Episode: 334 - Breaking Free from Financial Scarcity: A Conversation with Elizabeth Husserl
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Financial struggles often transcend money, rooted instead in stories, patterns, and beliefs passed down over time. Elizabeth Husserl, a financial coach, emphasizes rethinking our relationships with money to achieve true financial freedom. In her discussion, she unpacks how financial DNA shapes behavior and explores first steps toward healing generational money wounds.
Understanding Financial DNA
Our financial behaviors largely arise from inherited stories and beliefs. As Elizabeth shares, recognizing these patterns is crucial to transforming our relationship with money. She describes her personal journey of navigating financial scarcity despite a secure upbringing, emphasizing the importance of understanding finances beyond basic saving and spending.
The Psychological Side of Money
Elizabeth highlights the psychological aspect of money, noting that it's not just about the numbers. Money represents trust and relationships, which in modern times have been replaced by concepts like creditworthiness and net worth. This replacement often leads to confusion and shame, hindering open conversations about money.
Breaking the Silence
A common theme is the hesitance to discuss finances. Elizabeth encourages talking about money stories, observing that sharing experiences can demystify and destigmatize financial talk. She suggests asking someone about their first money memory as a starting point for dialogue, thereby shifting the focus from taboo numbers to understanding one's relationship with money.
Engaging with Your Financial Story
Elizabeth recommends writing out your money story and revisiting it to identify patterns and areas for growth. This exercise encourages individuals to interpret their financial narratives with compassion, viewing them as they would a friend's story. Additionally, having a "conversation with money" can reveal deep-seated attitudes and open pathways to more informed financial decisions.
Healing Money Wounds
Addressing past financial traumas involves distinguishing what you wish to inherit from what should remain in the past. Elizabeth advocates for consciously choosing which financial behaviors and beliefs to carry forward. Moreover, tackling financial questions incrementally helps mitigate overwhelm, enabling more confident and empowered financial decision-making.
Managing External Influences
Social influences often impact financial behavior. Elizabeth recommends being mindful of how scarcity mindsets and societal pressures might affect one's approach to money. Learning to recognize what "enough" feels like across various dimensions of wellbeing helps counteract scarcity thinking, promoting a sense of fulfillment independent of financial abundance.
Teaching Financial Literacy to Children
It's essential to engage children in conversations about money from a young age, teaching them both practical skills like managing allowance money, and instilling healthy beliefs about financial wellness. Encouraging conversations about wealth in broader terms with kids can sow the seeds for a more financially informed future generation.
Fostering Financial Conversations in Relationships
Elizabeth acknowledges the challenge couples face when one partner is more inclined towards financial planning than the other. She suggests exploring alternate entry points for financial discussions, focusing on strengths and shared aspirations rather than just numbers. Understanding each partner's money story can be a powerful tool in building financial harmony.
In conclusion, Elizabeth Husserl's insights encourage us to redefine our financial narratives, involve open conversations, and embrace a broader understanding of wealth. By transforming our relationship with money through introspection, discussion, and education, we lay the groundwork for both personal and generational financial wellbeing.
Resources Mentioned
Connect with Elizabeth: https://elizabethhusserl.com/
The Totally Awesome Debt Freedom Planner https://www.debtfreedad.com/planner
To learn how to take the stress out of your finances so you can breathe again, follow this link: https://www.debtfreedad.com/lwp-masterclass-opt-in-page-podcast
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Transcript
Brad Nelson:
So what if your financial struggles aren't just about money, but about the stories, the patterns and the beliefs that you've inherited over time? Now today's guest, elizabeth Husserl, is a financial coach who helps people of all income levels rethink their relationship with money, and in this episode, she's going to share how our financial DNA shapes behavior, why so many of us feel stuck and what it really means to heal from generational money wounds. We'll also explore how to have true dialogue with money, why open conversations are still taboo and the first steps towards rewriting your money story.
Announcer:
You're listening to the Debt-Free Dad podcast with Brad Nelson. Brad and his co-hosts experience the anxiety of living paycheck to paycheck before learning the fundamentals of financial success. They are now on a mission to empower regular people to pay off their debt for good and enjoy happier, less stressful lives. Keep listening for inspirational interviews, tips, tricks and practical advice to gain financial freedom reviews, tips, tricks and practical advice to gain financial freedom.
Brad Nelson:
Hey guys, welcome to today's show. I'm Brad Nelson, the founder of Debt-Free Dad. I paid off about $45,000 in debt. I've been debt-free now for more than 12 years. I've also been fortunate to help thousands of other people save and pay off tens of millions of dollars with the work that we do here at Debt-Free Dad. After listening to this episode, if you are someone who is ready to take things to the next level, you're ready to break free from living paycheck to paycheck. You want to reduce financial stress. You want to build your savings and finally pay off your debt for good. But maybe you're like a lot of us You're not really quite sure where to get started. Well, we've created some incredible free resources here for you at Debt-Free Dad. I'll be sharing some details about that later on in today's episode. Hey Elizabeth, welcome to the Debt-Free Dad podcast. So glad that you're joining us today.
Elizabeth Husserl:
Thank you, brad, it's a pleasure to be here.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, so you're a financial coach, very similar to me and what we do here at Debt-Free Dad, and I would love to know I mean, obviously our listeners know where we came from how we got started in this, but I'm interested to know how did you get started in this and how did you become a financial coach helping others improve their money?
Elizabeth Husserl:
Yeah, I mean, I think we often start because we want to learn something we weren't taught right, and I think that's a really important piece. I was raised I'm first generation in the United States. My parents are from South America, my grandfather was from Austria and he left Austria as an Austrian Jew and that's how he ended up in Colombia and so much. Like many of us who have persecution or leaving homeland for war in our family. That led kind of a legacy of financial scarcity in my family. And even though both of my parents were working professionals my dad was a doctor, my mom was a therapist I had what I needed.
Elizabeth Husserl:
Growing up we couldn't shake that sense of scarcity and being afraid of the next financial fallout. And again, I bet you I'm not talking about something most of us don't know. And so when I was a kid I couldn't figure it out. I was like wait a second, why is it that we feel the scarcity? But I can go to school, I have my clothes, we go see my grandparents in Columbia, and it's almost like I was looking for this software update that we can do on our phones to be like push you know, can I just reset our financial legacy? And I realized.
Elizabeth Husserl:
No, it took some deeper digging into areas, both understanding how finances worked right, like my parents taught me how to you know, balance a checkbook, spend within my means. They didn't teach me beyond that in terms of investing and looking for high yield savings accounts. They taught me what they knew and I think that's a big piece too is that we're taught something, or we're taught what we're known, but there's something that we're looking for to take it to the next step. So I went into the industry because I feel like in financial coaching and financial advising, I get to do the fun kind of like math, figuring it out and learning how to create wealth in a broader sense and with money, and also learning how we relate to money. So I also have a degree in psychology because I'm fascinated by our behaviors and attitudes around it.
Elizabeth Husserl:
So, that's my entry point.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, it is a fascinating thing, and I would totally agree, it's not just about the math and numbers, the interest rates or anything like that it is. There is such a psychological side to money and personal finance, and it's just a fun topic to be able to teach too. And so why is it, though, that, in your opinion, in your professional opinion, after helping you know so many people, why is money such a tough issue for so many people, tough issue for so many people?
Elizabeth Husserl:
Because it represents so much. I think that's the honest, brutal truth. It represents so much. And I would say a couple of things. One we confuse money for wealth, right, and I think that's a really big misnomer is that we think money equals wealth. So if I don't have money, I'm not wealthy. We just kind of go down like this rabbit hole of shame, confusion, guilt, et cetera. Right, and if you think about it, money is actually just a tool. It has very specific functions. We use it for exchange, we use it for value, we use it for deferred credit, we buy things for the future on it. It's a tool and a technology, but it's not wealth. Wealth is a state of well-being.
Elizabeth Husserl:
But what happens is that back in the day, when we were living in smaller communities, money had its function and we knew each other with our intimate relationships. Brad, I would know, were you showing up in the community? Were you doing your job? Were you being a good person, a good neighbor? Our relationship to money didn't necessarily replace our relationship of knowing each other as human beings. In our more modern culture, we don't have that same level of intimate relationships. We don't know our bankers, we don't know our grocery store clerks, and so money is now kind of a currency of trust, and so our trustworthiness is now replaced by a credit worthiness. And so if you're like, oh, I don't have a good credit score If I don't have a lot in your bank, we start to feel less worthy, right? And that's where self-worth gets confused with net worth, and so it just goes into a lot of different realms that money wasn't originally intended to live in, and that's why it's so confusing.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, we talk about this often on our show and it's just a tough topic for a lot of people to also talk about. Do you feel like it's because of that shame that people aren't talking about it?
Elizabeth Husserl:
Well, because when you go. So we also have this misnomer that talking about wealth means talking about numbers and being good with numbers and math. I personally love that, but not everyone does, and I wrote a book, brad, with all these questions around wealth and these many moments, because I want people to talk about the relationship to money, not needing to be good at math right and have different entry points, because when you put the numbers in, we start this comparison game, kind of like in social media. I'm like did I get the likes? Did I not know how many followers do I have?
Elizabeth Husserl:
And when we get into a comparison game, the reality is that always there will be someone else who has more than you, and that's a game we can't win, right, and so we're kind of like setting ourselves up for failure. But if we talk about money in terms of what are my dreams, what are my successes, what are my failures, what do I know, what do I don't know, let's get vulnerable and say, hey, there's a list of questions. I want to become an entrepreneur. I don't know how to do this. So let me go talk to people who've done this in my life and learn their story. If we talk about our stories. It's amazing how much more we would talk about money.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, there was a crazy statistic, well, a study that they did, and they say that people are more willing to share their deepest, darkest secrets than they would say the balance of their checking account or how much credit card debt they have, and that's just that's wild to me, and I guess it is, but it isn't because that's I mean, that's the life I used to live.
Brad Nelson:
That's how I got into this is I struggled with living paycheck to paycheck. I struggled with looking like I was enough and buying things just to impress other people, but yet I wasn't willing to really share how I was really doing on the inside. Financially, I was just broke.
Elizabeth Husserl:
Yeah, exactly, and I mean, that's what I love my job. I get to talk to people and money every single day and so it's helped me in my relationship to money. And, you know, hopefully your listeners will just like go and ask someone about their first money memory. Right, call up a friend, write it down, talk to your kids about it. It's amazing what starts to happen when we just start talking about money more. It holds less grip. And when money holds less grip as power in our lives, we make better decisions.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, you mentioned one of the most important things you could do is have a financial conversation with yourself. Yeah, and can you talk to us about what does that mean when you have a conversation with ourselves? How does that work?
Elizabeth Husserl:
So there's two ways to do it, and I'll just say, brad, I'm a huge proponent about educational resources, so listeners can get both of these tools for free on my website. So I just want to make that clear. It's more important to me that you do the work. I'm similar to you. So, number one, you can write down your money story and start to get super clear on what your money story has been. When you do that exercise, I always tell people write it out, take a break, come back to it a week later, read through your money story as if you were reading the story of your best friend, right? We're often kinder with our best friends than we are with ourselves. So go through that story as if it were your best friend and see what patterns do you see? What ways was this person doing awesome and potentially was growing resilience or courage or taking risk, and what ways have they created a pattern that's caused potentially a similar hole that they have fallen into? I won't use the word failure, but it's more like you know you go to therapy. They're like oh, you keep falling in that hole. You keep doing that habit, right, as we start to get awareness of it, we start to not fall into that hole. So that's one super simple technique is just go write down your money story, then a week later read through it again as if it were your best friend and see kind of what kindness and compassion you can bring and what insight and awareness you can have. The other one is a little more dynamic, a little more fun, and it's helped me for the last 20 years, especially in those moments that I was living paycheck to paycheck myself and starting my business, and it's called A Conversation With Money.
Elizabeth Husserl:
I describe it in detail in the book but the way it works literally it's an empty chair exercise. So you pick an object for money. If you're looking at this, you can see I'm holding up my money jar. It has a $20 bill and some currencies from places that I've traveled to and you take two chairs. You are in one chair. You literally sit your money object in the other chair. You put a timer on your phone for five minutes and for the first five minutes you get to go first and you get to say whatever you're holding on your heart around money, whatever you feel. Don't tell money your story, but you can be like God damn it money, why aren't you showing up in my life. Or I need more of you, or, oh my gosh, you represent everything that's wrong with society, or I'm so happy to see you.
Elizabeth Husserl:
Do not edit what comes out of your mouth, because it's going to tell you a lot about what's at the core in your experience your relationship to money. When the timer goes off, you literally stand up, change chairs, you hold your money object in your hand and you get to respond back to you as if you were money. Do not edit what comes out of your mouth because, again, it's usually the first thing that are said. That tells you what is at the core of this conversation. When the timer goes off, you switch, you get one more turn and then money gets one more turn. Money gets the last word in this conversation. It's really important. If you get stuck, you can say, hey, money, you got any advice for me right now, anything that you see that I'm doing.
Elizabeth Husserl:
And what happens, brad, is, when you have this conversation, you can also do it in your journal, if you're like. Okay, I'm not going to sit down and have this conversation, do it in your journal, bring it to a therapist. You could ask your best friend to hold space for you. But what happens is that you see energetically what's there. Is it anger, is it frustration, is it shame, is it indifference? Is it total blank? I don't even know what to say if I could, because that's going to be your starting point of how you experience money. Every time you take out your wallet, right, are you experiencing anger, frustration, etc. And what it starts to do is to give you clarity of.
Elizabeth Husserl:
Oh, I was super angry at money when I sat down and I had my conversation 20 years ago. I was angry that it wasn't showing up. I was doing everything by the book. I was opening my business and money was like whoa, elizabeth, slow down, you are smothering me. You are expecting that I'm going to show up on day one and guess what? You're not actually asking for people to pay you a fair rate, right? You're not doing that. And I was like oh, okay, you have a lot of opinions money on what I'm doing wrong.
Elizabeth Husserl:
And as we went back and forth, I got super clear that no one had taught me how to be an entrepreneur, right? No wonder I was drowning in debt because I was not knowing how to really run a business. So money, super helpful, made a list with me and be like here's your questions. Here are the people who are doing it well in your life. Go talk to them and see if they have answers to your questions. And I was like, huh, okay, money, you're not out to get me, you're actually wanting to help me, so let's have this conversation, let's create a business plan together. So the conversation with money might be the most out there thing you do with money, but, hands down, it is what has helped me build a healthy relationship to money, get out of debt, build wealth in ways that nothing else has. So I just really wanted to pass that on to your listeners today.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, I mean I could definitely see the value there, especially when it comes to I mean there's so many things that can come out of that conversation.
Brad Nelson:
Oh yeah, so many, but I know one that definitely resonates with me just because of how many people I've had the opportunity to talk with who are asking questions about their finances. A lot of people will come to me with money wounds or past trauma with money or just the lack of say. You know what, brad? Nobody in my life ever taught me how to manage my money. Nobody ever taught me how to budget or how to even have a system that allowed me to reach financial goals Like I just have always learned to just survive. Once you have this conversation, you're probably, as a person, if you're like most people, going to have some of these money wounds. How do you start to repair some of those things wounds?
Elizabeth Husserl:
with our parents onto money. We scapegoat it. So I would say two things, brad. One ask yourself, when you look back to your family, what do you want to take with you and what do you don't. Maybe you're like, okay, there was wounding there, but there was resilience. My grandfather filed for bankruptcy twice and made his way back through it. I'm like that's pretty cool.
Elizabeth Husserl:
I want to take the resilience of an entrepreneur right, but I don't want to take on the fact that my grandparents never talked to each other about money. I want money transparency in my relationship. And so you start to get super clear what stays with them, right, and sometimes I will literally write it on a piece of paper and bury it into the ground and say I'm giving this up, like some people will burn it, whatever your ritual is around it. But what stays in the past and what am I taking with me as part of my inheritance, my legacy that I want to teach to my daughter, that I want to take forward? So that's one way to have a conscious choice, because we feel financial freedom when we feel like we have choice with money. That's another piece. When we feel like we don't have choice, we start to feel really disempowered, so bringing choice to it.
Elizabeth Husserl:
And then the second thing that I would say is a lot of times money feels so hard because we have so many questions right, we have savings questions, debt paying questions, income questions, investment questions. So I tell people it's too much to hold those questions in our head. Write them down, like literally take a half an hour, write every single money question you have. Then take a step back and highlight the top two that if I resolve these top two questions, they're going to have the most impact in my money life. Start there. You got your list to come back to once these two are resolved and you can add to it, but start with two, not with 30, because it's overwhelming.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, yeah, it's so good.
Brad Nelson:
And I guess the other question I would have with this let's switch over to mindset, because I think where a lot of people also are influenced is from the outside, like social influence co workers, friends, family, social media I mean social media is a tough one Because, again, you've got algorithms in social media. If you start focusing on certain content, like, for instance, content where people are posting that they don't have enough food or they're in this scarcity mindset, you're constantly seeing this stuff over and over again. What do you say to individuals to be more aware of those influences and how that can affect how you look at money, how you manage your money, the conversations you're having about money? What are your thoughts there?
Elizabeth Husserl:
Yeah, 100%. So I would say scarcity brain is real, right? So let's just kind of assume that scarcity brain is real. We all know what that feels like. You probably had a little voice that pops up and like I don't have enough, I want more. And so be like, hey, I know you, right? So start to create a relationship with your scarcity brain and know that our scarcity brain is what has kept us alive, right? If you and I, right, are having this conversation right now is because our ancestors had a good scarcity brain. They survived. We're here talking, so thank you, scarcity brain, you have kept me alive, right?
Elizabeth Husserl:
But scarcity brain also doesn't necessarily make us feel good, right. It doesn't feel like we have enough. So the way you work with the scarcity brain is that you tap into your body's ability to feel enough, and they know what enough feels like. And the easiest way to know what I'm talking about is think of the last time you had a nourishing meal, right. We know what a good meal feels like. You're like oh my God, that hit the spot and I ate just enough. I didn't overeat and I'm not hungry.
Elizabeth Husserl:
We know when we slow down enough to eat, well, what that feels like versus when we're eating empty calories or I'm eating on the run, I'm like, oh my God, did I have lunch today? So just use that perspective, like, oh, I actually know what satisfaction feels like. And then what you do is that you start to bring that level of satisfaction to other areas of our life that we use money for right Physical health, our sense of safety, belonging, connection, all these other needs. And if you could be like, okay, let me slow down for a moment and see how satisfied am I truly? What do I need to do to satisfy myself, to really feel purpose in my life, feel meaning? And can I do that, brad, with the use of money and without the use of money? And so we start to feel, know what fulfillment feels like, what enough feels like. That's the best way to calm the scarcity brain, and the reality is it does require sometimes put the phone down, because when you're looking at the phone, I had this conversation with my teen daughter right, because she was like mom, I'm not, I'm feeling so tired and I'm like well, what are you doing on your time off?
Elizabeth Husserl:
She's like I'm schooling instagram. You know, I obviously wanted I cut my mouth. I'm like I'm not going to judge her, but I did ask her how does that feel like? And she's like well, it doesn't feel restful. I'm like great, great. So put the phone down, let your mind take a break and relax into what your body knows. Go for a run, have a good workout, eat good food, right, feel sunshine on your skin. When you start to slow down and know what enough feels like and you didn't spend money to do so you're starting to really build a muscle that helps you offset the scarcity brain.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, yeah, you mentioned enough. You know, and I think that's one thing a lot of people struggle with in today's society is just, I mean, we're taught to overconsume. It's consume, consume, consume. You know, we're constantly hit with advertising and marketing and we're seeing all this stuff, and what has helped you with determining what enough at least looks like from a materials standpoint, like material possessions, and how does that play a role in your overall financial health?
Elizabeth Husserl:
moving forward, yeah, and so I think recognizing enough, or knowing what enough is, is knowing that wealth is not just about accumulating it. Wealth is about experiencing it. That grandfather that I talked about, that went bankrupt twice. He always would tell me you die with a penny to your name. Yes, we obviously do want to leave a legacy or take care of the family we leave behind, but in reality, what he was telling me is that if we don't know how to experience wealth, then no amount of money is going to make us feel enough, and I think that's a really key piece. If you don't know how to experience connection, no amount of followers is going to make you feel enough. Right, and so I come back to it. And so literally, we're stuck in this abundance scarcity loop, where I'm trying to push scarcity away by grabbing onto abundance, Like that's what we're stuck doing, and we're like wait a second, am I actually experiencing meaning and satisfaction and fulfillment in my life? So I know it can sound a little grandiose, but I really everyone can do this, Brad, because we know what it feels to have sunshine on our skin, to be like oh my gosh, let me just pause for a second, take a deep breath and be like, okay, this is what present means.
Elizabeth Husserl:
But when you start to be more present with the material things and go around your house and be like, am I using these things? Right, it's like it's on your recent podcast. You were saying you want to earn more money. Sell the things you're not using right, you can turn that into cash. And you know that couch that you love. Go, lay on it. Right. The things that you're not using, move them on. And that's how you can have kind of a right relationship with the material world is use the things you purchase deeply, get rid of the ones or put them back into currency, create, make cash from them. And as you start to bring more enjoyment and fulfillment to what you have, something starts to shift. When people do start investing, they try to compound interest. That's money making money, right. When you start to compound meaning, your body starts to feel a sense of fulfillment that helps you make better money decisions.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, that's so good. Compound meaning yeah, that's so good. And I think one of the most beneficial things about it is once you determine some of these things like, for instance, you said, have that money, conversation with yourself, you know, start understanding what enough looks like, it's amazing how much less stress you also have. Yeah, once you become comfortable and you accept like these are the only things that I really need to have, it allows you to completely ignore most of the noise that's being thrown at you. And for me, that was like a huge wake up call on my financial journey was like once I realized none of that stuff out there that is tempting to most people, I don't need it. And once I said that to myself none of it really bothers me anymore. I'm not out there trying to get it because I know it doesn't really have any sort of meaning to what I'm really about.
Elizabeth Husserl:
Yeah, and I want to say, the second tool that's on my website that I would really encourage people to look at is, you know, it's a wealth map or a wealth mandala, and mandala means circle in Sanskrit, and I chose that word on purpose, because it's the path from suffering to joy. So, to your point, how do we move from suffering with money to joy with money? And what it does is like you print out that map and it has 12 human needs and on a scale of 1 to 10, you can say how fulfilled am I in my human needs? Maybe financial stability on a scale to 10 is at a 4 or 5, because you're getting out of debt, right, and you're like, oh, I'm not where I want to be. But if you start looking at some of these other needs right, like your need for connection or purpose or belonging or curiosity or touch or physical health Maybe you're an eight or a seven and you're like, wow, okay, I'm more fulfilled in these other areas than I give myself credit for. Let me lean into those more while I'm figuring out my debt, and let me have my conversation.
Elizabeth Husserl:
This is a really important piece, brad. Right, let me have my conversation with my family, because sometimes what happens is that when we get so pigeonholed and trying to figure out our financial life, it comes at the expense of passing on scarcity to our kids or our partners, right, or it comes at the expense of helping them experience life differently. And so when I've done this with my own family, brad, I'm like, oh, wow, yes, we're still figuring out some things in financial stability, but guess what? Our sense of belonging is at a nine. Our sense of participation in our school community is at a 10, because we're in there.
Elizabeth Husserl:
And I'm like, huh, we are wealthy, right, and we start to change the language, especially with our kids that are watching everything we do, right. And so when I change the conversation, I'm like, actually, maybe we're at a foreign financial stability, but in everything else I'm pretty high. We are wealthy and we start to claim a certain power. That starts to dissolve the haves and the have-nots. I'm like, no, I'm still figuring out this slice of the pie, but in these other areas I'm doing great, or I actually know how to satisfy them. It changes our experience and our financial power. We feel more empowered when we start to feel wealthy in other areas.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, I'm going to come back to the kids, because I love that you brought this up and I want to ask you just one question about that. But, first relationships.
Brad Nelson:
Let's talk about that because we're having this conversation today. We're talking about having a conversation with yourself and being able to, you know, figure these things about yourself. And here's what I found, and I'm sure you have too is that likely in a relationship? You have one person who's willing and wants to do this work to improve, but you got that other partner over there that's just dragging their feet and is just terribly not interested. What does somebody do when they're in that situation? Because that's probably outside of the common questions of how do I get out?
Brad Nelson:
of debt. How do I save money? That's probably one of the top questions that we get here. That's awesome.
Elizabeth Husserl:
How do I get?
Brad Nelson:
my partner on board.
Elizabeth Husserl:
Yeah Well. So I think a couple things right Because you actually took that question a different place that I thought you would is that a lot of times, my, I love working with couples and you're right, one is super kind of like, leans in and loves financial planning, loves everything, spreadsheets. One's like, oh my god, they start to glaze over, right, and I'm like I need you both, right. And so what I have found, brad, is that the one who's glazing over starts to glaze over because they're running a script of like I'm not good at math, I don don't like tracking things, I'm going to fail. So they're already telling themselves I'm going to fail up front and they're like why am I going to sign up for something? I'm going to fail? So that's the first thing I would say like how's the conversation making one of the two people feel like they're not going to be successful at it Because no one's going to sign up for that.
Elizabeth Husserl:
So then you know, and a part of why, again, I wrote this book with no indication of numbers is because sometimes people just need a different entry point into the conversation. Maybe it's like let's put the spreadsheet aside for a second, let's have the conversation about what does wealth mean to the two of us? They're like oh, okay, I can have that conversation. That conversation sounds interesting. Or let's start by saying what was your money memory? What's my money memory? Oh, you know what I like to talk about myself. Let's have that conversation. So if you're working with someone who's like I do not want to do spreadsheets, you might have to get creative and figure out what's a different entry point to have them talking about money and wealth where they do want to participate and you ease your way into the spreadsheet. Yeah, there needs to be some financial foreplay. Yeah, absolutely.
Brad Nelson:
Right and a conversation about strengths and weaknesses too, because, you're right, one person in the relationship is typically better at the numbers than the other and it doesn't necessarily mean that they have to be in full control. It's just like you said it's finding that entry point where they're interested, what they're willing to be able to help with and have some of those conversations. That's a tough one for a lot of couples, and I've done many speaking events with couples and one of my questions I asked them is how many of you have ever had a good money conversation before you got married? And hardly anyone raises their hand. So if there's someone out there thinking about getting married, what would be one piece of advice that you would give them?
Elizabeth Husserl:
I like what you just said, brad, around strengths and weaknesses, because I am 100% proponent that all of us have money strengths and I married my worst money nightmare. So I'm the first to be like I know what you're talking about. I'm like, oh my God, you gotta be kidding me, right? And I'm like totally deeply in love with this guy and I'm like we are so money different. But it took lots of work and lots of conversations.
Elizabeth Husserl:
But I think, first and foremost, I had to take responsibility for my relationship to money. That's the first thing I would tell couples is that sit down and if you all can witness a conversation with money where you're like, okay, that's your conversation with money, I just learned something and okay, that's mine. What am I taking responsibility? So I had to take responsibility that I naturally came from scarcity, right. My husband had to take responsibility. That he naturally came from a place that they were over generous, right. It's like they had the hot potato effect Money would come in, money would go out, and that would freak me out, brad.
Elizabeth Husserl:
I was like what do you mean? We're paying for everyone at dinner. I did not agree to this, right. But, brad, what he taught me was generosity, because I was holding on too tight. I'm like, oh okay, you got to ease me into generosity. We got to talk about this before you do that, and I know practicing generosity is really good for me and I'm going to teach you how we can actually maybe come to an agreement and make a money plan before we treat everyone to dinner. You know what I mean, and so I think ultimately, we got super clear on what we were trying to teach each other. We had strengths and we had weaknesses, and then what were the ways that we were triggering each other? It wasn't personal. That's the other thing I would tell couples. It's never personal. We're not trying to piss each other off.
Elizabeth Husserl:
We just do, because we have different money habits and so if you can hold it from a non-personal perspective, that goes a long way.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, absolutely. And then my last question. Let's talk about kids real quick, because we talk about this as a relationship, whether obviously you're a single parent or in a relationship where both partners are involved with the kids. How important is this stuff, as parents, to start thinking about this, because it's not only my life, but it's also. I'm raising these kids and we're shaping the way that they think about money. What are some tips or maybe some suggestions that you might have to help them along their journey as young kids to teenagers, to eventual adults?
Elizabeth Husserl:
Oh my God. So I will say kids pick up everything. They are freaking sponges, so just know that, and I'm not saying that to make you feel bad. Right, they pick up everything. And so I think there's the practical, tactical thing you can teach kids about money, and there's the energetic, emotional thing, and both of these are equally important.
Elizabeth Husserl:
So from the practical, tactical piece, like I do think that kids need to start to engage with money from a young age, we started my daughter with an allowance when she was five and she got her age. She was five, she got five bucks, right. So we would walk into Target and you know, on Target, kids' eyes just go wide. They're like oh my God, this is a candy store. I would just let her go roam, because she'd rather roam the toy aisle versus come grocery shopping with me. And then, when I would meet her at the toy aisle, brad, I would let her tell me everything. Tell me everything you saw.
Elizabeth Husserl:
So I would engage in the excitement with her. That does not mean we're buying it, right? So notice what I'm doing. I'm separating the excitement of engaging with the world from needing to purchase. And then when she would be like, okay, mom, can I buy this, I'm like great, let's look at your allowance. So again, notice my reaction to it. I'm like great. And she would look at the allowance and my first question, actually before that, would be like would you spend your money on it? And if she would say no, brad, I'm like great, mommy's not going to spend her money either.
Elizabeth Husserl:
And so I would teach them to be like if you're not going to spend your money, why would I spend mine?
Elizabeth Husserl:
And she would say, yes, I would spend my money, I'm like great, let's look at the allowance. And we would look did she have enough? If she did, we would have that question Would you spend I would percentages 80% of your allowance, and she's like that's a lot. No, and if she would say, yes, I'm like great, but you get to practice financial agency and buy this with your money. So notice, I had to take her through the whole arc. If she said I don't have enough money, I'm like great, how many weeks would it take for us to get there? And so we're practicing math, we're practicing making decisions. And then I would say I'm going to put a reminder on my phone. In six weeks we will have this conversation. You will tell me if you still want to buy this.
Elizabeth Husserl:
So notice, right, we start to clam up as parents when our kids come to us. We're like I don't know how to have this conversation. If you start to break it down in nuggets in teaching moments, then they stay open to their own conversation to money from a young age. I cannot emphasize how important that is. And you can teach them with $5 a week. You can help them make money decisions right. So that's really important.
Elizabeth Husserl:
And the other thing I would say is that when I talked about the wealth map and I'll tell you where to get that on my website do it with your kids. I recently had a client send me her wealth map from her nine-year-old. He threw my categories out the picture and his categories included Legos and fort time and cookie making and TV time and I was like huh, that's interesting. He's telling us what his wealth portfolio looks like. Imagine if you start to keep track over the years of your kid's wealth portfolio and by the time they get to college and you're teaching them how to balance a checkbook, you're like, hey, now we're introducing money. It's going to feel different. You might feel scarcity, but remember, you know what wealth looks like, right? I mean, imagine, imagine the generation Brad of kids who knew what wealth looked like differently. I mean, may I live long enough to see that?
Brad Nelson:
Right. So good, man, elizabeth, so good. You had so much great stuff to share today and, as you, mentioned you got some tools and things on your website. Can you let our listeners know what that website is or what other stuff you got out there?
Elizabeth Husserl:
Totally so. My website's my name, elizabeth Husserl, that's H-U-S-S-E-R-Lcom. You can go to the Resource Explorer resource page. There's tons of free stuff up there. There's links to my book called the Power of Enough. There's podcast links this one will be up there when it comes out and so I'm committed to having people have conversations with money, defining wealth differently, and so you can follow me on Instagram as well. I post a bunch there, so at Elizabeth Hussroll, and stay in touch. I'm happy to hear how all of this helps transform your relationship to money.
Brad Nelson:
Yeah, elizabeth, thank you so much for being here. We appreciate you, brad, thanks for having me. Guys, if you're ready to break free from living paycheck to paycheck, you want to reduce financial stress, you want to build savings and finally pay off your debt for good, but again, maybe you're not sure where to get started. Don't worry, as I said, we've got you covered. Simplify my Money is sent to you each and every Sunday and it's sent right into your email inbox. Simplify my Money is your step-by-step roadmap to better financial control. You're also going to learn easy-to-follow strategies to manage your money effectively. You're also going to learn some stress-free money decisions and tips that will help you simplify your financial life with proven actions that really work. You'll also gain some tools and confidence to tackle your financial goals head-on. All you have to do is sign up for Simplify my Money by clicking on the link at the top of the show notes. Let's talk about debt. Let's talk about debt. Tune into Debt Free Debt. Tune into Debt Free Debt done.
Brad Nelson:
I had to shift some things around, but being organized with a budget makes things so much easier to handle, especially when it comes to the unexpected. Mary, you are absolutely correct. Awesome win, misty says our win for the week is that we've paid down our personal loan from a family member while also still adding to our emergency fund. She says I can't thank this program, meaning Roots, and the Roots community for all the tips and the support. Misty, awesome job, you're making some incredible progress.
Brad Nelson:
And then to wrap it up with Nick. Nick says my win for this week is getting my emergency funds saved up. Also, I've been needing to buy some new tools for work, but instead of buying, I waited 24 hours and I forgot that I was even looking to spend some money. Yes, just giving those purchases a little bit of time helps you separate those wants versus needs. Nick, awesome win. Hey guys, as always, congratulations to all of you who are taking a stand for your financial life and you're wanting better. Hey, we get that. Getting out of debt isn't easy, but with our help and with your consistency and hard work, we promise you guys, this can be some of the best work that you guys do in your entire life. Thanks for joining us on today's show and we will see you guys on the next episode.
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