Why I’m Passionate (and Occasionally Ranty!)
If you follow me, are in my group, or subscribe to my newsletter, you may have noticed that I can get pretty passionate when it comes to helping people with their money. There are a few reasons.
We're not taught about money in a practical way at school. It would be really useful to teach us about money at an early stage, and I think that a lot of the fear and confusion around money comes from it not being part of our formal education. Where we lack knowledge and understanding, fear grows.
I spent 20 years as a chartered accountant, and I was really good at managing money in people's businesses and helping them make a profit, but actually I was really terrible with my own money. Now that I've learnt how to deal with my personal money, I’ve seen what an impact it has on the business, and I did see this as an accountant. If you're not managing your personal money in a way that's going to support your life and goals, then it's going to be harder to create and grow your business. So for me, there are always two sides, there's looking after your personal money and looking after your business money. Especially when you're a small business owner and pretty much you ARE the business!
The other reason I'm passionate about it is that I’ve seen how money can really get in the way of people living their lives. SO often people use money as a reason they’re not able to live a happy life. They kind of get stuck in this 'money being the barrier' to living the kind of life that they want to live. If we actually dig under that and look at what it is that you really want out of life, sometimes that can be achieved without having more money.
We get stuck in this perpetual mindset that having more money and spending more money is the way to have a happy life, and I don't believe that it is! I'm living my best life in a caravan on the coast of Wales and I spend WAY less money than I used to. BUT I'm not going to criticise you for spending money in any way. There's so much judgment around about how we spend our money; how much we spend, what we spend it on, whether we're saving enough etc. I don't buy into any of that. I can give you information about money, I can tell you why it might be useful to have a pension or why it's good to have savings but ultimately it's up to you to choose for yourself what's going to make a difference in your life.
So I want to educate people about money and show you really easy ways to manage money so that it's simple and not time-consuming in any way. You can definitely make more of the money you've got, I know it, I've helped many people do it already and that's why I get so passionate about it! One of the frustrations I have is that people really find it difficult to take that first step and decide to do something about their money. Or they decide they're going to do something, they buy a course, book onto a program or download a book and then they don't do anything with it! If you don’t take any action, you’re going to stay stuck in the same place! Because I know what a difference it can make when you really start to look at how money is impacting your life, I can get a little frustrated! But it is because I really want people to realise how much of a difference it can make when they've got some simple systems in place to help them manage their money.
So I know that sometimes my posts and some of the things I say can come across as ‘ranty’ so I wanted to explain why I'm so ranty about it. I can help, and I find it frustrating that I can't reach as many people as I'd like to help. Or I have reached you, but you’re not taking the next step! So there, that’s why I can be passionate, and at times ranty, about helping people with their money, and I’m probably not going to change!
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Hi there I’m Gail Bainbridge. I have taken my 20 years of experience as a Chartered Accountant working with small businesses and their owners and become a money mentor.
I am on a mission to transform your relationship to money. I can teach you how to find money that you didn’t know you had so you can spend it on living a life you love.
Need some help with your money take a look at how you can work with me.