Why Finding Community Will Help You Reach Your Money Goals
This week, Maggie is talking about why community is so important when it comes to releasing money shame and reaching your financial goals.
If you want to improve your finances for good and combat your own money shame, while building community and finding other people who understand what you’re going through, join the new Money Circle Community!
Related Links:
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Join the Money Circle Community!
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Email me with questions at [email protected]
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To learn more about Maggie and her coaching and speaking services, visit www.maggiegermano.com.
The theme music is called Escaping Light by Aaron Sprinkle. The podcast artwork design is by Maggie’s dear husband, Dan Rader.
TRANSCRIPTION
Maggie Germano 0:10
Thanks for listening to the money circle podcast. I’m your host, Maggie Germano, and I’m a feminist and financial coach for women. I’m passionate about helping women improve their relationships with money so that they can take better control of their futures. Part of this journey is making personal finance education more accessible and less judgmental, which is why this podcast exists. Each week, we’ll discuss a new financial topic to help you explore how you can make a difference in your own financial life in society as a whole, or in both. This week, I want to dig into something that I’ve been mentioning in my podcast introduction over the past few weeks, and I’ve also been talking about it a lot on social media, which you probably know if you follow me, I’m @MaggieGermano on Instagram and Twitter if you don’t already follow me there. So what I want to talk about is community sharing. And why it’s so important to understand that you are not alone. I don’t know about you, but when I feel like I’m the only person struggling with something, that thing is a whole lot harder for me to deal with. But when I realized that there are other people who have gone through or are going through similar issues, I feel so much more capable. I feel like my issues aren’t just my own. Like I’m not only struggling because I’ve done something wrong, but that struggles are normal, and lots of people go through them. So here’s an example. Several years ago, I found myself at a bit of a crossroads, I had fallen into a depression, and I was having a really hard time getting back out. my now husband and I had just moved in together, so things were getting pretty serious. I also knew I couldn’t continue to work at a job that made me miserable and didn’t really require me to use any of my skills. So I had some pretty big decisions to make and a lot of help to ask for. The problem was I didn’t know a whole lot People who were openly struggling with these same things. I assumed that everyone around me was doing well and not suffering from depression or anxiety. I thought everyone around me loved their jobs. I thought every couple was just constantly walking around in a cloud of love and infatuation, no matter how long they fit together. But once I actually started talking out loud about the issues I was going through, I realized I was very wrong. I was not the only person suffering, I was not the only person who was confused. I wasn’t even the only person who had a little bit of an emotional spiral after making a big life change, like moving in with a partner. But I wouldn’t have known that if I didn’t open up about my struggles. I wouldn’t have known that if I didn’t actively find spaces where people talked about these things. I’m not sure how long it would have taken me to get the help I needed and start healing if I continued to feel isolated and alone.
That’s why I believe it’s so incredibly important to find a community that understands you and the struggles that you’re going through. Whether those struggles are related to mental health, relationships, career, or my personal favorite money. There’s so much shame surrounding money already, especially for women. We don’t get taught about personal finance in school, but then we’re embarrassed and ashamed when we grow up and don’t know how to manage our money. student loan debt and credit card debt are at an all time high. But we’re told that everything would be fine if we just stopped buying coffee. So often, the gender and racial wage gap still persist, but women and people of color are told that they just need to negotiate more often. To make things even worse, most people aren’t talking about these financial struggles at all. So we all feel like we’re alone. That is why I’ve created and launched my new money circle community. It’s a safe space where you can talk about your finances without fear of judgment. It’s a place to connect with people who have In your shoes and people who are in your shoes, it’s a place to get resources and support from people who understand you, but who don’t have a personal stake in your financial decisions. I know that it can be really tough to talk to family and friends about the financial issues you’re going through because they might have personal opinions about what you should or shouldn’t do. In this space. You’ll have people supporting you, but who won’t be trying to push their own agenda on you. In this safe intersectional feminist space, we’ll break down money shame, and build community and safety for everyone so that you can find the support you need to gain control over your finances. If you’re already in the existing money circle Facebook group you might be wondering what the difference is between this new community and that group. You might be wondering why you should be paying for a membership when you get the Facebook group for free. Well, there’s a few ways to look at it on Facebook. I know a lot of people are getting ready to kind of Get rid of Facebook, it’s just filled with a lot of toxic energy a lot of days. So it can be tough to even get on there most days. I know for me I’m getting so many notifications every day that I tend to miss a lot of things that I’m that are going on in the groups that I’m in. But deeper than that, the money circle group. So there’s almost 1000 people and there’s over 900 people in that group. And so it can be tough to feel like you’re digging deep and getting close, and really connecting with the people that are in that group. Of course, when people are posting, there’s lots of people responding and being supportive and giving advice. And I’m always in there answering questions and giving advice, but with the money circle community, it’s a smaller space where we can really get deeper and go further and reach more people at a deeper, more long lasting level. Plus in the money circle community. It’s not anonymous, but it’s not connected to your public Facebook profile where everyone can see where you’re from who your family is, look at your old pictures, see where you work, you basically can decide how much you want to share within that money circle community. So that if you want it to be semi anonymous or just not as connected to your everyday personal life, you have that option within that group. Of course, there is the opposite option where you can get even more vulnerable and more private in the face in the money circle community because it’s not connected to anybody else on the internet. And not just anyone can be in that group. So you can you can have more privacy and more vulnerability within that group. But as well as just getting more personalized attention, and resources that can really help you achieve your goals and get to where you want to be. So one of the most important pieces of the membership is that we’re going to have monthly group coaching sessions where you and other members come together to discuss important financial matters and get coached on specific issues. So depending on what people in the group are most interested in, it can be either an overall group coaching session where we’re focusing on a specific topic, and we can all kind of chime in and get coached and get answers and get guidance. Or people can volunteer to be in the hot seat and get specific, really focused guidance and support on an issue maybe they’re going through at that time. So depending on what the topic is for the month, or what people in the group are feeling most comfortable with, or what you know, thinking about what will be most helpful will kind of vacillate between those two options. You’ll also get access to helpful tools, resources and workshops. So in the money circle, Facebook group, I’m often posting articles and linking to the podcast episodes that I’m doing and things like The blog posts that I’m writing, but I’m usually not doing live events in that group or having access to things like worksheets and workbooks and things like that. So I want to use the money circle community to give more access to pointed guidance and resources like that. So we will be having worksheets and eventually workbooks, things like ebooks, as well as ongoing workshops that will focus on different things like how to budget and how to find a budgeting system that actually works for you. Or more specific things like how to, you know, especially once COVID is over how to go through things like wedding season without totally going broke and things like that. So we’ll get really specific and focused and I’ll be reaching out to the members of the community to see what are the questions they’re having in their lives, what are the issues they really want us to be focusing on so that it’s as useful and as per Personalized as possible. You’ll also get discounts on one on one financial coaching sessions with me. If you realize you really need some of that one on one work to really start making those long lasting changes to your finances, you get discounts to those as well. And you’ll get free attendance to quarterly virtual money circle meetups as well. So if you haven’t been following along too long before COVID happened, I did monthly in person money circle meetups in DC, where we would often have guest speakers and we would focus on specific topics. I haven’t been doing much of that since the COVID started because I want to make sure everyone stays safe. But once I start implementing those, again, on a virtual level, they’ll be widely available to the public. But anyone within that money circle community has access to those for free so they can attend for free. That’s an added perk to the membership. So I hope hope you will join me if you have any questions about this new community please don’t hesitate to reach out. You can email me at [email protected] or you can just send me a DM @MaggieGermano on Instagram or Twitter. I’m really happy to answer any questions you have and whether or not you know you’re trying to figure out if this is the right space for you. I know it can be hard to make commitments with your money. But I also believe very strongly in the need for community and that the investment in this community space will end up paying off for you down the road and really be worth the people that you meet the community that you build and the money shame that you’re able to get rid of over time so that you feel less alone, less overwhelmed, and less like you’re blaming yourself for your financial circumstances and more like you’re able to get the support so that you can start taking actions to get yourself to a better place. Visit Maggiegermano.com/moneycircle to learn more and to join the community today.
Thanks so much for listening to the money circle podcast this week. If you like the conversations we’re having here and you’d like to go deeper, join the new money circle community. In this safe intersectional feminist space we will break down money shame and build community and safety for everyone so that you can find the support you need to gain control over your finances. Visit Maggiegermano.com/moneycircle to learn more and to join.
