ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

 

Welcome back to my praises faith friends. Thank you so much for joining me today.

God wants us to be the lender and not the borrower. However, we must take responsibility for our finances, and on today's show, my guest Cleo Childress will share exactly how we can do just that. So, let me just tell you a little bit about Cleo. She is the creator of Cleo Yoga Finance, a podcast host, financial educator, yoga instructor, and transformational speaker. Cleo mixes yoga and finance to help transform mindsets and create healthier financial lifestyles. As a teen mom, she struggled with her finances, homelessness and a deep depression, however, she persevered and now she uses her personal and professional life lessons to help others. Her motto is, don't wonder what if, take a risk. 

Ready to learn more? Listen in...

 

SHOWNOTES:

 

•    I'm originally from Nashville Tennessee, currently living in Dallas, Texas. I am a single mom, my daughter, she is now 17 years old, a senior in high school, and I was a teen Mom, that's where a lot of my big transformations, I really started as a first generation college student. So, single mom working, going to college at the same time... And that's when I started to go into a lot of it with the student loans back then, I just didn't really know any better. That's all everyone really talked about in my environment was, if you go on to college, nobody can afford to go, so you have to take out student loans. So I would fill out the Fafsa, but after that, it was just like a domino effect, it was a credit card to a car note, payday loans, and then that ended up being wage garnishment, it just started going downhill because in my family, no one really talked about that money. (3:31)

 

•  That's when I started to use the yoga and meditation, that I began to dig deeper in my finances. It helps me to acknowledge where I was in denial, it helps me acknowledge what my money habits really were and what was really holding me back financially. Listen, I really wanted to live. And that's when I connected to yoga. I realize that, Hey, it's not just doing a budget or learning how to track your expenses, you have to dig deeper to figure out how did you get where you are right now, and what habits really need to change. And you have to dig deep and really challenge your mind and your body. (6:29)

 

•  So the next step is I actually have to start taking action. It's not enough taking in all this information, because you don't want to be an information hoarder. You don't want to just read all these books and take all these notes and let them just sit there and collect dust. I realize I have to actually start doing something. So the first thing I did was I started looking at my credit report, I knew how much debt I had, but I never really looked at my credit report because for one, I was like, I do want to look at this. Yeah, I want to see it. But then second, I knew I wasn't borrowing any more money, because I knew I wouldn't get approved anyway. so I was like, Why do I check reports? I'm not going to be financing anything because I can't get approved because my credit history was just terrible. (11:22)

 

•  First, make that list of all your debts, and sometimes you'll have debts that may not necessarily be reporting on your credit report, so you have to make sure you're looking through all your financial documents. Look at your tax returns, your emails, paper documents, that you have, because you want to make sure you're accounting for anything and everybody that you owe. It's like you really will be delivered with a debt-free journey, and so you put everybody on there, even if you have a cousin that you owe money to, put them on the list as well. (15:19)

 

WAYS TO CONNECT WITH ME…

 

• Website: https://raisethepraisepodcast.com

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jbell2007

• Facebook Group: https://www.choose2praise.com

• Cleo's Website: https://www.cleoyogafinance.com

• Cleo's Email: he