Overcoming Financial Stress With The Saver And The Spender

What makes a year your “best year yet?”. How is it that you can intentionally create the year ahead to be just that? This episode helps you reflect on the prior year, its’ ups or downs and identify what made it so great….or not so great. Once you have that information, now you can use it to craft the year ahead to be one you can feel proud of. Coach Jill reviews six key areas of life to evaluate and create a plan for that allow you to move into the New Year with clarity, purpose and intentionality. Let's recap some points that will help to make 2020 your best year yet!! Entering into a new year purposefully, must begin with a reflection on the year behind us. What factors contributed to how great, or horrible, we felt about the year behind us? How can we use this knowledge to intentionally recreate or completely reconstruct our lives in the year ahead?  Being intentional with our lives requires thought and a plan. We can oftentimes easily name the things we want to do or improve upon, but we must have syste

Before you set financial goals or resolutions - listen to this episode! You may be excited to set new year’s resolutions and goals with your finances this time of year, but if you’re not careful, you could be getting ahead of yourself. Don’t set yourself up for failure, check out our New Year New Money Checklist FIRST. It will help you lay a really solid foundation from which to build from! In this episode, Kelsa talks about her 7 Steps to laying a really solid foundation for 2020. Step one is setting your intention. So firming up your wife for pursuing financial growth and progress in the new year. Step two is reflecting on your wins and losses in the past year. Step three, reviewing sinking funds and savings accounts. In other words, for any projects or special occasions and just everyday type expenses that might be happening in the new year. Step four is the year end checklist, getting organized and completing the annual tasks or at least getting them on your calendar of when you're going t

Once a month, Coach Kelsa and Coach Jill like to go live in our private Facebook group (Ask to join for free here).  Listen in as they share with you the highlights of the past month! Updates galore, inspiration, tips and budgeting tricks, what's coming up for Fiscal Fitness Fanatics and the awesome accomplishments of our clients!!

If you find that your financial life is not where you want it to be, chances are good that it’s not for lack of effort. What we see here at Fiscal Fitness is that our clients have tried for years to turn things around, yet for one reason or another - nothing seems to stick. Don't feel bad or guilty thought. A lot of these things are not because you are "bad with money" but because the systems and strategies are set up for you to fail.   Our mission at Fiscal Fitness is to provide you with the financial skills, behaviors and tools that will support you for the long haul. Give this episode a listen to see if you relate to the top 7 things we see people have tried in the past that simply did NOT help.   You can see the full transcript of the episode here. Coach Jill's 7 things that just aren't working for you and your budget: Living Extreme Trying all those apps Getting on a budget Swapping bill paying responsibilities with a spouse/partner Getting all the bills on autopay Trying what was recommended by

Once a month, Coach Kelsa and Coach Jill like to go live in our private Facebook group (Ask to join for free here).  Listen in as they share with you the highlights of the past month! Updates galore, inspiration, tips and budgeting tricks, what's coming up for Fiscal Fitness Fanatics and the awesome accomplishments of our clients!!

The average cost of college according to 2017/2018 polls show an estimate of $25,000-35,000 per YEAR and up to as much as $70,000 for some of the more “elite” colleges and universities. Student loan debt is becoming one of the greatest financial burdens, so we asked college admissions consultant and scholarship guru, Pam Andrews, aka - “The Scholarship Shark” to join us today to offer some insights about how students can best prepare for college and navigate the world of college admissions and gaining scholarships to offset the hefty price of college education.    Notes from episode: The best time to begin planning for college is as you are entering your sophomore year of high school.  Pam explains the difference between the “sticker price” and the “net price” of college and what you need to know to avoid paying too much. GPA is one piece of the equation, but many scholarships go unclaimed because they simply don’t have anyone applying for them. Even if your GPA is not as high as desired, you still could

This episode is all about tackling the idea of what wealth really makes us do and feel.  Many people have a mindset around money, especially when it comes to wealthy people or gaining wealth themselves, that wealthy people are all entitled, greedy and un-empathetic. They avoid pursuing becoming wealthy because they feel that they will become the same thing that they hate about other wealthy people. Do they really think money is the root of all evil? If they were being honest with themselves, are they judging rich people? Continually look for every reason to prove or reinforce some sort of stereotype they likely already had about rich people? Here's where things start to get interesting... A team of psychologist at the University of CA Berkeley rigged a game of Monopoly so that skill, brains, financial shrewdness and luck - the pieces of the game that can create your success or your demise - have been made irrelevant.  Researchers watch and document every hand gesture, every eye twitch, each statement or

Once a month, Coach Kelsa and Coach Jill like to go live in our private Facebook group (Ask to join for free here).  Listen in as they share with you the highlights of the past month! Updates galore, inspiration, tips and budgeting tricks, what's coming up for Fiscal Fitness Fanatics and the awesome accomplishments of our clients!!

It’s great to know that your bills are paid on time every month and that you have no significant debt or that you have money going into your 401K. But just because money isn’t stressing you out, doesn’t mean you are reaching your full potential. One of the things the biggest things that holds people back from having an extraordinary life, is being comfortable and believing that what they are doing is “good enough”. In this episode, Coach Jill challenges you to look a little deeper. What possibilities exist for your life that you’ve not even begun to explore because you have shied away from pushing yourself in your financial world?   Notes from the episode: Being intentional with our money gives us possibilities in life that we can’t yet even see for ourselves.  Time is a precious resource. Every year we spend winging it is a year of lost opportunity to build a life of financial freedom. Stop wasting time.  Think of any skill you have mastered - in sports, a hobby, your career - you have likely in

Did you catch Jill’s Money Mistakes? It was episode 65 so if you haven’t listened to that yet our owner and CEO, Kelsa Dickey, highly recommends it. She actually LOVES talking about mistakes she and her husband Michael have made. Which, maybe sounds a little strange but it's the truth!!! The easier it becomes to reflect on your past mistakes, analyze them and learn from them, the smarter you feel and the easier it becomes to anticipate future mistakes - and ultimately prevent them! How cool is that?   The better we get at owning our mistakes, the easier it is to take them in stride when they happen. The result is that you can actually be better at taking action overall because you don’t live in fear of making another mistake. And we know that happens with people in money - they’ve done some things wrong so they’re sort of frozen in trying anything new.   And it’s when we shy away from talking about them, brush them under the rug, don’t take personal responsibility over them that they become bigger than n

We’ve all had our fair share of financial mistakes. All of those coulda, woulda, shoulda’s can weigh heavy, but know that you aren’t alone. I’ve had plenty of my own mistakes and in this episode I am sharing five that if I had a time machine would travel back and change today!  Below you can see a list of my top 5 money mistakes but you'll have to listen to the episode to learn why they were such a big mistake and strategies on how you can avoid making one of those mistakes in the first place. Here are Jill's top 5 money mistakes: Money Mistake #1 - I didn’t invest early Monday Mistake #2 - I didn’t understand the true cost of my college education and didn’t take proactive steps that would have helped reduce my student loan burden. Money Mistake #3 - We purchased a house when we should have rented. Money Mistake #4 - I kept telling myself “I deserve it” or “I’ve earned it”. Money Mistake #5 - I was to prideful.   

Get your Roadmap to Financial Independence We’ve got something exciting brewing over here at Fiscal Fitness that we can’t wait to share with you! If you haven’t yet heard of the Financial Independence (FI) movement, get ready - this is the topic of our newest LIVE course, that will be kicking off on Oct 21 2019. In this episode Jill provides a little sneak peak into Financial Independence and why this movement might just be the thing you’ve been searching for.  Notes from episode: The Roadmap to Financial Independence LIVE course kicks off on Oct 21, 2019  Weekly Zoom group calls on Monday nights for 4 consecutive weeks You get interaction and additional support from our financial independence experts within our FB community  Everything you need to kickstart your journey to FI  Resources/ links related to topic/ mentioned in podcast: Check out www.fiology.com if you want to binge on other blogs, podcasts and YouTube videos ALL dedicated to the topic of FI You can enroll in the Roadmap to Financial Ind

Nowadays there are so many opportunities to make some extra side hustle money. Uber, Lyft, Fiverr and Postmates are very common options; just to name a few.  We have all sold something that we had lying around the house or just weren't using anymore. Maybe you have a garage sale once per year, consistently sell unwanted items on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or really like to refinish old furniture.  You can take the same principles and, with a little strategy and elbow grease, make some pretty good money with a side hustle where you resell clothing, shoes, furniture and more. Rachel Sodergren makes extra money every month by sourcing items that she wants to sell by shopping around Goodwill, Salvation Army and other local thrift shops, cleaning the items, then selling them online for a profit.  She actually says she enjoys the thrill of the hunt, learning more about pricing and trends and making money all while having fun.  If you are looking for ways to make some extra money, enjoy the sport of sh

The Power of Focus and Intentionality - Client Interview with Truman Weston Truman Weston is an accountant in the Lake Tahoe, California area, who stumbled across Fiscal Fitness while researching other potential lines of business that he could add to his already successful accounting practice. What he found through coaching is not what he expected, but so much more. He found that the connection between his money and his life was not what he had believed it to be. Through coaching, he found a renewed passion, not only for his business and its future, but for his life.  In this episode Jill and Truman discuss these pearls: A plan without action, does not get you anywhere. And accountability to take that action, can provide the motivation you need to make massive change in your life.   Earning more money is not always the answer. Knowing that the money you are earning is being used to help you live the life you want can make all the difference.  Being “good” with your money, and having clarity and a plan for

Over the years financial coach Jill Emanuel has noticed that the great majority (80%!!!) of our one on one financial coaching clients clients are focused on their health as well as their finances. This fact got her wondering if there were certain personality traits that these people possessed that made them more likely to be successful in both. She has identified 10 traits that she sees time and time again in the clients we work with, that makes them people who are highly likely to be successful with their finances AND with their health. Here are Jill's top 10 traits of people successful with both their finances and health: They believe things (they) can be/do better. They are OK with being temporarily uncomfortable for the greater good They ask questions and seek advice and guidance from others who are successful at the things they want to be successful at  They know their numbers.  They abandon the ALL or NOTHING mentality.  They are open minded to trying new things. They are focused on a specific g

Are you avoiding your Big, Fat, Hairy Goals because they aren't realistic or tangible? In today’s episode Coach Jill talks about your BFHG’S, big fat hairy goals. The problem with these huge goals we have we start to feel overwhelmed and frustrated with the thought that we will never achieve those BFHG’s.  It’s when we start to put limitations on what we can achieve plus negative self talk that really holds us back and makes us think these goals are unrealistic and unreachable. How can you make them more tangible and real? What are the best ways to break down your BFHG’s to make them more manageable?  If you stay focused and follow Coach Jill’s simple tips you will see that your big fat hairy goals are actually very achievable! Tips on making your BFHG's more realistic, tangible and doable: Don’t limit yourself to the bare minimum or the easiest goals or what society says your goals should be. Go for what is going to make you happy, what is exciting for you and what is in alignment with your values. Once y

Part 6 of a 6-part series on Cognitive Biases and how they impact us and our money each and every day! This episode is part 5 of our 6-part series on Cognitive Biases and how they impact us and our money each and every day! (Make sure you check out part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5 if you haven't yet) It’s important to know what these are because they are impacting the way you make decisions and the way you think about your finances every single day. In this episode, we discuss how the Ostrich Effect is impacting the way we approach money decisions - do we tackle them head on or do we stick our head in the sand? In this episode you will learn: The Ostrich Effect - what it is and how it’s being used to affect my  decision-making How this shows up on a regular basis for us The impact it has on our future potential with money How we can overcome this bias How to overcome the ostrich effect: Solution 1: Focus on the idea that paying attention gives you the power to make a decision when necessary. N

This episode is part 5 of our 6-part series on Cognitive Biases and how they impact us and our money each and every day! (Make sure you check out part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4 if you haven't yet) It’s important to know what these are because they are impacting the way you make decisions and the way you think about your finances every single day. In this episode, Coach Kelsa discusses how the Negativity Bias is impacting the way we define ourselves with money, our desire to make lifelong changes and the way we see our past decisions with money. In this episode you will learn: The Negativity Bias - what it is and how it’s being used to affect my  decision-making How this shows up on a regular basis for us How it impacts the way we feel about money and ourselves as money managers How we can overcome this bias The impact of the Negativity Bias on marriage: https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/how-to-prevent-negativity-bias-from-running-your-marriage/ How to overcome the negativity bias: Solution 1:

One challenge that Coach Jill sees time and time again is that clients tell her they are blowing their budget when it comes to food and eating out. So many people are frustrated with how much they are spending in this area (or are too scared to even look!), but don’t know where to begin with getting it to a place they feel great about. In this episode she shares some of the easy things you can begin to do today to gain control of your food budget and use your money for the things that you really care about!   Tips and strategies from Coach Jill: Gaining clarity around how much you are spending on food and eating out is the first step to making a change. Total it up and reflect on what OTHER things you could be spending that money on? Are you just eating your money away? Be open to trying something new. Shop at a new grocery store, mix up your meals, make dining out special again by making it an event instead of an everyday occurrence. Shop the ads/sales and plan your meals around them. Food and me

Part 4 of a 6-part series on Cognitive Biases and how they impact us and our money each and every day! If you missed parts 1, 2, or 3 of the series, be sure to check them out too.  It’s important to know what these biases are because they are impacting the way you make decisions and the way you think about your finances every single day. In this episode, we discuss how the Bandwagon Effect is impacting the purchases we’re making but also the emphasis we place on the importance of those purchases in our lives. In today's episode Kelsa covers: The Bandwagon Effect - what it is and how it’s being used to affect our  decision-making How the bandwagon effect shows up on a regular basis for us in marketing, social media and more How it’s impacting the purchases we make and leading us to fall for temptations.  Check out our blog post on overcoming temptation here.  How we can overcome the bandwagon effect. Solutions to overcome the bandwagon effect: Solution 1: Become aware of how the bandwagon effec