Money Mom Podcast
Welcome to The Money Mom Podcast—the ultimate guide for moms who want to take control of their finances, crush debt, and create a life of financial freedom and abundance. Hosted by Rachel Coons, a budgeting expert and mom of three, this podcast is your go-to resource for practical tips, mindset shifts, and empowering strategies to help you manage your money with confidence.
Whether you’re navigating grocery budgets, tackling debt, or dreaming of building wealth for your family, each episode offers bite-sized, actionable advice to make money management simple, stress-free, and even enjoyable. With relatable stories, expert insights, and a dose of mom-to-mom encouragement, you'll learn how to transform your finances—one small step at a time.
Tune in every week to discover how to save more, spend smarter, and feel empowered to create the financial life you deserve. Because when moms thrive financially, families flourish.
Money Mom Podcast
42: The Two Keys to Financial Success
Unlock the secrets to financial freedom with me as we unravel the mystery of why simply increasing income isn't enough to achieve financial success. Imagine your financial journey as a bucket with holes—understanding how to keep that bucket full is key to moving from financial struggle to stability. We’re diving into how identifying personal financial goals and managing both income and expenses can turn your financial dreams into reality. Whether you're tackling debt, saving for retirement, or planning the vacation of your dreams, discover why balancing saving and income generation is crucial.
xoxo,
Rachel
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Hey there and welcome back to another episode of the Money Mom podcast. It's me Rachel, and today we are jumping into something that I taught on my live training next week and I got really good feedback on how it kind of helped people understand this idea of the importance of taking control of your finances and how to do that successfully. But before we get into that, I do want to let you know that right now doors are open to our brand new community, the Money Mom Club, and this is our first time that we've offered the Money Mom Club to everyone anyone who listens to this podcast or follows me on social media and so we're offering the lowest price that you will ever see, and it's 50% off the normal monthly membership. So we've got doors open. Right now we're welcoming in a bunch of new members, but those doors close and price goes up to our full price on Wednesday night at midnight. So if you haven't heard about the Money Mom Club, follow me over on social media. I'm sharing all about that this week and you can kind of learn more about how it helps families and stay-at-home moms, and I'm happy to answer any questions you have so that you can make an informed decision. It's a monthly membership. You can cancel at any time and we've our members have seen amazing success as they come in and learn the different things that we teach. So if that's something you're interested in, check it out. We'll link the the page for that below if you want to go learn more about it. So this thing that I taught last week on my training is really the key to if we can dial in these two things.
Speaker 1:Your financial success is inevitable. And when we say financial success, people are like great, what does that mean? Well, the truth is, financial success is in the eye of the beholder. Who knows what financial success is for you, or for the next person, or for me? You have to decide what that looks like. So that's the first order of business is what does financial success look like for you in the next three months, or in the next six months, or in the next year, the next 10 years? Really breaking it down and be feeling like OK, these are the things that I want to tackle financially this year, whether that's paying off credit card debt, or whether that is saving a certain amount of money in retirement funds, or maybe that's buying a house or saving up for a family vacation, sitting down and really getting clear on what financial success looks like for you is really important, so that you can have a target somewhere that you're aiming to hit and so that way we can track your progress along the way.
Speaker 1:So when I talk about financial success, that is the umbrella term for whatever your goals are. What does financial success look like for you? Financial success for me this year looks very different than it does in 10 years. I have different goals that I want in 10 years than I do in just 2025. And I have different financial goals that I want to hit in 30 years than I do in 10 years. So you really have to think about the time that it's going to take for you to hit these goals, and by one year, this is what I want to have accomplished, and in 10 years, this is what I want to have accomplished, and if I can get there, then I can successfully say I am, in air quotes, financially successful. So that's what I want you to do first is really get clear on that for yourself, and what we're going to talk about is the two keys that are the most important thing to getting to your financial success. Whatever those goals are. Those goals can be different. You still need these two things.
Speaker 1:I want you to think about it this way your finances are like a bucket. Every month, you pour water into your bucket. That's your income. The water coming in is the money that you make. But here's the catch about this bucket is that the bucket has holes in it and it has places where the water is leaking out. Some of those holes are bigger, some of those holes are smaller, but water is leaking out of your bucket, money leaking out of that bucket every single month, and those leaks, those holes, represent your expenses. So we've got income coming in, expenses coming out, and to achieve your financial goals, like getting ahead, not being stressed about money every month, stopping living paycheck to paycheck and really holding on to more water it's not just about how much water you pour into the bucket, it's also about fixing the holes. So, in other words, you need bull an increase of water coming in and plugging up the holes where water is escaping. So by focusing on both of these things, you can turn a leaky bucket into one that fills and overflows with financial adjustments.
Speaker 1:So these two things both saving money and making money are non-negotiable when it comes to financial success, you have to have both. When someone focuses on just one, either they're trying to save every single penny, or they're always trying to make more money and they're neglecting the other one. They they're trying to save every single penny, or they're always trying to make more money and they're neglecting the other one. They're missing the real magic of balancing both the saving money and the making money. And that's where I want to create a picture in your head of a graph. So think about, on the y-axis is making money and on the x-axis is saving money. So we have these two things to use together. And on that graph, if we focus on the lower left-hand quadrant, so we are saving a little amount of money and we're making a little amount of money.
Speaker 1:If you're low on that graph, if you're here, you don't have enough money coming in and you don't or you're not saving enough money. This is what we call the struggling quadrant. You're not making enough money, you're not pouring enough water into your bucket and your holes are leaking way too much water. Your bucket and your holes are leaking way too much water and if you're here, it probably feels like you're stuck. This is where you're living, paycheck to paycheck. This is where you're constantly stressed and going more into debt every month and you're struggling to even cover the basics. Chances are you're buried in debt and you have no idea how to get out. If this is where you are right now, I see you and I know how exhausting it can be and it feels like there's no way out. But I'm going to show you how to get there. I'm going to show you how to move from this area in a little bit.
Speaker 1:Okay, moving from that, if we go higher up the saving money scale to where we're saving a lot of money but we're not still making very much money. And if you're here, we call this the saver's trap. You're likely a pro at saving money, at budgeting, you pinch every penny, but you're also not focused on earning any more money. I see this a lot in the budgeting space, where people are constantly talking about saving more money, but then no one is talking about how to actually increase the water coming into the bucket. They're not talking about how they could actually make more money. So if you're here, you're likely cutting back on everything that you possibly can no diet, coke runs, no takeout, maybe even skipping on every single thing that you love, but sure you're saving, but it feels really restrictive and slow, like you're always sacrificing. So the truth is you cannot save your way to wealth. It's not possible. You have to also grow your income as well.
Speaker 1:So that's where we go, to the upper left-hand quadrant, where you're making a lot of money but you're not focused on saving any money, and we call this the earn and burn. So money comes in fast, you've got a good income, you've got lots of water pouring into your bucket, but it goes out just as quickly. Those holes are really big. No matter how much money you make, no matter if you get an income or a pay raise or a big bonus, there's still never enough money. You're purchasing Amazon boxes at the door, random slurges here and there at Target. You eat out all the time. You feel like you're working really hard because you're making good money, but you don't have anything to show for it. If this is you, you don't have a money problem. You don't have an income problem. You have a money management problem, and fixing that is actually simpler than you think.
Speaker 1:So our goal is to get to the financial freedom zone where we are making good money but we are also saving good money. This is the financial freedom zone that everyone should be trying to get to, and here you're earning money, but you're also saving it intentionally. Every dollar has a purpose. You're paying off debt, you're building wealth and you're still enjoying life along the way. And this is where financial freedom happens. This is where you feel confident, this is where you feel in control and you're ready for whatever life throws at you.
Speaker 1:So how do we get there? How do we have the saving money and how do we make money? We have to be able to do both. If you're a stay-at-home mom and you are like, how do I make more money? How do I bring in more money if I want to be able to stay home, and I am here to tell you as someone who has hustled my entire life, even as a stay-at-home mom there are so many really easy ways to bring in extra income every single month. One of those ways is go out and sell extra toys that you have, extra clothing that you have on Facebook Marketplace. So easy you find an item that nobody's using anymore and has some value. You throw it up with a picture on Facebook Marketplace, you can ship it, you can put it on your doorstep for people to come pick up. It's really, really easy to make money doing that as well.
Speaker 1:That's just one of the ways to make a little bit of extra money, but we have a bunch of other ways that you can do that inside the Money Mom Club. So these two things we got to learn how to save the money, but we also learn how to make money. Those are both so important to bring you financial success, and we tackle both of those things inside the Money Mom Club. If you're struggling or you're in the saver's trap trap or you're in the earn and burn phase these three areas my goal is to move you into the financial freedom zone, and you can do that by finding ways where you can save money every month, but also ways that you can bring in more money.
Speaker 1:I hope that that graph gives you a good visual of how that looks and where you are and what you need to do in order to hit that financial success that I know each and every one of my listeners is working towards. If you want to see that graph more specifically, you can register for my training. We can send you the replay. It's obviously not live, because we did it last week, but I can send you the replay so you can watch and see physically what that graph looks like and how you fit in with where you're at on your journey.
Speaker 1:And, like I said, if you're in any of those three quadrants and you want to move to the financial freedom zone, we would love to welcome you into the Money Mom Club this week, especially since it's 50% off the membership. If you're interested in that, click the link below and we'll get you in, and we can't wait to welcome all of our new moms this week as well. If you're like nope, I got this, I'm good on my own. I'm cheering you on every step of the way and I'm always here in my DMs if you have any questions. Okay, we'll see you next week.
