Listen to Victoria and Audrey Discuss the Money Mindset Here:
Explore the transformative journey of financial empowerment with Audrey Faust, a financial expert dedicated to helping women entrepreneurs master their money mindset. Audrey shares her compelling story of growth from financial adversity to becoming a CFO, financial business coach, and best-selling author. Her insights address the unconscious barriers women face in achieving financial independence and how they can overcome them to feel more confident and secure in their financial decisions.
Victoria Meyer and Audrey Faust unravel the complexities of money mindset, offering practical tools to reprogram negative beliefs and enhance financial strategies. The episode provides valuable guidance on developing a personalized financial blueprint rather than relying on traditional budgeting, emphasizing customized strategies for both personal and business finance. Audrey’s mission stands out—empowering women to make smart, empowered money decisions.
Book: Get your copy of She Grows Rich on Amazon.
This week’s episode will provide an in-depth look at these topics:
- Breaking the money mindset chains
- Financial superpowers for women
- From financial rock bottom to She Grows Rich: Audrey Faust’s financial journey
- Ditch the budget, embrace the blueprint
- Emergency fund hacks for smart money growth
Killer Quote: “How you do one thing is how you do everything.” – Audrey Faust
Watch Victoria Interview Audrey Faust on Money Mindset and More Here:
Transforming Money Mindsets – Insights from CFO and Author Audrey Faust
Welcome back to The Chemical Show. We are wrapping up our interviews for the month of March, which have been featuring women executives. And today’s guest is really about the big M’s, money and mindset. So today, I’ve got Audrey Faust with me.
She is a financial powerhouse dedicated to empowering women entrepreneurs and women overall with clarity and confidence in their finances. As a CFO, financial business coach, and a best selling author of She Grows Rich, Audrey helps ambitious women master their money mindset and financial strategies to scale their business profitably, to feel secure in their financials and more. Audrey is on a mission to help women achieve financial independence by making smart empowered money decisions. While Audrey primarily works with women entrepreneurs, in fact, that’s how I got to know Audrey. We were in a a digital class together. I find that her messages are so critical for corporate women as well. For women in industry, we’re already going against some norms. Whether it be as an engineer, as a chemist, as leaders in the chemical industry, there’s a lot of societal biases as you and I both know around women in technical roles, around women and money, and more.
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Even when you’re the primary earner, which many women across the industry are. I know for myself when I was at Shell, I remember the first time my boss said, oh, well, I just assumed your husband was senior to you or whatever. I’m like, oh no, I’ve always been the financial driver in the family in many ways from an earning power perspective and most women executives are as well. It’s something that we’re a little bit blind to at times, but the reality is we shouldn’t be blind to it. We shouldn’t be uncomfortable with it.
Men make money. Women make money. We all need to master our money and mindset more effectively. So Audrey’s gonna clear the air on some of these topics and give us some insights that we can apply immediately. I’m also going to be linking in the show notes Audrey’s book, She Grows Rich, so that you can get a copy for yourself because I think you’re gonna enjoy it. Audrey, thank you for joining me today.
Hi, Victoria. Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.
Me too. So your career, and you share some of this in your book, She Grows Rich. I know when I read your opening chapter, I was like, wow, you’re really open about where you came from and where you are and how you got here today. Can you share some of that with us in terms of just what your career and what your mindset is and how you’ve evolved to where you are today?
Absolutely. So I grew up on a lower middle class family. We didn’t have a lot of money, and my dad was the breadwinner in the family. My mom was in a marriage where, my dad struggled with some mental health issues, so she felt like she was stuck in a marriage and she couldn’t get out. She had always said to me, make sure you can always support yourself. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because that’s what you say when you’re a kid.
Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, mom. As a kid, you really don’t even know what that means. I wasn’t great at school, at high school. I talk more about that in my book. I didn’t go to college out of school. I struggled in school. And at first, I was like, well, I’m just gonna get a job. No problem.
Fast forward. I got married. I’m in my twenties. I have two kids. And daycare is not affordable to me. I’m working odd jobs and trying to make ends meet. My husband had started his own business at this time. I had took a training course and learned how to do tax returns. I was working for a tax prep company. And I remember doing my own tax return, and I’m doing my tax return after work and put in all the numbers and hit calculate, and I got these huge refunds. And I was like, wow.
Why am I getting so much, this is a big refund? It’s not what I expected. I’m like, maybe I did something wrong. I look at all the numbers. Here’s what had happened is I had qualified for what is called an earned income tax credit. So for those people who are on the poverty line, the government gives you money back in addition to what you paid in taxes. And that was the moment I realized, like, oh my gosh. This is where I’m at. I need government assistance. That year, we were making $24,000 a year trying to support a family of four, with two young children. That moment literally brought me to tears and shocked me into changing as well. Because I was like, this isn’t what I want for my kids. This isn’t what I want for myself. And my mom’s words, you should be able to support yourself, were echoing in the background.
At that moment I couldn’t even help support the family, and I definitely couldn’t support myself. Now I was happily married. I’m still married to the same man today. But having that, oh my gosh, what if something happens or what if I turn out in the same situation as my mother and she was very unhappy her entire life, struggling with my father’s issues. I don’t want that for myself. I grew up in that. That’s not what I want.
That was a transition point for you. We’ve been talking a lot about transition. So that was a huge transition because then you went to school. Is that right?
Yeah, not immediately because I had to figure out how to make some money first, just to support the family. I ended up working a little bit at Vanguard and that’s where I learned a little bit about investing and they had a evening shift. But once we were able to get a little bit more of a footing, then yes, I went back to school and got my accounting degree, then even went on and got my MBA. But I definitely had in the back of my mind, I need to be able to support myself. And like I said, when I was young, I didn’t even know what that meant.
And then it’s a new face to you.
Yeah. I thought, I’m right where she told me not to be.
So how did you go from that crisis point or big realization point to where you are today? Because today, you’re financially well set, you support yourself, you support your family, and you help others master their money and their mindset.
So fast forward 27 years through my growth and work I’ve done. I became a certified neuro coach about four years ago. I have an accounting background, so I’ve been working with small businesses pretty much my entire career. When I brought in the neuro coaching, I started seeing all the mindset stuff that went into play. And in my book, She Grows Rich, I talk about how tackling mindset is the first part of it. We bring all of our mindset from our childhood.
And it’s kind of funny as you realize what you bring forward. Not only did I bring the mindset of you should be able to support yourself, which is a good thing and shocked me, but then there’s also things I brought with me, like, making money is hard that I reprogrammed. And I didn’t have this one, but a lot of my clients had a judgment against rich people like greedy, selfish, mean. And all of those different mindset things will affect your wealth and affect how you can grow your wealth.
I was just gonna say, I think this is a good segue in terms of just talking about, what is money mindset? How should people be thinking about money mindset? I think a lot of people that listen to my podcast would say, you know, I’m fine. My money is fine. Or maybe they would say no money is not fine, because we all have different worries along the way. The number one thing I hear from successful people and very financially settled people is, well I’m working to pay for insurance.
As an entrepreneur who has been on her own for eight years now, I’m like, listen, that’s actually not that hard. You need to get past that mindset. You don’t need to work for the insurance. You, my friend, can afford the insurance. So there’s something else going on. But let’s talk maybe about mindset and how do we understand our mindset and what do we do about it?
So you brought up a funny point where, a lot of people think they don’t have any money mindset. So I can tell you I hear that all day long. My money mindset is fine. So I have a few questions that I ask that dive into your subconscious. Your conscious money mindset may be completely fine. But I have a couple of questions that I ask. They’re in my book too, and you have to answer them within the first second. It’s like word association.
I had someone who came to one of my workshops where I asked those questions. She came in and she said, my money mindset’s good. I’ve been working on it for years. And if you have a negative answer to those questions, that means you have something in your subconscious. And there’s five questions that I asked that day. But she ended up having a negative answer for every single one of them. And she thought that her money mindset was good, and she was shocked. She was like, are you kidding me? And I’m like, yes. Because you worked on your mindset at the conscious level, not at the subconscious level. And our subconscious runs 95% of our thoughts every single day, and we have 80,000 of them.
I’m gonna put you on the spot, and ask you some of those questions. Don’t worry because most people have two out of the five questions that they have negative answers for. So I’ll ask you the first one. Making money is?
Fun.
Good. The next one is rich people are?
Aspirational.
Okay. Look at that.
I would also say that’s a bit of maybe more my conscious than my subconscious because I also think there’s this aspect that rich people are rich and arrogant maybe.
You did think a little bit.
I did think a little bit.
So the the trick is not to think. I know I put you on the spot, and we’re on a podcast, so some people don’t always like to share their negative answers. But we’ll talk about that.
I mean, making money, it’s fun and it’s hard, because I think there’s hard work that goes into the process. Right? I grew up with the saying, money doesn’t grow on trees. I’m looking outside my window right now. I see a tree. Money’s not growing on that tree. It’d be nice, though.
It would be. So I can remember from my childhood, and this is where it comes in. I’d say making money is hard. That was one of the ones that I had to reprogram. Because I can remember back to my childhood, and my mom used to always say, we work hard for our money. And my brain interpreted that as, you have to work hard for your money. What did that equate to? A workaholic.
That’s what I turned into, because I wanted a lot of money. So I thought the only way to get a lot of money is to work harder and harder and harder. So that was one of the ones that I needed to reprogram in my brain. I’ve seen rich people are greedy, rich people are mean, rich people are selfish. And the media does an amazing job of buying into those. We’re seeing that every single day, because they’re portraying rich people in that way on top of whatever programming we got while we were younger.
I remember hearing a speaker a long time ago talking about, how rich is too rich. We all have this view of how much money is a lot of money. And the reality is how much money is a lot of money and how much is rich is one notch above where you are today. So I’m not rich, oh, but they’re rich. It’s all relative I think. To your point, I think the media does do a good job of of feeding into it at various times, and yet money is the engine of our economy. So we need people that have money to spend.
In fact, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about a week or so ago, talking about how The US economy is really driven by top earners with expendable cash and stuff. I think to a certain degree, that is always true. I have way more disposable income today than I did thirty years ago.
Of course.
As my earning power, as my wealth has increased, I’d say that’s true for most people. On the other hand, I talk to my friends or my sisters and we’re like, man, teenagers today have way more money than we ever had and opportunities and wishes to spend their money. So it all becomes relative. So how do people shift their mindset? Can you reprogram the seven year old you? And if not, what do you do to make money and mindset more engaging and more positive?
Well, you could definitely reprogram the seven year old you. You can reprogram anything that doesn’t serve you. That’s what I learned in my neuro coaching certification. So it takes a little bit of time and a little bit of effort, not a lot. I go through it in my book. You can reprogram anything. First, what you need to do is identify it, which is what we were talking about with the questions.
Identify the story that’s going on and on in your subconscious, and then you need to disprove it. So for instance, when I mentioned, making money is hard, I had to find evidence of the opposite, which wasn’t that hard for me because I had a couple rental properties at the time. And I was like, well, that’s the easiest money I ever made. Renting a property out, I’m not doing any work to do that hardly, and I’m making money doing it. So that’s not necessarily true. I just disproved it. I’m not working at all, and I’m making money by doing that. Then you just simply reprogram it by saying making money is easy and you can see it, say it, write it all the time for seven weeks is what they say. My neuro coaching program is just continually to see it, say it, write it. I like to stick it on a little post it note.
So like a daily affirmations thing?
Yes, so it’s an affirmation. Making money is easy. Rich people are generous. Rich people are kind. Whatever you need it to be, to reprogram those. And you could do it with anything, not just money. Any belief that you find that’s been put in there, you can reprogram it. But it does take up time because think about it. However old you are, those pathways in your brain, they’re called neuropathways. The longer you walk on that track the more embedded it gets.
Absolutely.
It’s gonna take longer to reprogram it.
Quite honestly, I worry that I’ve ruined my kids at times. For me, it’s this whole idea of believing in abundance and having a growth mindset, but that doesn’t mean it’s about everything.
So last summer, we took our family to France and Switzerland and had a great holiday. Everybody was thrilled. My kids were thrilled. And there was a few things along the way, like this one, we were going out to dinner at the hotel one night because that was the closest place. And they’re like, mom, have you seen the menu prices? I’m like, yeah. It’s fine. And in that moment, that was fine to pay X amount of money on a dinner.
But by golly, that is not something I’m going to frequent on a daily basis. So how to separate the fact that I’m really okay spending money on certain things or certain experiences, but in order to have the money to do that, I have to conserve elsewhere. How do you suggest framing that?
So that’s more about creating a plan or a blueprint, as I call it in my book, and really deciding ahead of time how you wanna spend your money. If you have a plan for your money, then it all makes sense. It’s when you don’t have a plan that it goes a little wild. I use debt to to leverage my wealth and grow my wealth. I’m not a debt free person. I don’t believe in the debt free model. I don’t think paying 20% interest on a credit card makes sense. But I have what in my book what’s called the 7% rule.
If the interest rate is under 7%, you’re better off investing versus if it’s over 7%, maybe you pay it off sooner. And that’s a flexible number to a point. It depends on your mindset and your values. But going back to what you said, you create a plan for your money. You may like to go on trips and travel to Europe, and that may be your thing. And maybe I like to go to get my nails done or go to concerts or go do things like that. Choosing how we spend our money through a plan is what’s most beneficial rather than just saying, well, I’m gonna do this and this and that. Then before you know it, you’ve spent more than you have coming in, and you end up in a difficult situation.
I think that makes sense. It’s interesting that you don’t talk about it as a budget, but as a blueprint.
Yeah. I hate the word budget.
Talk to me about that. I hate budgets too, by the way, but I’m willing to hear your reason why.
Everybody hates the word budget because budget sounds constrictive. And I remember the first time I created myself a little budget. I was actually in the negative and that was before I added anything fun.
I literally crumbled it up and then threw it out and said I’m never doing this again. So that was in my early life and we were struggling to make ends meet. And we all go through those times. Yes, sometimes you need to use a credit card to get through those times. I just have an aversion to the word budget. So I like to call it a plan because a budget is telling you, you can’t spend money. You gotta worry.
It’s about what you can’t do is what often what it feels like.
Yeah. And a plan or a blueprint is, I’m deciding where I wanna spend my money. It’s just a whole different thought process.
I like that, thank you. I’m no longer gonna have a budget. I’m just gonna have blueprints.
How do you see this whole idea of mindset applying to business? So I think a lot of what we’re talking about with money mindset is my personal money mindset and yet it affects businesses. I know you work with a lot of small and mid sized businesses. How do you see that going from being personal to being business?
Well, I always like to say, how you do one thing is how you do everything. We’re just creatures of habit. So in most cases, I can’t say it’s for everybody. But what I’ve seen is if we’re more conservative on our personal finances, or more conservative on our business finances. Is that good or bad? You don’t know. If you’re more conservative, sometimes you might take less risk in your business that could then pay off.
You just have to be aware. And I talk about that in my book. I apply the different DISC personalities to how you are with money. And like I said, how you are with one thing, it proves to be how you are with money. So if you’re more conservative on the leadership style or whatever, you’re gonna be more conservative with your money. But if you’re the fun leader and you’re the inspirational leader, you’re probably gonna be less conservative with money and more worried about having fun. So business and personal, it’s all the same. And I think becoming aware of who you are and how you look at things is probably one of the most important things.
So you can say, well, is this me being too conservative? Maybe I should get advice on taking this business risk or not or vice versa. Is that me this being fun and putting money everywhere? Maybe I should take a step back and be a little more conservative. So knowing who you are and how you are with things is very important, whether it’s personal or business.
A couple final questions. One is just around taking control of your financial future, which kind of ties into money mindset, but also other things. I think often as an entrepreneur, you know that your future is in your own hands. You have to do things to make that future happen. In the land of the corporate, we often assume that we’ve got financial security through our companies, and yet, we also see that there are a number of layoffs coming. There are companies that are being bought and sold that are shifting people’s livelihood potentially. Maybe they’re continuing to be employed, maybe by a different company, maybe no longer employed and need to find something new.
I think there’s this false hypothesis that, hey, I’ve got this steady paycheck and it’s going to continue to be this steady paycheck. And then one day it’s not. But we can plan ahead. So what should people be doing personally really to take control of their financial future?
There are two vehicles I like for an emergency fund and it’s not necessarily how most other people do it. So I have two unique ways that I always use as my “nest egg” or savings. So I always have a home equity line of credit, and the best time to get that is when you don’t need it. The best time to get any money from any bank is when you don’t need it. So if you have a line of credit that works, just like a credit card where you can draw on it when you need it. That’s actually how I paid for for a lot of my kids’ college is using a home equity line of credit.
Your home is constantly increasing in value. 98% of the time. Of course, we had one or two years where that wasn’t the case. But 98% of the time, your house is increasing in value. So having that home equity line of credit is letting you tap into that value of your home. And if you don’t need it, you’re not paying any interest on it. You’re not using it.
The other vehicle is a Roth IRA. So that grows tax free, and you can always take out the principal, which is the money you put in, out of a Roth IRA, tax and penalty free. So you’re not paying any tax on the interest in the growth, and it’s there in case of an emergency. Now I know there’s income limits on the Roth IRA.
Well, what I was gonna say is the whole backdoor Roth conversion is huge.
Yes, I’m glad you mention that. There is a backdoor, you can put it in a nontraditional IRA and then roll it into a Roth IRA, which is called a backdoor Roth IRA. Which they might as well just eliminate the Roth IRA income limits, and just be done with it.
It gets back to Congress and constituents money mindset around rich people and what constitutes rich and where the benefits should go, etcetera.
You make a great point there, Victoria. It is.
See? I learned.
So this has been really fun, Audrey. I’m really glad that we’ve gotten to do this, and just learn more about what you’re doing. Where can our audience learn more about you or connect with you if they want to and learn more about, She Grows Rich?
Well, She Grows Rich, How to Become a Financial Powerhouse is available on Amazon. You can get the digital copy right now for just 99¢. It’s on sale. And you can get that. Just search She Grows Rich, Audrey Faust.
I’ll actually include a link for that as well just to make life easy.
And then you can find me at audreyfaustconsulting.com. I have some free resources on there. Also, if you buy the book, you can find my book portal on there, which has some additional free resources in it. So including a money mindset training and some fun calculators for when you’re calculating different things like your net worth that I talk about in the book, as well as the 7% rule. There’s a 7% rule calculator in there that lets you compare investing versus paying off debt. There’s all kinds of fun stuff.
Awesome. Well, this has been great. Audrey, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate your time today.
Thank you for having me. It was a lot of fun, Victoria.
Absolutely. And thanks everyone for listening. Keep listening, keep following, keep sharing, and we will talk with you again soon.
About Audrey Faust:
Audrey Faust is a financial powerhouse and self-made multi-millionaire dedicated to empowering women entrepreneurs with confidence and clarity in their business finances. As a CFO, financial business coach, and best-selling author of She Grows Rich, Audrey helps ambitious women master their money mindset and financial strategy to scale their businesses profitably. With an MBA and certification as a NeuroCoach, she blends financial expertise with mindset work to create lasting success. Audrey is on a mission to help women achieve financial independence by making smart, empowered money decisions. Through her coaching, courses, and speaking engagements, she equips women with the tools to build wealth, optimize cash flow, and confidently grow their businesses.