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I can’t believe I’m 40. It seems like just yesterday I was envisioning what my 30-year-old self would be doing. Back then, anything past 30 was old. And here I am. Forty years old, fifteen years of marriage, four kids, a dog, a business, and many other details that have accessorized my life until now.

My children have pivoted from tiny toddlers to interesting young adults who continue to surprise us with their interests and personalities. With their growing independence, I find myself with time. Not the kind of time where I could travel for a month, but time to build the dreams Heather kept all those years when I could barely use the bathroom by myself.

And the outcome ? I help female entrepreneurs eliminate messy, chaotic financials and tax-time anxiety, with organized and maintained business and personal financials that provide valuable information using my Garden and the Greenhouse framework.

Doesn’t that sound amazing ? Yet you wonder how much work is required to get from here to there.

Let me ask you a question. Do you enjoy cooking dinner ? I found a statistic stating 36% of Americans cook at home daily, and of that 13.7% of those have a strong passion for cooking. That means 23% of families that cook daily DO NOT have a passion for cooking.

Why is this relevant to our finances?

My family cooks at home almost daily and I do not have a passion for cooking that involves specific time frames and palette specifications.

But my cooking gets them to the dinner table. A moment in our day to reconnect – reminding us that this is the most important place in our lives right now. Your family, your life. Without these moments of conversation, understanding how we can support each other would be very difficult. 

In our businesses, addressing our financials feels mundane, monotonous or as Tabitha would put it – boring. Just like cooking dinner. But your business finances provide valuable data for decisions that move you towards your business dreams and goals.

As Elizabeth Gilbert says in her book, Big Magic:

I recently read a fabulous blog by a writer named Mark Manson, who said that the secret to finding your purpose in life is to answer this question in total honesty: “What’s your favorite flavor of shit sandwich?”

What Manson means is that every single pursuit – no matter how wonderful and exciting and glamorous it may initially seem – comes with its own brand of shit sandwich, its own lousy side effects. As Manson writes with profound wisdom: “Everything sucks, some of the time.” You just have to decide what sort of suckage you’re willing to deal with.

With that being said, for most of you, the shit sandwich of being an entrepreneur is managing your books. But avoiding that shit sandwich is like never looking at your checking account and wondering whether your mortgage or rent got paid.

Cooking dinner for me is often a shit sandwich. But it’s one of my favorite flavors because that sandwich gets my family to the table where the best of my life happens everyday.

If you’re feeling frustrated with a plan of action for your business or personal finances, I invite you into my zone of genius where we can create a digestible plan together. 

Send me an email or leave a comment below with your biggest financial frustration.

I read many books about money management and building wealth.

This is the FIRST book that approaches money manage HOLISTICALLY. If that sounds too hokey for you – do you imagine me with my crystals and candles – give it a chance. This year I see my money personality involves more than a combination of knowledge and application, but how I view my self-worth.

Even as a child of God, I’ve lived with a scarcity mindset. I believe that God can do the impossible – but I lack faith in myself as a chosen vessel through whom that impossible can be done.

The author of The Financial Mindset Fix, Joyce Marter, is a psychotherapist, successful entrepreneur, national speaker and thought leader in mental health.¹ Now more than ever is mental health recognized as a real and serious issue for people across our country and the world.

Here are the top 4 features of this book that stand out to me the most so far.

Macro View of Money

Joyce starts with an amazing quote from Suze Orman:

I am a financial planner, not a psychiatrist, but I do know that your net worth will rise to meet your self-worth only if your self-worth rises to accept what can be yours.

Too many books I’ve read previously focuses on what we’re doing wrong. Not tracking our expenses. Not paying ourself first. Not putting aside 20% of our income in savings. Not using cash instead of credit.

But Joyce recognizes that unless we truly believe we are worthy of abundance, our money will always cause us uncertainty and frustration.

Chapter Topics

Every chapter focuses on a different mindset that, when adopted, can improve your well-being and financial health… The program includes exercises and practical tools to set you up for success.²

Here is the list of each chapter’s topic:

• Abundance
• Awareness
• Responsibility
• Presence
• Essence
• Self-Love
• Vision
• Support
• Compassion
• Detachment
• Positivity
• Resilience

Tell me – when was the last time you read a financial book that dug deeper than simply saying to have a healthy money mindset?

Don’t those chapters sound yummy? For those of you that are more practical than emotional, this is truly the work that will pull you out of your frustration.

The Wheel Exercises

Each chapter, including the introduction, has a variety of exercises. Some ask you to reflect, others to make a list, but my favorite are the wheel exercises.

At the end of each chapter you are given a questionnaire, rating yourself 1 through 10. You are not GRADING yourself, you are simply identifying where you are currently at. Here’s an example below:

Once you complete the questionnaire, a wheel is provided for you to plot your answers. Once you plot, you connect the dots to see where your dents lie. The dents represent areas you may have a deficit. Again, the deficits do not represent your failures. They represent areas where your financial health could use extra focus. Here’s an example of my first wheel below.

Do you see where my dents are? Own your Worth, Negotiate and Financial Advisor Check-ins. I thought this was interesting because after leaving my job to stay at home with our children, I’ve always struggled with negotiating a fair pay for my talents because my self-worth got lost along the way while changing diapers and cleaning my home.

We all are a work in progress. While those dents exist, The Financial Mindset Fix provides practical ways to help improve each areas. As you do the work, she encourages you to do the wheel exercises more than once to watch you progress to a healthier you!

Beautiful Workbook

Authors will generally provide a workbook or journal to pair with their book. Joyce provides a FREE comprehensive PDF workbook where you can document your journey. If you love a good piece of tangible paper, print the entire book out at your copy store and have it bound.

Heck, if you want to get started RIGHT NOW, the free workbook itself provides enough context for you to start moving towards a healthier mindset.

Last Thoughts

I’m excited to continue working through this book and seeing not only how I can apply it to my own life, but also my clients’ lives. With over two decades of experience in attempting to figure out how money works, I honestly feel this is a huge piece of the puzzle.

Thank you Joyce for writing this book. To help encourage us humans that a simple Income vs Expenses worksheet won’t truly tell us the entire story of our money personality. That it goes deeper. Financial literacy is one aspect. But an awareness of our self takes this journey to a whole other level.

Helping you find the story in the numbers,

Heather

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^{1 Quoted from The Financial Mindset Fix book jacket.
2 The Financial Mindset Fix, 6}

Do you feel sometimes like you need a break from your life? Or dream of a different version? It’s like that saying, the Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side.

We recently went on a staycation for three nights, thinking we needed a break from our real life, that the grass was greener in Waikiki.

At one point, I honestly regretted we came and discussed with my husband if we should request a refund for the last night. Money and time spent to go weren’t producing the dividends I expected. Assuming it would be a respite of complete relaxation, in some ways the staycation required more energy.

• Packing for 6 people for 3 days and nights
• Supervising my kids at the pool where the lounge area wasn’t exactly comfortable with the wind and sporadic rain.
• Figuring out where to eat that didn’t require a long wait, offered food that everyone would eat, and was reasonably priced.
• What to watch on cable TV when they wanted to hang in the room. 

I wouldn’t say that we should’ve stayed home, but I realized that when life starts to feel imbalance, a big change isn’t necessary.

Sometimes the big change can cost you a dollar or more to realize that what you already have is a pretty good thing. I walked away from that staycation being grateful for:

• My kitchen and my cooking abilities. I may not be a Food Network star, but I know how to quickly and efficiently prepare a meal my entire family will enjoy, have enough for seconds, with $20 or less.
• My laundry basket and a washing machine. Staying in a hotel, dirty laundry has to be stored somewhere to then return to your suitcase amongst the clean items to bring home and wash.
• Netflix, Disney+ and Hulu. Their price points are such a bargain for entertaining little girls when you just want to read a book.
• Video Games. As much as video games annoy me, my sons truly enjoy it. When my children enjoy things, I can do more of what I enjoy.
• Our Yard. I love that within 10 seconds of opening my front door, my feet can be in grass.

The next time you think you need something different than your current life, make a list of what you think is missing. Then, try to recreate those things at home. Fertilizing and watering your dry and brittle yard is much cheaper than buying a new one and just as effective.

This concept can also save you tons of money and energy with your dreams as well.

I’ve always dreamed about owning a beach house where I can wake up in the morning, make a cup of coffee, walk outside and have my feet in the sand in a couple seconds. Or jump in the water midday just to cool off.

When I think about what I TRULY want from that vision is the convenience of traveling quickly to the beach. The beach has always been a place that refreshes my soul. Wouldn’t it make sense to live right next to it?

But I didn’t evaluate the costs.

• A beach house is much more expensive than the home we have now. How much more would my husband and I need to work as our financials would need to shift with a higher mortgage?
• Our homeowner’s insurance and maintenance would increase significantly due to the wear and tear a beach causes on nearby homes.
• The threat of natural disasters to beachside homes are much greater compared to our home that resides at a high elevation in the middle of an island.
• The reality: our travel time to the beach is twenty minutes. Are the costs of the items I listed above really worth eliminating a beautiful, scenic twenty minute drive?

What are some dreams you have that carry a big price tag?

Leave a comment below and let me help you strategize ways to fertilize and water what you may already have.

Are you procrastinating filing your taxes? Here are 3 Reasons to File Your Taxes NOW:

If you owe, you have time to plan

Many individuals and business owners avoid filing their taxes because they are afraid they will owe money. My theory says if you don’t know, you can’t plan. 

One year my husband and I owed $9000 in taxes. My business income grew and we didn’t adjust my husband’s withholdings on his paycheck. However, because we did it early, we were able to plan out how we would pay the $9000 before the tax deadline, avoiding the hassle of filing an extension, requesting a payment plan and paying interest on top of what we already owed.

Additionally, due to the pandemic, families have received multiple stimulus payments that can help cover owed taxes.

If you overpaid, you have extra funds to reinvest

Before we discuss reinvesting your funds, keep in mind that a tax refund is not a bonus from the government. It is tax money you have overpaid during the year that the government is returning to you.

In other words, you are receiving what you would have otherwise had in your bank account during the year.

When I taught personal money management, I encouraged my clients to plan the use of their refund. Oftentimes we spend during the year in anticipation of receiving that tax refund, hoping to catch-up with the added debt created. 

Rather than catch-up, find a way to reinvest your tax refund to grow your business, pay off existing debt, or take a vacation. There is no one specific avenue that is best for every person, but an intentional conversation with your spouse and family can help steward that money in ways that will guide you further to your goals.

Peace of mind that a big task is done

As the tax documents come in the mail, are you filing them? And where is that file? Is it somewhere you see daily, or is it hidden away in your filing cabinet? Whether you can see it or not, your brain still knows it’s there. 

I love doing our taxes in January because when that important task is done, my brain cells can focus their energy on caring for my family and growing my business. For many families, especially those that receive a W2 from your job, taxes are actually pretty simple and there are great online platforms to complete them yourself. 

The reality is you have to complete them at some point. As kids, mom wouldn’t let us leave the table until our vegetables were eaten. The longer I waited, the taste of the vegetables didn’t change, but the enormity of the challenge grew in my mind. Get your taxes done and your physiological self will thank you for it.

If you have any questions regarding my suggestions above, leave a comment or send me an email. I would love to hear from you.

Helping you find the story in the numbers,
Heather

Remember I said, I had a dream?

I’m doing it. Honestly, it doesn’t feel dreamy. It feels like hiking a mountain, where each step feels monotonous. Yet, in anticipation for what is at the top, I keep going. 

Tell us about it Heather!

My big dream, my mountaintop, is to partner with female entrepreneurs who want to build their dream business.

Not knowing where to start, I prayed for God to show me the intersection of my gifts, skills, and experience, that would get me up that mountain, and He said:

Bookkeeper. 

Did your shoulders just drop at how boring that sounds? Are you imagining me sitting in a room, with beige colored walls, lacking art, punching numbers on a printing calculator, glasses falling down my nose, hunched over, squinting at my calculations?

Well, my walls are actually pink, full of art, using my bluetooth keypad to enter numbers into Quickbooks on my Mac Air, contacts in, mascara on, AirPods streaming instrumental piano music.

Ok Heather. Your environment sounds lovely, but how do you help women achieve their business dreams, entering numbers into Quickbooks?

Firstly, a typical bookkeeper tracks and categorizes a client’s numbers month to month, providing reports such as the profit and loss statement and the balance sheet.

The benefits of consistently organized financials include: 

• Every transaction, income and expense, is accounted for in every bank and credit card used.
• Maximize tax write-offs through accurately categorizing each transaction.
• Organized transactions build accurate and detailed reports to make wise business decisions.
• Reports show which services or products are most profitable and popular.
• Organized books are ready to submit at year end to a tax preparer, saving tax preparation fees and unnecessary penalties.

More than the numbers, I also understand the struggles a female entrepreneur encounters, being one myself. I have wrestled with thoughts like: As my business grows, it will help provide additional financial support for our family.  My flexible schedule also allows me to be available to the changing needs of my four children. Yet, my desire to grow a successful business might overtake my time and energy, causing my family to resent the business. How do I manage my time wisely?

Over the years, I attempted to start multiple businesses, constantly struggling to manage my family and my business. From those experiences, I understand the pace, values and priorities a wife and mom entrepreneur can maintain healthily. I can provide the needed encouragement and strategies to help her balance both worlds. 

Last, but most important in my opinion, there is a story being written about her business through the numbers. Bookkeeping is the table of contents for her business. It tells her where she’s been, where she is, and where she is going. Partnering with me allows her to do the important work to continue writing her story, while I listen and record. Together, we can publish a masterpiece.

Are you ready to journey with a partner? To gain perspective on where you’ve been, where you are and where you’re going?  Someone who encourages you to look up and pause, to reflect on your accomplishments thus far?  Who challenges you to push for a little longer to gain some ground when you just want to sit? Who reminds you to stop and have a glass of water so you stay nourished and refreshed?

Not every bookkeeper can help you do that. But I can. Through God’s intersection of my gifts, skills and experience.

Helping you find the story in the numbers,
Heather   

Would you be ready?

Close your eyes. Imagine that you have overcome all the obstacles to your dream business. What does it look like?

Can you see your office where you meet to consult with your clients? What color are the walls? What type of furniture do you have?

Can you see your cafe? What does your dessert display look like? What theme is the decor? Do you serve artisan coffee with your desserts?

Can you see your shop? What does your inventory look like? What type of clothing racks and display shelves do you have? What does your checkout counter look like?

Can you see your client list? How many people do you see? What types of people do you see?

Can you see your employees? What do they look like? How do they dress? What is their family life like?

Can you see your network of friends and colleagues you have met along the journey? What fun activities do you do together? Or do you simply enjoy having dinner with them, continuing to talk about your dreams?

Can you see your file of signed contracts? Whether it’s in your Google Drive or a physical filing cabinet, how many do you see? And what numbers do you see on them?

Habbukuk 2:2-3 (MSG)

And then God answered: Write this.
    Write what you see.
Write it out in big block letters
    so that it can be read on the run.
This vision-message is a witness
    pointing to what’s coming.
It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait!
    And it doesn’t lie.
If it seems slow in coming, wait.
    It’s on its way. It will come right on time.

Write down your vision. Make it plain to see. Use the questions above as a prompt.

As you write, jump over the “what if’s” where doubt likes to creep in. Doubt will get you from the mountain top into the gulch where dreams are never seen.

I am not a fan of the newborn stage. I prefer babies when they are six to twelve months. When babies are newborns, everything is uncertain, especially their sleep schedule.

When Tabitha was a newborn, I encouraged myself to be more present during this stage because I knew she was our last baby. To rock her more. To cuddle her more. To smell her more. With our three sons, anxiety would set in as the sun went down, uncertain of when and how they would fall asleep, worried that I would not get to sleep at a reasonable time and be tired the next day and have to do it all over again.

Starting a business is very similar. I find myself in a rush to figure out the uncertainties to create a system that runs smoothly. I am learning to enjoy the nuances of each stage rather than hoping and pining for the next stage, thinking that the next stage is better. But it’s not. It’s just different.

Some parents sleep train their newborn baby to ensure a reliable sleep schedule for themselves. Yet, when your child is a toddler and no longer lets you rock her in your arms, you miss those newborn days when all they wanted was to snuggle with you.

I hear new moms say all the time, “I can’t wait for her to start talking!” And then they do. Constant interruptions into your thought process become the norm rather than the quiet house you used to fill with music to dull the quiet.

My business, your business, is the same. Trust God’s timing. Appreciating and learning through a certain phase of your business does not mean you are stagnant or complacent.

When creating a new process, you can think through and anticipate the flow, but you won’t know if it’s effective until you actually walk a client through your process. Then you adjust and try again until you find the process that works.

Ultimately I’ve realized that my dislike for certain stages in motherhood and business is tied to my impatience for the easy and predictable. But isn’t that the joy and excitement in having a business and having children? The adventure of the unknown?

Here’s to your unknown. List all the things you can appreciate or that you have learned in this season rather than just focusing and waiting for the next. Because in hindsight, you realize the season that just passed was actually a pretty fantastic one.

Have I started a business?

When I hear an entrepreneur’s success story, I always wonder what their path actually looked like. This wondering led me to ponder my own path. How many times have I started a business, and what happened?

(For reference, I was born in 1982)

1988

My mom let me have this beautiful, ornate, wood jewelry box that she did not use anymore. On the top center, you could lift the lid up, towards the back. On the top sides, you could lift the lid towards the right and left. Facing me, there were multiple drawers to open.

This jewelry box was my first cash register. We had recently moved, so not only did I inherit a register, but also checks since they had our old address. With my register, my checks, and my set of play money, I opened my first store. To me, it was fantastic. To a real investor, with a lack of inventory and customers, including only my mom and brother, it was a failure before it started. Yet, ever since then, I still love the idea of typing numbers into a cash register and the drawer popping out to receive my sales!

1993

On my mom’s side of the family, the Bellefeuille clan, I have a group of girl cousins that are all around my age. We started the Bellefeuille Club, probably in response to the ever-popular at the time, Babysitters Club. During one of our club meetings, we decided to start a newsletter. My mom had an old, Apple Mac, and I would write, edit and print the paper. We could sell it to our family to share all the important Bellefeuille news. 

We published two issues and sold none.

2009

After leaving my corporate job to stay at home with our children, I got really serious about starting a business. I thought – I have time since I am home all day, and I could help Mike bring in additional resources. 

• Primerica: I attempted to sell loans and insurance. At one point I remember my trainer telling me that I needed to book more appointments with my friends and family so I could gain more practice. I told him I was already spending a lot of time away from my family (our oldest was 6 months at the time). His response. It’s not that much time. Oh, you know inner tita came out and I said see you later.

• Cards: I enrolled in a monthly stamp club and tried to make cards that I could sell in packs. 

• Coasters: I sewed fabric coasters.

• Baby Items: Carseat canopies, diaper bags, diaper changing mats, and burp cloths. The company name was Heather Feather.

• Baby Clothing: I started this company with my cousin-in-law. She was so talented in pattern making and design. We named the company Two and Ten since, between the two of us, we had 10 kids. Their family moved to the Big Island of Hawaii. I live on Oahu. We did not see how it would work with us physically separated.

• Cookies: I make a really good chocolate chip cookie and a fantastic dark chocolate espresso cookie. I created a label and designed packaging, figured out the costs, wholesale price, and retail price.

• The First Blog, The Second Blog, and The Third Blog

• Bookkeeping

Reviewing this list causes different emotions. From one viewpoint, I could count the number of failures and assume I am not called to be an entrepreneur or that I am a quitter. From another, I cut my losses at a good time and I learned many different things that I can still use in my current business.

Timing is another important narrative that frames your perspective. 

Between 2009 and 2014, I had 3 newborns, 2 pregnancies, 2 labors, 2 years of homeschooling, sold and purchased a home, and a long list of life moments that happened.

If your list looks similar to mine, give yourself grace mama. Every experience creates learning opportunities rather than a finish line. Take the time to make your list today and celebrate every moment that has led up to your place as an entrepreneur today.

Seed sown among THORNS hear the WORD but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for OTHER things come in and CHOKE the word, making it UNFRUITFUL.

Seed sown on GOOD SOIL, hear the WORD, accept it and PRODUCE a CROP – thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.

Mark 4:18-20

Did you know that God is an amazing business mentor?

I spend every morning with him, to center my focus and provide clarity for today’s journey. Sometimes I know where the journey is leading and sometimes I do not.

When you read the verse above, the WORD is your conversation with God, whether in prayer, reading the Bible or stilling your own voice to hear his. Oftentimes though, we spend less time talking to him and more time talking to the world. 

The world includes, but not limited to: social media, dream critics, network news, and your inner critic.

You know what critique I’m really tired of hearing?

I wonder what my purpose is or what I am called to do OTHER THAN JUST BEING A MOM?

My loves, we are changing that narrative here and now.

To begin, I want to reiterate a portion of the verse above: Seed sown on GOOD SOIL, hear the WORD, accept it and PRODUCE a CROP – thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times what was sown.

First, WE ARE NOT ALL CALLED TO THE SAME HARVEST. Read that again. Say it out loud. 

But let’s be honest. For me personally, I want to be the person who is harvesting 100 times what was sown. Those that harvest ONLY 30 times are less capable, right? There was a season in my previous business that I was producing in the 100 times club. But what did it cost? Time with my family – a family that includes a hunky hubby and four, amazing, YOUNG children. 

I have since realized that my best harvest, right now, is in my children. With children, you are planting an apple orchard, not lettuce. It takes years for a single apple tree to grow, but once it matures, i can produce hundreds of apples.

As a mother, you are sowing most of your resources – time, energy, finances – into the next generation. Yet when they are grown, sweet mama, you will see your harvest. I can see my resources multiplying to a capacity of more than 100x as each of my children produces their 30, 60, 100 harvests. 

Your children rest on your shoulders. Build the foundation, teach them to have character, integrity, love, kindness, and how to serve others, and resources will come. If you ONLY focus on the resources, their foundation will crumble under the weight of responsibility those resources require.

In previous generations, the question, why is she following you, did not provoke positive implications. Being followed meant someone you do not know or recognize is in pursuit of you for an unknown reason. If you wanted to figure out that reason, you had to stop, face the stranger and engage in a conversation. Although, would there even be a conversation? Were they following you to steal something from you or hurt you?

Today, the general population that has chosen to engage in social media wants people to follow them. When you first open your account, people who have a personal relationship with you will follow. Then, their friends may follow you because of the mutual relationship. Then there’s a pivot point. When you start to receive requests from people whom you have never met.

Why do they want to follow you? Maybe they’re using a social media strategy that looks at who YOU follow and believes you will be interested in their content and products as well. Maybe he is a creepy stranger that is trying to meet women online because he cannot find a date in reality. Or, they want to follow you because the content and product you create provides value to them.

The point. We now value a high number of people “following” us. 

Yesterday, I was in the search section of my Instagram account. In all honesty, there was a reel (a 15 to 30 second video) that appeared of a person I do not admire. When I saw the number of views they had and the number of people that follow them, I felt annoyed.

Why? Because they has more followers than me. Silly and shallow as it seems, that is how I felt.

Now aware of this, I want to redefine what followers on social media means for me. As I grow my business, in some ways I am hesitant to build a social media presence. I am afraid that I may succumb to the follows, likes, hearts, and stats as I have in the past. Yet, is it possible to create a social media presence that simply grows my ability to connect with my potential, ideal people, as opposed to a metric that directly defines my value?

Quantity versus quality. The followers that I have, why are they following me? Through my social media, am I building a community that could actually engage in a face to face conversation? Does this community share my values, hopes, dreams, style and book genre? Will this community cheerlead my business and provide honest feedback so I can continue to provide greater value to them?

One more question that digs even deeper. How do I strengthen the foundation of my soul to prevent the measurements of this world to define my value?

For me, it is spending time daily with God. To be reminded that the one who created this world created me. The Master’s masterpiece. You are his masterpiece as well, with a unique set of gifts, talents, and personality to live a life full of joy.

You are of high value before you even do anything. When you DO, out of knowing that you are a masterpiece, you will create what you were designed to create without worrying if you are bringing value. Because you ARE value. Followers do not reflect your value. They reflect WHAT you value.