A discussion on how your income level and assets can affect your specific needs for coaching and financial wellness.
Money coaching isn’t exactly a new field, but it’s unfamiliar to enough people that I find myself having to define it fairly frequently. (No, it’s not a financial planner, though you could use one of those too.)
Another question I get is: “who is money coaching for?” We already know that many reputable financial planners won’t work with you unless you have a significant amount of assets. But is the same thing true of money coaches?
While we’re at it, does having assets matter when it comes to money coaching? And what about income? Do only higher income people benefit from money coaching? Or is it for lower income people?
So many questions. Let’s talk this out.
Table of Contents
Lower income
If you have a lower income, you don’t need to be told that life can be a struggle. Perhaps you have difficulty making your monthly income stretch to cover the whole month, and future planning such as retirement may seem out of reach.
A money coach can help you make the most of your limited budget, and help you get out of any jams you may have fallen into, such as predatory lending or excessive credit card debt.
A money coach can also help with your limiting beliefs, to help you out of the mindset that you’ll “always be poor” or unable to get ahead. Because mindset can seriously affect your wealth-building ability.
I will point out that there are organizations that help the general public who are in lower income situations, groups like Neighborhood Trust out of New York.
(I also work with those in lower incomes too, but I wanted to point out that I’m not the only one.)
Higher income
You might be tempted to think that if those with lower incomes can benefit from money coaching, then those with higher incomes don’t need it as much.
But you’d be wrong. Those with higher incomes can benefit from money coaching just as much.
Why is that? Because there isn’t always a correlation between how much money you earn, and how much money you have.
For example, if you make $200,000 a year, which puts you well into the top earners, then bravo to you. But if you’ve bought a $3,000,000 home, are paying on an $100,000 car loan, and have eye-watering amounts of student loans, well, $200,000 isn’t going to get you that far.
It’s just like Wilkins Macawber said: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.”
Also, those with larger incomes can feel just as anxious and out of control as those with smaller incomes. The feelings are just as real. And the solutions are similar: mindfulness, clarity, awareness, and patience.
What about assets?
We’ve talked about income so far, but what about assets? After all, there is not necessarily a correlation between income and assets.
Don’t believe me? Well, perhaps someone used to make more money and put a bunch away. Or what about someone with a lower income who’s just inherited a few hundred thousand dollars?
That last one is a situation where coaching is absolutely essential. Because if you are not used to dealing with large assets and you given custody of it, you need guidance to be able to level up, fast.
And of course, regardless of your income, if you don’t have assets, you need to get a plan together to start building some. Because, as I’ve been fond of saying, we all need to become millionaires, but also being a millionaire isn’t as impossible as it once was.
Want to get there yourself? Regardless of whether you have a lower income or a higher income, regardless of whether you have lots of assets or none at all, you need to work with a money coach.
