4 Actions You Need To Take to Ditch the Money Struggle

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Summary
In this episode of the Bankruptcy to Bliss podcast, host Louisa Larado shares her personal journey through bankruptcy and the steps she took to regain financial stability. She emphasizes the importance of mindset, practical financial strategies, goal setting, and taking consistent action to overcome financial hardships. Louisa provides listeners with actionable advice and insights to help them navigate their own financial challenges and create a positive money story moving forward.

Takeaways

• The decision to go bankrupt can be overwhelming.
• Financial setbacks impact all areas of life.
• Mindset is the foundation for financial recovery.
• Start with mindset before practical financial steps.
• Creating a flexible budget is crucial for financial health.
• Setting clear financial goals helps in achieving stability.
• Daily action is necessary for financial change.
• Limiting beliefs can hinder financial progress.
• Financial goals should be achievable and motivating.
• Community support can enhance accountability and success.

Keywords
bankruptcy, financial recovery, mindset, budgeting, financial goals, money management, financial stability, personal finance, overcoming debt, financial empowerment

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Disclaimer: The information contained on today’s podcast has been provided as general advice only. The contents have been prepared without taking into account your objectives, financial situation or individual needs. Before making any decision regarding the information, strategies or products mentioned on today’s podcast, please consult your own financial advisor or other professional first.

Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Financial Setbacks
• 5:21 Mindset Matters: The Foundation of Financial Recovery
• 10:26 Practical Steps to Financial Stability
• 14:57 Setting Goals for Financial Success
• 19:53 Taking Action: The Key to Transformation

Transcript

Welcome to the Bankruptcy to Bliss podcast. I'm your host, Louisa Larado And on today's episode, I want to dive into the idea of what next steps you need to take once you've gone through a big setback such as bankruptcy or any sort of financial hardship, just where you feel yourself overwhelmed and not really sure how to get things back on track.

I want to give you four simple steps you can start taking today to start transforming your money situation and to create the new money story that you really want to be having. So stay tuned for that.

Making the decision to go bankrupt was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. It was such a massive, overwhelming time in my life and it had such a big impact on so many different areas of my life. And I just remember the lead up to our bankruptcy where before we'd actually decided that yes, bankruptcy was gonna be right for us. It was just so overwhelming to think.

How are we gonna get through this situation that we'd found ourselves in? It was a situation we just had never pictured ourselves falling into. We never thought we'd ever be in a place where we couldn't afford to pay for food for our family. We had to choose between paying mortgage or paying for groceries. And if you've ever had to make a decision like that, you will understand just how...

overwhelming and consuming it is and it makes such an impact on all these different areas of your life. And if you've experienced this, then you'll know what I mean. But it's not just your finances that it impacts.

It has an impact on every single area of your life.

Because if you've ever been stressed by anything or if you're overwhelmed by anything or if you feel like you don't have control of a situation, what ends up happening is you are not functioning as the best version of yourself. You're not the calm, happy person that you might have previously been. You are reacting to every situation. So you might have something little that comes along and you freak out and you're just not.

reacting to the situation in a way that serves anybody. So you'll notice the effect on relationships, the people around you, your family, your friendships. Every little decision becomes so much harder. And that was all the things that were happening to me during that lead up to our bankruptcy. And then once we'd made that decision, so we'd gone bankrupt and it was a great decision for us because it was really a tricky decision of how do we get through this?

If we can't afford to pay for groceries for our family, if we don't have enough money in the bank to do that or pay for our bills, like make that decision between one or the other, we couldn't do both. Then we had to find a solution that would work for our family. didn't want to put long term stress because I started noticing the impact that's having on our kids, the stress, the worry, the...

the way I was reacting and speaking to them, the way I was speaking to my husband, no one was getting much sleep because of all the worry and stress. it wasn't a great environment. we found bankruptcy as a great, almost like a quick fix solution, I guess, to our problem because what it did is it enabled us to just wipe everything out, start fresh and rebuild ourselves. So it was hard to make that decision. And if you want to hear a bit more about my

bankruptcy story and what led us there, can definitely check out my episode on my bankruptcy story. But what we were left with, so we'd gone bankrupt, was thinking, okay, well, we've made this decision, we don't have a house anymore, we don't have barely any money in our bank anymore, we're starting fresh. So it was a massive relief because we didn't have all these debts. So that was a big thing that was worrying for us and we could use.

our income from our jobs to start paying for groceries and just, you know, day to day expenses that we couldn't do before our bankruptcy. then we were like, okay, but now where do we start? How do we even start getting back on track? What do we do first? And if you've listened to this podcast for a while, I've spoke about a few different things that worked for us, but I've condensed these down into my four biggest tools that I've learned.

Now I did not learn these tools in the exact order that I'm going to share them with you today because I learned through making a whole lot of mistakes and trying a whole lot of different things. So the first thing I tried, which I wouldn't advise you doing first, was we started looking at how to better manage our money and how to start then looking at creating some extra money. So maybe additional income or increasing our

income that we currently had. So that was a great thing to do and I highly recommend you all doing that but I don't recommend you starting there. And the reason being is I did a lot of research, I read a lot of books and I found all these different ways to experiment with budgeting, managing money until I found one that worked for us and our family and it felt really good.

What I found though is even though I started managing our money better and we knew exactly how much money we had coming in and how much we had going out, we were still living paycheck to paycheck. And so I had to make a lot more mistakes. I had did a lot more research, a lot more reading. I got some coaches and mentors in different areas. And what I found was the very first step that you should be taking that the majority of people don't do is starting to work on my mindset.

When you've gone through any sort of financial setback, such as bankruptcy or debt or any financial hardship, the emotional toll that it takes on you creates so many limiting beliefs and ideas. And it wasn't until I learned how to shift these and break free of these money blocks that I was holding onto the blame, the resentment and just the different ideas that I realized that I'd picked up during my bank.

So some of them were things like, I'm not good with money. That was an idea that I told myself that I just thought was a belief and I kept doing things that made me not be good with money. So it was like a self -fulfilling prophecy. Things like, we can't afford that. That was my default to anything, even if we could afford it because I was so controlling and worried about spending money or how my family members were spending money that I didn't want to lose it again. So I...

had this new belief that we just can't afford things or that money's always gonna be a struggle. Money's always gonna be hard. Those are sort of the beliefs that I had. So until you can learn how to shift your mindset and what that mindset is that I was just describing is what people describe as a lack mindset or a scarcity mindset. It's where you're constantly living in that state of stress and worry about your money. if...

that sounds like you at the moment, then you might be operating from that mindset too. And it's almost like the default after you faced any big financial setback, no matter what your mindset was prior to that, then you can easily change. But the good news is if you've gone from being okay with money and then you face this hurdle and you're feeling terrible about money, like just like I was, it can be changed. It's really quite easy to change. It's a lot easier than people realize to change your mindset, but it does.

involve doing a little bit of work. But that is the very first thing you need to do. And you might have heard me describe this before, but if you're building a house, you wouldn't start with building your ceiling and your walls, you always have to lay the foundation first. And that is what your mindset is. It is that foundation that you have to lay down first. Once you've got that sorted, and once you start feeling better about your money, and you've learned how to change those limiting thoughts and ideas and beliefs,

The next thing you can do then is start putting all the practical tools and strategies about making and managing and creating more money in your life into place. But if you do that first, which is the way I did it, I did the money managing and making strategies first before I did my mindset, then we were still running out of money each pay. Each pay cycle just before our pay came in, we did the dip into our savings if we managed to have any or we just have to.

be really tired for the last few days before our pay came in and we just did not feel like we were getting ahead. So that might be something you're experiencing right now. during our bankruptcy, we were still earning pretty good money at the time we were living in a mining town in Western Australia, which meant we had company housing so didn't have to pay for rent. We had my husband's job was really well paid. I was doing

casual relief teaching at the time. So I was getting okay money in as well. despite all this, everything was for us. We just could not get ahead. So mindset literally I found was everything. So that is number one. So start looking at how you can change your mindset. The second thing then you need to do after you've worked on your mind step is then start applying those practical steps.

So how I did this was firstly, I played around with some different budgets and I found that I needed to create a realistic and sustainable budget because a lot of people teach you how to make these budgets that are really rigid and tight and strict. And what they actually do is they still make you stressed and worried about money because they're so rigid that you feel worried about money you're spending or if something overspends. And life is not like that. Some months you have more payments than others.

Once you have extra bills, your kids might have activities. It might be somebody's birthday. So there's always extra things on top of what your traditional budgets are going to allow for. So I found a way to create a budget that was a lot more flexible and catered for my family's needs that I could have a bit of leeway in. So it didn't make me feel restricted. It actually made me feel really empowered because I knew exactly how much money we had coming in.

roughly how much money would be going out and then I could allocate money for things like savings, investments and other areas. And once I did this, then that's when we actually started having that overflow of money where we could save up a bit of money, invest a little bit of money and that was able to build up over time. you've got your practical steps and then part of those as well might be looking at ways to create additional income or increase in your current

pay wherever you currently are working. Is there extra things that you can do to generate more income? So that's another practical step you could be taking. The next thing that you really need to be doing, which will tie all of these together, is start looking at setting yourself financial goals. So if you are just autopilot, playing it by ear, hoping you say something, but you don't really have anything clear that you're working towards or a goal that you're striving for,

And it's likely you're not going to reach anything or achieve anything just by magic. You need a clear plan in place and you need to know where you're heading. Otherwise, it's like you're driving around in the middle of the night without your lights on because you just don't know where you're going. So you don't know what's up ahead. And when we first went bankrupt, probably for the first year, I did not set a single financial goal just because I was so overwhelmed with our money situation and I was worried about it.

And I really tried not to think about money for a while. I just wanted to break from money basically. Apart from me stressing about it for that year, I didn't practically think, okay, well, these are the steps I'm gonna take to actually start creating some more money for us. And this is the money goal I wanna set. But.

When we did start setting goals, it was amazing how quickly things started to change because once you have that thing you're working towards and you sort of know why you're working towards it so much, and it should be something that gets you excited. So for us, it started off as a holiday, a family holiday we wanted to work on towards that we had to save up for. And that was a really good why. Like, yeah, we know we want to do this and this is why we're going to have a great experience with our kids. And then we were more likely to save. If we didn't have those goals, then we may put a bit of money away in savings each month.

But then if we need money for something else or something else comes up, we're more likely to dip into those savings rather than evaluating whether we actually need that other thing that we want to purchase and not have to go into our savings. So having goals, learning how to set achievable goals, that really helps you manage your money better. It helps you have that clear roadmap of where you want to be and it helps you create a bit more stability and growth.

And when you start setting them the right way, because there is some wrong ways you can set goals if they're too hard or they're not achievable, what those sort of goals can do is they can cause you a bit more stress and worry because you think, well, I didn't achieve it, so then you give up. So the key is setting really clear, achievable goals that might be smaller and easy to achieve at first, and then you can gradually build yourself up from there. And that's gonna give you a lot more likelihood of achieving those goals, which is gonna help build up your

financial confidence again. Then the final thing I want you to do, so we've touched on mindset, having those practical steps, goal setting. And finally, what you need to do is you need to start taking action. So the second you want results to happen, you need to be committed to taking some action. So you can do all the mindset work you want, can learn about all these different tools and strategies.

You could set goals, but if you don't then actually take any action towards any of those things, then nothing in your life is gonna change. So you need to know what action steps you need to do. And I love the idea of taking one small daily action because it makes it a habit and it makes it something you commit to yourself to do. And it keeps you on track and focused. So they are my biggest things I advise you doing. So firstly, work on your mindset. Second.

learn your practical steps and tools for financial stability. Three, learn about how you can set yourself goals for a brighter future. And four, start taking daily action. Now, if you want to learn more about how to do any of these things I've spoken to you about today,

In a few weeks, I'm holding a live virtual workshop called bankrupt and broke. Now what now this is going to give you the roadmap to lasting financial stability and confidence. If you're ready to unlock your financial path to recovery and empowerment, then this is a workshop for you. This workshop is going to be

about two hours long and it's going to be live via zoom and you can watch it from anywhere in the world that you are.

I'm gonna show you the exact way you can take these actions that I just outlined. I'm gonna be teaching you how to overcome the emotional toll of bankruptcy and learn how to ditch those limiting beliefs and money blocks and money stress and money worry once and for all. So that's by mastering your mindset. I'm gonna give you the exact tools you can take to start working on that immediately.

I'm going to be giving you some practical steps and tools you can start taking. I'll show you how I budget and how I create that flexible budget that's not rigid, that can suit your life. And I'm going to show you how you can have some ideas of maybe creating additional money in your life. I'll be taking you through how to set really good, clear goals so that you would guaranteed results.

and they're going to set you up for success. And then I'm going to be giving you some clear action steps that you can use immediately. So after this workshop, if you take the actions that I outline, you will see results within weeks and that change to your financial stability.

So why should you attend? Well, I'm be leading you through all these things that I've experienced firsthand myself that work. So you can learn from my mistakes that I have made. So you don't have to make them yourself. So you can get the quickest way to success. I'm gonna be giving you proven strategies, not just theory, things that actually work in real life situations. And these will apply to you no matter what your current circumstances are.

our online community. So that's where you can connect with one another who are in the same boat that are experiencing a shared experience to help each other stay accountable, ask questions and just help you reach those goals and clarify anything that comes up during the workshop.

Now, my only question to you is can you afford not to attend this? Now, I had to learn the hard way, just how much time and effort and money I lost trying to learn all these steps myself because I had made so many mistakes along the way. And it wasn't until I started paying for coaches and mentors and online training and reading the books and doing the work and taking the action that I realized the quickest way to get there.

I'm saving you all those steps by telling you exactly how to do it without having to invest as much time and money as I did to learn it. So this small investment now will pay off more than you can imagine.

Now a few questions I've had about this workshop, this workshop is applicable for anyone, no matter what your current circumstances are. I'm going to be giving you such a range of tools so you can pick and choose the ones that are going to work for you. Now this workshop's all going to be online via Zoom so you can watch anywhere in the world from any device as long as you have an internet connection.

And if you can't attend the workshop live, you'll have seven days to access the recording of the workshop. So you can come back and watch it at your convenience and you will still get all the strategies, the tools, the workbooks and everything that I've spoken about today.

to register for this workshop, I'm leaving you a link in the show notes below. So just click that link and it will take you straight to the registration page.

So to recap today, those four things that you need to start doing as soon as possible, the sooner you start these four steps, you will start regaining that financial stability, you'll start reaching these financial goals that you have.

And you just feel yourself getting back on track, which is gonna help you rebuild your confidence and just feel really good about your money again.

So firstly, you need to learn how to master your mindset. If you don't know how to ditch the limiting beliefs or to stop blaming or stop dwelling on what's happened in the past, you will be constantly holding onto that money struggle in your life and you'll keep seeing these patterns replaying that live up to money being a struggle for you. So learn how to master your mindset. Then step two, start applying the practical steps and tools.

to better manage and make more money in your life. Step three, set very clear achievable goals and make sure these are set. You always have some sort of financial goal that you are working towards. Once you achieve one, then you need to set another one. And step four, take action every single day towards your goals or any of the other steps that I have spoken about today.

So again, if you want to know exactly how to do these, please feel free to click the link in the show notes to register for our amazing virtual workshop. Hopefully I'll see you there. If not, there is plenty of other content on the podcast to help get you that step closer to financial stability and just feeling good about your money again. Thank you so much for listening.

Don't forget if you've enjoyed these episodes, please don't forget to subscribe to the Bankruptcy to Bliss podcast so you'll be notified when the next episode comes out. Thanks for listening everyone.