Money Mom Podcast

You Don’t Have Money Problems — Here’s What’s Really Keeping You Stuck

• Rachel Coons • Episode 56

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If you’ve tried budgeting apps, spreadsheets, or cutting expenses but still feel like you're drowning financially... this episode is for you.

In today’s video, I’m breaking down why most moms don’t actually have money problems—they’re stuck in survival mode, battling subconscious beliefs, emotional burnout, and chaotic habits that make it feel impossible to move forward.

We’ll cover:
 ✅ The 3 hidden reasons you're stuck in a financial loop
 ✅ Why logic and numbers alone won’t fix your money stress
 ✅ How to shift out of chaos mode and into calm, confident action
 ✅ And how to finally build momentum—even if you’ve failed in the past

This isn’t about shame. It’s about healing your relationship with money and creating a system that works for real moms with real lives.

🎉 Want to go deeper? Join my free masterclass, Confident with Money → [REGISTER HERE]

xoxo,
Rachel

Where to find me:
Instagram: @heyrachelcoons
TikTok: @heyrachelcoons

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Money Mom podcast, the show where we empower moms to take control of their finances, break free from money stress and build a life of freedom, confidence and abundance for their families. I'm your host, rachel Koons, mom money mentor and your personal cheerleader on this journey. Whether you're here to save money, pay off debt or dream bigger for your family's future to save money, pay off debt or dream bigger for your family's future, you're in the right place here. We believe that being a mom is already a full-time job, but your role in shaping your family's financial success is just as important. And the best part, you don't need to sacrifice everything to start winning with money let's get started. This is the Money Mom Podcast. Money let's get started. This is the Money Mom Podcast. Hey there, and welcome back to another episode of the hey Rachel Kuhns Podcast. It's a really exciting podcast that I want to talk about today, but before we jump into that, I also wanted to let you know that I am running the biggest live training of the year in just a week. So if you're someone that's been listening to the podcast for a while, or you follow me on Instagram, or you are just really stuck with feeling like you can't get out of debt. You're living paycheck to paycheck. You are feeling a lot of anxiety and frustration and anger around money and how to control your finances, and you want different results. This training is for you. It's going to be live. I'm going to be there with all my people. We've had over 500 people register for this training and I wanted to let you know that this is happening next week, so we're going to put in the show notes the link to register for this training, where we're going to go more in depth into what we talk about here, but really giving you actionable tools to move forward. So that's happening. Just wanted to let you know.

Speaker 1:

But today's episode is a concept that I think most people don't realize, but is much bigger than what they can see in their life, and we're going to debunk what this looks like. We're going to give you the root causes of this problem and then help you shift out of it. So stick with me. This episode is talking about really what's driving your stress when it comes to money and why all the budgeting apps, the budgeting tools, the people you follow on Instagram, the podcasts, aren't actually going to solve the problem. We have to go deeper than surface level answers to help you unlock true peace and true progress when it comes to building wealth and having the money that you desire in this life. And having the money that you desire in this life.

Speaker 1:

One of my favorite sayings is that success leaves clues, and if we look at people who have been able to get out of poverty, have been able to get out of debt, feel more confident with money, there's a similar vein to all these people. There's similar things that these people are doing. It is not rocket science, but when we can really clue into some of the things that those people are doing, we can then say, okay, how do I incorporate that into my life and become that person? So that way, I have the things that I want. And here's the myth that I want to talk about.

Speaker 1:

Everyone comes to me and says I have money problems. We talk about money problems, we think about our money problems. We let the money problems sit on our shoulders all the time in guilt and shame. We think I don't have enough income, my husband doesn't make enough money, or we don't make enough money to pay the bills, or we're struggling in debt. My money problem is we can't get out of debt. We're stuck in the cycle of trying to pay off the debt, but the interest is too high and we don't have enough money at the end of the month, so we're stuck in debt. Or another money problem I see a lot is inflation, right, the market's down. The cost of groceries is way higher. Everything's cost too much nowadays. Or another problem that I see is I can't stick to a budget. Right, I know how to budget correctly, but how do I actually incorporate that into my life and make it work? I'm busy. I don't want to do spreadsheets, I don't want to feel bad about my spending. Budgeting is really hard. So these are all problems that I see when I'm talking to moms.

Speaker 1:

But here's the truth. Nobody has money problems. Let me say that again. Nobody has money problems. All you have are money symptoms. You have symptoms of an underlying issue of how you're dealing with money. These symptoms are root causes. So, again, success leaves clues and, on the other side of that, failure leads clues. So if we look at someone who is stuck in debt, that's a symptom of an underlying issue of someone who's probably overspending, not budgeting, feels stressed around money, living in scarcity, doesn't know how to actually save and build wealth. The symptoms are what we see, but there's underlying issues and you don't have money problems. You probably have mindset problems. You have overwhelm, emotional overwhelm, you have a lack of safety, disorganization, subconscious patterns that are writing your money story and sometimes we even have trauma money trauma that's playing out in all the decisions that you make around money. So if we really want to help heal the symptoms, we have to get to what the root cause is.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk about the three issues I see behind money symptoms. The first one is emotional dysregulation. So if you are someone who refuses to check your bank account, if you are someone who opens up the bank account and then feels like you're in fight or flight, it stimulates something in you. If you are someone who tries to have conversations with a partner about money and it leads into anger and fights, if you are someone who can't plan long term because you're so stuck in what's happening this month and how I'm going to get through this month, you may be stuck in emotional dysregulation and you're stuck in a cyclical pattern where money creates stress, so then you create more money problems, so then you create more money systems, which then leads to more stress with money. And if money is a source of anxiety and stress, you're going to continue to create more symptoms.

Speaker 1:

We have to view money as a neutral experience in life. We have to not allow money to emotionally affect us and that's really hard to do, I'm not perfect at it, too emotionally affect us, and that's really hard to do. I'm not perfect at it too. But because I know that money should not be an emotional item, I'm able to look at it with more clear eyes. When we operate from an emotionally dysregulated state, we don't see clearly. It's like wearing goggles that are covered in paint. We can't see how we should approach this problem and it creates more problems.

Speaker 1:

And my guess is if you're someone who is feeling stuck in money you're living paycheck to paycheck One of the reasons that you are in that situation in the first place is because you haven't separated emotion from money. When we do that, we gain back so much power. When we allow money to dictate how we show up emotionally in life, we are giving our power away to money. And that holy cow, when we take that back, that feeling like I could make millions of dollars or I could be broke in debt and it's not going to affect my happiness, my experience in life, because my experience in life is so much bigger than money. Wow, cool stuff happens when we do that.

Speaker 1:

Another root issue behind money symptoms is subconscious beliefs and identities that you place with money. So often when we self-sabotage, it's not because of our conscious thinking. It's because of what's happening in our unconscious brain. 95% of your day is driven by the subconscious brain, which means only 5% is cognitive. So when you get in the car to take your children to school, how much of that experience do you actually think about? Most of the time, our habits, our routines are subconscious. It's the same with our beliefs and identities, and it isn't until we can pull back and say what beliefs and identities do I have around money that are causing me to act in a certain way? And when we can really target and pinpoint these are the beliefs that I have, this is the identity that I put around money, then you take back your power. That's what I'm all about Empowering you to create change, to make a different life for yourself.

Speaker 1:

Some of the common beliefs and identities I see, with moms specifically, is I'm just bad with money, never been good with it, I overspend, I hate money because it makes me stressed, or I always mess it up. I always spend more than I want to. I can't stick to a budget. I don't contribute financially to my household because I don't bring in a paycheck. Your subconscious beliefs are driving how you interact with money more than your budget, the spreadsheets ever will. It doesn't matter how much money you make, it doesn't matter how much money you spend. Your subconscious beliefs are driving your actions. And until we can really get to the root cause of what are those beliefs, how are you showing up with money? We can't change anything. We can try, but it's never going to stick. The third root cause I see is lack of structure, systems and safe support. So many moms are running on chaos mode. We are busy, we have so many people that need us schedules to follow, people to show up for, and in this chaos mode we get stuck in the monotony, the habits, whatever we've created, and we lose sight of the structure that should be, and that's where we create clarity and change.

Speaker 1:

I'm willing to bet that you don't need more info or more help to be able to budget and save money. I'm pretty sure you know what to do. Most people know what to do when I say how do you budget? People are like oh, it means I spend less than I make. Right, that's very simple. How do I get out of debt? Well, I save money and I put it towards debt. Everybody knows what to do, but most people don't know the right structure. They don't know the right systems in order to be the most successful In a way that also feels emotionally safe and doable, something that is long-term, consistent over time, that doesn't leave me feeling like I'm living in lack or guilty about my spending.

Speaker 1:

You don't need a new spreadsheet. You need something that supports you as a whole person and looks at your life and your needs. You also need community. You need something that is bigger than you, that is going to help you when you get unmotivated, when you feel stressed. Coaching, support that will help you get through those times, because we are not meant to do this alone, and so many moms try to just tackle all of the things that we're supposed to carry on our own, but when we can let that other people carry the burden with us, that is where we create absolute transformation and magic.

Speaker 1:

So if you're someone who has some of these money symptoms that we see, what can you do to actually shift out of these, first we need to regulate. What can you do to actually shift out of these? First we need to regulate. We need to regulate the emotions first. Calm the nervous system. Come to our money symptoms in a way where we are clear-headed so we can look at the numbers, we can look at the, the problems that we may have, and we can look at them with a clear head, which means we got to regulate what's happening in our heart, in our mind, before we ever do that. Some of the ways that I like to do this if I'm feeling stressed about money, if I'm worried about an upcoming bill, I'll go for a walk. I'll spend time outside and in silence, deep breaths. I'll go exercise. I'll go spend time with girlfriends, whatever it is that fills me up, so that I can come back to the problems that I have feeling more peaceful, more at whole.

Speaker 1:

When you try to show up into a conversation with your partner and you are exhausted from the day, you're touched out, from your children bugging you all day. You had to scream at them to get them into bed at night. You cannot come into that conversation with a clear head and it's really important to calm that first, focus on the regulation first, and then you can focus on the plan. Then you can open the budget or have the money conversation that you need to have. The second thing you can do, because our subconscious leads so much of our life is we need to rewire, literally change your identity. And we can do that really easy without changing who you are and how you act. Instead of I'm just bad with money, you rewrite that belief to I'm learning how to be better with money. I can handle money with a clear head or with peace, or whatever that is.

Speaker 1:

You have to speak these new truths to yourself, even if you don't fully believe them yet. You need to be able to cognitively notice the belief and rewrite it just in your thoughts and I'm telling you, it will start to show up in your life. You'll start to show up in your life much differently. And then, on top of that, you also need a system and something that supports you and meets you where you are. Stop isolating yourself, stop thinking that you need to do this by yourself, and get the support, get the accountability, so that people can keep you on track.

Speaker 1:

That's why we created the Money Mom Club, where we can give you the tools, we can give you the spreadsheets, we can give you the resources, we can give you the system, but we can also give you that mindset, help and that encouragement and the coaching and the community that's involved with it. It's both of those two beautiful worlds blended together to really create transformation. And that's why our members see so much transformation because those two things are blended together. Because I'm all about the tools, I'm all about the structure and the systems. I mean, I'm a mom of four, so I know how important that is. But I also know how important that mindset is. That nervous system regulation, the beliefs, the subconscious identities those things are just as important. And when we can blend those two together, wow, those things are just as important. And when we can blend those two together, wow, you're going to be unstoppable.

Speaker 1:

So, just to wrap this up, I want to leave you with a thought that whatever has brought you here to this point, where you're listening to this podcast, where you are feeling like you need help in the money area, you're not alone. First off, there are millions of moms in the same place that you are, but you can rewrite a different story. What brought you here isn't going to get you where you want to go unless we change something. So even you hitting play on this podcast is the start of that change and that's where coming to the live masterclass that we have in a week, coming and showing up saying yes to yourself and this change is so important. You don't have money problems. You have a very real, normal human experience and response to a world that hasn't taught you how to feel safe and empowered with money yet, but that doesn't have to be your story for the future. You can learn, you can shift, you can change and you can heal. So if you're ready to go deeper with this work, come to my free masterclass, confident With Money, and we're going to explore this even more and dive into the four missing pieces that I see most people are making. That link is in the show notes. Okay, guys, I'll see you next week.

Speaker 1:

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Money Mom podcast. I hope you're walking away feeling inspired, empowered and ready to take the next step toward financial confidence and freedom for your family. If you've loved today's episode, it would mean so much to me if you'd subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast with another mom who could use a little extra encouragement on her money journey. And don't forget to connect with me on Instagram at HeyRachelCoonz, or you can join our thriving money mom club for even more tips, support and resources to help you save, spend and build wealth intentionally. You've got this mama and I'm here to help you save, spend and build wealth intentionally. You've got this mama and I'm here to cheer you on every step of the way. Until next time, remember, every dollar you manage with purpose is another step toward the life you've been dreaming of. I'll see you back here soon on our next episode.

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Rachel Coons

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