The Power of Financial Wellness and Money Habitudes

Today’s discussion is on the power of financial wellness and money habitudes with Cara Macksoud, FBS®, a certified Financial Behavior Specialist®. Cara completed the Financial Therapy Graduate Certificate at Kansas State University and holds a BS in Finance from NYU Stern School of Business. She is a member of the Financial Therapy Association where she serves on their business development committee. She is also a member of the Association of Financial Counseling and Planning Education (AFCPE®) and is an AFC® candidate.

Here is the MONEY HABITUDES CODE to try the assessment. I would love for you to discuss the results with me so I can help with your financial journey. https://online.moneyhabitudes.com/#/codes/KQ6NFERP

The purpose of the Dr. Sev Talks Money podcast is to educate and empower people so they maximize their money superpower and increase their money IQ.

The goal is hope through sharing of Lessons Learned, Practical Tips, Realistic Strategies and Workable Solutions that lead to financial freedom.

Dr. Sev encourages people to take control of their finances with a practical plan that’s tailored to their specific needs so they can reach their own financial goals.

Here is one way you can support the podcast and YouTube channel: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/DrSevTalksMoney

My website: www.sevtalksmoney.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DrSeverineBryan–SevTalksMoney

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sevtalksmoney/

#budgeting #creditcards #debtconsolidation #emergencyfunds #debt #payingdebt

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/drsevtalksmoney/message
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/drsevtalksmoney/support

Podcast Transcript

Dr. Sev  

Today’s discussion is on the power of financial wellness and money habitudes. And I have a special guest with me. Her name is Cara Macksoud. She is a certified financial behaviour specialist. And she is CEO of Money Habitudes. And we’re going to talk about some of that today. She is a member of the Financial Therapy Association, where she serves on their business development committee. In addition, she is a member of the association of financial counselling and planning education AFCPE. and is pursuing her accredited financial counsellor certificate. Now, have you ever met someone every time you talk with them? They just drop gems and every conversation you walk away from, there’s a gem that you can marinate on? Well, whenever I talk with Cara, or attend any of her presentations, I can assure you I walk away with Jim. And I can assure you that today you are going to do the same. So without further fanfare, I welcome my special guests. Cara.

Cara Macksoud  

Hi, how are you? Dr. Sev all right. Wonderful. You see the sweetest things about me. I want to come talk to you all the time. I feel the same way. Every time we leave a conversation. I’m like, There’s chock full of information here.

Dr. Sev  

Awesome. Awesome. That’s how it’s supposed to be right? 

Cara Macksoud  

Exactly, share the information, right? Financial, financial, everything should be one pile of sharing information.

Dr. Sev  

Amen. We have a comment in here. So let me acknowledge one of my viewers, my faithful viewer, Beverly Harper, thank you so much, Beverly, for showing up today and supporting us. Alright, so before we get deeper into this conversation, I want to remind everyone that our discussion is more along the lines of educational and entertainment and not financial advice, I invite you to contact your personal financial advisor, your financial counsellor, or financial coach, to get information specific to your situation, because we can talk about in general about things, but we don’t know your entire financial situation unless you come to talk to us. So with that said, Cara, I like to have you share with us your background and your journey to becoming a certified financial behaviour specialist. 

Cara Macksoud  

Before we say one thing, I just want to tell the listeners if you don’t know your need, I don’t know if I need a personal financial counsellor, an advisor, a planner, is it the bank teller, if I don’t know who I need? Ask the questions. Right. So if I get nothing more for me today, I give you permission to ask all the questions. Yeah, feels uncomfortable. I don’t care. Ask as the bank teller, who do I go to for this? Or I want to do this, who should I talk to beware of the salesy people. Ask the questions, right. And try to get all the information. i Sorry, little sidebar there. Oh, that’s okay. But how did I get into so this is it’s such an interesting journey that I’ve kind of been on. I spent my early career working in Wall Street, I was very young, I went to the trading floor and and it happened to be a perfect job for me out of a ball of energy. And I’m a very chaotic kind of kid. It suited the personality. But it was a job that paid a lot of money. And I didn’t come from my dad’s a school bus driver. My mom was always a part time employee, you know, bookkeeping. So I didn’t come from any sizable amount of money. I mean, we were middle class, maybe even lower middle class, but we had what we needed nothing more, nothing less. 

Cara Macksoud  

But I got to Wall Street was very gluttonous and over the top and ridiculous, infused with, you know, a whole bunch of substance and all of that, which for me was I was a Catholic school kid, like it was all at once. Fast forward, I get married, I have five kids, and I stayed home to raise my kids. And so as I was reentering the workforce, I went back into the nonprofit world and strictly because my nonprofit allowed me to have flexibility, right and time, the only thing money can’t buy time. So for me, I went to this whole other direction. And then that was a whole different ballgame. It was all of these people doing this great work, often times, but they never looked at budgets or business models or rate, they would be like we’re saving blah, blah, blah. And then people should just give us money to do this. And I thought, well, this seems a little bizarre, because where I came from in capitalism, you are responsible for your own ROI. You are responsible for your own profit margins. I get that nonprofits were getting money from donors, but don’t the donors want to know you’re using those dollars to the accountability, right of your ability? So I would see things happen and that was my first inclination to like, whoa, money gets treated so differently based on the way the people view that money. Right, so this is gonna sound silly,

Dr. Sev  

Can we stop and say that again. Yes, money gets treated differently based on the way you view that money.

Cara Macksoud  

Exactly. So let’s break this down. You have a Benjamin in your pocket, I have a Benjamin in my pocket. For those who don’t know, Benjamin, he’s on $1. Bill, you and I go to the store and we want to buy a bottle of water. Right? The bottle is $3.25 for the quart bottle, we’re both gonna wind up with $96.75 change. So all of that is just stayed exactly the same. What is different is how you got Benjamin and how I got Benjamin, what you did to get Benjamin, what I did to get Benjamin, how you feel about that money in your pocket? And how I feel about do I think that bottle of water was expensive? Or was I blase about it? Or did I think it was cheap, great boy feel about it. Right? So did I buy it at a desperation because I’m so thirsty that I never would spend $3 on, you know, on a bottle of water, but I was so thirsty that I bought it. And you are like, Oh, I buy bottles of water all the time walking down the block, right? Like,

Dr. Sev  

That’s my daughter.

Cara Macksoud  

Therein lies the difference. Benjamin himself is no different. And you and I don’t get to go to the store and say to the teller at the at the cashier. Hey, I worked so hard for this money, you should only charge me $2. That’s not how it works. Yeah. So it’s how we feel and treat the money. So back to my little nonprofit story. The nonprofit I wound up working for was working with the New York City Mayor’s office. And we were tasked with a workforce development programme in giving out incentives to all of these unbanked to define unbanked. Those are people that have absolutely no bank account, check cashing places, or their primary place of banking. And it became a accounting nightmare, first of all, but second of all, when I realised they would give up so much money to the check cashing places, I thought, Well, why would you do that? Like, why would you give up your own money to get your money like it? 

Cara Macksoud  

Again, I didn’t come from a world like that. So it really took me a hot minute to not only educate myself on why that was their primary choice, but also about why communities have what they have, how they become who they become. Well, in that I developed a small financial education curriculum for these students. And then the people in my room, who were the teachers of these classes with these kids, after I give this whole piece on financial education, it was bizarre to me to find out that these were people who had multiple degrees, were quite intelligent, and had just as little knowledge about finances, as this kid who was going to the check cashing place to cash his $20, check and pay $3. Literally, my head was spinning. And I was like, Wait a second, what is happening here, and then to recognise that the person with all of those degrees net worth was actually quite horrendous compared to this young person who was oftentimes living because we worked a lot with like shelters. So oftentimes, the people that were coming to us were living in shelters, and their net worth was actually much greater, like, hundreds of times greater than the person who had four degrees and still didn’t understand how money worked. Yeah.

Dr. Sev  

That education means such a difference, right? Understanding, how old and wise of money makes such a difference? Because, you know, I study that I looked at, said 60 plus percent of people who are six figure earners live paycheck to paycheck, you know, five years ago, that would have surprised me. No, it doesn’t. Because I understand the nuances around how people look at money, not that I fully understand all of it. But understand that there’s a difference between how you look at money, and how you manage your money. But my daughter, the way I look at the Benjamin is I would only get that water if I’m really, really, really thirsty. That’s the news. But my daughter would say, Buy two bottles of money, right?

Cara Macksoud  

And not everybody has a difference of opinion. But I have to be honest, and maybe call me ignorant. But my initial reaction to all of this was, uh, we’re doing a bad job of educating people that we need to get more financial education out there. And so of course, I did that. Right. I started the finger pointing and then I found out the truth. And the truth was, it wasn’t about the education because you can educate people, they’re blue in the face. And for me, it became very personal in that I had to come to terms with I know that I’m supposed to eat my spinach or my broccoli and my asparagus, yet somehow that dunk donut makes it in my hand, every day at 330. And there is nothing that’s going to stop me in the chocolate donut from hanging out together. Because I’ve had a rough day or I’ve had a good day, I’ve had a bad day, I’ve had an update, the donut is what comforts me. And so even though I know I should go for the spinach on the broccoli, the donut is what makes its way into my life. 

Cara Macksoud  

It’s no different than money, right? So the things that you’re going to do with your money, you can have all the education in the world, based on your habits and your behaviours, you’re going to do what feels good. And so to come full circle when COVID happened, and I had left my role at the nonprofit because, as I mentioned, with five kids, everybody was home, I decided to put myself back in school. And that’s why I went back to K State and got the degree in financial therapy, which then parlayed into my designation as a financial behaviour specialist. And I had been interning, which is always the greatest story at money habitudes during my graduate degree, and wound up, you know, acquiring the company late last year. So it’s been a full circle. And the reason I love the job that I’m at now is because it’s neutral, right? It’s not about a right or wrong. And when you and I are really going to talk about this, when we talk about the meaning of financial wellness, the reason why I love money habitudes is it’s not a right or wrong. It’s just like, let’s assess where we are. And let’s figure out what works for you. In the lifestyle you live. Every one of us is different, and every one of us has to live the lifestyle that feels good to us. So I’ll leave it at that, that’s my quote.

Dr. Sev  

It’s about opening our eyes, right to understand really how many works and how we behave towards money, we don’t even realise because we’ve were indoctrinated to behave a certain way or to think of money a certain way. And we don’t realise that doctrine ation can hinder or it can help you to move forward come so much ingrained, so much a part of us that we do without really thinking about the implications of that money. And once we learn, you know, we look back, and we’re like, Man, I could have done so much better with that money. That windfall that I got, if I understood how money works, if I understood that I have the option of a Roth IRA, that I had the option of a high yield savings account, if I understood all of that, instead of putting my money into just a little savings account or something, you know, all the education and understanding how money works, and how we can multiply and how we can make it work for us. When we get all of that together the education, the knowledge and how it applies to our life. And all of those together. Once we get that, not that we know everything, but we know enough no to accelerate or education or knowledge or growth or funding.

Cara Macksoud  

I always say financial knowledge is cumulative. It is not it is not a one and done is not a I know it and I know everything. It is cumulative. It is like Lego building blocks. And so once you get what we call a financial foundation, you can truly, truly build on the foundation. And so what I love to do as a visual is, you know, when you see little kids, when they play with Legos, usually the first time where they like just realise everything can build and go together, you know, they’ll make that square. And then they start to build the walls up and up and up. When you think of that your financial foundation doesn’t have to always be 100% balanced on all four sides. You can build on one side, and then wait till you’re gonna get the next side. And then maybe you need to put some more on the first side you started. Right. It’s again, it’s it’s you finding a balance for your life and products that work in your life. So I get you know, oftentimes a lot of people who have comments towards me when I do give these financial education classes to this unbanked community, because I don’t go in there gangbusters and tell them we are getting them out of the check cashing place and putting them in a bank.

Dr. Sev  

Even to say this is what you should do. Because finance is personal. It is personal, very personal. 

Cara Macksoud  

And so I go in with, here’s how your check cashing place is working. This is why the business works. This is why it works for you. This is how you use it. And then I go through let me show you another option which would be a bank, but this is why it may work for you. But this is why it may not work for you. And this is the things you need to be successful in the bank. Right. So I have partnered with banks in the past when I’ve brought them what we call it a bank, ie a person that’s ready to bank. What I often say to the bank is I’m gonna bring you someone who’s responsible and ready to be banked. because the bank also doesn’t really want people who come and then abandon the account. It’s not a win. People love to vilify the bank. And I’m not saying that any of them are angels, but they’re also they’re doing their business. So everybody needs to understand the rules of engagement. Should you can play the game correctly.

Dr. Sev  

Exactly. Yes. That’s it, because it’s all it’s like moving chess pieces on a board. Yup, you have to know which piece to move when how to move the piece, which piece is relevant today, that piece may not be relevant next week. So you have to understand how all of that works, so that you can move the pieces. And that’s why a personal finance, you know, personnel is helpful, whether it’s a Certified Financial Planner, a coach, a counsellor, and I’m going to have actually have a session where I’m going to be talking about the differences and the roles of each of these personal finance titles, so to speak. But that leads me to how would you define financial wellness, thinking of a client? How would you define financial wellness for that client? Each person is different. But in general, how would you do that?

Cara Macksoud  

So when I refer to financial wellness, I really refer to it in that the person feels financially aware, financially comfortable. Now, when I say comfortable, I don’t just mean that there’s money in the bank, and I can buy whatever I want. We need to get away from this point of scarcity. There’s never enough or this person has more than me, or the Joneses are doing that when we talk about being financially well, it’s the same idea of being healthfully? Well, like your heart rate feels like it’s beating at the right rate, you don’t have a headache, if your vision is off, you’re wearing glasses, if you walk with a limp, you have the right team. Wellness doesn’t mean everything 100% is perfect, it means that you’ve gotten the things that you need, so you can function the way you need to function. I’ve met people, and I go to the extreme example, who I would consider financially well, even though they’re in credit card debt. 

Cara Macksoud  

Yeah, and the reason why I say that is because some of the people I’ve worked with are in debt, but they’ve made the commitment to get themselves out of debt. They’re working towards that goal. They’ve gotten the things that they needed, maybe they consolidated a loan, maybe they put some pieces together, maybe you know, they’ve done a few things. And so now they are on their way to maybe financially being independent or being out of debt. But those people in that moment, or what we call financially, well, because they’ve gotten the gist, like if you’re sick, and you get medication, and then you’re you don’t feel sick anymore. That’s the idea of being financially well. And that combination, just like health is the same idea, right? It’s not a one size fits all, if you get 500 milligrammes of a medication, I may only need 200, because you and I might, you might be five, seven, I’m only for 10, you might have a heavier condition than I have, or that may be a medication you don’t need, but I do because I have a heart condition and then you don’t financially well is the exact same thing. It needs to be so created for just to you. And 90% of time, your plan doesn’t look anything like anybody else’s.

Dr. Sev  

Yeah. And I totally agree. Because somebody who may be gung ho about paying off your house, that for me, paying off my house is not a priority, I pay my mortgage every month, and I am good with that. My priority is accelerating my retirement. Because I have plans for that, you know, I can always sell this house or do whatever. So my focus is accelerating my retirement because I want to be on the beach somewhere.

Dr. Sev  

So that’s my priority. And I’m financially well, in that way, somebody else, maybe I want to get rid of this mortgage. I don’t care about the mortgage, I want to get rid of it. And so they really focus on that. But it doesn’t mean one is wrong. One is right, as you said, what is going to create a picture of you that really gives you financial peace, give you peace, that you’re working towards whatever goals you have. Exactly. Once you have that peace, it doesn’t mean your debts are gone. It means you have peace in terms of the strategy. You have your team in terms of where you’re going to reach your goal. And I love that. And that’s why.

Cara Macksoud  

And that’s the empowerment, that people don’t realise that. Like, you exude a whole different level of confidence and ability to then focus on other things when finances are not your focus. I meet people all the time who are like yeah, I just don’t think about the money or whatever. Are you know, they’re, they don’t want to hear it. They don’t want to think about it. But they don’t realise how often it’s creeping into their thoughts all day long.

Dr. Sev  

It’s like, every corner of your life.

Cara Macksoud  

It’s every corner, because everything we do everything costs money. Even though people say to me, why don’t spend any money, say I’m like, Well, did you sleep in a place with a roof over it? And they’re like, Yeah, I’m like, Sure, maybe you only pay your bill, once per month. But every single day, there’s what we call a run rate, there is a cost for you to live your life, if there’s a roof over your head, if you’ve turned on lights, and if you’re not, if you’re living, you know, displaced or you’re living on the street, or whatnot. What do we know about all of those people, they are begging for money. So money is literally touching every aspect of our life. And think about it is not what I ever recommend. My thought is to think about it until you like you said have a strategy, you have a plan. And then you don’t really have to think about it. Because you just know your little routine, you’ve got so much people don’t realise then how much energy, they have to do all these other things. Because the stress isn’t there anymore. Exactly.

Dr. Sev  

You started, right? Because once you you know you have a plan, it doesn’t mean that free, it just means that you have something that you’re working towards getting where you need to go. And I guess what I want, if my viewers get nothing else I want you to understand, ask the questions as Cara said ask the questions. When you get to those financial, nobody knows everything, question your personal finance advisor, whoever that is culture, whatever, question them. And then understand that you have whatever plans you put in place, you get those plans in place, and you work those plans. And don’t let anybody guilt you. This is a no judgement zone on this show. Okay. And don’t let anybody guilt you into thinking because you have student loan debt, or you have mortgage or whatever, you are not on your way to financial independence, or you’re on your way to financial peace in your mind, you have a plan. As long as you have that plan, you can execute that plan and get to where you need to go. It may take you five years, it may be 10 years, but that’s okay. That’s why it’s personal, right? We all on our journey.

Cara Macksoud  

And that’s what it should be right? It should be personal. And you might not want to be on someone else’s plan. Right? I think what happens is, we get lazy for lack of a better word, because it seems such like a big hurdle to like, learn the things we’ve got to learn or understand the finances. What I often see is people just start doing what their neighbours are doing. Or if they have a sibling or jump on other people’s plan. I always tell a story. I have a sister who’s 10 years older than me. So she clearly got married first and started to have kids first. And she went out and did what I would call very typical, right? She got married, she bought a house, she started having kids, they went to the suburbs. And so I really didn’t know I didn’t think about a plan. I just did exactly what she did. And I woke up one day, I didn’t go to the suburbs, I went to Brooklyn, I was living in Manhattan at the time. And Brooklyn really kind of is the suburbs compared to Manhattan. But it wasn’t New Jersey, but it was still very Suburban. It was you know, the backyard with the house and dinner. And I woke up one morning, and I was like, we I’m in someone else’s life. costing me like all of this money for the lawn guy to come and the like window washer to come. And because we’re trying to keep the house Nice. So when people would come and like you want it to look pretty. And you take a lot of pride in this possession you bought. And it wasn’t serving me. I hate to be home. I hate. And so I woke up and I was like, Wait, why did I do this? And I realised I did it because I just followed somebody else’s plan. Yeah. within myself, because I was like, I spent all of this money doing what I thought I was so flabbergasted. And then my next move was a rented apartment in Manhattan with I had small children at the time. And if I tell you then everybody wanted to tell me how I was making the app. Why would you do this? This is so stupid.

Dr. Sev  

Because everybody wants to follow that standard path. That’s why I told my daughter you don’t have to go to college right now if you don’t want to. If you want to go do something part time until you figure out what you want to do. I don’t want you to just jump from high school to college to jump into work world and you don’t even know and then five years into the work world. You’re miserable because you really just follow the path that everybody say you should follow. So I told her if you want to take a break from college and go work in a fast food job. I’m here to support you while you figure out what you really want in life before you go on and run up a lot of debt for something because we’re, we’re so programmed that still to do, you need to buy the house, you know, to have the 2.5 kids and all of that. And sometimes that, as you said, can create a financial problem for us, because we may not be ready financially and emotionally, mentally, for which

Cara Macksoud  

Many are not bringing us joy, yes,

Dr. Sev  

Just following the path, or somebody else, or that the standard path that’s that they tell us we need to follow. And then you’re miserable. Because that is not you. That’s not your personality, none of it fits you as a person, right? You’re just doing the standard. Same with money. Just because somebody say you need to do a certain thing with your money doesn’t mean that you like me, I am invest in whatever I need to, to make some money. But for somebody else who is very risk averse, don’t follow that pattern, you know, do what you need to do. The people who make, I think are the people who have these successful big businesses. And if they did what everybody else said to do, like the Amazons, and the Microsoft, and all of those, if they had done the standard thing, they wouldn’t be where they are. Because that’s not their personality, that was not your trajectory. Right? And so that’s the same thing we’re saying here is who are you? And how does who you are serve you to make those decisions. You make those decisions based on what’s going to bring you the joy. Exactly, and you’re going to enjoy even more, even if you’re in debt, you’re going to enjoy your life even more, right? Because you’re doing what brings you joy.

Cara Macksoud  

Absolutely no 100%. And that’s the biggest piece, I see to the empowerment piece, giving people that permission to take the road less travelled, or take the road that you pave yourself, or all else fails by a shovel and build your own ditch. You make your own path, because it’s easier to get on other people’s batch because it’s easier to just follow. But then your money. And you like you’re saying your personality is then not serving you at the read it should be.

Dr. Sev  

Yeah, totally agree. So let’s talk about money. habitudes. Yes. Yes, we need right into that, right. Yeah, I know that my habitudes has some great products that can help us identify things that possibly impact our behaviour with money. And, you know, I’m starting to use it with my clients. But I’d like for you to tell us a little bit more about money habitudes the product, and then its benefits for practitioners and for clients.

Cara Macksoud  

Yeah. So I mean, the the best thing for me, as I said earlier, with money opportunity was that it was neutral. There’s no sales, it’s not saying if you’re this, you invest in bonds, if you’re this, you go and invest in crypto, it’s not that, nor is it saying, Oh, you’re really dominant in one of these habits. And that’s bad. No, it is saying this is based on your responses. This is where you are. And now that you know, because oftentimes, what do we know about habits and behaviours, we’re doing them at a subconscious level, right? Money. habitudes is measuring what your default brain messaging is telling you. And again, what happens when you’re hungry, when you’re happy when you’re sad when you’re angry? It just accentuates whatever you do. It doesn’t more, right. So you always get the people that say, Oh, I was sad. Today, I ate more. I was happy today I ate more, right? Like, it just seems to be the things that you do you do the more when you’re in some highlighted state. And so the beauty of counsellors working with our product and clients is it gives them a great place once the assessment is done to start from. 

Cara Macksoud  

And it doesn’t always mean people are always like, Oh, well, I don’t want to have to hear about all the things that I’m bad at, or all the things I’m not doing well, again, your counsellor can choose to start at money habitudes with the assessment anywhere they want after you’ve done it, I often start with people around the like. So we have three categories with money habitudes you as you go through the statements, and we’re gonna put a link at the end if anybody likes to try it. But we have a that’s me pile, a not me pile, and as sometimes me pile and oftentimes I’ll start with a not me pile. And I look at that strictly to be able to say to the person, well, these were hard nosed for you. Let’s just go through a couple of statements. What were they heart nose? And again, it’s about understanding the story. It’s about understanding. As you said earlier, things have been ingrained in us from when we’re kids. We’ve had stuff that has been told to us. We have beliefs that we don’t even know how we got some of these. Some of them are cultural, some of them are religious. Some of them were because we were raised by maybe a parent or a grandparent, we spent more time with one person or another or we were part of a relationship. It doesn’t always have to be a mother and a father. It could be a mother and a grandmother or something and something happened. 

Cara Macksoud  

And what happened affects us in such a strong way that we take a whole nother your grandmother lent money to your mother, your mother never paid her back. And it caused a complete war, your grandmother asked you to stop living in the house, not you, but your mother, you wound up living with your mother and you and her struggled for the rest of you know, the years, right? That that kind of trauma has an impact on a child, who then takes that with them, that person would show up, I would assume I don’t know this, for sure. But I’ve done enough money habitudes at this point that I can say, if the person has not chosen to go the route, the way the mother had been irresponsible with money, that person would usually be dominant insecurity. And that’s because they’re gonna hold on because they don’t ever want to go through that. Exactly, exactly. So let’s play out that scenario, that person is now trying to buy a house and they’re saving, and they’re saving, they’re squirrelling All this money away, and then the house comes available that they want to buy, and then they can’t pull the trigger. 

Cara Macksoud  

And so they meet with a financial coach or counsellor, and, you know, they’re trying to work through why. And now you understand the story about where this person has come from. And it’s profound, right, you’re like, Oh, of course, this person can’t relinquish this money, because even though they’re buying themselves a home, the thought of not having this money is displaced. Once you’ve been displaced in your life, that’s one of those big, you know, capital T traumas. And so you can’t and I always say this, and I say to my locked my kids, you can’t unknow what you know, and you can’t unsee what you’ve seen. So once those things have happened, they’re imprinted on us. They’re like divots, right? And when the water settles, where does it settle in the divot? Yeah. And so, you know, I really, really found being, you know, at the forefront of money habitudes. And as you mentioned earlier, like being able to offer these sessions with practitioners so we can better educate them so they can be out working with their clients better. Like, I’m, I’m so proud of that, because I really feel like now we’re giving the clients, not just a tool, but we’re giving them practitioners who are able to see multitudes of ways of being able to work with this client, no matter how they show up.

Dr. Sev  

Yeah, beyond just saying you need to budget, you don’t ever start with a budget, you know, you can give them a budget. But if you don’t understand the underlying reasons or the way, they look at money, that budget will possibly fail. Because they don’t understand why they will take money. They’re saving for tuition and spending on a vacation, or something like that. You know, though, yes, I totally agree. And understand the underlying is really unhelpful, I’m gonna post the link. Oh, great. Yeah. And then I am also going to stream it here, when you go on to the website, if you are wanting to try out the money habitudes. Yep, you can go ahead and do that with this link that I’m showing on the screen. And then for the purposes of those who are going to be listening to the podcast, I will have it in the show notes, so that you can go check out the money habitudes assessment, and I promise you that it’s going to be helpful. And you can take that you can make an appointment to come see me so we can talk about it. And we can put some things in place to get you on your way to that financial peace that you are wanting. So is there anything else that you’d like to share any desire that you would want anything that you would want people to really understand overall? 

Cara Macksoud  

Ask those questions, make it your own, you know, don’t be afraid that it’s not what everybody else is doing. You know, again, ask the same question to five different people, you may get five different answers, but you’ll find the right information for yourself.

Dr. Sev  

Yes, thank you. All right, let me share with you where you can find Cara, she is on her website is moneyhabitudes.com. And of course, that’s where you would go to put the code in anyway, with that link. And then she is money habitudes everywhere else on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. And that is money, MONEY HABITUDES. I spell it out for those who probably listening. So it’s money habitudes.com, and then money habitudes on all the other social media platforms, car, we could go on, and on. And on and on. Talking about this topic, because, you know, I tell people all the time, personal finance is deep and wide. And there are so many nuances, so many things. But I want my listeners and my viewers to understand that we are here to share as much educational content as possible. And then you take that content and you run to your financial person and you ask them all the questions. And if they can’t give you the answers, go find somebody else. And then you can always come find me. And you can find me, at sevtalksmoney.com. That’s my website, and you can make an appointment to come talk with me. Now next week, we’re going to be talking with Kendra Barnes. On We love talking real estate investing. She’s been investing in real estate for a while and she actually left her job at 32. Well paying government job 32 Because she’s done so well with real estate investing. And actually, I’m going to share my story of some things that I’m doing because of the knowledge that she’s shared. So then Cara, thank you so much for coming on here and sharing your knowledge and everyone who hopped on. Thank you so much for joining us and for your comments, especially Beverly, and we will see you next Sunday. And I think Kendra’s session is at 4pm, but I will be posting it all over social media so you’ll know where to go and when to see it. And of course this is also going to be rebroadcast it through podcast and it will be on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube that you can go back and listen as many times as you need to. Alright, we got a comment. Let me see you. Thank you so much for joining us three. Until then, this is Dr. Sev saying see you next time.

Cara Macksoud  

Thank you, everybody.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About Dr. Sev

Dr. Sev serves people who want to take control of their finances. She does this by providing a practical plan that’s tailored to their specific needs so they can reach their own financial goals.

Let's Connect

Free Resources

GRAB "10 Ways to save on groceries", the Free Budget and cash flow Spreadsheets, and "16 meal ideas under $5"

Recent Posts

Take the First Step to Taking Control of Your Money

Download the Free Budget Worksheet!
GRAB THE FREE "10 WAYS TO SAVE ON GROCERIES" LIST!
and subscribe to our free newsletter