1. Fear of knowing– What you don’t know won’t harm you- so the saying goes. But it also will keep you poor. Those who know how much they are saving, spending and investing have the knowledge to build wealth and keep growing it.

2. Professional help is too expensive– Think it is too expensive to go to a fee-only planner?  You are right. So don’t get the help you need and stay poor. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money.

If you can’t afford a Financial Planner, then use a Financial Coach and if you can’t afford a Financial Coach, then buy books or take a course in personal finance to get you going in the right direction. Think of it as an investment in yourself -not an expense.

3. Resistance to change– There are so many choices and options out there; so you freeze until you find time to figure them all out. No choice is a choice. By not changing your situation for the better you can stagnate in poverty consciousness for the rest of your life and then one day wonder why you never built up your net worth to enjoy the lifestyle you deserve. Learn how to constantly change your personal finances to build wealth for the long term.

Usually people wait to for a life changing event like a birth, death, career change, retirement, or inheritance to deal with their finances. But with the tools that are available on the internet you can make your own financial plan for very little cost. The trouble is that there is so much “noise” out there. How will you tell what’s a good resource and what’s not? That’s when a good Financial Advisor or a Financial Coach can help you plan your finances around the lifestyle you want and show you the right tools and resources specifically for your situation. Isn’t that valuable to you?

What makes working with a financial professional powerful is the financial knowledge that you can take with you. You are building on a money making relationship with your Financial Advisor. You work hard for your money. Isn’t it time to get your money working for you? Avoid these 3 mistakes and you can build wealth easily.

© Fern Alix-LaRocca CFP® All Rights Reserved

The post To Build Wealth You Must Avoid These 3 Mistakes first appeared on Whole Hearted Way.

Do You Know You Have a Money Personality?

Here’s a related question for you. Ever wonder why you procrastinate about financial matters? It may be due to your deep-seated money personality. We’ve all developed money habitudes and attitudes over the years – learned from our parents, our teachers and our peers.

Some of the information we absorbed about money may not be serving us so well now. For example, if you were raised in an atmosphere of scarcity, you may spend your whole life craving things you can’t afford and you now overspend to get them. On the other hand, if you grew up with abundance, you may expect things will always come easily to you. If your mom was a spendthrift, you may become one too or, you may overcompensate by becoming a miser.  If your dad procrastinated about important money decisions and took the attitude “things will work themselves out”, you may find yourself taking the same approach.

My Money Story

My mother and father were extremely frugal, especially my father. He didn’t want anything. Buying him a gift was torture because it was impossible to figure out what he would like – except peanuts, he loved peanuts.  So my siblings and I would end up buying him canisters of planter’s nuts for any occasion that required a gift.  His frugality rubbed off on my mom. Going out to eat with her is challenging. She’ll look at a menu and always order the cheapest thing on it – or a side salad.  Not a comfortable experience when you’ve just ordered filet mignon.

We kids would only get the “necessities” – food, clothing (thankfully we wore school uniforms!) and shelter. So, I learned early on that if I wanted the “extras”, I needed to find a way to buy them myself. This was probably a good thing, as I became self-sufficient at a very early age. But I also rejected the frugality of my parents and have been known to indulge myself on occasion. I’ve worked hard to find a good balance between being frugal and being extravagant.

Can you change your money personality?

Like anything with psychological or emotional roots, it’s possible but it takes work.  Deborah Price is the author of Money Magic, Unleashing Your True Potential For Prosperity and Fulfillment. She is the founder of the Money Coaching Institute based in Petaluma, California and she has developed a money coaching curriculum with the aim to “combine both practical financial guidance with sound psychological principles to help you transform your relationship with money and lead a more purposeful and prosperous life.”

In my own financial planning practice, I find that the more I know about my client’s money type or personality, the better I can serve them. To that end I have each client fill out a money personality questionnaire, which seeks answers to such questions as:

• What messages did your receive about money as a child growing up?
• How did you parents handle money?
• Did you feel like you got an adequate financial education growing up?

Most people are perfectly willing to do this exercise and seem to find the opportunity to explore the emotional and psychological aspects of money cathartic. If I interview a potential client who is in financial trouble and I sense a pattern in his/her life, I will often suggest they work with a money coach first as a precursor to the more technical financial planning work.

If you think that you may be acting in ways that sabotage your chance of financial success and it’s become a pattern  – read, sign up for a workshop, talk to trusted friends or advisors, or engage a Wealth Coach.

-Cathy Curtis CFP, Curtis Financial Planning

The post Financial Planner Helps You Discover Your Money Personality first appeared on Whole Hearted Way.