Turn Your Financial Priorities Into an Actual Roadmap
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Intentional Money Moves Live. I'm Leah Hadley, and this episode was recorded live and is brought to you in audio form so you can take it with you wherever you go. Each week, I tackle the money topics that matter most to women who are ready to build wealth with purpose and confidence from investing and retirement planning to navigating finances through some of life's biggest transitions.
No topic is off the table. Now. Let's get into it.
Hi there, and welcome back to Intentional Money Moves. I am Leah Hadley, and I'm so glad that you're here with us today. If you're new to the show, welcome. We are here every Tuesday at noon eastern. And we're talking about real money, real strategies, and real solutions for the financial challenges.
That you may be facing. It's always a conversation. So I always encourage you to go ahead and enter things [00:01:00] into the chat, enter questions, comments. I'm here to help. So don't feel like this is just me giving you information. You've been here with us all, all month. Fantastic. Welcome back. We have been on quite a journey together, right?
Week one, we talked about three money moves to start, 2026 strong, getting clear, aligning with your values, and we talked about choosing. One priority, right? Week two, we went deep on values-based investing, and last week we went deep on how to choose that one priority. That's really you know, when everything feels urgent, how do you decide what to focus on?
So today. Today we're talking about the how So, because knowing what you want to focus on is fantastic. But if you don't actually have the roadmap to make that happen, then honestly it's just a wish. So by the end of this episode, you are going to have a framework for turning your financial priority into an actual.
Actionable strategy. [00:02:00] Okay. So, oh, fantastic. We have lots of people watching today. Pop something into the chat box. Let me know where you're watching from. Say hello. If you're watching live and if you're watching the replay, let me know that as well. If you have been participating in our 30 day Financial Reset challenge, we are actually in the last week of the challenge.
Kind of hard to believe. January is already coming to an end. Right. 23 days ago, 24 days ago, we started this journey together. And I have to tell you that watching what has happened in the community has just been really so powerful. You know, watching women just be so vulnerable and sharing and supporting one another.
I've seen people who were so completely, uncomfortable looking at their numbers, who now have really good clarity around what their financial situation is, right? We've seen people who realize that their spending was not in alignment with what actually mattered to them, and they're making different choices now, and it's not because I [00:03:00] told them to make different choices, right?
It's not because somebody else told them to make different choices, but it's because they got clear on what matters to them and they're making the decisions that are in alignment, right? I've seen people who thought they had to fix. Everything at once start to get really clear on picking that one priority, which is really powerful.
The transformation that we're witnessing has been real. So I know not everybody has engaged with the challenge in the same way. Some of you may have jumped in in day one and did every single prompt. Some of you may have started late or are catching up. Some of you may be saving the emails and haven't even opened them yet.
Right? Here's what I want you to know. Wherever you are is fine. Wherever you are is fine. Okay. This, this challenge really is not about you know, it's not about perfection, right? It's about really making progress and getting an alignment to what matters to you, right? It's not about doing it right. So the content that we have created for the, the challenge really is evergreen.[00:04:00]
You can refer back to it any time. You can even start over in February if you want, right? Pick up where you left off. But what I don't want to see happen is for people to get through the challenge and kind of just go back to the way things were before, right? Because the clarity that our folks have gained.
Or if, if you haven't gone through the content that you could gain through the content, it's so valuable. And so I just wanna encourage you not to let that disappear. So as we're wrapping up the challenge this week, I hope you're thinking about what comes next for you. How do you maintain that momentum?
How do you keep moving forward? And that's really what we're talking about today, right? What we're talking about is really the how to reach your goal that you set for yourself, right? So, so let's start here. What's the difference? Between a goal and a strategy. You know, when we talk about the intentional money method, we talk about the importance of having a good, solid strategy.
A goal is the what, right? Like I wanna pay off my credit card debt. That's the [00:05:00] goal. The strategy is the how. Let's say I'm going to pay off, you know, $5,000 of credit card debt over the next 10 months, and I'm gonna do that by reducing my dining out, spending by $500 a month and redirecting that into. Paying off my credit card debt.
See the, the difference there, you have very specific actions that you're taking a plan to achieve that goal. That's your strategy, right? And, and here's what I see in my practice all the time, quite frankly, people set goals, they get really excited. They have great intentions, but they don't necessarily have that clear specific strategy.
And then three months later. They might be frustrated 'cause they're not seeing any change. So today we're gonna fix that right Now, if you chose your one priority last week, and I hope you did, we're gonna really break that down into a one roadmap. Now, if you haven't chosen your priority, that's okay and still follow along.
But you may wanna go back and watch last week's session first to really help you get clear on that one priority that you wanna select. [00:06:00] So first step is gonna be to get specific about your numbers, not, I wanna save more. But like as an example, I wanna save $3,000 for an emergency fund. So not I wanna pay off debt, but I wanna pay off.
$8,000 in credit card debt. Not I wanna fix my retirement, but I wanna increase my 4 0 1 contribution from 3% to 6% by March 1st. Right? Specific numbers, specific timeline. You don't know where you're going. It's kind of hard to know when you get there, right? The second step is to break it down into milestones.
So let's say your goal is to pay off $5,000 in credit card debt. Over the next 10 weeks. That means you need to pay off about $500 per week. So you've got a target every week. You know what you're aiming for. You can track whether you're on pace or you're falling behind. This is where most people skip ahead.
They set the big goal and then they just kind of hope it happens. [00:07:00] They throw whatever extra money they have at it, kind of cross their fingers. When you break it into milestones, that really helps you to create accountability for yourself, okay? That's really valuable. Allows you to create that momentum that shows you what's working right?
It creates the proof that it's working. Let me give you an example. I had a client a few years ago who was saving for a down payment on our house, and she had been saving for two years, but only had about $1,200 saved in her account. And we sat down and we did the math. If she wanted to hit her goal in the next 12 months, she needed to set aside about $800 a month in addition to the money that she had already saved.
Now, I'm sure many of you can identify with what she said to me. She was like, Leah, I don't have an extra $800 a month. Just lying around. And I was like, yes, I know, right? Let's figure out where that's gonna come from. Right. That's gonna bring me to the second part of the strategy. I just wanna [00:08:00] take a second and just see if anybody who's watching live, first of all, it's fantastic to have so many people watching live today.
Thank you for being here. If you have questions, please drop 'em into the chat box. I will say I have noticed that I don't see. All of the questions and comments when I'm doing these live streams, but I will absolutely come back and respond to anything I missed. So please go ahead and put any questions you have in the chat box and I will make sure to come back, even if I don't see them.
But if I do see 'em, I'll answer 'em now. Okay. So we talked about how important that is to building your strategy. So you have your specific goal, you've broken it down into milestones. Here's the hard part, right? Where does the money actually come from? I guess you can have the best plan in the world, but if you don't have a plan for finding the money, how's it gonna happen?
Right? And there's really three places that money can come from. Okay? We can look at redirecting current spending, and I was literally on a call. A client earlier this morning, and we were talking about this, we were talking about [00:09:00] redirecting current spending. And it definitely is a place where you can find money.
It is typically the place where people first start to look when they're looking for finding money, but it also can really lead to some limiting beliefs about our ability to generate income. And so I just wanna kind of put that into your mind and we'll talk a little bit about this one. But I just want you to remind you, cutting back on spending is not the.
Only place we're gonna find money, right? But this is where that spending on it, that we did during the challenge really pays off because you know exactly where your money went. You can decide where you want it to go for the year, right? So maybe you're spending $400 a month dining out and you realize that actually half of those meals were just because you didn't really feel like cooking.
What if you cut that by $250? That's $150 a month. If you cut it down to two 50, that's $150 a month that you could have going toward that goal. Right? Maybe you have three streaming subscriptions you never use. Right? That was one of the things we looked at during the challenge [00:10:00] as well. If you cancel a couple of 'em, you know, maybe you're coming up with 30, 40, $50.
Maybe you are paying for a gym membership that you haven't used since November, that might be another $50 or a hundred dollars. Now I'm not. I'm telling you to live like a monk. Just to be clear. I'm saying you get to choose what is worth it and what's not. And when you're clear on your priority, and you know that $200 a month for the next six months means your credit card is paid off, it's actually easier to say no to stuff that doesn't matter.
Okay? But the second option is increasing income. Now, I recognize that for a lot of people, this is sort of a longer term strategy. This isn't something that everybody can do immediately. But there are things that you can do, right? You can look at picking up extra shifts or taking on freelance project, maybe selling stuff you're not using.
You can ask for a raise, right? Those are all things that are gonna accelerate progress. And the client that I mentioned who needed an extra $800, she [00:11:00] picked up a couple of freelance writing projects that were able to bring in a little extra money. She was able to sell some furniture she wasn't using.
She was able to get a small raise at, at work. It didn't make, you know, move the needle too much, but it certainly helped. So even though she couldn't find all of the $800 in her budget in terms of cutting back, she was able to really look and get serious about how can I come up with this additional money?
Right? And then the third is one time windfalls. And this, this time of year we see bonuses, we see taxes, right? Maybe some of you still have money from the holidays that you received as gifts. The. I mean, it could be anything, right? It could be getting rid of your old phone and, and you know, getting a couple hundred dollars out of it, right?
Most people, most people actually treat windfalls as if it was like free money and they just kind of blow it on something fun. And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that. Like, I get it. I want you to enjoy life. We talked about the joy, fun, right? But if you are [00:12:00] serious about your financial priority.
Leaf loans are actually like rocket fuel. And so if you get a tax refund and you throw it at that priority that you've set for yourself, you may have actually shaved a month, two months, three months off your timeline, right? And so that's what I mean by rocket fuel. So what I want you to do is look at that priority and look at the monthly or weekly number that you need to hit, and I want you to ask yourself.
Where can I find the money, right? So if it's a hundred dollars, where can I find a hundred dollars? If it's $500, where can I find $500? Does not all have to come from the same place. Doesn't all have to come from the same place. Right. The clearer we are around where money's coming from and where it's going, the easier it is to go through this exercise and to really look at, okay, maybe I can, you know, reduce my grocery spending a little bit.
Maybe I can increase income from a side project. Maybe I can cancel some subscriptions. I'll tell you what, I coach people on canceling subscriptions all the time, and I [00:13:00] was actually very surprised when we were doing the challenge. I found something that I had signed up for as a trial that I was not using, and I was actually able to save almost $80 a month, which was very exciting.
So it's easy. It's easy to sign up for these things and then, you know, you get through your free trial and you know, sometimes it's easy to forget that you're even paying for it, right? So that's where I want you to just take the time and get clear around your numbers and look and know that there are options.
There's not a one size fits all solution, right? This is where that trade off conversation happens. What are you willing to exchange for this goal? Okay? How important is this goal to you? Are you willing to cook at home four nights a week instead of two? Are you willing to skip happy hour for a few months?
Right? Are you willing to take an extra shift on a Saturday for a while now? Nobody's gonna be able to answer that, but you. But when you are very clear on your why, when you know what financial piece [00:14:00] looks like for you, which is something that we talked about, you know, in week one of the challenge. Know what financial piece looks like for you.
When you know what it'll feel like to have that solid emergency fund in place, the trade-offs get easier. Okay? So again, if you have any questions as I'm going through, please don't hesitate to pop 'em into the chat box. All right, so you've got your roadmap. You have figured out where the money's coming from.
Now comes the part that most people skip, and that's accountability. Now, here is why most financial goals fail. People set the goal, they get excited, they start strong, and then a week later, two weeks later, life happens, right? An unexpected expense pops up. Maybe they forget to track their progress. They might get discouraged just because it feels like it's gonna take forever and they give up.
Now, this isn't [00:15:00] because they're lazy, and it's not because they're bad with money, but just because they didn't have the accountability set up into their plan. Right? Let's talk about what accountability actually looks like, right? First, I do really encourage you to have a tracking system of some kind, and again.
I'm not a one size fits all solution kind of girl, right? I want you to find a tracking system that works for you, okay? I don't care if it is a fancy app, if it's a spreadsheet, it's a little notebook where you write your numbers every week. Just something, because if you're not tracking your progress, you honestly have no idea if you're on track or not.
So whether it's every week or every month, check in. How much did I pay toward the credit card? How much did I increase my retirement savings? How much is in my emergency savings account? Right? Am I on target to hit my milestone? Okay. And you set the rhythm for the check-ins. Okay. Put it on your calendar though, like it's, it's an important [00:16:00] appointment.
So that way you make sure that you keep it right. That's really important. It might be, you know, maybe this is something you check in on every Sunday with your coffee, or the first of the month, or, you know, whatever works for you. But I do encourage you to develop some kind of consistency around it, because when you check in regularly, that's when you can catch problems early on and you can see if you're off course and you need to course correct.
So, you know, I. There are also times when you can be ahead of schedule, which is awesome, and then you could celebrate that and that can be really, really motivating to recognize that you're ahead of schedule. Right? And the third, and you hear me say this all the time, but that is to celebrate the small wins.
Now this is the part that people forget, right? They think they have to wait until the goal is completely accomplished. Done to celebrate the wins. I'll share today, I posted a. Video on social media. I've been posting some of my workout videos 'cause everybody's like encouraging me to do so, and you know, talking about how motivating they are and all of this.
And so [00:17:00] today I posted a video where I was like doing a plank. And then the personal trainer I'm working with, she gave me a weight to like lift my arm up as I was doing the plank. And that was. Such an accomplishment for me. Like, first of all, I wasn't like barely able to do a plank for 30 seconds when I first started.
And then I was able to do a whole minute and now I can hold it in like. Pick my arms up and stuff. I'm celebrating every single milestone, right? I haven't finished my fitness journey, although I don't think we ever finished a fitness journey. Right. But acknowledging and recognizing my progress helps me to maintain the, that momentum.
And then I share it on social media because the feedback helps me stay motivated. Right? And it's fun to hear that it's motivating other people as well. Now, just as an example, in terms of financial dollars, right? So let's say we're paying off a $5,000 debt, right? If you've paid off a thousand dollars, that's already 20%.
So [00:18:00] instead of focusing, oh, I still have $4,000 more, let's. Celebrate what you've accomplished and what does that celebration look like? That depends on you, right? It could be a bubble bath, it could be a little dance, it could be sharing with a friend. It might be sharing on social media like I do with my fitness journal, right?
Doesn't matter. I want you to acknowledge the progress because that progress is what's gonna help build momentum. And celebrating small wins really helps you to keep going. You know, when everything does feel hard. And the fourth is that you really do need to know when to pivot. The fact of the matter is life happens, right?
Cars break down, people lose jobs, kids need braces. The plan you may made in January, it may not work in March. That's okay. That is okay. You don't have to quit. You just have to pivot. That's all right. So maybe you pause your goal for a month to handle something that has come up. Maybe you adjust your timeline a little bit.
Maybe you lower your monthly [00:19:00] target temporarily, but you don't have to give up. Right when I was sick, right? I'll use my workout journey as an example. Again, when I was sick, I wasn't able to work out the way that I, you know, was or the way that I can when I'm healthy. That doesn't mean I gave up on my fitness journey.
That meant I needed to take care of my body. I need to rest my body for a little bit and now I'm ready to get back at it, right? So don't give up. Just adjust and keep going. And here's the last piece that I really want to talk about, and that is community. Community matters. It is hard to do this stuff alone.
It's hard to stay motivated when nobody knows what you're working on. It's hard to stay accountable when there's nobody there to check in with you, right? That is why we've seen the kind of progress that we've seen in the challenge so far because people aren't doing it alone. They had people who were commenting and sharing and supporting.
They had prompts and structure and community. So I do wanna share with you as we kind of [00:20:00] wrap up today. If you've been participating in the 30 day challenge, how are you going to keep up that momentum? Right? It gave you structure, it gave you community, it helped you to get clear, choose your priority. And start building the plan.
Fantastic. Right? But momentum, it just doesn't maintain itself. Right? And so what I see happen all the time is people do saw a challenge like this, they get excited, they make progress, and then the challenge ends and they go back to doing it alone or slowly, the momentum fades, right? I don't want that for you.
So I do wanna encourage you to consider the Empowered Sisterhood. It is a community of women. Who want the ongoing support, the ongoing education, the ongoing accountability, right? Every month we deep dive in a masterclass on a very specific financial topic. Today we are talking about investing, right?
We're talking, this is our quarterly compass masterclass today, [00:21:00] where we'll be talking about fourth quarter investment performance, what our outlook is for 2026, and most importantly, the the investment principles that every investor really know, needs to know. Right? That's what we're talking about.
And, and for some people that is the how of how they're going to achieve their goal that they've set for themselves is investing, right? Is getting their money working harder for them. And so having access to this kind of education is so, so powerful, right? It really allows us to help you build that strategy together so you're not trying to figure it out on your own.
You don't have to figure out where the money's gonna come from. We can walk through that, right? Really allows you to set up that accountability for yourself. So if you are a member of the Empowered Sisterhood, I hope you are registered for this evening's masterclass. Of course, it will be in your portal if you're not able to join us live, but I always love it when you're live so you can ask any questions that you have, right?
So I do have a few minutes left today if there are any questions about anything that I [00:22:00] shared about building your roadmap about how to find the money to reach your goal. About staying accountable about the sisterhood. You know, any questions that you have, I'm happy to answer for you. I don't see any questions coming through.
Again, I'm sorry if you're asking a question and I'm not seeing it, I'll absolutely come back and respond to it. But I'm not seeing any questions come through. So I'm gonna go ahead and kind of wrap up. Talk about just what did we talk about today? We talked about, turning your goal into a strategy, right?
Getting very specific about your numbers and then breaking it into milestones. We talked about how to find the money, whether it's redirecting, spending, increasing income, utilizing windfalls, right? We talked about the value and importance of accountability, tracking your progress, checking in with yourself regularly.
Celebrating those small wins, and importantly, knowing when to pivot. Right? And then last but not [00:23:00] least, we talked about the value of not trying to do it alone. Community and support really, really does make all the difference. So I want you to take what you have learned. And keep going. Let that momentum keep going for you.
Right. Next Tuesday we're doing something a little bit different. But some of you may have heard me recently on like podcasts and stuff. I have, I have a soapbox that I'm on right now around making sure that people are really optimizing their 401k. So next week we are gonna be talking about maximizing your 401k.
How to really turn your retirement and account into a wealth building machine, which is what it should be, right? So if you have ever wondered if you are investing in the right funds, whether you are leaving money on the table with your employer match, if you should be maxing out your 401k or doing something else, this episode next week is gonna be for you.
I'm gonna share some information about a new service offering that we have and really helping you to understand how to [00:24:00] strategize and optimize for your 401k. So make sure you are subscribed. You've got your notifications turned on so you don't miss it. And if today was helpful, I hope you'll share it with somebody who is trying to figure out how to make their financial goals happen.
This is what we're all about, right? We wanna help you to really build your roadmap and then just make it happen, and then we wanna celebrate with you. So thank you so much for being here today, and I will see you now.
Thanks for listening to Intentional Money Moves Live. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to hit follow so you never miss one. Wanna join the conversation live? Tune in every Tuesday at noon Eastern time on YouTube. And if you're ready to take the next step in your financial journey, head over to watch her thrive.co.
To learn more about how my team and I can help you build wealth with purpose and peace of mind. I'll see you next week.
