Your Money, Your Rules | Financial Freedom, Money Management, Scarcity Mindset, Budgeting, Financial Planning

109 | Is Your Financial Plan Creating Financial Freedom—Or Quietly Causing Burnout?

• Erin Gray | Financial Coach, Former Certified Financial Planner and CFO

Share episode

Got a question? Send me a text.

Does your financial plan feel more stressful than supportive? Many women entrepreneurs try to follow rigid financial formulas that don’t align with their lives or businesses. Traditional plans often focus on distant futures without considering your evolving goals, wealth consciousness, or business changes.

A financial plan should be simple, clear, and flexible, evolving as you do. Build your plan around your values—not someone else’s template.

Key takeaways:

  • Keep your financial plan clear, simple, and personal.
  • Build your plan around your values, not external advice.
  • Balance achievement with rest and celebration.
  • Allow your plan to evolve as you grow and change.

Trust yourself to make decisions that support your unique goals and values.

Want to learn more? Here are your next steps:

Step 1: Join my FREE Facebook Community.

Connect, share, and learn how to master your money with other women just like you.

➡️ Join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/941450038160915

Step 2: Grab your FREE Human Design chart

Curious what your Human Design chart reveals about how you're uniquely designed to make aligned financial decisions?

➡️ Get your chart here: https://generatealifewelllived.com/receive-your-human-design-chart

Step 3: Ready to transform your relationship with money and build true financial confidence?

Let’s create a strategy that feels aligned, intentional, and empowering—just for you.

➡️ Schedule your 1-hour Money Mastery Call here: https://generatealifewelllived.com/11-support

Money doesn't have to feel overwhelming. Let's create a strategy that feels nurturing and custom to you.

From my soul to yours,

Erin

Erin Gray:

Your financial plan is meant to create more peace and help give you direction and structure, and if you've ever felt stressed out more because of your plan than supported by it, I want you to know that you are not alone. You know, I see this often with women who are trying to and I'm air quoting do the right thing financially, and then the plan that they're following is either too rigid, it's too vague, or it's just too far in the future, so it just simply doesn't reflect how they actually live, run their life and their business. And so in this episode, I'm going to help you take a step back and really ask is your financial plan truly supporting you and your life and your business, or does this just another source of pressure for you? Do you want to create a system to stop avoiding your money? Maybe you're feeling guilt and shame when it comes to your finances. Welcome to your Money your Rules. Comes to your finances. Welcome to your Money your Rules.

Erin Gray:

I'm Erin, a former certified financial planner and CFO, and yet I used to avoid my money and had fear, no matter how much we had. I can't wait to teach you how I overcame my money avoidance and started consistently managing my finances in a really simple way. It's time to get comfortable with money. So let's break down what a peaceful what I believe a peaceful financial plan really looks like, and then how to adjust yours so it serves you better. Before we dive into this week's episode, I know that maybe you are tired of feeling stressed about your money, about your finances, and you're done constantly worrying about if you're saving enough or you're investing the right way. You know, maybe your financial planner might be suggesting you know to do one thing and your body is saying or asking of you another, and you don't actually know what to do. I think so often we hire people to help us and advise us, but somewhere along the way we forget to ask ourselves does that feel good for me? And so if you are stuck in that cycle of either not enough or you want to feel more in control of your money and you are unsure because you're getting advice from several different people, but then when you ask yourself, it just feels a little off right. And so if you don't know where to start, I want to help you stop feeling overwhelmed and second guessing your financial decisions.

Erin Gray:

You know, one of the biggest passions of mine is to really help women come back home to themselves and to trust themselves again, especially with money and the decisions that they make. So I am here to help you to create a financial plan that feels simple, that feels empowering and really freeing. Together, we're going to create a customized plan that helps you align your values with your goals and then build wealth and the financial confidence that you deserve. You don't need to figure this out on your own, and you can totally do that if you want to. You don't need help from anybody, and I will say it's a lot more fun when you get to do it alongside someone who is encouraging you, who is further empowering you, who is encouraging you to make your own decisions that feel good for you and your body, versus telling you what to do. So I would love to guide you in helping you feel more empowered, make decisions that are more calm and peaceful, and that you can use your money in a way that lights your soul on fire and creating the life that you want. In order to book a session, all you need to do is go to my website, generatealifewelllivecom and schedule your one hour call.

Erin Gray:

So let's talk about what I think plans. I don't like using the word should be, but let's talk about what they should be. I think financial plans are supposed to be clear and simple and not complex, so if your current financial plan feels overwhelming, you probably don't need more details and things added to it. You need more clarity. So often I'll see a financial plan and I'll ask the client, like does this even make sense to you? Do you? Have you looked at this thoroughly? And most financial planners from what I have seen this is what I used when I was a financial planner use what's called a Monte Carlo simulation, where it runs through all these different scenarios, and it's a technique where it's used to understand the impact of risk and uncertainty, and they use these simulations in like investing and in business, and it basically runs through all these things and it gives you a percentage of you reaching your goal.

Erin Gray:

What I don't think, though, that these plans take into account is how you're going to change as a person over the next 40 to 50 years. You know it doesn't take into account your wealth, consciousness and how you're going to grow, that it doesn't take into account what is important to you now, what might not be important to you 10 to 15 years from now, and so what I like to ask, or some questions that you might want to ask yourself, are what are my? I think I like to look at it as like what is some of your short term and then also, what are we planning for the long term? Looking at it both, both ways, right. So what are my priorities this quarter? What is my minimum enough number each month? I think we need to start asking ourselves some very simple questions and real world questions in order to give ourselves direction.

Erin Gray:

You know, a lot of these plans are looking as if we have a certain amount of money that we're going to earn. You know it literally takes in the data that you give it right now, today, which does not account for how much you're going to, you know 2X, 5x, 10x your business over the next couple of years 10 years, 15 years, whatever it might be. It's not taking that into account. It's not taking into account that it literally thinks that, okay, your retirement is going to be some set you know number, and then that's the total amount of money that you're ever going to have for the rest of your life, which I don't think that that really comes from a place of sufficiency and abundance Like I, I really think that our soul came here to expand and to grow and to think that we aren't going to want to continue to work after some point. I don't know if that's actually realistic and I don't like using that word realistic but so often like we're just getting started, you know, and to think that we're going to just wrap it all up and call it done at a certain number. I don't know if that, if that actually feels true, I think plans really need to be built around your values, not necessarily somebody else's formula.

Erin Gray:

You know, one of the biggest sources of stress that I see is women trying to force themselves and their finances into somebody else's template. You know, I know I've talked about on a previous podcast, you know you can look at. For some of you it may, it may resonate of, you know, saving or investing. You know 20 to 30% living off of 50 to 80% depending. You know, but that only works if that fits in your reality and with your values, you know. So you always have to come back to are my financial decisions reflecting my actual goals and what I want to create, not what you think you should be doing? I've said this before and I might never wear Fendi or Prada, right? I will 100% drop that amount of money on travel and airline tickets, and so you have to really get clear on what do you enjoy, where do you want to spend your money? Where do you want to um tide and circulate your money? And it's going to look different for everyone else. I mean, might have someone who really wants to live in a very large house. You might have someone who's like you know what? I'm totally fine with living where I live. I just want to travel more often. There is no right or wrong here, and I think you really have to get clear on what it is that you want and what do you want to create so that you can start allocating your money in that way.

Erin Gray:

Versus. This is what someone says that I should do, and so I'm just following the formula. You know, if you think about it, if, if your plan is all situated or focused around the masculine right Of, of goals, of reaching the next thing, right, where are you allowing yourself to have celebration, breathing room, receiving like that very feminine energy, and when you start to trust yourself, when you start to feel supported by yourself and then supported with your money, right, you're very you're. You're more likely to stay consistent with it versus coming from the place of like this is what I should do, and so often. You know, I had a client when, um, this is probably several years ago we were talking about some of the money that she had received and I said, well, what do you actually want to do with it?

Erin Gray:

And she said you know, I want to open up a yoga place, a yoga retreat place.

Erin Gray:

And I said, well, why aren't you doing that?

Erin Gray:

And she said well, because my financial advisor thinks that. I said. I said this is the thing that we have to learn how to trust ourselves as women. I know that your financial advisor might be suggesting to put it in the market and you really have to start getting very clear. Why are you suggesting that I put it in the market? Because obviously you know a lot of times when our advisors invest for us, they receive a percentage, which I am totally for, because they are advising us and everyone should be paid for their contribution and their value that they are providing to us. But if that isn't in alignment with your goals, why are they suggesting that? Suggesting that, so she ended up doing it no-transcript, doing this that this would be part of my financial plan, but she's thriving because it's coming from a heart and a soul centered place, not from a place of should and have to.

Erin Gray:

So I really want you to think about does your plan give you that, that space for that joy? For the rest, for the receptivity that we need to have? Like, money is both masculine and feminine. We like all the energy, right, we are masculine and feminine. I'm talking about from an energetic perspective, right, and so really allowing you know, if we are just constantly looking at what's the next goal, what's the next goal? What's the next goal? Like, receiving is an actual doing activity, right, when we receive, we have to be present. And so, really focusing on, like, what does my plan include? Does it allow for some of that more feminine energy? And they need to be, you know, and I think also plans need to be flexible and evolving.

Erin Gray:

Like I said at the very beginning, you know who you are today is might be vastly different five years from now. You know, if I remember having financial plans years ago, my life looks nothing like what I thought it would five, 10 years ago, because I'm not the same person anymore and you won't be either, so allowing them to be flexible, to evolve as you evolve. You know your business is going to change. Your life changes, because you are changing as a person, right, and so your plans can change too. So when we look at, when we are coming from the mindset that our financial plan has to be exactly like this and it is so rigid and it has all of these rules that we think you know, think we have to follow, rather than this plan that grows with us and molds with us as we mold as people.

Erin Gray:

You know you're allowed to pivot, you're allowed to refine, you're allowed to say you know what? That was really important to me five years ago, but that isn't really something that is on my radar anymore, and so it's allowing yourself to make these changes and to really start to question what do you value and what do you love, and is this an alignment with my soul and what my heart wants, or is this what I think I should do? So if you're feeling stressed, or if you're second guessing where you are financially, or your financial plan or your planner, or you're unsure where to start, I can help you. We can create a simple, empowering financial system that aligns with your goals and your values and feels good in your body. In order to book a session, you can head over to my website, generatealifewelllivedcom and click on the link. Work with me and schedule your session.

Erin Gray:

I look forward to seeing you. I would love it if you would leave a review for this podcast. It helps the show grow and I love hearing from you. And if this episode resonated with you and you have a business bestie who is also avoiding her money, will you share this episode with her? My mission is to help more female entrepreneurs feel safe and empowered with their money. Okay, I'll see you in the next episode.