Episode #2 How to Master Your Money Mindset and Find Financial Freedom

Kara dives deep into the transformative power of money mindset in this enlightening episode. She shares her personal journey from having a dysfunctional relationship with money to mastering her financial outlook. By reflecting on her past experiences, including declaring bankruptcy and overcoming unexpected expenses, Kara illustrates how changing one’s thoughts about money can lead to profound shifts in life. She emphasizes the importance of awareness and thought work, encouraging listeners to identify their beliefs around money and reframe negative thoughts. Ultimately, the episode serves as a reminder that by focusing on solutions rather than problems, anyone can cultivate a healthier relationship with money and enhance their overall well-being.

Takeaways:

• Your mindset around money can significantly impact your overall happiness and life satisfaction.

• Recognizing negative thoughts about money is the first step to changing your relationship with it.

• Building a budget is essential; without it, money can easily evaporate and cause stress.

• Changing your money mindset requires consistent effort and conscious thought reprogramming over time.

• Even with unexpected expenses, having a positive money mindset enables better problem-solving skills.

• It’s important to be proactive and resourceful when facing financial challenges, always seeking solutions.

TRANSCRIPT 

Hey there, I'm Kara and welcome to Design youn Dream Life podcast where we dive in and explore how you can use practical personal development to up level your life. Whether you are looking to have better or deeper relationships, fix your problems with money.

Learn to love yourself unconditionally, Leave a dead end or high stress career or just want more happiness in your life, my friend, you are in the right place. Are you ready? Hello my friends and welcome to another episode of the Design your Dream Life podcast. I am Kara, your host. I am so glad you are here.

Today is going to be a good one. I want to talk about your money mindset and the massive shifts I've personally made with money.

My mindset around money, my relationship with money, which I can honestly say I used to have a dysfunctional relationship with money. And I have worked really, really hard to repair it and fix it.

And while I believe there's never perfection, I definitely believe that my relationship now with money is in a pretty good place. So let's talk about how this all came to be. So like I said, I used to have just a bad relationship with money. I used to be that person.

And I don't know if you can relate, but like, I always just felt like we were just getting by. And so even before I got into real estate, my husband and I were working and it just felt like. And he was making good money. I was making.

He was definitely the breadwinner, but I was still making some money. But it just felt like there was never enough money.

Have you ever felt like that where it just seems like you're bringing it in and it's going out and you're just like, what the hell is happening? Why does it feel like we're barely getting by? And on paper I feel like we should be doing a lot better.

And if I had anything unexpected happen, God forbid, I used to freak out. Like, I remember one time my husband coming home insane. One of the vehicles needed new brakes or something and I freaked. Poor Sean, my poor husband.

I freaked. I'm like, oh my gosh, like, and I just went off. And obviously it's not his fault, obviously.

And I remember him saying to me, you know, I am not comfortable telling you things like this because you just freak out. Like, I need you to calm down. But for me, in our relationship, I'm the one who does all the money. You know what I mean?

Like, I do all of our budgeting.

Well, before we didn't have budgeting, but I was still the one who was responsible for making sure all the bills were paid, making sure we had money to eat and survive. And so he was very much removed. He always used to joke and say like, I just bring a paycheck home and give it to my wife. And it is true.

And so I don't know, some of my friends in their relationships, they're the exact same as me. Some in some of my friends relationships it's the husband.

There's usually one person that is more involved with the managing of the money, which I feel like, you know, both of you should be. And I feel like my husband could definitely be more involved in our finances.

But it is what it is and we work on it and we talk about it and it's also something that we continue to work our way through. But I was always that person. I always used to say like, you don't know. I know all the numbers and I'm so stressed.

You get to live this like stress free life because you only hear what I tell you. I'm the one trying to, you know, figure out how we're going to pay for everything all of the time.

And I remember feeling like it was always just one thing after another.

It's like, oh, we just bought winter tires and then now the brakes went on the car and then something else would happen or and it, it would just send me into a spiral and always into a mindset that, that there never seems to be enough. And that used to be the mindset I used to have. It just seems like there's never enough. No matter what we make, there's never enough.

And ironically that was the story and that was my reality until I decided to change it. And I will say it's something that I've worked on for a really long time and I like, I don't want.

It's just like I'm talking to you like you've known me forever. I'm assuming you know all my stories and you don't. So I will say that I have declared bankruptcy.

And so I lost everything in bankruptcy in 2008 after. We still even had, even after that we had some other investments that went sour and none of it was like personal spending, right.

But we owed a large chunk of money. So not only did we declare bankruptcy, we were able to also then get some investing money after all of that.

And it was family money and we lost it in real estate as well. So real estate has been something that has been so tricky.

I have so many stories about real estate and while I still love real estate and even now we own Property. And we're hoping to buy some more property. I will say there have been many, many lessons.

But back to this is that there was a time where we owed a large chunk of money to some family and I was never sure that I would ever pay it off. Like, there were years where it was just like, I think we might die with this debt. Like, I don't see ourselves getting out from underneath this.

It was over six figures and a lot over six figures. I think the amount was around and this was way back when, like $170,000. So. And at the time, you know, I, I wasn't working for a little bit.

So after all of the bankruptcy and everything, my husband always was the breadwinner and he was working. And I decided to be a stay at home mom for a little bit after the bankruptcy because I was just lost and I didn't.

I really had no motivation to do anything. So I just wanted to focus a hundred percent on my children.

I wanted to go all in and be the mom that was there for everything, all the things and all of that. And I love that time of my life. Like, I would never trade it, like the memories and all of the things. And I did love it.

Until again, that voice comes in that's like, hey, like, you're meant for more. You are missing a piece of who you are. You need to like, go and, and find out what your next move is.

But I was so afraid of money and I was so, I was so lost with it because I was like, okay, we've lost all this money. Our credit was crap and now we have perfect credit. Which, I mean, some people are like, it doesn't really matter.

But for me, losing it all and rebuilding it was really amazing. And I will say this, like, I just found myself in a place where I needed to master money.

And I spent a lot of time, especially in bankruptcy, when I wasn't working. I did a lot of reading about money and your relationship with money and mindset work around money and all of that.

And I realized that I was such a negative person around money. I really was. And it was just like money was this thing that was kind of annoying to me if I was really being honest with myself.

It's like, well, we need it to survive, but fuck, like, we never have enough of it. And it seems like we can never get ahead. And those thoughts do not serve you. They were not serving me.

And I learned how to reprogram my brain and I learned to reprogram my thoughts and even some of the Thoughts that I have today around money are that money is magical for me. And I like, I can figure anything out, anything out. And so instead of the thought of there's never enough money, we never seem to get ahead. I always.

Now I'm like, I always find money. I always figure it out. I don't know how I'm going to figure it out yet, but I will figure it out. And it proves to be true over and over again.

So just because I have a much better relationship with money now doesn't ever mean that I don't have unexpected expenses or anything like that. I will tell you, it still happens on a big scale. So last spring, I had an unexpected tax bill of $30,000. What?

Usually I'm so good with the taxes and da, da, da, da, da. But I made more money. I jumped up a tax bracket. I already thought I was at the top of my tax bracket here, but apparently there's higher.

And I didn't calculate for it. And it was $30,000 that I needed to come up with.

Now, old Cara would have had a total fucking meltdown, but new care was like, I know how to find money. I can find this money. And I found the damn money. And I reorganized things and I. Now, was this, like, the perfect scenario?

Did I have $30,000 in my bank account? No, I didn't. I had to find the money. I had to figure out the plan.

But now my brain naturally goes into a place where I'm going to solve the problem, because I can. I am a master problem solver. And so I didn't used to be. I used to be a victim. I used to just sulk in it and cry about it and be like, why me?

And, like, go all into that. And that is no longer the person I decided to be, because I get to decide. You get to decide. You get to decide how you show up and how you respond.

And your mindset plays so much responsibility. Like, actually, I should say, your mindset plays such a huge part in how you respond. And then the actions that you take after you respond.

And so for me, while I don't believe in perfection, I think perfection is. Is an illusion.

I do know that even when these challenges, and like I said, challenges still happen, no matter what level of success you have, is my ability to deal with the challenges is much better because I spend so much time working on my mind, right? And so here's the thing. How you show up in one area in your life is how you show up in all areas of your life. And I firmly believe that.

And as I started to calm down about my relationship with money and being so high strung about it and being really overreacting, I stopped doing that in so many other areas of my life.

Isn't that fascinating how that can have that kind of compound effect is that once you start working on something in one area of your life, all the goodness from that overflows into the rest of your life. And I will tell you, like, being good with money isn't about. It's not about the numbers, right? And I always used to say this.

It's so funny because I'm always like, I'm not good at math. And I'm not like, honestly, you guys, I need a calculator for the stupidest things. My husband is a human calculator.

Like, he can beat the cash register at a grocery store, and he's a great little trick that he wows people with. He can do the math. But I am magical with numbers, and I can look at them and I can figure a budget out. And I used to not be able to.

Gosh, I didn't even know what a budget was. And then. What? I thought it was. You guys, this is so funny. So I remember when I was younger, and I was like, okay, like, I'm gonna start budgeting.

And I wrote down like, okay, like, here's what we're. We're going to spend each week, and da, da, da. And my husband was like, you realize that's not a budget, right? And I was like, what?

And I was so offended. I was like, excuse me, sir, that is my budget. That. And he's like, that's actually not a budget because you're not accounting for every single penny.

So it's not. And I was like, you know, and I had a moment, and now I really. I budget. Like, I budget every single penny of our money. And I'll be honest with you.

Am I good at going back and reviewing all the money that is spent every month? No. I mean, I could totally improve on that. I think that's always on my list. But I definitely have a budget, and I.

The things that are on the budget definitely get paid. And I enjoy that. Like, I enjoy having that feeling now. For you, it might look completely different.

Maybe the thought of a budget makes you want to throw up. I get used to. For me, or it feels overwhelming and daunting and all of the things. But take baby steps, and I think that that's okay.

But if you don't tell your money where to go, it'll Evaporate. I promise, it always does, man.

There are times where even I, like, I tell, like, I have my budget, and then I make, like, a little bit of extra money, and I didn't budget for it. So technically, it's like, okay, like, here's my budget. But let's say, like, I had an extra $500,000 and I forgot to put in my budget. Boom.

It's like magic, man. It disappears. It just disappears. So if you do not tell your money where to go, it will evaporate. And I think that was part. That was part of it.

And so what I'm trying to say is that, like, being good with money isn't necessarily just about the numbers, but it's about the habits that you build around. It's about your mindset around money. It's all of those things.

And I promise you, when you start to take the negative Nancy out of you, your life, and, like, replace it with a more positive outlook, you'll be amazed at how better you feel overall. Because at the end of the day, like, nobody likes feeling unhappy, right?

Like, I didn't enjoy freaking out on my husband about the breaks that needed replaced. Like, that didn't feel good for me. It was. It almost felt like an unconscious response, right?

And now if we need the breaks or anything, it's like, oh, okay, yeah, you know, it's all good. We'll figure it out. And I do figure it out. And because I say it out loud right away, I'm going to figure it out.

Even if I go into my bank account or our. Let's say our savings or our emergency account has dwindled down, I'm like, okay, well, we'll figure this out.

And I think there is, like, things ebb and flow, right? There are times when I've had huge amounts of cash in my savings account, and it's made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

And there have been times where it's dwindled down to not very much, and I'm like, oh, man. But I know that my relationship with money comes and goes. Like, not comes and goes, but the influx of cash in your life comes and goes, right?

You have an emergency account for a reason. I think some people build up these accounts and then an emergency happens, and you're like, I don't want to touch it, but that's what it's there for.

And so really working on the mindset of, like, yeah, money flows. It comes and it goes, and I'm always on the receiving end. I'm always receiving it. I'm always figuring it out.

And I know at the end of the day, like, I can make magic happen. And the reality is, you can, my friend, focus on the solution, not the problem.

And you will be amazed at how resourceful you really are at figuring any fucking problem out that you have. But you need to be resourceful and you need to go in your brain and you need to tell your brain, I'm looking for a solution here. Right?

That's what I want from you. Give me those solutions. And I promise if you ask yourself the right questions every single time, you will show up for yourself.

You will deliver for yourself. I honestly and truly believe that. So what are some practical shifts that you can use to shift your money mindset?

I really do believe that this comes down to thought work. And so if. And. And the first part is awareness, what do you think about money?

And that can even be an easy exercise you do right now is grab a piece of paper. What do you think about money? Is money good? Is it bad? Did you grow up in a house with what. What. What was the money, the money talk around your house?

Is money the root of all evil? Did you grow up in a house where there was no money at all and you saw your parents stressed about it?

Did you grow up in a house where your parents blew all their money and they have nothing really to show for it? Like, what is your relationship with money? What does that look like? What is the thoughts that you have around money? Is money good or bad?

Is money your friend or your enemy? Is money easy or hard for you to make? These are the things that I want you to question, right?

It's just because the first step is getting an awareness around what you truly think unconsciously about money. Then the second step would be, okay, here are the thoughts about money. I don't want to think this way anymore.

How do I start transforming that relationship with money? Well, it's working on your thoughts. It's being able to slow down and identify them in that moment.

So when you do that first exercise and you realize what you truly think about money, and some people have never done anything like that. And you might be shocked about all the negative stuff you have to say about money.

And very few of you, I feel like, will be like, I have this positive thing with money, like majority of people don't. Um, but maybe you're one of the few, and that's amazing, but you can always improve. So identify then still, what are the.

Any negative thoughts you still have? And then the next thing I really want you to do is just be an observer of your thoughts. Isn't it fascinating?

No emotion around being the observer of your thoughts. So then the next time something happens that makes you uncomfortable around money. What. What was that thought? Stop. Stop yourself.

And you're allowed to reframe your thought, right? So it's not like you wake up and the next day, all of a sudden you're like, your money mindset is, oh, yay. It's like completely fixed.

No, again, it's a journey to fix it.

And I believe too, like, there are still moments where, I mean, if I had a hundred thousand dollars tax bill, I probably would have been like, oh, shit.

But my comfort zone has grown so much where the 30k, even though it was like, holy shit, it still felt in the realm of possibility that I could figure it out. But like, I want you to know too, that when you're working on your money mindset, it's not like you fix it forever.

Like, you're gonna have moments where a, you know, you go back to old habits, and that's just. That just happens with everything. The thing is, is that you catch yourself and you can rebound quicker.

The more that you really work on, on your thoughts, especially around money, the easier it becomes for you to turn a corner when there is just some darkness coming into your life, right?

So if there's an unexpected expense or something happens and something that would normally get you really upset or have a negative thought about money, be like, oh, I'm aware. Okay. Whoa. Isn't this interesting? Wow. Okay. I. I'm gonna choose not to think that anymore. I'm gonna choose to think that I can find the money.

I'm gonna choose to think that no matter what, I'm gonna figure it out. Because the truth is, I have always figured it out. No matter what that I know I've always figured it out.

So I'm going to choose a thought and I'm going to look for a solution. How can I fix this? Right? And that is how, over time, you keep building on those skills.

And again, you can do this in any area of your life, but especially with money, if you're finding that you've got a toxic relationship with it, these are the first steps to building a solid relationship with money. It's the thoughts, my friends. It's the thoughts. So I hope you have enjoyed this episode.

If you haven't already, I hope you subscribe to the podcast so that you get notified of all new episodes that we drop every single week. And my wish for you this week, my friends, is to have a magical week. And that. Hey, may all the money fly into your hands.

All right, friends, have an awesome day. I will talk to you later.