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4 Reasons Why Women Struggle Financially

I’ve been coaching women with improving their finances for almost two years now and I’ve noticed some common patterns with women who are struggling with their finances. I often see that women who are struggling with their money, often have issues with their:

Self worth
Self value
Feeling the need to put other’s happiness before their own
Feeling like they need to be the one to do everything & that they can’t reach out for help because it’s “taboo,” that society says that they should be Wonder Woman and be able to do everything on their own (and with a smile on their face too… insert my annoyed face here)

Many women are struggling with their sense of self worth. I hear women say all the time, “but why me? Why should I deserve this?” And hearing these things breaks my heart. The woman that you are today, right now, in this moment, that woman IS deserving. That woman IS worthy. She is worthy of being treated the way she wants to, of being respected the way she wants to, of living the life that she wants to, of being able to experience and pursue all of the things that she wants to.

When you struggle with feelings of self worth (the opinion that you have about yourself) and self value, it comes out in your finances in many different ways including:

Not standing up to others when you want to say “no,” but instead give in and say yes (ex: going out to eat or for drinks when you don’t really want to, purchasing something that someone else encourages you to when you are trying to save money, etc)
Not have the uncomfortable but very necessary conversation with your partner to get them on board with improving how you are managing your daily finances
Undercharging or not charging what you are worth, being afraid to raise your prices
Doing work for free, when you know you should be paid for it
Not asking for the raise that you know you deserve

Putting the Happiness of Others Before Your Own is Causing You to Stay Broke

I often see that women are putting their own wants and needs far below the wants and needs of everyone else around them. We will do things for our spouse, kids, family, colleagues, friends and others, before we will do things for ourselves.

This means that we will manage our time poorly and often our finances poorly.

We feel bad if we aren’t making everyone else around us happy. But what ends up happening is that we aren’t happy deep down inside and that we become resentful. We are constantly caught in “doing” mode and we end up feeling like we never really have time for ourselves and this often comes out as resentment. You likely haven’t told anyone this, but you know that deep down inside you are feeling it now or you have felt it before.

Click here to download my Realistic Budget template!

What You Can Do to Shift into Owning Your Self Worth & Value

I love the quote by Tim Ferris, “A person’s success in life, can be measured by the amount of uncomfortable conversations they are willing to have.”

This quote is so true and I can attest to it. There have been times in my life where the last thing I wanted to do, was to have the uncomfortable conversation, but once I did, that is when that area of my life drastically changed.

Our brain wanted to avoid anything that is uncomfortable, so it tends to try and avoid anything that may seem confrontational, so you need to step in and say to yourself:

By NOT having this conversation, how is it holding me back?
How is it affecting how I feel on the inside?
How is it affecting my mental and emotional health by not saying what I need to say?

I encourage you to not just read these sentences, but to actually ask yourself them and think about what those answers really are. Let the thoughts come to you that do, don’t be afraid of the answers.

I truly believe that the better the quality of questions that you ask yourself, the better the quality of life that you will live.

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You Need to Ask for Help More Often, to Improve Your Finances

I want you to know right now, that there is NOTHING wrong with asking for help in your life. Zilch. Nadda. Nothing. Let that soak in please.

Just because your grandma or mother or aunt or sister or whoever, seems to be able to do everything and look amazing all the time and super happy, does NOT mean that YOU have to do everything on your own too. I know I have personally fallen in this trap because my grandma is one of the hardest working women I know and I kept hearing her words in the back of my head of all the things she managed to juggle, all of the hats she wore (wife, mother, multiple business owner, farmer, community volunteer). If I kept thinking of how she “did all the things,” I would forever be caught in the cycle of doing “all the things,” and the result… I would be resentful to all of those around me.

You need to know that it is more than okay to ask for help.

Reaching out for help does NOT make you weak, it makes you courageous. It is easy to not ask for help and to continue to struggle, it takes courage to actually open up and say that you do need support.

Often women feel like they should be able to get their finances together on their own, but unless you learned those important skills growing up or at school (which I know I sure didn’t), then you likely didn’t learn them any other time. If you didn’t have strong role models to watch their behaviours and habits around money, you likely didn’t learn those either. There is no need to keep thinking that you have to be able to figure it all out on your own, when you can learn it very quickly when you work with someone who has the skills, the ability to teach you and hold you accountable to making these changes, such as a financial coach.

There are many different ways that you can reach out for help in your life right now:

Ask your partner or children to help you with the dishes or other household chores, even just once a week. This one day you can then use to have to yourself, to catch up on other things that only you can do, etc.
Ask for help with getting your finances in order. Work with a financial coach to help give you the clarity, financial plan and accountability needed, to take your finances from where they are, to where you want them to be. Don’t underestimate how much this can improve your mental and emotional health by reducing the constant financial stress that you are feeling! [That is exactly what I help my clients to achieve in my 2-Hour Financial Clarity Session – clarity, the steps they need to take and a plan going forward]. If you want more information about financial coaching, you can read the article I wrote on the Frequently Asked Questions about Financial Coaching
If you have children, get a sitter twice a month to give you extra time for yourself or to work on something else that’s important to you. If getting a babysitter is really difficult for you, see if you can trade with another parent, to watch their kids and vice versa so you both have time to yourselves on a more regular basis.
Hire a housecleaner to help tidy things up for you. Even if it is just for 2-3 hours every 2 weeks, this can make a huge difference in your life! You don’t need a weekly housecleaner for half a day, a couple of hours every couple weeks can really make a big difference for you!

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I want you to know that you don’t have to keep putting your wants, needs and dreams on the back burner and I don’t want you to. I want you to own the fact that you want to do more in your life and you want to experience more. Step into your power and believe that you ARE worthy of having the things and experiences that you want. No, it does not make you selfish to focus a little more on yourself and take a tiny step back from focusing on everyone else’s life. You need to fill your cup before you can pour into others.

For too many years I was trying to pour from an empty cup and it just left me feeling resentful, frustrated, taken for granted and also, upset at myself because I knew I was the one for setting the standard for how others treated me.

Have the awareness of how you are feeling about yourself and changing it to believing in you and you will notice that your finances will begin to change for the better.

If you are ready to really improve your finances so much faster than you can on your own,

you can check out Click here to download my Realistic Budget template! I can’t wait to help you improve them!

Frequently Asked Questions about Financial Coaching

Want to find out where you really stand financially? Click “Cash Flow Confidence” Program.

Click here to download my Realistic Budget template!

I am very active on Instagram, follow me here for more financial tips & tricks: http://instagram.com/mandyythomas (@mandyythomas)

4 Reasons Why Women Struggle Financially & How to Overcome It