Catherine Alford - Mom's Got Money

Many of you lost jobs and tragically lost family members and friends. An untold amount of you had babies during the pandemic and didn't get to show them off to your family members due to Covid‐19 restrictions. All of a sudden, in the haze of the uncertainty, we all clearly understood what mattered most.

It wasn't online sales or salon appointments or extracurricular activities. It was our health, our kids, and our communities. We had to face certain realities and think about what would happen if we lost income for a week, a month, or a year.

I don't know about you, but during the pandemic, I realized a lot of things in my budget that I could “never give up” or “couldn't live without” weren't as necessary as I thought they were. Right now, my budget has the fewest line items it's had in quite some time.

All of us have had to pull strength from places we didn't know existed. We've had to learn how to sit with our thoughts, even the negative ones that are deeply ingrained in our system. We've had the very uncomfortable feeling of not knowing what's to come and if we can keep our kids safe.

We haven't been able to see friends as often or travel, head to the gym or go shopping just for fun. There's been nothing to insulate our feelings or suppress them. This is part of why the pandemic has been so hard for moms, for families, and for the world.

But, the beautiful thing is now you've seen you are very capable of handling something big, something unexpected. You've cared for your family against all odds. You've already led from a place of strength. You've zoomed and homeschooled with the best of them. Truly, moms are the most capable beings on the planet. Will we ever give ourselves enough credit for everything we do? You might not think you've handled hard times well, but you have. You have strength and leadership within you; you're the place your kids call home.

You've proven, especially now, that moms have an incredible capacity to learn and implement change quickly. That takes incredible strength on a daily basis. If you had a minute to really think about it, you'd realize we literally raise and mold and shape human beings— even in the middle of things like broken bones, fires, and even pandemics.

Don't you think someone who is capable of all of that, who can weather storms that big, can do something as basic as create a budget and figure out how much life insurance to get? I sure think so. Remember, money is just some numbers on a screen. It's you who gets to give it meaning and tell it where to go. You get to be the boss of it, not the other way around.

With practice and patience, you can step into that boss mom mindset with full confidence. It's already there; you already have it. You just need to give yourself credit for everything you've done and everything you're capable of.

Once you're there mentally and recognize your own power, there's no stopping you. Once you're there, your entire outlook shifts.

And, now that you have some acknowledgment of all the hard things you've endured and many new positive thoughts to practice, it's time to talk about the tools and the strategies that will help you become financially successful.

But, before you start dreaming of your future wealth and all the goals you want to achieve, you have to know where you stand. We'll start by facing the numbers. You can't know where you're going unless you know exactly where you are today.

1 1. Gemma Hartley, “Women Aren't Nags—We're Just Fed Up,” Harper's Bazaar, September 27, 2017, www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a12063822/emotional-labor-gender-equality/.

2 2. Trish Bendix, “I Live With a Woman—We're Not Immune to Emotional Labor,” Harper's Bazaar, October 9, 2017.

3 3. Weber Shandwick and KRC Research, “Digital Women Influencers: Millennial Moms,” www.webershandwick.com/uploads/news/files/MillennialMoms_ExecSummary.pdf.

4 4. “More Women Than Men Say They Are Solely Responsible For Financial Decisions According to New Regions Bank Study,” Regions News Release, October 15, 2015, www.regions.com/-/media/pdfs/Insights-Magazine/PR-WW-Study.pdf?la=en&revision=61bd1595-dfd9-4b5b-a2f2-7cf4f37e44d9&hash=1344F20D317CE5F8B930061C0CEB8202; “Women and Wealth Study,” www.regions.com/Insights/Wealth/hervision-herlegacy/your-life/women-and-wealth-study-2015.

5 5. “The Allianz Women, Money, and Power® Study: Empowered and Underserved,” www.allianzlife.com/-/media/files/allianz/documents/ent_1462_n.pdf.

6 6. Ibid.

7 7. Britni de la Cretaz, “How to Get Your Partner to Take on More Emotional Labor,” New York Times, April 16, 2020 (updated May 8, 2020), www.nytimes.com/article/emotional-labor.html.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.