What up my homie? Did you know that money is the second leading cause of the force? And too many freaking women end up focusing so much on other parts of the family and just let their partner deal with the finances. The unfortunate we end up sometimes never talking about it or never talking about the money. So as a woman we end up having no idea where the money is, how much there is, or even how to access it. And that breaks my heart. So if you're one of those women who up until right now has no confidence around money, first of all, Mahalmi, as always, you're not alone. It's not like financial literacy is taught in schools. You weren't taught it. And so there's so many of us out there that just don't know how to act or deal with money. And let's face it, when there's so many other things that you've got to worry about in life, it seems easy just to let your partner handle it. But there's no reason why you can't learn a bit more about finance and then eventually build your confidence around it so you never have anxiety or curiosity about it. And that's why today I'm sharing this Instagram live replay with my very, very good friend Mel Abrams. He's a CPA, a consultant, an entrepreneur and author who helps people take control of their finances with powerful principles and frameworks because you know that's what I'm all about guys, actually teaching the frameworks. And so today he's sharing this principles and frameworks with us and what us women specifically could do to build our confidence around money and take our financial power back. Now guys, by the end of this episode you'll be well on your freaking way to understanding how to communicate with your partner about money, the framework that you can actually follow, so that you can start to set financial goals for you as a couple and steps that you can actually take to better understand money, have more confidence around the family finances and finally have a peace of mind that you know what's what and you remove the veil and the secrecy around it. So I really hope this brings you value guys without further So do let's dive in, I'm Lisa Biliw and welcome to Women of Impact. Now as a go in everyone I am now live, well I have people waiting for everybody to join. As I wait I'm sitting here with my water and my beef stick. These beef sticks guys have been a life saver for my gut so I'm just snack snacking on these as I wait How is everyone? Where's everyone joining from? I've got a very special episode there you go keep saying episode when I do IG lives I got a very interesting IG live I should say with you guys Tricking on my own water, okay, you're not gonna want to miss this one So the thing that I very much do is I listen to you guys.

I read the comments, I read the comments on YouTube,

I read the comments on podcasts, I really, really, really. When I spend time showing up and doing the things that I do, I want to make sure that it's actually making a difference. So I read a lot of stuff that you guys tell me that you guys are struggling with. What's on your mind? What are you guys struggling with?

And then what can I do in order to show up and help?

So today I've got a fascinating person.

I've got my boy Mel Abrams is in the house. Now he's such a good friend of mine. He's been behind the scenes cheering me on and so he has written a book about money. Now one of the things I hear a lot of women say especially as we get older, you've maybe been a stay-at-home wife

or maybe you've been a stay-at-home mother

and you really, really show up every single day

in service of your family.

Day in, day out, you put the kids first,

you put your parents first,

you put your husband first or your partner first.

And what has happened is a lot of women,

over time, have found themselves in their 40s, potentially in their 50s, and they turn around, they don't know where their money's gone. They don't even know how to access their bank account. Potentially their abusive partner has taken the money. They've found themselves dedicated to the family and to the lifestyle for so long. And now you find yourself without money and don't know how to actually get back up. And so Mel is actually here today to really help us guys figure out our finances to help you. We're going to be answering questions also live. So I want you guys to get ready with your questions below and we're going to be answering questions based on money and how you can build your confidence in finance in money so that you never have to rely on other people in your life. So Mel has written a book called Build Your Money, Machine. And he's going to be joining very soon. I'm going to be answering questions. And in the meantime, area day, hello. Hey, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I didn't even realize this whole time. I thought you guys were in my ear. Ah! So I'm just turning the volume up. All right, can everyone hear me? Yeah. He's saying, all right. So Mel, you've written a book called Building Your Money Machine and the thing that me and you talk about behind the scenes a lot is the fact that a lot of women don't actually, we would never talk. Like I'm 44, Mel and I was taught when I was younger,

by my dad, God bless him being a great man. But he was just like, you never talk about money, you never mentioned money, you never talk about finances, you definitely don't talk about your bank account. And when Tom and I started our company impact theory, we went and all the lawyers is do not split the company 50, 50.

They were urging Tom in full transparency. They were urging Tom to start the company and it be 51% him and 49% me because they said if you have the 50 50, it's going to be a divorce nightmare. Now in saying all of that, as you know, Tom and I've been together for a long time, but a lot of women haven't been that fortunate. A lot of women have found themselves in situations where we haven't owned our finances and now we maybe don't have the money to figure out how to live the rest of our lives. And so the question I want to pose to you today in getting this started is what are the biggest money mistakes women specifically make? And then I want you to go into what we can do about it. So this is such a great question and I think it's really important and I love the way you and Tom kind of do things. Here's and I have a very different believe I grew up in the same type of house full like I remember the one time we had a guy that we called an uncle that drove this really nice car I didn't know what it was at the time I now know it was an Aston Martin and he had a phone in the car back in the day where he had a phone you you would have to call an operator and say here's the number I want you to connect me to and they would connect them and so like we're we're at dinner and I look at them and I go, so how much do you make? I thought my mom, she's going to come on glue, but we don't talk about it. And I think that one of the first things is to talk about it. They say that the money is, I don't know if it's true or not, specifically, but I have an interpretation. I mean, they say money is the second leading cause of divorce. And I look at it and go, but is it money or is that the conversation around me, the lack of communication around money? Because as a guy, Stephanie, I, my beautiful bride, we will be married at this Wednesday, 13 years. Congratulations. And as a guy, I look at it and I got the better end of that deal. I'm just saying, OK, put it out there. So as a guy, I know, I believe that one of the biggest things, because I made this mistake early on, not with money, but in other aspects of our relationship, it's important for the woman to feel safe. It's really important for both parties to feel safe. And one of the biggest places to feel safe is money. And Stephanie didn't really care about knowing about money because she was raised in a household that was more traditional and everything, but she saw her mother struggle when her dad passed away. She saw my mother struggle, my dad asked me not because they didn't have any, but because they didn't know. And I told her, I said, you're going to know everything because I don't want you to struggle. The last thing I want you to do is to mourn my death and now have to figure out whether you can survive or stay in the house. And so I think one of the first things, It goes against the traditional roles, but is to sit back and say, I want to be involved. I want to understand. I want to communicate about money. I want to know where we're going, what we're doing. Now in my book, one of the things that I try to do first, and this is where I think we start to make the mistakes, is to look at money through the eyes of the lifestyle, you and you are more to live a certain life. And you allow that to inform the boundaries, you allow that to inform what you do. And the tendency when we get to money, is we don't connect it back to life. And so Stephanie and I and any of my clients we spend the time saying, let's figure out what you want for your life. And if you're in a relationship, you figure out what the two of you want for your life. And what does that look like? Mel, is that like look like on an everyday basis? I want to wanna go and be able to buy Starbucks every day and E out at a five-star restaurant, or is that I wanna put my kids to college when we have kids in 20 years. So, it's a combination of that. So, what I wanna do, was we start with the big picture first. And the big picture is, is let's just look a decade out. What do we want our relationship to look like, our health to look like, our family look like, our lifestyle look like? Do we want to travel a lot? Because then we can take that tenure of you, bring it to a five year view, that five year view to a one year, and then we can talk about 90 days. And now we can, and what you're doing is you're creating a vision that informs the plan, that sets of strategy that determines the tactics. Now the tactics are the things like, do I spend Starbucks each day? Where the problem comes in is, if we as a couple start to have a conversation at the tactic look and say, hmm, you, you spent like so much money at Starbucks. What is that? That's accused. They've been criticizing the system and judgment. It's never good for relationship. And now I'm some communication stops. So so when we talk about money, we always start back at the vision and we we let the vision inform the conversation because when we agree at the bigger level, then we have the opportunity to say, well, what is each of our, as a partnership, our roles to make it happen down here? And it's very, it's less judgment, less accusation, and criticism when we do it that way. It's more about the aspiration and what we want and and and creating a life together versus the separation based on judge. And so I think the first thing is learning to have communication. And part of that is for for ladies who have been in a relationship with this hasn't happened, we have to approach the subject. We're going to have to start the conversation. And I'm totally cool with being the bad guy. You know, you know, you're listening to a guy, this guy, and he said that we should. He's not here.

Here's the thing.

I don't care to have, Stephanie doesn't need to be on the same line of the pages me. I just need her on the same page. Now, is that my page, it's our page that we got a chance to define, that we got a chance to decide what we want our our life to look like and now we like now this is we have a we had a trip

plan we do a one big one to two big trips a year we already have one plan an opportunity came up and and I said it's it's like 40 days after we get back from the other one but it's like a once-in-a-lifetime trip and she looks at me because I go, well, in our plan, in our vision, these are the, these are one of our biggest joy points that try to learn to get. It's not going to put us in a whole financially. You know, so we decided to go ahead and do it. So we have two vacations in 45 days. I love that. But what happens if you're with somebody that has a very different idea of money than you? Let's say, so in fact, let me just take you, me and Tom for a second. When we first met, I was taught, you can save your way to security. So I was saving every single penny. I was taught that, having a father that came from Stiperas where he didn't have a penny that literally his toilet was a hole in the floor that is no exaggeration So someone that grew up with a toilet as a hole in the floor For him he was like if you go and work a burger king, which was my first job He was like save every penny do not spend it because if there's a rainy day, right? It was always like safe for the rainy day now I go and meet meet Tom, who is a completely opposite. And he's like, I can't save my weight to save your success. I want to spend every penny so I can build my wealth and success. So what would you advise if you meet someone where your vision of what you do with money is different? Well, and the likelihood is it will be different when you meet. And there are just like there's love languages, there's money personalities. And they can be in conflict with each other. If you're not careful. Money personalities, do you know what I'm saying? There's a spender, there's saver, there's philanthropists, and there's investor. And we will actually live in each of them at certain seasons of our life, because we can or because of our circumstances. The question is where do we want to? Like, for me, I'm investor philanthropist, but I was, I was hugely a saver for a while. I was one of those. But, you know, Stephanie came into my life and I started to open up myself to, wait, but what do I want for life? I want to experience it. I want to experience it. Well, to experience it, I need to be an investor that allows things to grow, but also do things that give to other people, but also give back to us. And so we started to change that. Now, when you have people that are completely too opposite extremes, this isn't a money issue. It's one of two things or a combination. It's a values issue, communicate or a communication issue. But it also could be rested on just simply a lack of understanding. Because most people will think like I have my dad was kind of the same way. Save save save save save. But the fact to the matter is you can't save yourself to wealth. It just doesn't happen, but your, but the fear is and this goes to another thing that if you look statistics which really interesting, women invest less than men. But typically when they do invest, they're better investors than men. So how do you put that thing together? And the reason they're better investors than men is there are a lot more, as much as you would, they don't have an ego that gets involved. And men have, have egos that get involved. But what happens that when it comes to investing or when it comes to two people in a relationship, it's really important for us to have the conversation of understanding. If I just understood that I need to just put money away and when we talk about long-term investing, I can almost assuredly get 8-10% that 8 out of 10 years of stock market goes up. If I don't know that, investing is risky. And you hear stories about people that lose millions. I might tell if I was there, I got caught in a Ponzi scheme, me and two friends who lost over four and a half million dollars. Oh, no, I had no idea. Oh, trust me. There's a whole lot of lesbians to learn from that. It's all good. That makes you very good at money.

Oh my God.

But here's the thing, when you're willing,

now this is important, because we all make bad

...