So often, women feel shame around money–shame around how we’ve spent it or uncertainty about how to manage it. Stephanie Peters, financial coach, is helping women manage money and reach their financial goals.
In this episode, Pam and Teri talk with Stephanie about how to become empowered and confident around finances and design the life you want.
Episode 19: Managing Money as Women Entrepreneurs
What We Talked About
- Introducing Stephanie Peters: Helping people become empowered and confident when it comes to their money [00:30]
- Shame around finances: mindset issues that hold women back financially [05:30]
- Transitions: Designing the life that you want [08:15]
- Top three tips: On keeping things separate, business versus personal, and letting go of shame [11:14]
- Lessons from life and business: Persistence and consistency [14:40]
- Final takeaways: What collaborative financial coaching really looks like [19:30]
- How to get a hold of Stephanie [22:05]
- This or that: Starbucks or something home-brewed [22:36]
MEET OUR BIZ BESTIE
Stephanie Peters
In 2012, I was a young, naïve, and broke new wife, who had unknowingly married into $115,000 of credit card and student loan debt. In fact, it wasn’t until a year into my marriage when we started a personal finance course for couples that I found out just HOW MUCH debt we were in. That was the turning point where I finally took the reins on my financial life. After completing the course, my husband and I paid off all of our debt in just under 3.5 years, in addition to saving for and purchasing two (reliable, used) cars in cash during that same time. We did this all while living in one of the nation’s most expensive cities (Seattle) and making less than $95,000 annually, combined.
We did this by downsizing apartments, selling stuff (I’m a Facebook Marketplace PRO), sharing a car when our second one broke down, and working multiple jobs. My husband refereed adult league rec sports at night, while I waited tables, bartended and catered, on top of my low-paying 9-5 nonprofit day job. One year I had FIVE W-2’s. And honestly? It sucked. Do we love being debt-free? YES! Has this hard work paid off and afforded us opportunities we wouldn’t have otherwise had? Absolutely. Would I do it again, with that much intensity and that quickly? Probably not. It came at a great personal cost – one that strained my closest family relationships and almost cost us our marriage.
I tell you all this to say I have learned a lot from my money successes and mistakes – enough that I believe I have formed a uniquely well-rounded take on financial mentorship and coaching. Does it take hard work and sacrifice? Yes. Will I expect you to challenge and stretch yourself in ways that will be uncomfortable? Also yes. Is working SO much that you don’t get invited to family birthday parties, because they already assume you won’t be available, worth it? A million times no. There’s a healthy balance, and I will help you find it after learning this the hard way.
Since we got out of debt, I’ve had a fire and passion for helping people take control of their own financial lives and futures. I know that if I can do it, anyone can, and I use my story to bring hope, encouragement and actionable steps to any situation, regardless of current roadblocks and past money mistakes.
In the summer of 2020 while recovering from knee surgery, I completed Dave Ramsey’s Master Financial Coach Training, and started working as a Financial Coach for an online education program, helping the historically left out re-claim their seat at the table of their own financial lives. Now, I am venturing out on my own with this Financial Coaching thing, while working toward another certificate through the Financial Coach Academy. I started this business to help you achieve financial confidence and stability for good. I hope you’ll join me!
Key Insights
- “Shame is such a big deal, especially for women … There’s shame around what you’ve done with it or shame around even asking for help and not knowing where to start …You do have to be willing to be vulnerable. I think in a one-on-one coaching space, that holds the room for people to be able to do that.” – Stephanie
- “Anyone can teach you how to budget. You can go google it. There’s a million ways out there. But if you don’t change the behavior and you don’t change the mindset, you don’t get to the why, you don’t get to choose to rewrite your own story and say, “I don’t have to live out what I was inherited.” … It’s going to be sustainable when you’ve really dealt with that shame and the mindset issues that hold women back from wanting to look at their money.” – Stephanie
- “I think when you step into coaching, and financial coaching especially, you’re trying to navigate some sort of transition. you’re like, ‘I am here. I’m in a space that I don’t want to be anymore. And I want to get to there.’ So let’s paint that picture of what that looks like and then take actionable steps together to make that a reality.” – Stephanie
- “Stop telling yourself you’re bad with money, or bad at math, or that you’ll never be good with money. No one ever shamed themselves into mindset change.” – Stephanie
- “Being persistent means a steadfast continuance in a course of action despite difficulty or opposition. It means showing up and doing the thing, even when you failed at it yesterday. Just keep showing up with persistence. And persevering through your inability to stay consistent matters more than consistency itself.” – Stephanie
- “There are parts of your business that you’re not going to enjoy but that doesn’t give you license to not do them.” – Pam
- “You can learn to be good with your money. You can change your relationship with money. You can become empowered and confident around your finances.” – Stephanie
Additional Resources
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