Feinstein Gerstley - The 30-day money cleanse: take control of your finances, manage your spending, and de-stress your money for good

Copyright 2019 by Ashley Feinstein Gerstley

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For anyone who has ever been
stressed about money.

PREFACE

MY STORY

I became an expert in achieving financial freedom when I found myself constantly stressed over my money. Where was it always going? Despite being a finance major and a financial services professional, I knew absolutely nothing about my own money. And it seemed to me that if I was lost and overwhelmed, people without my background probably were too.

In almost every area of personal finance, Ive learned lessons the hard way. There was the time I took a coworkers investment advice and lost thousands of dollars; the time I didnt realize that I needed to put my roommates name on our renters insurance policy, and then she wasnt able to use it when she really needed it; and the time I opened a store credit card that was so not user-friendly that my credit was blemished for seven years.

As I was going through my money journey, I experienced so much power and freedom from what I discovered about personal finance that I have since made it my mission to share the secret sauce with people everywhere. So many of us feel alone, confused, and worried that were lagging behind where we think we should be when it comes to our money. But much of the material thats available on personal finance makes the topic unnecessarily daunting and boringso we avoid it. I realized that what people needed was a simple, step-by-step plan that would help them take control of their money and get on track to reach their financial goals.

Thus, the 30-Day Money Cleanse was born. I designed the program based on my research and my work coaching clients one-on-one, which helped me see commonalities across all of my clients financial frustrations and stressors. Our issues might manifest a bit differently, but we are all struggling with similar questions. I also realized that money is in many respects strikingly similar to food, especially in the way that our behaviors tend to be tied much more to our emotions than to facts and figures.

I initially created the 30-Day Money Cleanse three years ago as an online course, and the results since then have been tremendous. The average participant saves $950 over the thirty-day duration of the course, or more than 20 percent of their monthly pretax income. I knew from the success that participants were experiencingand the positive feedback that I received from themthat I had to share the 30-Day Money Cleanse with an even wider audience. By writing this book, I aim to provide every reader with an easy-to-follow manual for achieving the healthy, lasting money mindset that this program has brought to me.

The 30-Day Money Cleanse is a movement to live an incredible, meaningful, and mindful life now , while also saving for our long-term goals and dreams. The Money Cleanse brings the personal back to personal finance and gets us back on our own team so that we can live in harmony with our money and build wealth easily.

CHAPTER ONE:

WHY WE ALL NEED A

MONEY CLEANSE

Our degree of resistance around money is proportional to the degree of power available to us on the other side of that resistance.

BARBARA STANNY, AUTHOR OF OVERCOMING UNDEREARNING

I spend most of my day talking with people about what they view as one of the most secretiveand often shamefulparts of their lives: their money. They share their dreams, their fears, and the mistakes theyve made, and I get a beautiful glimpse into their values, passions, upbringings, families, and goals. Its an absolute honor to join them on their money journey, because I get to travel with them from doubt, worry, and guilt to a stress-free and powerful money mindset. I feel like the luckiest woman on earth because I get to spend my days working on a mission that Im truly passionate about.

Not only do I love talking about money with my clients, groups, and potential clients, but I also seem to attract money stories wherever I go. It might be a new friend sharing an anecdote over a glass of wine, a colleague chiming in about a personal experience on a business call, or a complete stranger telling me about the money drama in their family. Ive listened to thousands and thousands of people share information about their secret money lives, and it didnt take a rocket scientist to notice that there were some major trends in all of their stories.

Regardless of how successful we are or how much money we make, were all struggling with very similar issues when it comes to our money. And to make matters worse, we feel completely alone.

Here are some of the complaints I hear over and over:

Its not like Im only buying high-end products or going on tons of shopping sprees I really dont live an extravagant lifestyle, but for some reason, theres never enough money left over to save.

I thought I wasnt getting paid enough to save, but then I got a raise, and Im still not saving. Where is all of my money going?!

I am so successful in every other area of my life. Why cant I figure out this money stuff? If I had a plan, I would be able to execute it. I just dont know where to start.

The first thing we have to understand about money is that we cant avoid it. We might think were doing ourselves a favor by ignoring our ever-growing credit card bills or not looking at our bank accounts, but that actually ends up causing us more anxiety in the long run. As hard as we may try, we really cant avoid money altogether. We might be able to take a break for a day or two, but in order to live as functioning members of society, we have to deal with money.

Yet most of us didnt learn about money. The majority of high schools and colleges dont offer personal finance programs, and its unlikely that a financially savvy adult or mentor took the time to fully delve into the topic with us. Its pretty funny when you think about it: personal finance is something that every single one of us will need, but its not something that were formally taught. We spend semesters learning calculus and geometry (and I dont know about you, but I havent used either since), yet when it comes to something this practical, this necessarynot a single lesson.