Special Edition: Secret Money Tips, Part I—How to Develop a Money Mindset

If you want to get control of your finances, you need to understand your relationship with money. That’s one of the valuable pieces of advice we learn from Marsha Barnes, CEO and founder of The Finance Bar Members Club. Marsha shares four must know tips that will help any young woman develop a “money mindset” that can be the start of lifelong financial wellness.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, I'm Kim Azzarelli. Welcome to this brand new season
of Seneca's Conversations. In this season, we're launching a special
five part series on young women's financial wellness in partnership
with Secret Deodorant. It's called Secret Money Tips. We recently
hosted the Young Women's Financial Wellness Form at the New
York Stock Exchange in partnership with Secret, renowned financial experts

(00:23):
gave young women their best advice about budgeting, saving, and
investing financial empowerment one oh one. Now we're bringing that
advice to every young woman through this series. Today, we're
talking to Marsha Barnes, founder and CEO of the Finance
Bar members club, which helps individuals start their journey to
financial wellness. Welcome, Marsha. It's so great to have you

(00:44):
on the show. Thank you so much for having me ken. So, Marsha,
tell us a little bit about your personal journey. How
did your experience growing up affect your relationship with money? Oh,
that's such a great question and a story I love
to tell. So, I grew up in a two parent household.
My parents divorced around the age of twelve, and my

(01:05):
brother and I went to live with my mom, and
once we transitioned over to her just being a single parent,
I honestly felt as if our living conditions were not
as nice as they once were, or at least that's
how I felt. And quite honestly, my mom just did

(01:26):
not have the financial resources to mirror the lifestyle that
we had when she was with my dad when I
was living with two parents, and that honestly made me
feel sad. It made me feel sad for her, and
it also made me feel sad for my brother and I.
So what I'll say is that some of the things
that I wanted, you know, when I was younger, and

(01:47):
I wasn't able to get those same things transitioned over
to when I was an adult. So I'm not sure
how many individuals remember this, but when I was younger,
Barbie cars existed. They were like little cars as you
could get in and you could drive them around, and
that was something that my mom really couldn't afford to
get for me. So as I got older, I wanted

(02:09):
a luxury vehicle. Like when I first received my first
job and I started to trail the corporate ladder, I
wanted luxury things. I wanted a luxury luxury vehicle, designer clothes.
Because for whatever reason, Kim money gave me the sense
of power, and it also made me feel as if
I had a level of freedom of having options. So

(02:29):
that was kind of my journey and my introduction to
money as I was younger than as I got older.
I love the way you talk about this emotional relationship
with money and how a person's emotions can in fact
control their finances and even affect their finances. How do
you get these emotions under control and how do you
make sure that they're working for you? Yeah, I would

(02:50):
say that first one is understanding that our emotions around money,
or our thoughts around money is often triggered around how
we were brought or raise up to think about money.
One of the key ways that you really gain control
of those emotions is to begin to think about how
you feel about money, what emotions does it evoke for you,

(03:13):
opposed to considering what does that look like for somebody
else in my family or my friend's circle. Money is personal,
finance is extremely personal, so it's really important that you
begin to develop your own thoughts around money. That's really
how you get control of the emotions around it. I
think That's really interesting because so much of what we
are brought up on we sort of internalize, and maybe

(03:35):
we don't necessarily realize that we're sort of internalizing other
people's values, for example, or parents, or maybe other people
that we kind of grow up with. You know, we
probably need to take a step back and ask if
our values are kind of aligned with those and do
we want to have the kind of same relationship with
money that they do. Yeah. Another thing you talk about
which I love is having a money mindset. So I

(03:59):
guess the question is what is a money mindset and
why is it so important to think about that and
shape that mindset when you're young. Yeah. So a money
mindset is our thoughts and beliefs about money. It controls
the way that we act, behave, and often even spend money.
And the reason why it's really important to develop a

(04:20):
money mindset when you are young, although the chances are
very likely that it will change as you age, is
because you want to develop your own, your very own
identity with money. When we're young, they are oftentimes many
distractions that come our way. So if Marcia, you know,
young Marsha was someone that really want to save money

(04:42):
and plan for her future, but then them also distracted
by some of the things that my friends do, and
that helps me, you know, navigate towards spending money that
I really don't want to spend. Then that's the path
that I will take. So it's very important that you
identify when you are very young so you can develop
your very own identity. It's really interesting because, honestly, it's
just so true. There's just so much coming at us

(05:04):
all time. When you're younger and when you're not so young,
there's just so much coming at us, and we really
need to control or at least try to take control
of our own mind and kind of know what thoughts
you're letting in and what you want to sort of reject. Yes,
that seems to me like an incredibly valuable lesson which
I know I wish I had had when I was
much younger. So now that we want to develop this

(05:25):
money mindset and get control of our emotions and understand
our emotions and our relationship to money more, how do
we do this? You talk about four specific steps that
you suggest young women can apply right now to develop
their own money mindset. Can you walk us through those
four steps? Yeah? Absolutely, So. The first one, Kim I

(05:46):
would say, is to gain an understanding around why you
think about money the way that you do. What were
some of the things that you were taught and even
if you hadn't been taught any thing, what are some
of the things that you hear about money that now
may have you believing that that's how you feel about money.

(06:07):
An example of that, oftentimes, when we're younger, or at
least I heard that wanting to have money or desiring
more money is greed or money is only used to
pay bills. Well that's not the case. Money is a
financial resource to provide for our needs and many of

(06:29):
the things that we want in life. So number one
would be gay understanding why you think about money the
way that you do. Number two is to write down
what you truly value. When we think about value, consider
is it time with friends and family? Is it you
want to be your own boss on entrepreneur or to

(06:49):
own a business when you grow up? Do you feel
more financially confident when you have money saved? So write
down what your values are. Again, I want to that
this may change as you age, however, it's very important
to identify that now. Number three would be work on
creating really good financial habits very early on. What does

(07:13):
that look like? One could be putting back money, some
level of money, no matter how young you are. As
you start to earn put money away. You can also
consider giving to charities or organizations that you really enjoy
their mission or you really believe in their mission. If

(07:33):
you have expenses to pay, get in the habit of
paying your bills on time. It's very important to develop
these very good financial habits when you're young because you'll
only get better at this as you age. And then
number four CAM would be to embrace the journey. As
you age, your income could increase, it could decrease, you

(07:57):
could have financial roadblocks, financial mess perhaps that may happen
over your lifetime. But it's really important to stand in
financial gratitude because every financial lesson just helps you to
gain more financial confidence and more financial awareness as you aid.
So that's what I would say would be the top

(08:19):
four ways to develop a really great money mindset. While
those are really practical and super helpful, you know, I
think this question of how you value money or how
you see money is really sort of fundamental. Like you said,
is it just to pay the bills? Or is it
a tool. I think these are all really interesting questions.
I know for myself. You know, I think when I

(08:39):
was much younger, I looked at money it's just something
that sort of paid the bills. And as you said,
that aspiring to too much money might have seemed a
little greedy, maybe not the best values. But if you
see money as a tool towards accomplishing goals that you
want to achieve, that's that's really freeing, frankly. And you know,
whether that goal is to help other people in the world,

(09:00):
to help your family, just to be responsibly taking care
of yourself. I mean that mindset can really change your
relationship with money and you can have a much more
positive relationship. So I really love that. And then it
doesn't seem so scary or difficult, frankly, you're kind of
motivated to make it happen. So I think these four
steps are really important and I really appreciate them. So
I really appreciate you being with us. And I know

(09:21):
that the young women listening are going to learn a lot.
And I wish that i'd heard all this when I
was sixteen years old. I'm still learning, so thank you
for this. You're welcome, Kim. Thanks so much for having me,
so let me recap some of what we learned here today. First,
it's so powerful to recognize that we all have an
emotional relationship with money and that if we control our emotions,

(09:43):
we can control our finances. Second, there are so many
myths and misconceptions about money, and one of the biggest
is that we have to react to money the same
way that our parents or our friends do. Sometimes it's
important to chart your own path. Third, know what you
value that is truly value that will help you wisely

(10:03):
determine where to spend your time and money to achieve
your goals. Talking to Marcia was truly delightful. Join me
next week for more money tips for young women on
our next episode of Seneca's Conversations, Secret Money Tips in
partnership with Secret Deodorant. Thank you for listening, and please
share today's podcast episode with others in your life. This

(10:24):
is Kim Azzarelli, co author of Fast Forward and co
founder of Seneca Women. Seneca's Conversations is a production of
the Seneca Women podcast network and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows,