This week on the Creatives Do Money Podcast, Episode #28

My guest today Sarah is a coach, writer, and educator who teaches people how to spend their money, time, and energy on purpose.  

And together, we look at what does our everyday spending mean for the rest of our life?  How can we align our spending with our happiness and be better off for it, financially and otherwise? We also touch on the areas that Sarah is challenged with money at the moment. And we bond over being reluctant spenders! How much did your regrettable purchases total in the past year?  In this episode, we get into the nitty gritty of changing your finances by aligning your spending with your happiness. 

Sarah Von Bargen has been teaching on this topic for over 10 years and knows all the tips and tricks which she shares with us.

"Building the self-advocacy muscle by calling T Mobile {to negotiate down your bill}, it will literally serve you in other parts of your life.” Sarah Von Bargen on Creatives Do Money Podcast, Episode 28

Have a question about getting better with money when you’re self-employed? Email Eowyn your question in text or audio form: [email protected] and she’ll answer it in a future episode.

Sarah’s Fascinating History with Money

What exactly her friends thought about her financial situation that was so incredibly wrong. The moment when she realized she had something special to share and to teach others about how they spend their money and pursue happiness in their livesHer unique family dynamic that gave her an important start for her work with money.

Her approach to teaching people to align spending with their happiness or their joy.

Her essential disclaimer that this work is for folks with some discretionary income, not those struggling to keep the lights on.The trademark Highlighter Exercise that’s critical to getting better at spending our money on purpose.A key, impactful step that comes AFTER the Highlighter Exercise.

How does Sarah’s approach to spending and money look in our businesses

Use why you buy.Always see if there’s a free or cheaper option, especially for subscriptions.Make sure you engage with all the possible uses of a service.

“Money and spending should be one tool in a fully diversified toolkit of ways that we make ourselves feel better and ways that we practice self care” Sarah Von Bargen on Creatives Do Money Podcast, Episode 28

Connect further with Sarah and her work

Instagram @yesandyesblog

Sarah’s Facebook Group Money & Happy

For more about Sarah and her work, visit her website Yes and Yes

Resources / Links

Money Coaching with Eowyn

Free Guide: Three Simple Steps to Improve Your Finances When Your Money is a Mess

Support the Show

Today’s episode is for you:

If you want to change/improve how you handle your money, If you want handling your finances to feel easier. If you tend to avoid more rigorous money management like budgeting, or reviewing your business expenses monthly or quarterly.

Have a question you want answered on the podcast? Email Eowyn your Q in text or audio form: [email protected] I can’t wait to hear from you! How can we even?

Free Guide: 3 Simple Steps to Improve Your Finances When Your Money is a Mess

This week on the Creatives Do Money Podcast, Episode #27

I get into the practicalities of making things sustainable, we take a look at good habit formation practices, and lastly touch on the mindset piece, which is always there in the background of anything we’re trying to change or do in the world.

Practical Tips on building motivation and enthusiasm for yourself

The Key Elements to creating strong and sustaining money habits for yourself

How to generate real momentum in your financial life by actually doing the things you know you want to do for yourself

Resources / Links

Yes and Yes Blog from Sarah Von Bargen

Creatives Do Money Episode 2 – It Starts with This (for more on mindset work)

Basic Budget Spreadsheet Template to Copy and Use3 Simple Steps to Improve Your Finances When Your Money is a Mess

Connect with me further

Instagram @plumtreemoney

Facebook

LinkedIn

Please share, subscribe, and review

Thank you for listening to this episode of Creatives Do Money Podcast!! If you enjoyed this episode or know someone working to get better with money on a creative’s variable income, please share, subscribe and review on Apple Podcasts or Google Play Music so more folks can find the show and enjoy it too.Take the Listener Survey

Creatives Do Money Together 

This week on the Creatives Do Money Podcast, Episode #26

Katie Craig is the owner of Momentum Coaching, and teaches easy to implement strategies for growth for holistic businesses.  She fuses together the expertise of both a marketing brain and a coaching brain. And she is dedicated to helping small business owners find their daily momentum in both business growth and personal balance through the Daily Momentum Business Collective.

Today’s episode is filled with so many nuggets of wisdom gleaned by my guest over the course of 14 years running two different, but connected businesses.  We get into the impact of finally facing her business finances, how she works on mindset in different parts of her work, her struggles with visibility and valuing her voice, and reaching for abundance, among other good things. 

"When you are connected to the value that you’re providing, you can then create the energetic connection between your money, the service you’re providing, the clients you’re bringing in and how you’re serving them.  It’s this beautiful circuit that happens when you feel good about what you’re providing and how you’re serving.  And you can see the connection that it makes for your clients, when you’re serving the need that they have.”

Katie Craig on Creatives Do Money Podcast, Episode 26

Have a question about getting better with money when you’re self-employed? Email Eowyn your question in text or audio form: [email protected] and she’ll answer it in a future episode.

The Challenge of Starting your Business Really Young

The impact of ignoring her business finances at the beginning of her self-employmentHow she almost lost her business, but managed to pull in the essential help that made the difference.

Key Lessons Learned from her years in Business

Some of the mindset work she had to do as she developed new products and programs

The one activity that really calls for the most rigorous mindset work

How she grounds herself in the value that she offers othersHer insight into entrepreneurial brain

What’s the most essential message in marketing

The kind of practice that can greatly increase your ease around sales

”How do I need to expand to make the income I would like to make and serve that many more people?”

Katie Craig on Creatives Do Money Podcast, Episode 26

Abundance thinking, and Katie’s journey with visibility

Reaching for abundance so that you have enoughAnd knowing what enough is for youHer struggles with visibility and trusting her voiceWhat she tells herself when she’s terrified to show up for thingsThe power of looking at your numbers while imagining they are someone else’s numbers

”There’s no play, no imagination, no creativity in your business numbers.  It’s one of the things that can make it so hard to work with them.”

Katie Craig on Creatives Do Money Podcast, Episode 26

Connect further with Katie, and her work

Instagram @momentum_coach

Facebook Daily Momentum

The Daily Momentum Collective

This week on the Creatives Do Money Podcast, Episode #25

I shared a conversation I had on my friend KJ Nasrul’s podcast Stories of Astonishing Light. KJ was a guest on this show a little while back on episode 20 and our two conversations felt highly related and linked, so she agreed to allow me to share this half of our podcasty connection with you today. Thank you KJ! In the episode, I some of my personal money story, including about starting Plum Tree Money. And we really get into the heart of what it means to do money work, to hold space for ourselves, and make change in our lives from a place of acceptance.  

I talk about my struggle to follow through with my intentions (for myself), about my impatience with my path in life and feeling like things should be moving or changing more quickly than they do.  And how I help myself with that.

And we talk radical acceptance, and other self-care practices that help keep me connected to myself and stay centered.

I hope you enjoy the episode as much as I enjoyed speaking with KJ. 

”We can have our head in the sand in all kinds of intricate and wonderful ways when it comes to ignoring our finances”

Eowyn Levene on Stories of Astonishing Light with KJ Nasrul

Have a question about getting better with money when you’re self-employed? Email Eowyn your question in text or audio form: [email protected] and she’ll answer it in a future episode.

Today’s conversation explores compassionate ways we can shift our relationship with the “charged and tender” topic of money.  

Takeaways for Embracing the Mess: 

Radical Acceptance means surrendering to NOW. The emotion and struggle in our relationship with money is REAL due to our primal associations and base, human needs (safety, health, acceptance). Money management can be a neutral tool that grants us freedom to support people and causes that are meaningful. Day to day money awareness is the key to building new habits and creating long term stability.We touch on three belief patterns that creatives hold about money today 1.) Money is the root of all evil 2. Money is unsexy  3) Income is more important than managing what we already have. Stories are just stories. We can revisit, revise, and we can retell. Presence and accountability are two of the most courageous and compassionate actions we can take. 

Connect further with my host for the episode KJ Nasrul

Website: Bliss Begins Within

Instagram @blissbeginswithin

Instagram @musingsonother

Resources / Links

Money Coaching with Eowyn

Three Simple Steps to Improve Your Finances When Your Money is a Mess

7 Step Checklist to Prepare you for your Successful Debt Payoff Journey

Thank you for listening to this episode of Creatives Do Money Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts

This week on the Creatives Do Money Podcast, Episode #24

What does it look like to be a self-employed anti-capitalist consultant and speaker working with – and for – artists and creatives?    Or as my guest today frames it:

“What does it look like to challenge a system while we have to operate within that system?”

So that guest is Nora Rahimian and she’s sharing with us exactly how she shows up for her values as she does her work in the world.

I’m very excited to share this conversation about how we can use our businesses and work to build equity, and justice, and just more of what we want to see. Nora is a creative consultant, combines more than 10 years of peace-building, social justice organizing, and project management experience with innovative arts-for-change, marketing, and business development strategies. 

In 2014, Nora co-founded #CultureFix, a global collaborative network of artists, influencers, and cultural producers who use arts and culture to create social change globally. Since #CultureFix’s inception, Nora has spoken at places like SXSW and A3C, partnered with organizations like ONE, BBC, #HipHopEd, and AJ Stream, and consulted for several popular hip hop and afrobeats artists. 

” What does it look like to challenge a system while we have to operate within that system?”

Nora Rahimian on Creatives Do Money Podcast, Episode 24

Have a question about getting better with money when you’re self-employed? Email Eowyn your question in text or audio form: [email protected] and she’ll answer it in a future episode.

Growing up Persian, and her experiences in managing a Hipco artist in Liberia (00:00)

The money lessons she learned from her Persian upbringingHow her experiences in Liberia inform her understanding of our US societyUnderstanding the patterns of power imbalance, lack of access, and inequality here in the US

Negotiation as advocacy and a vehicle for change (00:00)

How to advocate for ourselves, our peers, and those who come after us in the negotiation processThe power in asserting our worth and value in negotiation

“Your activism has to be proportional to your power and privilege”Nora Rahimian on Creatives Do Money Podcast, Episode 24

What does it look like to be an anti-capitalist business owner (00:00)

The importance of language and specific terms of inclusion in contractsHow to build power sharing and equity into your rates and pricesStructuring your business offerings for access and inclusionBringing our humanity with us into negotiations and business interactionsBeing conscientious spenders and using the power of our purchases

Connect further with Nora, and her work

Twitter @norarahimian

#CultureFixOffice Hours on YouTube with Nora and Sto

How can we even handle budgeting amounts of money we can’t predict? What if you don’t bring in enough money in one month to cover your bills? How do you plan for handling excess income responsibly on other months?

These are questions that inevitably come up when we look at neatly presented budgeting and money planning systems. And irregular income may have been the reason we quit trying to use a budget in the past.

Today I’m sharing with you my tried and tested budgeting method for variable income

Have a question you want answered on the podcast? Email Eowyn your Q in text or audio form: [email protected] I can’t wait to hear from you!How can we even

Free Guide: 3 Simple Steps to Improve Your Finances When Your Money is a Mess

This week on the Creatives Do Money Podcast, Episode #23

What does a budgeting process even look like? How do you make sure you’re doing it right?

I walk you through the basic process you’ll use every time you sit down to plan your money. And address things like:

How to stay motivatedWhat system should you use when you budgetWhy you want to incorporate a calendar element to your budgetThe best way to organize your expenses

“if things are generally kind of chaotic with your money, and if you have variable income, one of the most effective tools that is there for you is using a budget” Eowyn Levene, Creatives Do Money Podcast, Episode 23

We’ll also get into some more hardcore budgeting additions you can make to really boost your progress. Then we get to the heart of it:

How to use a budget and succeed when you have irregular and variable income (23:26)

the three key elements to make this work one core concept that changes everything when it comes to budgeting variable income how to prepare for a successful budget when you’re self-employed and not sure what your income will be

“don’t pay too much attention to dollar specific or percentage specific advice”

Eowyn Levene, Creatives Do Money Podcast, Episode 23

My take on what common budgeting advice to just avoid

The percentages that won’t help you in the long run. A common structure for saving and debt payoff planning that just doesn’t work with irregular income. Taking your age and life circumstances into account

Resources / Links

Basic Budget Spreadsheet Template to Copy and Use

Episode 21 – Budgeting: A Most Misunderstood Word