89: From Scarcity to Abundance: Redefining Money Mindset for Moms

In this special episode, Rachel Coons shares her transformative journey from financial overwhelm to abundance, as she’s interviewed by Monica Packer at the More for Moms Conference. 

Rachel opens up about the emotional side of money, the unique challenges moms face, and how shifting your mindset can bring peace—even when life feels chaotic.

Discover practical tips for saving on groceries, building a healthier relationship with money, and embracing generosity and gratitude.

Whether you’re struggling to make ends meet or simply want to feel more empowered with your finances, this conversation offers hope, actionable advice, and a reminder that you’re not alone.

xoxo,
Rachel

Where to find me:
Instagram: @heyrachelcoons

Join me for my free training to cut your grocery bill by $600 every month: Register HERE

Transcript

Welcome And Episode Context

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey there. Today on the podcast, I am actually uploading a recording of an interview where I was interviewed by my good friend Monica Packer, who hosted a summit a couple months ago. And this was my speech at the summit. And I really wanted to bring this episode onto my podcast because I think it's a beautiful conversation about money and how moms can feel peace around money, even when you're doing so much in your life. So stay tuned. 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 Coons, 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, 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.

Rethinking Budgeting Culture

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Rachel Coons, a warm welcome to the More for Moms conference. It's so great to have you here. So happy to be here. So you have saved me a lot of money. A ton of money over the last 18 months that I've used your tips to save money on groceries. But the thing that I keep thinking about you is how your take on money is different than most people in the budgeting space. Where, well, actually, how about you tell us? What does that field normally like? Like what are people's relationship with money tend to be like when you're learning from experts and the people in the space who want to learn how to budget too?

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Yeah, I I would say that there's there's quite a few differences between me and the budgeting space. And I actually like sometimes really hate even being wrapped up in that space because of the connotations that can come from it. And, you know, it comes from my own experiences, but I've heard this from a lot of other moms as well. When you jump when you jump into a budgeting world, it's a lot of it is masculine energy of um spreadsheets, numbers, restriction, scarcity, those types of things. Like you have to budget because there's not enough money, or you are spending hours tracking spreadsheets and feeling bad about the money that you're spending. And so I just want to completely rewrite that narrative of how why we budget and how budgeting can feel free and can feel more abundant and change the way that we experience money instead of feeling like I have to budget or else I won't have enough money or there's never enough money. So that's why I have to budget. It's taking a whole new approach to it.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Which is such a relief to hear. Like there's even an exhale as I'm listening to that, because that does feel indeed more freeing to even hear. So let's talk about your own story with that then, because this is the field you're in, but was that freeing abundant mindset something that you naturally had, or is it something you had to earn?

Rachel’s Story And First Wins

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Sure, yeah, I love that question. So um, I mean, my story kind of goes back to when I first became a mom. I in 2014 left the workforce, um, quit my job so I could have my first son. And in doing that, like stop from stopping working to staying home with my kids all day, every day. I feel like a part of me kind of died as I stepped away from this empowering money aspect of my life. And it wasn't until 2020 when I had just had my last child, my fourth baby, that I just felt like this pull to step back into the financial aspect of our marriage, our family, all of those things. We had lots of goals that we wanted to accomplish. We were in lots of debt. And I decided at that time that I had the space and energy to kind of jump back into, you know, maybe not necessarily getting a job, but doing the most with the money that was coming in. And budgeting felt really overwhelming. And I think that's how a lot of moms feel, especially, you know, I have four kids and I'm changing diapers and I'm getting dinner on the table. And how do I ever have the time and space to sit down and like run numbers? That was just not appealing to me. And so it was at that time that I just started tracking our spending and seeing where the money was going. And that was when I noticed that my grocery spending was really high. I was spending a lot of thousands of dollars every single month on groceries. And I thought to myself, okay, instead of like looking at all of our budgets and trying to like crunch numbers in all these different areas, why don't I just focus on this one budget? Because it felt like I could actually move the needle on that one budget. And in doing so, you know, Monica, you've experienced this. But in doing that, I was able to save our family$500 every single month. And what I created made it easier to get dinner on the table. I was saving time, meal planning and grocery shopping and all of those things. And so it started with my grocery spending where I saw the change that happened with our finances just from that one budget. But in doing that, it also gave me this desire to like, okay, now I can run the money. Now I can feel like I'm empowered to make some changes because I've seen the success that happens when I focus on just that one budget. And so it kind of snowballed into that, you know, and then fast forward a couple of years later where we can talk a little bit about money mindset and this experience of I felt like we were living in scarcity all the time, where we were just always stressed about the next shoe to drop. We are always worried about, you know, the next bill and not having enough money. And rewriting my experience with money and my relationship with money was kind of the final thing that I focused on. I wish it had been the first thing that I focused on because I think it would have changed a lot of things, you know, emotionally, mentally, um, how my husband and I experienced money together, it would have been so much better had we focused on that at the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Okay. I actually want to hear why. Like, why do you think, in hindsight, now that you wish you had started more with your relationship with money even before you changed how you were spending it, saving it, budgeting it, investing it.

Why Mindset Must Come First

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Because your relationship with money, the thoughts, feelings, emotions that you have around money is the foundation. It is, it is the base for everything else. And you can experience, you can have an experience with money that is numbers, and then you have an experience with money that is emotional. And I don't care who you talk to, everyone will agree that money is emotional. So much energy tied up in it. And if I could have had a more stable emotional state when I dealt with the numbers, it would have made everything easier. It would have made my relationship easier. It would have made making money, spending money, experiencing money just easier in general. And so it's kind of like that same thing that you talk to people who have marriage problems or emotional traumas or whatever, and they go to therapy and they're like, wow, I wish I would have figured this out 10 years ago. It's that same experience. Like, yeah, we can change the outside world, we can change the physical world and we do that. But how do we also change the internal world? And I believe that the internal worlds can be more important and more foundational than that external world.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Mm-hmm. I think we all know rich people who feel very scarce with their money, very fear-driven, stress-driven. And we all know people who have less but view it differently. Like, I don't know if the word is more generosity and acceptance and value. Um, and of course, so everyone's somewhere in between that, I'm sure. Before we apply this to them, I want to hear personally like what would be a few descriptive words of what the feelings were with money before, and what are the descriptive words with your relationship with money now?

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Yeah, the feelings that I had was that there's never enough, that we would never feel like there was enough, that I always focused on the lack. I always focused on what wasn't there, and I never focused on what was there. And it was a lot of it was scarcity driven. So, you know, I didn't want to give, I didn't want to spend money, I was afraid to spend money. I'm one of those people, and there's lots of different money personalities out there, but I was one of those people that I felt guilty every time I spent money. I felt like, you know, spending something fun for myself or buying myself a new pair of shoes or whatever made me feel really bad. Um, I also wasn't very generous, to be honest. Like I um would donate some money and that was it. Like I didn't want to give money in other areas. And so, you know, that was the start. And then I would say now it's more like there will always be enough. There's this abundance, this, the, the possibility for what there is out there. Um, I'm super grateful. I have so much more gratitude when it comes to my experience with money. And there's much more generosity there as well, where I don't, I'm not as I'm not afraid to spend it. I have this belief of a flow, like there's a flow of money. It comes to me and it and it leaves me, and it's just more freeing.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

I love that. And I think that's the goal, what you just shared, the ladder there. And then I'm sure there's also gonna be people who like me who are who are watching and listening to this and thinking, but how? How did you do that?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

So that's what's next. You get to tell us how, not just how you did it, but how they can do it too. What are some key ways moms can change their relationship with money?

Diagnosing Your Money Story

SPEAKER_00 10:12

So the first thing that is the most important is this the diagnosis, right? The self-diagnosis, the coming to understand how you experience money. Because again, everyone has different experiences of money. I could log into my bank account and see$600 and be so happy and elated that there's$600 in there. And then you could talk to a different person who logs into their bank account and sees$600 and has a massive panic attack, freak out, right? So really coming to grip with how does money show up in my life and how do I experience money? What does that look like? Um, diagnosing when you feel certain emotions, and then how can we get to the bottom of your money story? And everyone's money story, again, is different. It's so dependent on how you were raised, what conversations you had around money growing up, what different beliefs were ingrained in you growing up. You know, I heard the the belief that money doesn't grow on trees. That was a big one. And money is evil, right? People who have money are evil.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Like selfish.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Yes. Or this idea that yeah, even going after money had this the the seeking, you say like seeking riches was not a not a good thing. That was not a good thing. And so um going back to my money story and how that was built, and then really rewriting those beliefs, whatever they are, with with more positive, more abundant beliefs. Uh, but again, that is so dynamic and so versatile with whatever you experienced. Um, and then another thing that is really, really helpful is how do we incorporate gratitude? How do we incorporate that generosity, that experience? How can we experience money in a more abundant giving mindset? Um, exercises, things that you can do are also very important. A lot of journaling, a lot of um just small, minute changes in your day-to-day experience with money, noticing the thoughts that come in and then rewriting those thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

So much of this, like you said, is an internal world.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

And and so hearing the how is equal parts, helpful, and then also still like, but how? You know, because if you haven't done it, then it feels a little mysterious to do it.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

But you gave us a couple tangible examples there. Uh, can you break down one or two of those or add another one if you have one of like a here's like an actual practical thing that you can do in a moment.

Balancing Emotions And Numbers

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Well, okay, before we do that, because I do want to come back to this idea that you know, we're talking about the feminine energy around money, right? The thoughts and feelings. That's not the only portion that's important, right? We do need the masculine. We do need the numbers, the budgeting, the tools to do that. So those are they're they're not one or the other, they're and we need both. So when I'm talking about this, you know, changing our thoughts, beliefs, experiences with money, there's also tangible tools that you need to incorporate as well. But what I will say is I think that the number one thing when we talked about the diagnosis, the the recognizing the beliefs that come in. When you are in a state of chaos with money or fight or flight, you know, we all know that experience of like the bill comes in the mail, or we open up the bank account and we experience our nervous system, our body experiences a change. Most people don't recognize that. But I will tell you that when you open the bank account and there's not enough money, or you see the credit card debt or whatever it is, there is a physical change that happens within your body. And when we have that change, when our body goes into chaos mode or fight or flight or anything that like that, your your brain starts to create truths that aren't actually truths, but they're beliefs that you have. And it's really, really hard to separate emotion from fact in that experience. Like you're, you know, your body is like getting chased by a lion. That's what it's designed to do. And so when we notice those experiences, when when our body is literally going into that fight or flight, the best thing we can do is tune to the state of the body first before we tune to the external world. If you are having an emotional reaction to something that is happening with money, don't fix the problem. That's not the time. That's not, you don't have the right energy. You need to go fix the state of the body first. So, what that sometimes looks like is closing your computer and going for a walk, going and sitting in silence for 10 minutes, doing a breathing exercise, calming the body first so that way we can look at the problem with a clear head and trying to take out as much emotion as possible. I have a I have an experience with this. If you want me to give you like a daylight play of this actually happening.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Yes.

A Real Crisis And The Reset Walk

SPEAKER_00 15:19

So a couple months ago, I so I run a business, and a couple months ago, we had some expenses come in that weren't expected. And so when I opened the credit card statement, it was higher than the number that was in my bank account. And it was much higher. And in that moment, I like first off, tears in my eyes, freaking out, literally freaking out. The the blood pressure starts rising, the heart starts rising. You're like, what is this mess that I've got in my sense? And how am I ever going to fix it? Right. It just felt too big for me to conquer. And I recognized that. I knew, okay, you are now having a reaction to the numbers on the screen, and you're creating a future that isn't actually true. So in my head, I was like, crap, I'm not gonna be able to pay off the credit card. I'm gonna go into credit card debt. I'm never gonna be able to get out of it when I'm paying 20% interest on my credit card. There's no way I can ever like make the money up to pay this off. In that moment, I recognized the experience that I was having and decided I am actually not going to deal with this right now. This is not helping me. I'm thinking from a place of lack. I am thinking from a place of scarcity. I closed my computer and I went on like a five-mile walk. My husband was home, luckily, and I was like, Brad, I just need to go clear my head. I was really frustrated and really upset that we had gotten into that position, but I went for a walk. For the first couple of miles, I didn't even listen to anything. I didn't even like put my headphones in. I just was in silence, really trying to calm the body down. Came back and opened up my computer again, looked at the numbers, and like literally coached myself through this process of like what you think is actually happening is not true. You know the plan, you know what you can do. You can start to shift some money around, you can do something different in the future so that you're not leading to that end game of like failure, right? And I wanted to solve the problem right then and there. And I gave myself permission to not solve the problem. It was not going to be fixed within a day. It was going to take me time. It actually took me about two and a half months to work through that problem. But I had the plan, I had the calm, and I was able to work through it. And within the past month, so this was all very recent. Yes. Last month, we finally paid off the credit card. The bank account is now more than the credit card. And I learned something really important in that lesson. I learned the mistakes that I made that got me in that position. And I will never make those mistakes again. But I also learned something that's even more important is that every problem is fixable. Every problem, even if it doesn't feel fixable in the moment, there will be ways that you can fix it. You always have. You've always fixed it in the past and you will fix it in the future. Um, so that was a really powerful experience for me.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Yeah, I can feel the trust that you had in yourself and that you got to that place of self-trust, even in a difficult scenario where there wasn't a quick fix or an easy fix. I I actually love hearing that it took a couple months to solve that problem because that's really relatable for most of us who have those kinds of money problems that that pop up for all of us. I wanted to cue into the generosity piece as well, the gratitude piece. Can you give us an example of something you've done in those moments to to to lead with that that generosity that you've done?

Gratitude And Generosity In Practice

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yeah, and I I should have, I should have talked about that more too in this process. One of the things that I try to do anytime a negative thought comes in is to think about three things that I am grateful for, three things that I can notice that are positive in the situation. You know, whatever that is, you know, I'm grateful I'm even making money. I'm grateful that I know the problem exists, you know, that it's not just I'm not blindly making mistakes. So there's always a way to find gratitude, to find the positive. Our brain doesn't want to do that. And we are hardwired to look for the negative. So the first and most important thing is to even notice that there's negative thoughts. That's the most important. Then, okay, that now we got it. Now we gotta rewrite. Or even just saying those things to yourself, even if you don't whole body believe them, introducing that there could be a space for gratitude. In that moment is so so powerful. Even the like frequency, the energy that comes from gratitude is so high. And when we have negative thoughts, that those that energy, that frequency is so low. So it can we just literally change our frequency to attune to a different energy.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Can you share some examples of people in your membership community that have, I mean, you share so many, like the masculine side that is that people want in terms of the how to the practical side, like there's so much there in addition to those deeper internal shifts that you're making. And you guide people through both. So um, I'd love to hear an example or two of people from your money moms community. So moms and the shifts that they made internally and how it's changed things on the outside too for them.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Sure. Yeah. One of the things that I love to see, and I see it a lot, is that they were able to spend money without guilt and feeling like I, you know, was I donated money to this cause, or I got my friend a new a gift for something and it didn't feel it didn't feel hard. Um, especially when they feel like they have the extra money, the wiggle room in their budget because of that. To also feel like money, and this is another thing that we see a lot, is money doesn't run their life. Getting off the roller coaster of emotion that money brings and just disengaging from that circus altogether, where they can look at their accounts, they can look at the money, and it doesn't create an energy into their body. It doesn't actually make a negative feeling. That is that that is like hats off. I'm I've done my job. If I can do that for somebody, that's so powerful. Um, the gratitude, being able to sit in gratitude more often, um, and just the calm. Like we see that a lot is like chaos to calm. And and that's really wonderful when I see that happen.

Community Wins And Less Guilt

SPEAKER_01 22:01

One thing for me that has been really fun is I feel less fear, I feel more trust, and I also can have a little bit more fun, you know, to just be okay taking my kids to get a little treat here and there has just been so nice. And to not stress so much as we drive away from getting them slurpees or something like seemingly innocuous that like that. That used to just make me feel so sick before. But one, because I do have a little bit more wiggle room thanks to your your what you've taught me about saving money, but also it's helping me rewire the internal relationship with it too, which goes hand in hand. I do want to ask a final kind of tricky question on this topic, and it's for the butt girls, and that sounds wrong. So let me explain. Since we're both online, we both know what it's like to be teaching something and then to get that message that says butt, but this doesn't apply to me because of this. So let's do that for the butt girls who are thinking, but no, you don't understand. Like, we I can barely pay for groceries right now. You don't understand. I have special needs that like speech therapy is kicking our butts. Like, I don't know how I can afford anything like that. We're massively struggling. So, how can I look at my money in an abundant way when we are truly just trying to keep our head above water?

For The “But” Objections

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Yeah, and I actually really love speaking to this person if if you are somebody who is feeling that way for multiple reasons. But one of them is money is really lonely, right? We don't talk about debt, we don't talk about this overwhelm, we don't talk about not having enough money at the end of the month. Yet it is a very popular place to be, I will say. There are so many people out there who are in the same experience that you are. You just don't know it. You're you are encountering people that are struggling just as much as you are, if not more, every single day. And um, so it's really lonely. It can also be very shame-inducing, right? There's a lot of shame that comes with money. But here's the thing that I this is why I want to speak to that person. There's a lot of shame because people feel like I'm just bad with money, right? I haven't made good uh choices in the past and it's led me to where I am today. First off, you need to give yourself some grace because nobody teaches you how to handle money correctly. We didn't learn it in school. You didn't take a class in college on how to budget correctly, how to invest properly, how to set yourself up for a financial success. Unfortunately, that is the nature of our world these days. You know, almost half of America is in credit card debt, some type of credit card debt. So that just goes to show that we're not doing this correctly. But on the flip side of that, that doesn't mean that you have to travel this road alone. And it doesn't mean there are not people and books and podcasts and so many. There are so many resources out there. You just have to find the one that speaks to you and that you resonate with and you feel like is going to give you the help that you need. Again, you can do this alone, right? 100%. You can get the resources, you can learn the things that you need to, but you don't have to if you don't want to. And um, I would just challenge you: don't sit in this place of my story is just the worst and there's nothing I can do about it, or a fear of what the future will hold. You can sit there if you want to, but you don't have to. And sometimes all it takes is just one step forward, just one movement in the right. And we can talk about trajectories, just one 1% change can change so much in the future, but we have to actively change the trajectory. We have to actively make that 1% change to do something different, because what has brought you to this point won't get you to where you want to be unless you change something. Um, and it doesn't have to feel overwhelming. It doesn't have to be a massive uphaul of everything that you know. It can just be a little change.

Tiny Changes, Big Trajectories

SPEAKER_01 26:28

That is very encouraging, especially because I think one of the things we convince ourselves of is that we are the only ones and that we've done it wrong. Right. And so to just know, no, this is how a lot of people feel, way more than you may think. Even a lady who looks like she has a really fancy purse in the line next to you may be in massive amounts of debt. Right. Like, you know, we are in this together, but also 1%, one little change. And that's where you also come in. So let's let's talk about your freebie that you have for them. A fantastic training, how to save$600 next month on groceries, and I can attest to it. I can attest to the efficacy of what she teaches. So tell us about this trading.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Yeah. So again, going back to my own story of like feeling overwhelmed, wanting to move the needle on our finances and just didn't know where to start. Grocery, saving money on groceries is the fastest. I mean, fast, right? We're talking like 30 days, the fastest and easiest way to have extra money in your bank account every month. So so we start there. We start with the grocery savings. That's the foundation. And then we move deeper from there. But that I think is the fun place to start. Saving money, saving time, still eating all the foods you want to. Um, and so I teach you how to do that with my four-step proven method in that training.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Fantastic. We will link to that. You have a bonus for our all access pass holders, um, the money mindset audio course tells about that too.

Free Training And Member Resources

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Yeah. So that's just a 21 day intensive audio intensive that I don't want to like scare people away. But it is 21 days of audio trainings with exercises, journal prompts, things to change your relationship with money. We go down to the roots of your money story and how you experience money and every day, like a 10-minute audio that we help to rebuild the correct thoughts, the correct experiences. Um, and in 21 days, we can take you from that chaos to calm. And so um, that audio course is available to premium members.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Awesome. And speaking of membership, you've got the Money Mom Club is a great place for them to land. We'll make sure we link to that, to your Instagram, to your podcast, and to the freebie as well. Our final question that we've been asking every single speaker is this What is one way you are currently seeking for more out of your life?

SPEAKER_00 28:50

So I think the the biggest thing is deeper connections with myself and my spirituality, where I am connecting with the divine more often. And for me, that looks like sitting in silence as often as possible. And I'm not very good at that because I'm a doer and I and I like to get things done and I like to be active. And so um stopping and and sitting still for, you know, I'm starting at like five minutes a day. Hopefully, I'm I I know it has in the past, but really connecting me deeper to that sense of self and um connecting with the divine. That's I think that's what I would say.

Seeking More Through Stillness

SPEAKER_01 29:34

I couldn't love that more. Rachel, this has been such an amazing resource and uh a thought-provoking session, too. I'm really gonna be thinking about this one for a long time. I'm so appreciative of the time and expertise that you gave us today. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Thanks for having me.