Financial Power Starts With Awareness (and a Money Date)
You want to feel confident with money. You want to trust that your finances are working for you and supporting the life you are building. You want to be good with money without it turning into a second job or taking over your mental and emotional bandwidth. And you are done letting your financial situation make you feel like shit when it’s not going the way you want.
I want that for you. But I have to address something that keeps coming up.
It’s your wallet. It called and it wants to talk about your constant ghosting. Your money is feeling ignored.
I see this pattern all the time with women like you who earn good money but still live paycheque to paycheque. Somewhere along the way, paying attention to your money started to feel like too much. So, you stepped back, delegated it to someone else, told yourself you’d deal with it when you had more time, or stopped checking your bank account altogether.
Meanwhile, money kept moving.
Income kept coming in. Expenses kept going out. Decisions kept getting made in the background. And that distance slowly disconnected you from the most basic details of your financial life. You lost visibility on what’s coming in, what’s going out, and where your money could actually be taking you between paycheques.
You are stuck because you’re no longer oriented to what’s actually happening with your money.
You’ve distanced yourself from your financial life and your relationship with money.
When money looks managed, and everything seems fine, distance can cost you opportunities to redirect, optimize or grow your money. You lose the chance to align your money with your values in real time.
When you don’t look at money because it is handled by someone else, you are handing over your financial agency. You lose the opportunity to learn and build intuition about money, and to actively participate in how it supports your life.
When you avoid your money because it feels stressful to look at, it stays emotionally charged and unfamiliar. It becomes harder to feel confident making intentional moves with it.
When looking at your finances gets pushed to later, many important decisions get delayed, dates get missed, and issues don't get caught or addressed early enough. Eventually, you'll find yourself needing to put out financial fires when you have the least amount of patience or energy for them.
When money stays out of view for too long, it limits what’s possible for you financially.
Even without your attention, money still does its thing, just without much input from you. After a while, it becomes harder to feel grounded in where you stand. Trust between you and money starts to get shaky. Eventually, your confidence erodes. Decisions are less aligned with your values and priorities. Your financial growth slows.
What you ignore continues. What you pay attention to changes.
Paying attention gives you orientation on where you stand financially and an awareness of how your money moves through your life. Awareness gives you information that can help you act or make a change. Without it, it's tough to know where or how to start making different decisions that better support you. This is especially critical when your financial circumstances point to higher-than-expected spending, less margin or flexibility than you’d like, or other financial patterns that make you cringe. These are the areas that can lead you down a detrimental path if they persist unchecked.
Paying attention can start simply, and it doesn’t need to become all-consuming. The goal isn’t to start hovering over your accounts or tracking every dollar obsessively. The goal is to stay in the loop.
The easiest first step is to set up a short money date with yourself every payday. This creates an anchor point to check in on your money regularly.
How to set up a money date:
Choose a time when you’re not already rushed or emotionally depleted.
Pick a place where you can sit and focus without interruption.
Create an environment that helps you feel present: quiet, music, a coffee, a notebook, and your computer.
Set a clear time boundary.
Pay attention to how your body feels.
Stop when the time is up, even if you feel tempted to keep going.
Aim for something that you can repeat consistently.
Things that you can pay attention to:
The amount of income that came in.
Your account balance.
The committed expenses you need to cover with that pay cheque.
The spendable funds you have left to work with.
The money date is intended to help you understand your financial context and buffer, and what your money needs to do next.
Over time, this small, repeatable practice helps you become more familiar with your money. You trust yourself more with financial decisions because you already know what's happening with your money. You can make adjustments sooner, so minor problems don't become bigger fires later. Ultimately, you build a steadier relationship with money.
So, if you’ve been ghosting your money for a while, let this be your cue to send a low-stakes text back. Your wallet doesn't need a dramatic apology or a grand plan. It just needs a little attention and a sign that you haven't disappeared.
Now go be amazing with your money this week!
— Lise
If you want a clearer picture of your money and don’t want to do it alone, you can book a Wallet Audit with me. It’s a guided review of your actual spending and cash flow so you can understand what’s actually happening with your money and decide what to do next.
