Becoming a Financial Coach - And Why I’m So Passionate About It

My financial coaching services are about to be released - I am talking days, not weeks!

If you’re ready to move from anxious and overwhelmed about money to calm, confident, and in control - this is for you. The service is about where you are in your financial life, where you’ve come from, where you want to go and how to get there. Practical and emotional.

There will, of course, be an intro offer - so make sure you’re signed up to the newsletter!

But let me tell you where I’m coming from.

A Comfortable Start, Then a Crash

I grew up pretty comfortable. My parents had good jobs, we lived in a good area, I went to a good school, holidays every year. Although we weren’t rich, as a child I never had to even think about money. I went to school, college and university and then just as I was graduating there was the 2008 financial crash. Suddenly I lost all confidence of a financial future.

I was never a kid with a clear vision of what I wanted to do - I studied law but imagining myself in that situation felt like dress up. I worked at a few different office and shop type jobs whilst studying before accidentally starting a yarn shop just after graduating. The shop was profitable from the get go but probably only because I ran myself ragged and took virtually no wages for years. I still lived at home and I had no savings whatsoever.

Building a Business from Scratch

I prided myself on being affordable - I still am proud of that - craft should be available to as many people as possible but it did mean I took some decisions which benefitted my customers more than my stability. Something about my comfortable upbringing, interrupted by this huge financial shock and the many wild political decisions afterwards had my empathy going haywire.

I also had in my head that at any moment the shop wouldn’t work and I’d have to go get a ‘proper’ job. But it did work, people loved it, I was able to move to a bigger shop and to start taking a wage and putting some by. I really had no idea what I was doing but I was saving here and there. I started taking holidays (which are so important to me) and enjoying days out and little luxuries like perfumes and books. I moved in with my now husband, I opened a Help To Buy ISA.

During Covid I got a lot of the government support because I was a small, high street business and, as well as paying suppliers, staff, and bills, I paid myself a lump sum rather than a drip feed. My nan died of Covid and left me a little, and before I knew it I had £13,000 of earnings, savings and inheritance to do something with but what?!

Discovering My Purpose

Nobody I knew was really an investor. The ‘adults’ in my life are all financially stable but nobody seemed investment savvy and I knew I wanted more than to put it in a cash ISA.

So I contacted financial advisors. I knew not all of them would want to work with my measly £13,000 but I didn’t realise that none of them would! Most didn’t respond, a couple of kindly ones gave me suggestions of looking into SIPPs but explained that £13,000 really wasn’t worth it for them.

I felt disheartened, I knew that in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t a lot of money, but I also knew how hard I’d worked and what it represented. I made the decision to use some of my £13,000 to study to be a financial advisor for people like me - not poor, not exactly stable, but young and capable and aware that they should be doing something to set themselves up even if the world was on fire.

Then I graduated and I realised that, somebody with £13,000 probably isn’t ‘worth’ working with as a traditional financial advisor but also, I wasn’t so interested in the ins and outs of which product is the most tax efficient. What I was actually interested in was the confidence, the education, the background knowledge, the curiosity, the idea of who belongs - and that’s when I started to consider financial coaching.

Creating Financial Coaching for Real People

This is more basic in some ways. The people I want to work with are not comfortable with financial jargon, they’ve not got multiple streams of income and investments here there and everywhere.

However, it’s also much deeper because it’s about taking up space: about knowing that even if everything tells you that this isn’t for you, or that you’ll be working until you’re in your grave, or that you don’t deserve to live in comfort because there are people suffering - the truth is that people like you deserve to feel comfortable, stable, cared for - and it is possible for you.

More, it’s imperative that people like you, who have empathy, understanding and awareness are not scratching around in financial anxiety but able to offer the best of you to the world.

Financial Wellbeing Isn’t a Luxury. It’s a Right.

At just about that time the world started opening back up and the shop became busy again. Whilst I was working as hard as ever the money wasn’t as easy in the shop, something had shifted and I had no time to focus on the financial side - I gave my full focus back to the shop and it pulled around.

Soon after my husband, Dr Chris, was headhunted and moved to Sweden. My mind turned to selling the shop and then setting up the financial coaching for women and non-binary people. Spreading financial empowerment and money confidence was still swirling around in my head and leaking out in so many of my conversations. It’s taken nearly three years for it all to come to pass but I am finally here and so excited to offer what I think is incredibly needed and timely into the world.

I’ll spend the next few posts talking about my services and philosophy and then I’ll slide back into the types of posts I’ve been getting comfortable with but I make no apologies for the amount of selling I will do here! Unlike with the shop, I am starting this business with the express intention to feel stable, comfortable and wealthy. I want my clients to feel that too of course, and I love to be of service, but I’m in business and I won’t run myself ragged because I care about the world - I’ll take care of myself and my community because I care about it.

If you’re ready to build financial confidence and security - without the jargon or shame - make sure you’re signed up to get the intro offer straight to your inbox!

Love Eleanor. xxx