In this episode, we're talking about getting up close and personal with your money so that managing it feels abundant rather than trying to make sure you don't run out.  We're also going to talk about what it feels like to find gratitude and appreciation even for your bills and your debt. You ready? Let's do it. 

Hello. You are listening to the Love Your Life as a Performer podcast. I'm Kelli Youngman and I am the life coach for performers. I help actors, singers, and dancers love themselves and their lives way more. So keep listening to learn how you can love your life both on and off the stage.

Hello, hello, and welcome back to Episode 72 of the Love Your Life as a Performer podcast. This is the third episode in a series all about money and transforming your relationship with money as a performer, creative person on this planet  who wants to be  welcoming and embracing more wealth and abundance. How are you feeling about this series so far? Let me know. Leave a review on the podcast or send me a DM on Insta and share your thoughts. I'd love to know if it's resonating, how you've been implementing this, and what it's kind of opened up for you as you've been just giving your brain a slightly different entry point to money.

So what we're going to talk about today is  the sort of tangible experience of money in managing our funds and also a really important piece about sort of loving and creating compassion around your money. And I will tell you that I have done so much work around this and really changed my perspective when it comes to budgeting. So I'm excited to talk about it. 

Like I said, when we are living on this planet called earth,  living As humans, money is just part of the experience. It's how we engage and exchange value for things that matter to us, things that we want to have in our physical experience. So of course, even though money is energy,  even though money comes from you and the value is coming from you, there still is the sort of managing piece to money, whether you call it budgeting or et cetera, it's so important to know your numbers.

Now  I remember when I was in college, and I've said this before on a podcast, but I'll say it again, like, I was in school and already knew that I was going to have like 100, 000 of debt when I graduated. And it stressed me the fuck out. And I would sit and do what I called budgeting.  And it made me feel terrible. Like, I would just do the math over and over and over again and look at it over and over and over again. And, it wasn't useful. Not because knowing your numbers are not useful, but because of how I was thinking, feeling, and relating to the process of engaging with my money.

So my hope is that as we talk through that, if this is your experience, or if you've been avoiding  looking at your bank account, or if you've been hyper focused on your bank account, right, we just want to create a super delish experience where  You know your numbers, you feel amazing about your numbers, or maybe you don't, that's not required.

And you can find love and energy and forgiveness for your debt. Because, again, I think that's, at least for me and my clients, that's like one of the number one things that has held us back or prevented us from creating a relationship with money that feels amazing. 

Another thing that I'll mention is that for so long, I associated budgeting  with this idea of lack.

And so I would look at budgeting and. do my budget from this place of like, okay, this is all the money I have and I can't spend any of it. So I have to create these really restrictive budgets that  I, you know, I don't spend on anything. And then I was like really miserable.  So again, like it just makes so much sense why I was having such a negative relationship with the process of managing my money.

Yeah.  And so  as you're listening to this episode and as we talk through a new way to engage with managing your money, we're also going to talk about what it looks like to love your money  and even what you would consider air quote money mistakes. I want to give you a slightly different thought, feeling perspective about debt  and just invite you to feel differently about it. Because again, I experienced so much shame,  judgment, and just like guilt about the money circumstances I was experiencing, and it really was just like The Second Layer of emotion that made my relationship with money so much more fucking stressful. Okay. So let's get into it.

When we think about budgeting  or managing our money,  it gets to come from this love for our money  and  this energy of like taking care of our money. Right? I'm sure you've heard of, or maybe you haven't, this idea that we get to treat money like our friend, right? And maybe I even said this on one of the episodes, like, it's like our lifelong companion. It comes around, it goes, it comes, it goes, we use it to amplify our lives and it gets to feel fun. And so when we're looking at budgeting as this limitation in our life, it will feel not so fun,  right? Imagine like hanging out with someone and all the time you're like, no, you can't do that. You can't do that. You're not allowed to do that. That's bad. How dare you? And all the things, right? Like. That person wouldn't really want to hang out with us. The same is true for money. 

Our money loves feeling appreciated, valued, and that it's contributing to our life experience as humans on this planet. And so  again, like. I don't know why I always had this idea that budgeting  like meant that I had no money, right? Like I really associated budgeting with lack and this frequency of like being broke. Like I have to be so tight with my money because I'm broke and so I never created The belief system where managing my money was associated with wealth. And I think this goes back to your money identity of knowing that when you love your money and respect your money and are just like intimate with your money.  It can be this frequency of wealth, not this like stressful experience of like, do I have enough to cover all of my expenses this month or am I fucked? 

So that's number one. And I actually like have a whole entire process inside of the performer's plan where you can look at your expenses, you can track your expenses, you can know what's coming in and out on a regular and consistent basis.  And there's just like tons of apps that can support you in doing this. Now, the main thing with knowing your numbers is just so that you really do know, like how much does it cost to be me on an average, basis.  And like, if I want to expand certain areas or certain ways that I'm using and investing my money, we can just do that intentionally, right? It doesn't have to come from this place of like, where I am now is not good. And we can still be expanding.

So I have this whole process inside of the performer's plan. And I've used a couple different apps and I have one that I'm using right now that I love. And I also have like a spreadsheet in my computer that I call my abundance plan. Because Again, engaging with my money is a habit that I do because I'm wealthy, right? It's a habit that I do because I love money. And because I love my money, it loves me right back, right? So  again, when you're thinking about engaging with your money, it can just come from  Such a different entry point.

Okay,  and so I have it in my computer as my abundance plan I'm constantly engaging with my money and going on what I call money dates And I just sit down and I look at what I'm spending. I categorize it and I Now I'm at a place where this feels so good. It feels so free. I'm not doing it out of fear. I'm doing it out of love, right? So just check in with yourself. When you sit down to do your budgeting, what's the feeling it's creating in your body? And this will help you understand where your focus is, what your thoughts are, and just like how you could slightly shift the way you're thinking and feeling about how about your money. And so that's one that. Knowing your numbers can come from love.  It doesn't have to be fear and anxiety of doing the math over and over again to remind yourself of how broke you are.  Again, ask me how I know I've done it all.

Now, the other thing that I used to do all of the time was feel so awful that  About the money I spent, the debt I had, et cetera. And every now and then my brain still wants to offer this, but I know that it's an old habit. It's not actually how I feel about money now, because the truth is, you know, when I started my business, it was during the pandemic, I did a whole podcast episode about how I invested over 100, 000 in myself in a short amount of time to work with coaches that I trusted to build my business.

And that included me withdrawing money from my 401k, taking out a loan for 30, 000 to, you know, do this mastermind. And I loved those decisions and it felt responsible and safe. And you know, I did that with intention. Now,  I mentioned on a previous episode that even debt is neutral and really, you know, one of my coaches gave me this thought and this belief that debt is just buying money, right?

We get the money now, we pay for it later with the interest, whether it's on a credit card or a loan, a student loan, etc. It's all the same. We're paying  interest on the money we needed at that time. And  I don't know, I think it's easy to go into the narrative of like, Oh my God, I was so irresponsible or I shouldn't have done that. Or now I'm like so screwed. It was the worst decision ever. And.  I feel like when you really zoom out, and I do this a lot for myself, because as I mentioned, I'm still paying back some of these loans, right? It's easy to want to be in the overwhelm and like the, Oh my God, this is so unfair, but the truth is I wouldn't have changed it.  And maybe the same is true for you.

Because the money that you spent gave you something. There was value in it. Like for instance, student loans allowed you to go to college. Or go to a program or invest in a training or a certification or even you know like debt you got from going on a trip or  going on vacation and maybe that was money  that looking back you would have spent slightly differently but either way it afforded you an experience. And!  And even if, even if, because I know that my spending used to be a little wild and not good, bad, right or wrong, but I would just engage with money in this way of like, well, now that I have it, it's here to spend, right? I just didn't have a belief system where,  um, saving money was paying myself in the future.

Like I didn't have that thought or that belief yet.  So the idea of saving felt like a loss, right? Like it felt like, well, if I'm saving this, I can't spend it. So I don't have enough. Right? Which again, it's so interesting how  everything that we're doing with our money and really everything that we do in life comes back to our belief system and our thoughts, which is why it is not just part of how you live your life. It's all of it, right? Our thoughts are creating our reality. 

And so  Yeah, even when air quote, you spent irresponsibly, or you spent more than you should have, or whatever the thought you're thinking is,  I want you to see that even that has value.  And instead of judging ourselves or holding ourselves in this place of feeling guilty, bad, wrong, shameful, we just get to love that experience because either way, we're going to learn and grow from it. Right? It's our teacher. It goes back to this belief that everything in our life is happening for us. And when we zoom out and we remove The Second Layer of guilt, of judgment, et cetera, we just get to see, okay, what were the thoughts and feelings that led to this spending?  Maybe I was doing some emotional shopping, or maybe I was doing some  I don't know, just like  not fully knowing my numbers or avoiding my, my money. So I would just like close my eyes and cross my fingers and hope my card got accepted. And not declined. Right. Like I've totally been there too. 

It's like either way, that experience is giving us an opportunity to learn  and without the judgment and all the other layers of guilt and shame and  bad feelings we put around debt, we just can be grateful  because again, it's like, who am I becoming in the process of loving my money, engaging with money in a way that feels good  and like, Getting clearer about what I truly value and what I want to spend money on.

And like for example I'll just say like  I feel like because of my previous relationship like dining out drinking a lot and like just my habits and my routine was very different. And so a lot of my money went to having  Like, the craziest, bougiest dining experiences ever, right? Like,  and I loved that and I enjoyed those experiences, right? And now I'm at a place where I'm like, okay, like, I still love those things. And like, maybe I want to use that money differently now. There's like no good, bad, right or wrong about it. And we always have the power to make a different choice.

And so regardless of wherever your financial circumstances are now,  again, we get to engage with our money  from a place of love  and we just get to pay back any credit cards, loans, student loans, et cetera, with love, with gratitude. And we can even pay our bills with love. Did you know that? You can pay your rent, your mortgage, all of it, our taxes. We can do that with love.  And when we do,  again, it's like  when we have the belief system that our money comes back to us, that we have access to more of it.  Like then it doesn't have to feel like this fear every single month.

I'll also share that like for a while as I've been going through this process and  A money coach gave me this thought that was super helpful. It's like '  I'm in a period of restabilizing my finances. I remember when I when I first heard that thought and I took it on it just created so much space and neutrality because Yeah, I didn't have to be like, Oh my God, I'm a mess with money. I'm, I'm never going to figure this out. Right? Like the overwhelm really comes from this belief that we're not capable of managing our money. Right? Instead, it's like, yeah, I'm in a period of re stabilization. So I'll give you that thought if you're in the process of learning to love your money.

I'm in the process of getting to know myself with money. I'm in the process  of creating a relationship with money that I love. Because again, the financial freedom doesn't come from circumstances. It doesn't come from a certain amount of money being in your bank account. It comes from how you relate to money.  The same fear that you have about money with a hundred dollars in your bank account could be the same fear someone has about spending ten thousand dollars, eleven thousand dollars, or more. Right? Like it could feel the same regardless of the circumstance. What impacts how you feel about your money is your thinking, right? 

So this is your invitation to get up close and personal with your money. What does it look like to sit down and actually look at six months of your past bank statements? I know that feels so daunting and scary, or at least I know for me at one point it did.  And when you're doing it more regularly, you won't have to go back and look at six months at a time because you're doing it in real time, right?  And  inside of Momentum, I have an entire program called the Performers Plan with a whole module all about money where you get to walk through this process, you get to look at what do I spend typically on these categories, and you get to then adjust and make, make any change you want to start allocating money to the things you desire, right? Like this really deep, does get to be your abundance planning, so that you don't only sometimes have money, but that you always have money.

And when you start looking at your bank account with love, and you start seeing that money is in the account,  and you start affirming to yourself, I always have more than I need. This is when you start shifting your Money Identity, and start welcoming in more, right? It's the frequency of how you're relating to your money on a day to day basis, which is going to influence how your relationship to money feels.

Okay.  So again, if you want that guided process, if you want to be working on your money beliefs, come join us inside of Momentum. Like I said, I have a whole module that will walk you through this in depth. And even if you don't, like, what does it look like to engage with your money in a way that feels loving? And What does it look like to also honor and acknowledge and be aware of practices that don't feel good? Practices that might feel responsible, air quote responsible, but that are actually making you feel like shit, right? This is where you get to look at it neutrally with love and ask yourself, is this creating a net positive result with my money?

Is this  giving me access to feeling wealthy and abundant? Am I allowing my money to feel wealthy and abundant when I have money?  Because again, you'll be so surprised at  like how common it is to have money but treating yourself like you have none, right? It's just like, it's a habit. It's a practice. And you get to decide that you're in a period where you're shifting your relationship to money so that managing, budgeting, creating abundance, whatever you want to call it, engaging with your money feels fun.

It feels free.   It feels loving and kind and generous to yourself when you do it right. And that will  include forgiving yourself for whatever money mistakes you think you've made in the past and releasing all of the judgment or beliefs that keep affirming that you're bad with money.  You're not bad with money.  And if you're great with money, great, you're great with money. But  I'm speaking specifically right now to people like me that tell themselves over and over again, that you're not good with money. What if that's not true? 

And even if it was true, again, you get to step into the belief that you're in the process of becoming a boss with your money. That you're fucking amazing at money  and that the work you do now to reestablish and recreate a healthier relationship to your money, your money management, to your debt, to any facet of your financial world, you just get to keep affirming  that  money is safe with you. You're great at hosting and having and utilizing money and that you're.  in control of it. Because you truly, truly are. Even when you're paying for debt, even when you're inviting in new ways to make money,  all of it can exist at the same time and it can still feel good. All right,  that's what I got for you this week, and I'll meet you back here for another episode.

Hey, I want to invite you to get started, because if this is blowing your mind, imagine the impact of when we actually work together. You get to love your life as an actor, singer, or dancer, even including auditions. And if that sounds amazing, come join us here. Inside of momentum, you get lifetime access to the performer's plan, coaching, community, and more, and I will be supporting you the entire way. Go to Kelliyoungmanwellness.com/momentum to  join us now.