Money stories, mindset, practises & the fat banker

I love talking about money as a business owner.  I’m curious to understand how other people manage their money, what works, what doesn’t work, how I can be more profitable and how I can feel abundant when it comes to money in my business too.

Am I the only one?

The reason I ask is because money seems to be a dirty word or just something that so many women in business don’t talk about and don’t want to talk about.  I’ve been having this conversation more and more over the last 3-4 years with my Brand Builder Academy ladies and the more we talk the more I’m fascinated by how we think, the things we do and why we do them. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done a lot of things in my business when it comes to money that I scratch my head at.  But one thing is that I want to talk about it more!

Why we don’t talk about money

A while ago I shared on my Instagram stories that next week we’ll be talking all things business strategy and money management in Brand Builder’s Academy.  I then shared that in the last week I had schedule monthly salary payments into my personal bank account 12 months in advance.

Paying myself forward has been something that I’ve been a little obsessed with for a while now.  As a business owner understanding money and how to manage it well in my own business was probably one of the biggest issues I had in the first few years.  Money came in and if I’m honest there wasn’t really any ‘managing’ of that money.  If I had money in the business then I was spending it or as I liked to always say “reinvesting” but the honest truth was, there was so much I was spending money on that wasn’t really helping my business grow at all. I wasn’t paying myself properly, mainly because I was still working part time in the a corporate job that paid well and so even though I was earning in my business I wasn’t focused on the things I needed to focused on.  It’s amazing how being comfortable can make us complacent too.

Why is it that when we go into business to make money for ourselves, managing that money well is one of the last things we seem to do?

MY MONEY STORY

Now before someone writes to me about this, I’m obviously not talking about all women.  Some women have it nailed from the start and maybe that’s because they get taught from a younger age to manage manage well.  I don’t think I ever had a conversation with my parents about money management, saving or anything like that. 

My money story is not one that I’m proud of, but I have to own it if I’m going to move forward.  I never saved money. When I got a job, it wasn’t the pay check that had me excited, it was the fact that the credit card companies were now my friend and I had a little plastic card that was my ticket to the good life.  Over the years I racked up over $20k debit on credit cards and it was only when I was living in London and starting to get a little bit (not a lot, but a little bit) smarter about money that I took all my debt and took out a 12 month interest free loan to pay it all off and then started chipping away at it.

I was fortunate to earn a good salary in all of my corporate jobs but I always had the story – “I’m not good with money”.  When I married my hubby who is amazing with money, I had $1,500 left on my credit card debt and as soon as we got married he paid that off – which I will always regret!  I had come so far getting myself out of the mess I had got myself in and then right at the last step I let someone else pay for it.  Obviously he had no idea that I would feel that way and to him that money was nothing, all he was thinking about is that we were starting our married life with zero debt.  But I always wish that I had paid off that last payment and felt the excitement and achievement of doing it on my own. 

When we had kids and I was on maternity leave I remember feeling helpless that I wasn’t bringing money into the house. Obviously my ability to earn money was part of my identity and value in the home – even though YES growing a human and caring for that child is obviously one of the most incredible things you can do.  But changing your mindset and conditioning of how you’ve shown up in your life over the last 20 years is not something that all of a sudden changes when you birth a new human.    I spoke with my transformation coach about it and we started to unravel my money stories.

• I’m not good with money.
• When I’m not earning money, I don’t feel like I’m contributing to the household
• I don’t know what’s going on with the money in our family because that’s something my husband manages
• I hate not knowning what’s happening with the money but because I’m not good with money does it matter if I know or not

And so on and so on. 

So we started to rewrite my money story.  I used to not be good with money, but now I’m totally capable of being responsible, informed and great with money.  I know how to earn it and I know how to manage it. I’m not the same person I was and I can learn more about money and get even better with how I earn it, how I manage it and how I understand it.

I’m good, in fact I’m great with money.

So when I posted that Instagram story about paying myself forward 12 months, a biz friend sent me a message saying, “more women talking about this please! Well done”   The funny thing is that I talk about money ALL-THE-TIME in my BBA group with my students and I know that it’s meant so much to them that I’m so open and transparent about money in general and I’m so open about my money and how I manage it, the reality of the numbers in business and what paying yourself and building a profitable business looks like.

Anyone who knows me, know that I’m a Profit First advocate.  It changed my business, it helped me drive serious profit, managing my big tax bills, not just spending like crazy and managing my operating expenses so much better, plus factoring in superannuation and more. 

PAYING YOURSELF

The reason I love paying myself forward is because I know that if I do that, I have freedom in my business. Freedom to take time off, spend time with my family, have a steady income that I know is coming in and is predictable, have a safety net for when things like COVID or anything unexpected happens.  It also means that I say yes the work I want and no to the work I don’t want.  I’m not desperate for clients, money or opportunities. 

It feels like money is such a taboo subject yet if we talked about it more, we would be able to support so many more women in business to understand what it takes to build successful money habit so that they can build the business and life they really want – and not just have that be a cliché line that so many people use.  The more we keep our money secrets to ourselves the more we miss an opportunity to help others.

Recently during a coaching call in BBA I discovered something new.  Well it wasn’t really that new for me as I had actually done it before, but I didn’t know that everyone else was doing it too.  We’ve called it the Fat Banker Syndrome.  What it is I hear you ask?  Well it’s when you create a fat bank account.  You have money coming into your business and you just leave it there to get fatter and fatter and grow and grow but you don’t pay yourself. You hold it and horde it. 

The more we talked about it in my group the more comments came up – “I’m a fat banker too” and all of a sudden it hit me that it’s a common practise.  I ended up chatting with a few other women in business outside of the group and they admitted to doing it as well.  OMG who knew?!

Because many of them have another person potentially bringing in money or they have money coming in from another job or income source, they don’t feel the need to pay themselves out of their business.  A question someone asked was “is it okay if I don’t pay myself for 12 months even if I have money coming in?” My question is, why wouldn’t you pay yourself even if it’s a nominal amount? 

Paying yourself such a mindset shift.  It’s saying that you’ve worked for this money, you’ve earnt it and now you’re going to pay yourself what you should so that you can support yourself, your family and your business. Why did you start this business if you’re not going to pay yourself?

The other point that came up and I’ve experienced this myself before I started paying myself is resentment in the home.  If your partner was earning money but you weren’t seeing for years on a end, how would that make you feel? 

I remember sitting outside one hot afternoon on holidays with my husband.  My business was making money – in fact it was making good money, but he wasn’t seeing any of it. I would talk about my business all the time, I would tell him when I secured new clients, he saw me doing coaching calls but there wasn’t anything coming into our personal bank account.  As we sat there having our afternoon holiday cocktail, he said “well really it’s just a hobby or your just giving your time to it like a charity”.  I sat there stunned.  Fully stunned. What? How could he? How rude?  I was mad.  I was really mad.  How dare he say that to me.  He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand.

I sat there with my face burning with anger.  Then he said – well you work all these hours, doing this work you love but there’s not money coming into our family.  And just like that I thought wow Suz, what are you doing?  You’re in business to contribute but you’re not doing that and that really hit me hard. From then on I changed everything in my business and started paying myself monthly and forward paying myself as well.

The question I asked on Instagram was – Do you feel uncomfortable talking about money – why or why not?

Some of the responses that people share with me were:

• Not wanting to be judged
• Worried people will think they’re gloating
• Fine to talk about but uncomfortable spending money even when it’s a good investment
• Having a scarsity mindset and being focus on saving for a rainy day
• Fear around talking about money
• Also that money is a measure of success in business and that it’s not enough
• Being conditioned to keep money private so it’s difficult to talk about.

If you’re a woman in business and you feel any of this or have felt any of this, just know that you’re not alone.  Being conditioned to not talk about money is definitely a generational issue.  Most parents 20, 30, 40 years ago would never talk about money, politics or religion – it just wasn’t the done thing and as kids in that environment that’s what many of us were taught.  It’s just bad manners.

But we live in a different world and we earn money in different ways and finding your trusted group of women or people who you can have informed and open conversations with about money is such an important thing to seek out in your business.

The whole “not wanting to be judged and worried what people will think” is an interesting one and I get it.  But I also know that I want to surround myself with people who want to see me succeed and who celebrate my money wins and who do what they can to support me rather than those who will judge me. I want to be with people who ask me how it’s going and ask if they can do anything to help.  I want to be around people who talk about the wealth that money brings to their lives and not just their bank account. Surrounding yourself with those types of people is a very intention thing to do.

Being able to talk about this openly and honestly I think is a game changer.  I first started working on my money mindset in Denise Duffield-Thomas’s Money Bootcamp where it’s an open conversation and I’ve taken that open money mindset and conversation into my own business and made that one of the key things that I want us to talk more about.

I think when it comes to money it’s also really easy to get caught up in the hype of the six and seven figure world.  I had a few new products planned for the next 12 month and I’ve been holding and really thinking about whether it’s the right move for me and my business.  Is that what I really want?  Am I chasing numbers at the cost of my time freedom and happiness.  Right now in my business I earn money that I’m pretty happy with.  I do have some big financial goals but that’s really about paying off my mortgage, hitting a certain amount in my superannuation and basically just having money in the bank so that I can work when and where I want. 

I actually don’t want more stuff.   When we did our house renovation we were also watching the minimalist documentary and I really started to look at the stuff we have that we never use or stuff that just clutters up our home.  So whilst fashion and art are two things I love, that’s really all I want and even with that I’ve become more sustainable, selling what I have to buy new things if they just don’t spark joy any more.

So when it comes to money, why are you aiming for what you’re aiming for? Is it because that’s what everyone says you should be aiming for? Do I need a seven figure a year income? No I don’t. if I earn it would it be nice – if it happens sure, but I won’t sacrifice my life, time freedom and the fall into the hustle mentality to get there.   Even talking about this, I can see how much my money mindset has changed.

It’s one of abundance, confidence in my money management, creating goals that reinforce my values what I want in life right now for me and my family and it’s a pretty awesome place to be.  Doing work I love, with women I love who want time and money freedom too.

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