Financial Therapy: Minding Your Money

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to your Financial Therapy for the week! Optimism bias is a psychological phenomenon where people in part believe they are more likely to experience positive outcomes in the future. In personal finance, this can mean overestimating future income, underestimating future ex...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to your Financial Therapy for the week! According to USA Today, impulse buying is up, despite the financial crunch most of us are feeling. Splurging can feel great--it's generally driven by the interactions between emotions, environments, and immediate gratification, say...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to Financial Therapy! Today we're talking about how to break away from bad money habits, by rethinking or being more conscious about the money moves we make--or don't make. Whether trusting ourselves to end financial commitments when circumstances change, or taking a lea...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to Financial Therapy! Today we're challenging the status quo by talking about 5 places to find free money. Consider making some small changes, because if not, you may be leaving some money on the table, or costing yourself financially. Call or text to submit your feedbac...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to Financial Therapy! Today's replay episode is all about the 5 things the best financial advisors will do for you as their client. Listen in to be more confident making your next financial move. The goal here is to give us all ways to be more secure and confident in our...

Hey everyone--welcome to your Financial Therapy for the week! Today we're talking about three common ways we tend to make our financial lives more difficult without even realizing it...and how we can make a change. Being more mindful about how our biases and behaviors can negatively affect our financial -- and emotional -- wellness can free us up to do things differently. The goal here is to give...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to Financial Therapy, and Happy Summer! The pandemic, and now the affordability crisis have reset our needs, expectations, and resources available for 'going out'. Now, more people are turning to activities like meet-ups, social clubs, and activity-based apps; these and...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome back to your Financial Therapy for the week! Friend of the show Andi Cobb is back in the studio for today's episode--a commentary on how one parent is dealing with his son's job 'situationships' (4+ unpaid internships after graduate school). Is this just good networking...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to your Financial Therapy for the week! Today we're talking about 7 things to keep in mind to more effectively grow and invest your resources. The goal here is to give us all ways to be more secure and confident in our financial decision-making, and to have a greater sen...

Hi everyone--welcome back to your Financial Therapy for the week! We're back in Season 2, with one of my favorite show formats: origin stories. Today we'll ask our guest: What's your financial origin story? Were you taught financial literacy? Or did your caregivers rarely discuss money growing up? More often than not, we get our money mindsets passed down to us from our parents, or whoever was mos...

Hey, everyone. Welcome back for Season 2 of Financial Therapy: Minding Your Money! I'm Lena Banks--a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. We're kicking off this season talking again about a subject that affects nearly every household in America: the affordability crisis. Whether you earn $50,000 or $250,000 a year, it seems we're all having to con...

Hey everyone! Welcome to your Financial Therapy for the week. Today I'm bringing back an uncomfortable--but necessary--topic for discussion: financial infidelity. Financial infidelity occurs when a partner in a committed relationship intentionally lies to or keeps financial secrets from the other partner. This can take many forms, including hiding debts, secret bank accounts or credit cards, makin...

Today on Financial Therapy, we're replaying what was by far our most popular episode in Season 1--and it just so happens, it's also a fundamental episode for this show. In his book, The Subconscious Mind of The Consumer (and How To Reach It), Harvard Business school professor Gerald Zaltzman says that 95% of purchasing decisions happen in the subconscious mind and are driven by emotions. The Finan...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to Financial Therapy! The goal here is to give us all ways to be more secure and confident in our financial decision-making, and to have a greater sense of well-being overall. In Season One, we talked about a lot of different personal financial management topics, and rea...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to Financial Therapy! This episode, we'll talk more about the "4 Horsemen" affecting our financial behaviors: obligation, fear/denial, guilt/shame, and pride--and discuss how using gratitude in how we confront them can help us make more thoughtful financial moves in the...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to Financial Therapy! Today we're talking about a tricky subject: comingling your finances with a financial partner. If you're in a relationship with someone you love and care about, how do you determine how (or whether) to put your finances together--combining your spen...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to Financial Therapy! Today's episode is all about practical ways we can move our minds forward when it comes to managing our finances. I'll give you 5 things to do--starting right now--that can make a difference in shaking you out of your rut, and changing your financia...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome back to Financial Therapy! Today we're talking again about a subject that affects nearly every household in America: the affordability crisis. Whether you make $50,000 or $250,000 a year, it seems that we're all having to confront a new normal when it comes to the Americ...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to Financial Therapy! Today we're talking about a growing public health concern: gambling. Gambling addiction and problem gambling are rapidly increasing in the U.S., with around 2.5 million adults facing severe (and 5 to 8 million facing mild/moderate) gambling problems...

Hey everyone, welcome back to your Financial Therapy for the week! The goal here is to give us all ways to be more secure and confident in our financial decision-making, and to have a greater sense of well-being overall. A lot of us would love to ease our financial woes by winning the lottery—or more realistically, by having enough cash flow to not ever have to worry about making ends meet. But be...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – an MBA, Certified Financial Planning professional, and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome back to Financial Therapy! Today’s episode is all about the Great Wealth Transfer, and what you need to know to be clear-eyed about what it all means for you—including why there may not be as much waiting for you as you think. It’s one thing to have/receive money;...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – an Certified Financial Planning professional, and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to Financial Therapy! Today's episode is all about how focusing on some practical things can eliminate some of our emotional decision-making when it comes to spending and earning money. I'll give you 5 areas of life that--if you look deeply at them--can help you make d...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – an MBA, Certified Financial Planning professional, and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to Financial Therapy! If you're like many of us, you're looking for the most efficient and effective ways to invest your money--but where should you start? Do your research! I'll quickly run through three investment vehicles that you might want to look into, in or...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to your Financial Therapy for the week! Today's episode is all about making your money work for you--for real. I'll talk about three aspects of money management you should be thinking about when making choices about how to save and grow your hard-earned dollars. Call or...

Hey everyone, I'm Lena Banks – a Certified Financial Planning professional and small business coach based in Austin, TX. Welcome to Financial Therapy! Today we're talking lifestyle inflation/creep--what it is, how common it is for all of us, and how its hidden costs can affect your ability to build wealth. Our goal here is to give us all ways to be more secure and confident in our financial decisi...