Catherine Alford - Mom's Got Money

That confidence part—that's what I'm trying to help you improve. That's where my lessons of managing money like a boss come in. That research shows more money won't necessarily solve the financial worries women have. So, we have to find another way, a strategy for you to feel content and confident with what you have right now , whatever your financial status may be.

So, how do we do that? Well, we know emotional labor is present in women. And, there's also a lack of money confidence, even though women make a significant amount of financial decisions for their families. The lack of confidence can lead to anxiety and worry, which produces money scarcity. The money scarcity is what I referred to earlier in this chapter as a negative money mindset, the worry that you don't have enough or won't have enough one day.

So in order to gain more confidence with money, you first have to combat the negative money mindset that's holding you back from achieving your financial goals. Managing money like a boss is about letting go of the typical, overwhelmed mom mindset and taking on the mindset of a confident leader. It's about stepping out of the muck, the difficult stuff, and stepping into your fabulous, mom power.

A boss mindset involves running your household and your financial decisions as if you were the CEO of an organization. And I hear you, it's not easy to feel like a CEO when you're negotiating with a toddler or a teenager (and they're totally winning.) But, that's why our idea of a leader needs to change.

Being a boss doesn't necessarily mean you have all the answers, but it does mean you have the ability to go out and find them or confidently outsource the search to someone else. And, there's no doubt that being a strong leader takes incredible mental strength. You need to motivate your family team, and you'll have to make crucial financial decisions when the outcomes aren't clear yet.

But, I want to make sure you realize that great leaders don't do everything themselves. It might be uncomfortable at first, but part of developing your overall confidence and belief in your own self worth is telling your partner or your kids that you need help. It means becoming a master delegator.

If you're a single mom, it might be uncomfortable at first to enlist the help of others, but it can have a dramatic positive effect on your daily life. Sometimes being strong means directly asking for help. You don't have to suffer to show strength. The more adults you have in your life to trade off help with your children and other duties, the better.

If you have a partner, you might think delegating tasks means more emotional labor for you. After all, isn't delegating going to be exhausting, and why can't they all see that we need help? But, according to a New York Times article by Britni de la Cretaz entitled “How to Get Your Partner to Take on More Emotional Labor,” communication is key. 7 The article illustrates that it's possible to improve the negative effects of emotional labor, but both partners have to be willing to compromise, check in with each other, and talk about it in a healthy way. If that doesn't work, getting an unbiased, third‐party opinion in the form of a relationship therapist can be incredibly helpful.

The goal here is to improve your mindset and how you feel about yourself separate from anyone you live with because that will impact how you feel about your decision‐making. You're already making a lot of financial decisions, but I'd love for you to feel confident they're the right ones for your family. I want to encourage you to get excited about money, to be curious, and to keep learning.

Remember, as moms, we are already incredibly influential in our families. We shape and mold our children in a way no one else can. But too often, instead of feeling empowered by that reality, we feel exhausted by the weight of our decisions.

In order to transform into a boss mindset, first practice replacing the thoughts of overwhelm with empowering ones. We need to fill our minds with kind and motivating thoughts of what's possible, not ones that make us feel unappreciated and underqualified. This is especially true when it comes to money.

Here are some examples of negative mindset statements as well as examples of boss mindset statements you can use to replace them.

Ultimately, I believe that all moms have the tools and talents within us to step into that boss role, to realize our greatest potential, and to lead with confidence. We absolutely possess all the intellectual capabilities to tackle hard problems, make difficult financial decisions, and decide what's best for our families. It's just that we've been overwhelmed with our responsibilities and unsure if we're doing things right in a modern world full of opinions and choices.

I know switching negative thoughts to positive thoughts is a lot easier said than done. As I write this book, we're in the middle of the Covid‐19 pandemic. Families are suffering. Millions of people are filing for unemployment. Lots of people lost their livelihoods, and many people are getting sick. Moms all over the country found themselves with more tasks to do, teaching their kids at home, while still having numerous other responsibilities. It's been a challenging time for so many people.

I'm quite literally in the trenches with you as I punch the keys on my computer to turn a group of words into a book. Throughout this entire process, my twins have been interrupting me every couple of minutes while I work saying things like, “Hey Mom, guess what? We turned the entire basement into a fort. We used every blanket in the house!”

I never imagined that I'd be writing this book with my kids at home and my husband working at the hospital in a gas mask. Every word in this book was hard‐won, hard‐fought, and punctuated with words you can't see like, “Please, for the love of God, go in the other room!”

It's funny, though. As challenging as it's been to work and write with the kids in quarantine, something else happened over the last few months: I had to pause. All of us did. We all had to reevaluate our priorities.