your spouse to stick to agree to it as well? Even the most committed might sometimes want to throw their hands in the air and say, “It’s just not possible!”

Here are some quick tips to keep in mind for creating a budget or spending plan:

1. Create a spending plan that is realistic. Many people set out to create a budget only to give up a couple of weeks later because they’re unable to stick to it. One reason is often because they make a budget that isn’t realistic.

   This can show up in many ways: not allowing enough money for groceries (Dave Ramsey recommends $50 per person, per week for grocery budgets) or not allowing enough money for unexpected and unanticipated expenses (many experts recommend setting aside 10% of your total expenses for unexpected expenses, this way you have some wiggle room).

2. View your spending plan weekly. It’s easy to create a spending plan and then set it aside and not look at. This isn’t going to do you a bit of good! You’ll want to keep your spending plan some place where you can easily see it or in the very least pull it out at least once a week so that you are aware of how much you’ve allotted for your most important spending categories. It’s especially helpful to be aware of the categories that you tend to overspend in.

3. Constantly work your spending plan while being patient and gentle with yourself! You’ll want to sit down and look at your spending plan with your spouse at least once a week to see if you’re on track with your spending and make tweaks in areas where you might be overspending.

   Try to refrain from blaming and complaining! It’s great that you and your partner are able to sit down and talk together. As long as you’re willing to consistently do that you will be able to change your spending behaviors over the long run and get back and track.

A spending plan will support you in breaking out of the cash flow crunch cycle. And in the very least, you can see your cash flow shortages coming and you can navigate through them with more grace, ease and awareness until you’re able to increase your income. Awareness begets prosperity. As we become more aware of our exact situation then we more easily manifest what we really need to create. You are more motivated when you’re dealing directly with reality.

To get more tips on how to break out of the cash flow crunch cycle make sure you sign up for my free call. It’s happening next week on Thursday, August 11th…

Complete Money Makeover: 3 BREAKTHROUGH STRATEGIES to Gain Control of Your Erratic Cash Flow, Reverse Under Earning, and Have More Money For the Things You Really Want TODAY! Click here to get more info and sign up now.

How to Turn a Cash Flow Crunch Around So You Have More Money Podcast

One of the biggest problems that I’ve seen clients struggle with is how to make it through a cash flow crisis.

When you run your own business a cash flow crisis can occur when a client unexpectedly quits, when you don’t end up with as much business income as you had anticipated or when the money that you said you were going to generate in the next month just doesn’t manifest (remember how you were excited to increase your income by several thousand dollars and it seemed quite doable when it was one or two month’s away but when the month arrives you suddenly don’t feel as confident about your ability to create income?)

Click below to listen to the podcast.

3 Steps to Peacefully Talk about Money in Your Marriage Podcast

Most of us struggle with communicating peacefully about finances with our partners. This is understandable since money is a loaded topic that can cause us to instantly react in spite of our best intentions.

Financial Dating® is a powerful tool that you can use to transform your financial conflicts and frustrations into rich, connecting conversations and concrete financial results.

Click below to listen to the podcast.

3 Steps to Peacefully Talk about Money in Your Marriage

You can listen to the article here. 

 

Most of us struggle with communicating peacefully about finances with our partners.  This is understandable since money is a loaded topic that can cause us to instantly react in spite of our best intentions. 

Financial Dating® is a powerful tool that you can use to transform your financial conflicts and frustrations into rich, connecting conversations and concrete financial results. I consider the following three steps to be the bare bone essentials to keep in mind when participating in successful Financial Dates®. 

I encourage you to print this article and tape it to your office wall to keep these three essential steps at the top of your mind – and to serve as a reminder to have your Dates. 

1. Have regular Financial Dates®.

   Financial Dating® is about cooperatively co-creating wealth with your life partner. The number one step to keep in mind is to have regular Financial Dates – otherwise, I guarantee that you’ll find yourselves talking about money when you feel reactive and anxious– whether it’s after you’ve experienced that familiar churning sensation in your stomach when you’ve noticed that your partner made another major purchase to the credit card without talking to you first, or gave the kids money without your knowledge. These are very bad times to talk about money because you are already in a reactive and volatile mindset. The most effective way to prevent money surprises is to have regular Financial Dates.

   Make it a goal to set aside time for twice monthly Financial Dates®, while striving to work your way up to three Dates per month. If having several Dates a month feels too daunting to you, start with at least one Date a month. You can always gradually increase the number of Dates later. You can start participating in Dates immediately without knowing anything else about Financial Dating. The important thing is to begin having scheduled conversations about money with your partner.

2. Get clear and baby step your way to the top.

   Get clear about what you want to focus on during your Financial Dates. For many couples this can feel overwhelming. Relax. Instead of trying to add endless tasks to your financial to-do list, choose just three financial tasks or money issues to focus on for now.

   Many of us gravitate towards identifying the big financial goals and easily give up when they seem out of reach. We would be more successful if we focused on achieving the incremental steps that lead up to the big goals.

   One couple I work with has set a goal to purchase their first home. However, they were constantly behind on paying their bills. They identified their top financial goal of paying their bills on time. Now, after six months of consistently paying their bills on time, they’ve identified two new goals: to improve their credit score and to build up their savings for a down payment on a new home. All of these baby steps will lead to the desired result of being homeowners.

   Identify three goals that you’d like to focus on accomplishing during your Financial Dates®. Identify three “financial hotspots” where you’re currently experiencing financial stress and anxiety. Then transform each financial hot spot into a clear goal.

3. Be willing to stretch and do the inner work  Most of us believe financial success is about forcing ourselves to live frugally for the rest of our lives, balancing our checkbooks, tracking our spending, and making sure our partners change their bad money habits. But, in truth, financial success is a result of having the willingness to get honest and do the inner work.

   “As within, so without.” Your financial life is a direct reflection and manifestation of the thoughts that are going on inside your mind. If you are fed up with the chaos in your financial life, then stop blaming other people and circumstances outside of yourself. Identify what it is about your way of thinking that is creating your external financial results.

   Do you constantly blame your partner for your financial situation? Perhaps you need to step up to the plate and assume more responsibility instead of complaining. Identify just one of your limiting beliefs and behaviors that is getting in the way of achieving financial success. Then, focus on shifting that one belief or behavior until you’ve successfully overcome it.

   I want to motivate and inspire you to have Financial Dates for the rest of your life. The power of Financial Dating lies in making it an integral part of your lifestyle and life together. If you do this, the rewards are many, and I can promise you that it will prove to be the most affordable insurance and assurance you could ever get in your marriage and your financial life.

Learn how to start having life-changing Financial Dates in your relationship. I’m excited share with you my Financial Dating Quick Start Series Book: The proven formula for co-creating wealth in your relationship (listen today and have your first date tonight!). Because I like to get a good deal, I want to pass a good deal on to all my newsletter subscribers. Click here to get more info.

How to Stop Arguing About Money In Your Marriage And Get on the Same Financial Page

Click here to listen to this article

“It’s my husband’s responsibility to pay most of the bills,” the voice inside my head stubbornly insisted as we were discussing money in our marriage.

Chris (my husband) and I had just finished discussing our anticipated expenses and income for the coming month. To our dismay – but not complete surprise – there was once again a shortfall. We looked at the calendar to see where he could squeeze in a few more solo performances to make up the difference. Fortunately, his career as a professional singer/songwriter gave him the flexibility to book extra performances. However, challenges with scheduling sometimes made this difficult.

Read more

Financial Dating® Ideas for Married Female Entrepreneurs

I’m Leslie Cunningham, founder of the Financial Dating® Wealth System and Couples Money Mastery Coach for married female entrepreneurs and their spouses. I’m going to talk about some of the first couple of financial dates my husband and I had.  I know a lot of women entrepreneurs struggle with how to talk about money with their partners because we are so used to being able to make our own decisions and handle money our own and we spend all day focused on our business and its frustrating when we try to talk about money with our partners and it ends up resulting in conflict.  We have this monthly income that fluctuates all of the time so we have this huge need for getting on the same financial page with our partner.  When we don’t talk about money with our partner we end up feeling isolated, frustrated and angry. We feel like we spend all of this time trying to grow our businesses and yet our partner doesn’t really understand or “get us.” We don’t really have the energy or ability to tolerate our partners complaints or wondering why we want to invest in our business or put certain things on our credit cards so we can grow our business. There is just a lot of conflict. So what my husband and I ended up doing, many years ago, we started having a financial date. I trademarked this term, Financial Dating®, and I have shared the story about how we started having financial dates but today I’d like to talk about some of the ideas for having your financial dates.

We always had our dates sitting in front of the computer or sitting in the office. In the very beginning we had so much debt and there was a huge degree of frustration; we could hardly talk to each other without getting into an argument. In the first few days we would literally print off the financial papers and I would stick them in my coat pocket and we would go for a hike on the trails or in the mountains around here and we would be talking about our finances or about how to get rid of our debt and some of those conversations were very stressful and sometime we even yelled when we were hiking on the trails. It was a good thing there weren’t many people around. And so I want to inspire you to begin to get creative on how you might talk about money with your partners instead of sitting around the table talking about it.  To learn more tips and solutions on how to do this, I’d like to invite you to a FREE webinar I’m hosting on October 28, 2010.  Its’ called the “Revolutionary Money Management Breakthrough Process: How to Permanently Move Past Money Conflict in Your Marriage Into Financial Security, Peace and Freedom.”   Go to Financial Dating.com/revolution.  This webinar is specifically designed to provide financial help for married female entrepreneurs who are ready to work together as a team with their spouses to master the art of making and managing money and create a prosperous lifestyle filled with abundance and free time.  I look forward to seeing you there.

Next Page »