What feelings do you associate with the idea of discussing money? Is it fear, anxiety, stress, or just an overall sense of being overwhelmed? If you answered “Yes” to any of these, you’re not alone. Most people struggle with their relationship and beliefs that surrounds money, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of no matter your age. Based on Drs. Brad and Ted Klontz’s research, they coined the term “money scripts” to describe a person’s financial beliefs developed at an early stage in life. More often than not, we fail to realize that our behavior with money is typically passed from one generation to the next. If you saw your mother with poor money management habits, you were likely to pick those up, as well.

I’m on my journey of understanding money on a more deeper, fundamental level by seeking out guidance to help me meet my financial goals. As promised, any resources I come across, I will always share with the Bloom community, and hopefully it can help you in a significant way.

That being said, I’m excited to introduce you to the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER, Stephanie Barnier!

Stephanie, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.

When I was younger, I would get excited to clip coupons from the Sunday morning paper. I was lucky to have role models, parents, and teachers that helped me grow up with an understanding of money. My mom and dad gifted me the skills for good cash flow and money management, sharing with me investment periodicals and finance books I was lucky to understand, from an early age, the joy of learning and sharing how to build wealth to support the dreams of myself and my loved ones. Those experiences led me to a career in wealth management, which I began with Morgan Stanley in 2008. Early in my career, I made the mistake of just focusing on the money, the bottom line, as many financial planners do. While focusing on money is good, I found myself wanting to integrate the matters of the heart for myself and my clients into their financial plans. I wanted to have those conversations with myself and my clients, and I found this was missing from the traditional financial planning and wealth world. This is eventually what led me to found Clear Sky Wealth. More than a decade later, the wealth planning work I do now is first about your life, then we plan the money and finances to support your unique dreams and goals. First, we work towards the clarity and understanding of your goals and vision, then we develop your wealth plan, knowledge, skills, and confidence to get your money working for you. I became a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and founded Clear Sky Wealth LLC to inspire others to find their joy around money.

Tell us about your business/company. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of as a company? What sets you apart from others?

In 2018, I founded Clear Sky Wealth LLC is a dynamic wealth planning and management firm. We offer diverse services to meet clients where they are at, to allow them to live joyfully with money. We work with and educate families and individuals about money, and gift them the tools they need to feel confident to establish their authentic and aligned wealth-life balance. We actively work to create accessible financial offerings, that expand upon and beyond the historically traditional practice of wealth planning. This includes building a Youtube channel, Instagram page, and Facebook community that offers relevant, fun, easy, and applicable wealth tips and tricks that you can apply to your life. We want to reach a broad audience, making managing, talking, and learning about money fun and not scary or anxiety-inducing. We believe everyone deserves abundance and prosperity. This is why we also offer affordable specialized products and focused workshops through our website, www.clearskwealth.com. Thes offer abundant information and worksheets to give you clarity of your values and knowledge of how to move you money in alignment with these to build your wealth. Our goal is to help you live joyfully with money, meaning that you can both save for your long-term goals AND live the life of your dreams now.

I wanted the Bloom community to be apart of the interview-so I gave them a chance to ask you a few questions. In advance thank you for taking the time to answer them!

1.Would you recommend one to put savings into IRA?

Would you recommend one to put savings into IRA? The first thing I recommend for all people is to have cash on hand for anything that might come up. This can be money in a savings account or in an account you don’t plan to spend anytime soon. Some call this a rainy day fund or an emergency fund, I call it a choice fund–money for when you need it. Money gives us choices in life, especially when we need to make important decisions. For some folks, a choice fund also gives them a feeling of security, and for most of us it is just nice to see money in your bank account! The great thing about a choice fund is you get to set the goal for your choice fund. For you, do you want to have $500 – $5,000 -or $50,000 in your choice fund? What is your choice fund goal? *Hint: If you aren’t sure where to start with your choice fund goal, go for saving the amount of 3 months of your fixed expenses in your choice fund. Fixed expenses include costs such as: your rent/mortgage, utilities, groceries, transportation, taxes. **Calculate: add up all of your fixed expenses for the last 3 months. This amount is your choice fund goal.

2. Should one do rapid debt payoff, invest or both?

There are many ways to approach debt because each person has their unique way of working with money. For the Bloom community, I want to focus on one way to pay off debt. Often, credit cards have the highest interest rates. We like to see clients pay above the minimum amount due monthly on the credit card with the highest interest rate (if there is more than one). If you have debt, focus on two priorities: paying off the credit cards and building your choice fund (see question above) before investing money. The reason for this is, most credit cards have interest rates that are higher than the average rates of return on money invested in stocks, bonds or real estate. **Hint: paying off debt doesn’t have to take a lifetime. You can set a money goal (much like any other goal) and complete it in as little as six months. It doesn’t have to take long, you just need creativity and inspiration. Tell us what inspires you? We believe inspiration is a core value for success, so much so that it is one of our company values: https://www.clearskywealth.com/values/

3.What are some simple investment vehicles for a new investor?

We love to keep investing simple. There are really only 5 areas to invest in and those are: stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities and cash (cryptocurrency falls into the cash category for now.) I dive into this deeper in my YouTube video, “Secret To Investing”: https://youtu.be/zNZKvNixqWk 

4. I’m 55 years old, I don’t have 401K or properly saved for my retirement. Is it too late for me, if not, what should I do?

This is a great question, thank you for asking. It is not too late, but you may need to be more creative about managing your money now than you have been in the past. The first thing to do, is to stop comparing yourself to others. This doesn’t serve anyone. Next, focus on building your choice fund(see my response to the question above). If you need some inspiration on overcoming money stress, we have a beautiful video for you on YouTube, 3 Steps To Overcoming Money Stress: https://youtu.be/ODtAeC5GhjM. I If you like what you learn, be sure to subscribe to our channel and hit the bell to be notified when we have a new post for your every Wednesday. Finally, focus on building a community of people for support. Surround yourself with people who can help you, and who you can also help in return. More than likely there are people in the same situation as you. You don’t have to feel alone on this prosperity journey. In fact, having meaningful relationships can nourish you further on your journey. Having money doesn’t solve everyone’s problems(although it helps), and it certainly can’t replace deep connections and friendships. A study by Cigna, shows that loneliness can have a related effect on business and economic growth. So, friendship and prosperity are equally important, and often work together in your life.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.clearskywealth.com 
• Instagram: @clearskywealth
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClearSkyWealth/ 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniebarnier/
• Email: stephanie@clearskywealth.com

Pay it forward!

If you know anyone who can benefit from this post, please share! Thank you so much for reading!