Money Languages: How to Improve Financial Communication within Couples

All right, I see everybody coming in from the waiting room. Welcome everyone and thank you for joining Money Languages, how to improve financial communication within couples. We're excited to have Joanne Dangan with us today. She is an accredited financial counselor and certified financial social work coach as a financial healing coach and senior manager of program excellence at financial beginnings. Joanne blends her personal expertise with her lived experience to help people navigate money with clarity, compassion, and confidence. Her work centers on creating safe, non-judgmental spaces to unpack financial stress and strengthen relationships. And as she says, she's changing the world one budget at a time. Thank you so much for being here, Joanne. I'll let you take it away.

>> Thank you so much, Val. Can you hear me? Okay.

>> All right. I think you're good. and please put in the chat. All right. Thank you.

>> Awesome. Thank you. I am so glad to be here. Um like Val said, my name is Joan Singan. I am the uh principal financial counselor at Financial Healing. I'm also a senior manager of program excellence at Financial Beginnings. Um, and I'm excited to share with you all um, a set of money languages that I that I use in my practice and share a little background about how I came up with it. Um, lots of credit goes to other folks here, but I wanted to first share our agenda for today so you know what to expect. Um, I'll tell you a little bit about financial healing, my my private practice, as well as financial beginnings, the nonprofit I I work at. Then we'll go into the five languages of money. um as well as other uh language or relationship modalities that I think are worth exploring uh as we talk about how to uh improve communication between your couple clients. Um or if you are a counselor looking to expand your case load into client or into couple clients, this is the presentation for you. I'll also share some case studies that I saw on the ground myself. Uh they're real case cases uh but names have been changed for privacy and then I'll I'll close with a with how we can in integrate these languages or modalities into your practice.

Um so a little bit about me. I am a child of Filipino immigrants. Um I I was also a product of public of the public school system. So, I did not receive ample financial education growing up. So, I believe this is a deep injustice. Um, so I've made it my mission to change the world one budget at a time. Um, I am based in Los Angeles. So, if any of you are based out in SoCal, uh, hopefully we can connect. Um, I love playing tennis. I love the outdoors and all the nerdy board games you can think of, starting with Avalon, um, uh, Settlers of Katan and the like.

Um, I'm so happy you're here. I want to also tell you first about, um, Financial Beginnings. I am their senior manager of program excellence there, and we provide and design financial education curriculum. So, um, what's great about this is it's a volunteer-based organization, and when I was getting certified, I was able to go through the education channels that I had um, access to through financial beginnings. So, I would love to invite you if you are ever wanting to volunteer or provide financial education in your community, we provide curriculum materials for free. So, please check us out if you're um a candidate trying to get certified. We certainly have some opportunities that you can take advantage of there. So, I have that QR code up here for for you to scan and and check us out, see if it's and I'm happy to answer questions about that.

Um, and because I can't stop doing financial anything, I have a private practice as well called financial healing. And my mission through that is to bring heart and healing to money management. So, I provide one-on-one sessions. I provide a budget subscription service. I love budgeting. Um, I also provide workshops and public speaking. So, if you ever want to connect on that front or in any of those capacities, um, please let me know. I'll have my email address uh on the screen at the end. And essentially my my theory or the the theory that I really integrate into my practice is knowing or helping my clients understand that we are in a relationship with our money. That's not a new concept there. This this concept is gaining a lot of traction in our field. And so the questions that I ask when I'm working with my clients in the financial counseling space is how does that person interact with their money? I I focus really on the how. Are they an active or passive participant? Are they just kind of spending without tracking or are they actively tracking and being more mindful? Do they view money negatively, positively or neutrally? are they um bogged down by money or do they see opportunity with it or do they avoid money altogether? And so the these are all basic questions that I kind of keep in mind as I'm learning especially when I'm onboarding a client. These are the kinds of details I glean from our conversation.

And so there is a lot of opportunity to provide financial counseling for couples in our industry. I wanted to share that according to the Pew Research Center sharing household chores including money management which is you know the big the one of the big factors of divorce um in a relationship. It's one of the key one of the big key uh uh successful marriages, right? One of the big keys to a su successful marriage is shared household chores. So budgeting could be considered that chore or just general management perhaps managing an investment portfolio if that's what the family household does on their own. Um tracking money, tracking spending uh and the like. And so as I started working with more and more couples, I I just happened to get more inquiries from couples and I thought this is an opportunity for me. I I I didn't have in the beginning a lot of experience um counseling couples. It wasn't a large um area of study uh through the AFCPE program. And so I learned a lot as I I went. I read a lot about how couples deal with money. And so one of the things that kind of I I needed to simplify for myself as more and more couples asked for my help through financial counseling is how do I understand uh not only the individual in the couple but the couple as a unit in communicating around money. And so um I wanted to bring in at least for myself a way to understand it, a modality to understand how couples interact together. And one of my favorite uh relationship books uh outside of money was the five languages. And so if you're familiar with the five languages, um you already know what I'm going to talk about. But the five languages of love was developed by a minister named Gary Chapman. And uh I recommend this book if you haven't already read it just to give yourself some background on how this modality works. But essentially, uh each one of us as individuals has a love language. We speak in a specific love language and we may receive uh a love language from others. It might be the same, it might be different. So acts of service, for example, are folks who uh like to show love through through acts of service. Perhaps that's being the the main household manager, doing chores around the house. Maybe you like showing love by um doing those acts of service, whatever that might be. You might show love by physical touch. Self-explanatory. You like to be touched. You need physical uh contact. You love holding hands. You love PDA. That kind of thing. Uh quality time. Uh you show love by giving your time. uh no matter what it might be, even if it's just sitting on the couch and cuddling, snuggling, talking, pillow talk, that kind of thing. Receiving gifts. You show love by um understanding what the other person might want as a gift, might need as a gift. And then finally, words of affirmation. That's more verbal. You want to hear validation. You want to hear that you're doing a a good job in the relationship and and whatnot. And so you again you might speak in one language and you might listen in another. So um for example I my love language is physical touch and I love to receive quality time from the people I love.

And so in drawing from this modality of relationships I fig I realized that couples also speak in different money languages. And so, um, I I took this model here and kind of applied this five money language structure to the couples I was working with. And so, how did I do that? Pretty simply, I mean, it was a lot of observation. I've been in this work since 2018 as a financial educator to students and as a counselor. Um, I got certified in 2020. Um and so I started counseling uh clients from different so socioeconomic backgrounds um different cultural backgrounds. So I I have a a I would say a diverse set of um of couples to draw my my practice from. And so the features of the five languages that I want to highlight here is that we're coming here with a non-judgmental lens. There are certain languages that might seem um you know that that might have a negative connotation or positive connotation. I'm going into this with a neutral uh kind of um a neutral and unbiased perspective. And so all languages can be either or both detrimental or beneficial. They can also have just like with the five languages from Gary Chapman, they can have multiple or overlapping languages. One can also have different languages over time. Right? We're talking about people and money. And as we age, as we go through different life stages, our money language might change. It might be diametrically opposed to one that we had before. And you can think in one language but act in another.

Um, and so the the main meat of this today, uh, I'll go in right now is the five languages of money. And I invite you to think about what language you use, what language, if you are in a couple, what language does your partner use? And if you do see couples, uh I also invite you to kind of glean from this what languages do your couple clients use as well. And so the first one is giver. Givers are charitable with their time and money. They share with they share their money and their resources with family, with community, with organizations in their neighborhood. And they cannot help sometimes but to share their money with others whether in the form of tithing, charitable giving or giving their time. And they're the most generous with their time or money. Sometimes to their own detriment. It might be even to their own detriment in terms of you know perhaps overbudgeting on this on this front. An old co-orker of mine her name is Gail. Uh she was a giver through and through giving both her time and her money to homeless shelters in her community and food banks. Um as one of our earliest friend dates, she took me to her local food shelter in in Santa Monica and I loved seeing her in her element in this space. And um and so you know it's uh it's a way of of acting with your money that is that can be perhaps perhaps selfless but again can be a detriment if the budget doesn't support it. Um my dad is also a giver. He was always the bread winner in our family. Um but he rarely spent that money on himself. So, in fact, I can't remember a time when he uh bought a single thing for himself to splurge. And to this day, he has that habit of sending money back to his family in the Philippines where a majority of them are still living.

The next one is survivor. Survivors are folks who have grown up with adults or parents who were constantly worried or anxious about money. Perhaps they experience some degree of financial trauma and that turned on their survivor mode. Um they may over or undercompensate when it comes to money. Um and so a lot of there's a lot of different ways to deal with with this um with this language that you know it really depends on the circumstance. Um these folks may have experienced housing insecurity or food insecurity for a number of reasons. Um and even after a survivor or somebody who uh recognizes this as their language, even after one might grow out of that or one might have come into stability, um they might still have that survivor mentality. Um and so you know that of course with the with some degree of financial trauma, it can be very difficult to overcome. Um my sister admittedly uh says that sister admittedly uh says that she she she she has the survivor mode in her has the survivor mode in her like at all like at all times even though she's well times even though she's well off at at off at at this point now. And um she this point now. And um she just has this just has this like fightor-flight like fightor-flight feeling when she is dealing with money. feeling when she is dealing with money.

The next one is called yolo. Um, my The next one is called yolo. So for you non-millennials, uh that means you only live once and this is um these are folks who seek instant gratification. These are uh our impulsive spenders and um they regularly indulge in impulsive spending whether that's on experiences such as travel, adventure, or on material things such as clothing or gadgets. My love language is yolo. I will admit that proudly. Um, I learned from my my mom to this day. She loves thrift shopping. When she's feeling down, she takes herself out to the local thrift shops. She digs for good deals and for authentic Louis Vuitton bags at Goodwill. Um, and going with her on thrift shopping trips were a staple of our weekends together growing up. So, I definitely uh absorbed that myself. Um, and I'm operating a nonpro on a nonprofit income. I definitely needed to learn other money languages for the health of my wallet and for the health of my relationship, too. So, um, I deeply appreciate thrifting, but definitely, uh, I learned ways to thrift in other ways as well, not just on my clothes. Um, and so YOLO might be a language that you would think any financial counselor might discourage folks from engaging in, but I actually don't. I my approach is a little different in that impulsive spending is only a bad idea if you don't have the cash. And so if that is a and with any other language too if if it is detrimental to your wallet including YOLO, including giver, including all the others, um we want to make sure that we're just supporting that language if that is something it's going to be hard to change. Um so if a client build builds themselves a good cushion to play with on top of taking care of their necessities, then I say yolo away.

Um the diametrical opposite of yolo I would say is the slow burner. Slow burners are also spenders but they first prodigiously save for their immediate or long-term goals. Um they get a kick out of saving so that they can spend without worrying uh about dipping into their necessary funds. Um my partner Conrad grew up a slow burner. Uh he as a child he received allowances in exchange for chores. He uh started working for his dad who was a developer. Um and so the summer he turned 14 years old, he saved up a lot of cash to buy his first bike. It was his first like few hundred uh purchase. I believe it was $600 for a bespoke bike. Um, and uh, and a few summers later, he saved up to buy a $1,600 stereo for his Ford Bronco. So, he he definitely started out started out as a slow burner. Um, but I've definitely taught him yolo a little bit more, too.

And then the final language here um, is called nest egggar. These are folks who are also prodigious savers, but also prodigious investors. Um, and if you're familiar with the FIRE movement, uh, I would put them under this category. FIRE is an acronym for financial independence to retire early. Um, they specifically have a mission to set aside upwards of 70% of their income and to retirement savings in order to make that happen. It's extreme saving. It's extreme earning for the sake of retiring before 65. A good friend of mine, Aaron, is a nest egggar um so that he can enjoy work optional situations. So, he's had a couple of years of not working. He goes back to working for a few years and the pattern continues. So, he's a little unconventional in that way, but he's definitely a nest egg. will come to a uh a social outing having eaten dinner already even if the outing was at a restaurant because he wants to save prodigiously. So he does and that's one method that he uses. Um eats at home, goes to the restaurant, has maybe like a $5 appetizer. He's easily the most frugal person I know. Um, I also want to point out, um, uh, there's a influencer that I follow, uh, Shang of Save My Sense, if you're familiar with her channel. She retired in her 30s along with her husband. Um, and so in their 20s, they earned income in the triple digits and lived very frugally despite that, living like college students, and they invested every other single penny for their goal of retiring early. And so here she is uh as if influencer sharing her her golden nuggets of investing for those who are unfamiliar. She makes it less intimidating um for the everyday person. So I I recommend her if you want to check her out.

All right. I would love to shout out a poll here if you would be willing. I'd love to hear what your money language is. So, give me um A, B, C, or D. If you are a giver, survivor, yolo, slow burner, or nest eggar, feel free to drop that in the chat. Yes, I see some yolos. I see Wow, they're coming in fast. I appreciate it. My my chat box can barely keep up. I love it. Awesome. I see some fires. Yes. Second proud fi without the re. Well, you know what? We'll get you there. We'll get you there. Awesome. I see some givers. Yes, it's a good diverse group here today. I love it. Thank you for sharing, everyone. I love it. All right. Well, you all know I'm a yolo. No shame there. Awesome. Slow burners. Yes. Shout out survivors. Let's go. Let's go. Destiny's Child. I I had to put that that photo of them on there. All right. Yes. Survivor. Yeah, you can say survivors live paycheck to paycheck. Perhaps they have um kind of lingering financial trauma even if they have um financial stability to rely on. All right. And remember, you can have multiple languages. I see some of you listed but listed two. That's great. All righty. I have so much fun doing these polls. I love hearing what folks are or what uh folks have as their love or their money language.

All right. So that was the five money languages that I've observed in my practice and I encourage you to perhaps look at your own. I you know we're all um working in the financial counseling space uh in some way or another. If you do have couples in your case load um observe observe what type of languages they speak with. Observe what types of languages they speak with to each other. Um, so then here in this next section, I also want to present um some other modalities or or uh yeah, some other modalities that you might consider if mine isn't really applicable to yours or you don't really vibe with it. I get it. Um, so here are some others that you might consider if you want to implement them into your practice. And the first one is Christine B. Wheelen's money languages. It's not a new thing. I'm not saying this is like pioneering the money language space. Christine Wheelen has been around for a while. Her money languages have as well. And they're designed to help financial counselors and advisors connect better with their clients. So, um, and it's researchbacked. Mine is more obser observation from my own practice, but hers is researchbacked. The model draws from findings of psychology, sociology, statistics and it combines um interdisipline interdisciplinary research um of consumer science. So if you want more uh comprehensive methodology, this is this is a great place to to start. Uh Christine's money languages as she has built them is the planner, the worrier, the seeker, the believer, and the tracker. And you can just do a quick Google search of her and you can find a lot of literature. She has a whole website about it. Um I believe there's a quiz that your clients can take as well to understand which language is theirs. And you can see the the the names are pretty self-explanatory. Um, and again, this is how you as a financial counselor can understand your clients a little better by finding more simplification in your case load.

Christine Lukan. There's another Christine who has another set of languages of money, but this time she directly applies Gary Chapman's love languages into her model. And so instead of uh the five languages applied to a relationship, she's applying the languages to the way that you treat your money. So, of course, acts of service, physical touch, quality time, receiving gifts, and words of affirmation are what she uses as her languages. Again, it mirrors the same exact languages that Gary Chapman uses for the five love languages. Um, so just a little bit of how that might apply. Um, acts of service that for example, you might like to buy services or uh uh hire services for yourself and for your family. Maybe that's a a household service, a house cleaning service. Um uh physical touch might be that you like touching coins, you like writing checks, you like the physicalness of money. You might carry cash um more than you use digital cash. Quality time. You might um spend a lot of time managing your money. You like spending time on uh the logistics of money. If you like to receive gifts, you um might buy phys physical things or experiences for yourself and others. And then finally, words of affirmation. Um you might like to receive communications about money. Perhaps you're a big subscriber to newsletters or you like that dopamine rush when somebody provides some validation when it comes to your money.

Money habitudes is another model designed for uh financial professionals like ourselves. It is a full assessment that bridges the gap between feelings and money. Um and it helps us as professionals speak to our clients with the help of a fun card game. So if you like to gify your practice, look at money habitudes. It's a lot of fun. Um but the six habitudes that they've developed are planning, status, spontaneous, security, giving, and carefree. So again, most of those are self-explanatory here. Um, and if you want to integrate a little bit of like dynamism into your into your counseling practice or change it up a little bit by introducing a game, um this will help you better understand your clients in that way. And especially if they like to gify or if they like to have non-conventional ways um of of the practice, this is a great approach.

Um, this isn't a language per se. Um, but John Baldi's attachment theory is a relationship theory worth mentioning. Um, I've certainly seen some form of this in my practice and I'm sure you have as well. Um, but John Bulby is a British psychoanalyst and he developed the attachment theory as a way to understand the importance of early relationships for healthy social and emotional development. Right? So particularly our relationship um with our caregivers is what he focused on. Um and so each of the attachment styles can certainly be applied to the way we relate to money. Um since much of how we learn about money comes from our caregivers growing up. So attachment styles are ambivalent, avoidant, disorganized, or secure. And this diagram here is kind of a matrix here kind of showing low. Let's see. It's a little hard for me to read from here, but low avoidance to high avoidance from low anxiety on the on the x- axis to high anxiety. And um when we're when we put those two axes together, that's where the the four attachment theories come. And so when it comes to money, you can already kind of guess what I mean there. Um, avoidant attachment might be the most obvious when it comes to money. These are folks who avoid looking at their bank statements. Many avoid talking to their spouse or their partner about money. Um, and then on the other side of the spectrum might be a secure attachment where um an individual or client is totally fine talking about money. they they confront their money issues head-on and aren't afraid of confrontation with their money, if I could say that. Um, so it's a very interesting way to apply this theory to money because I I certainly see a lot of this in my work.

All right. Case studies. I love case studies to to illustrate how the five languages work in practice. I also include some modalities besides the five languages that I've come up with. So again, these are real cases, but the names have been changed for privacy. Um, and I share each individual's language and their main financial issue. And I would love to share or I love I would love to hear how you would um recommend certain things to each couple if you are so inclined. I'm not quite looking at the chat box at the same time. I'm I'm trying to focus on the presentation, but I would love to read the ch the chat transcripts later. Val, if you would love if you would be open to sharing.

All right. First we have Genevieve and Astrid. Genevieve is has the YOLO language. Astrid on the other hand is a nest egar. Um so you can imagine there's already some clashes that I had to deal with there as as I counseledled them through that. They are a highincome couple who have diametrically opposed languages. Each learned from their parents. Um they talked about their family life a lot. They talked about where they wanted to go and their goals. And so um to make sure that the couple was um satisfying both those languages, I recommended that they build a 12-month emergency fund. Astrid needed to know that if anything went wrong, um that they had a full year of runway. And that gave Genevieve a lot of pause. As you can imagine, she there's money in the pot in a 12-year emergency fund that she thought she could spend, but it was a it was a little bit of kind of educating what an emergency fund is for. So, we developed for them a creative budget that gives them room to enjoy both saving for big goals like a 12-month emergency fund and to have fun with their discretionary income. Um, so we were able to find a really good balance. It took a lot of practice and a lot of sessions to really understand how to do both.

Sean and Ma are both entrepreneurs um, also with diametrically opposed love languages, but they have variable income and who spend just under their means. they're just getting by with what they bring in, especially because of the variable income, but there are months when they do have high revenue. So, it was uh a lot of calibration that needed to be done. So, we helped them develop a c a budget with a one-mon cushion. And when I'm counseling, I use cushions more differently than than I use an emergency fund. Those those to me are very different. With a budget that has a one-mon cushion, they can operate on last month's income. And so since they have variable income, that builds in a lot of predictability, which is missing from the revenue of entrepreneurs or freelancers. I did also help them develop a 12 month 12-month emergency again to bring more predictability into their income, which was their main issue.

Next, I have Minnie and Miguel, who are both yolo language um languagers. So they both bring in high income, but they started working with me because they couldn't figure out why despite their high income, they ran out of money each month. Um, and immediately I saw they enjoy uh weekend trips uh regularly and twice annual vacations with their two young kids. And those things can add up as you can imagine. And so we helped them develop a six-month emergency fund. That was their most comfortable uh period in terms of an emergency fund. And obvious to me, but it wasn't to them. We built them a syncing fund for vacations so that they knew exactly how much they can spend on that particular weekend trip, but also look ahead to that big vacation, that big twoe vacation that they planned each year.

Next we have Lorena and Grant. Um, and this in these next two couples I uh applied the attachment theory because while they might have languages of money um it was more prevalent to me that that was less applicable and more applicable in terms of how they were attached to their money. And so Lena was avoidant towards her money and Grant was more secure around it. Um and most most notably they had different financial literacy levels. Lorena um grew up uh with her her mom and the women in her family not knowing or not being involved in finances. And so she brought that into her relationship. whereas Grant was more um he seemed to be more expert than me sometimes, especially on the investing side. And so they were at different ends of the spectrum when it came to financial literacy. And so for that reason, Lena would avoid conversations about money with grant. She would avoid talking about her budget or the money that she brought in. She would avoid t talking about her spending. Um, thankfully she wasn't a huge spender, but it did help her feel like she wasn't maximizing her money. Um, Grant on the other hand is a an avid investor. He he gets a kick out of saving. He regularly looks at his money. He regularly interacts with it and he's ready to save for their shared goals. And so, um, they were also engaged. So they were looking to uh through their work with me, how do they reconcile this? And so my recommendations to them was to allow Grant to be the main money manager of the of the household with Lena as an equal decision maker. He could not make a decision about money without her input. and him being more of the uh financially liter literate person um would uh I recommended that he bring in resources that he used and bring Lena along. I also shared resources with her um including a service at Dow James. We also developed a budget that integrates their long-term goals. They were engaged so they were planning a wedding. they were also expecting a child. So, lots of changes coming in at once and so uh we had to develop a budget that prepared them for that. So, that was an interesting case. Uh very, excuse me, very um uh I I had to, you know, bring some finesse to that to that conversation, especially with Lena's avoidant attachment to money.

Jake and B. My final case study here. Um I would say this was my most difficult case. Um another avoidant and secure um composition. Jake was the avoidant one. Um he was an entrepreneur with variable and sometimes unreliable income. While Bo had a steady nine-to-five salary for a the longest period of time. She did not know what it was without a steady salary. So, um Jake having an avoidant attachment to his money refused for a long time that he had issues with spending beyond their means. Um and so their family had gotten used to a specific lifestyle. And so it was very difficult for Jake and Bo to work together to build a reasonable budget. And so that's why they sought my help to find kind of a third party to look at their money management system and improve upon it. Um but with back taxes and three adults to support um how would how could we handle their case, right? It was um lots of factors at play, a lot of different difficult things to deal with. And so we had to really coach I had to really coach Jake and Bo through a lot of emotions around money. Um my practice my my my mission is to bring healing um to money management. So we did a lot of that healing. Um we had to find ways to downsize their lifestyle in in all areas, not certain ones. We had to really um they had to really evaluate what their priorities were, especially with three adult kids to support. And with three adult kids to support, they had to really get down to business and ask their adult kids how could they help? How could they bring in an increased income um with the help of their adult kids? Uh two of them were in college and one was a special needs child. So um it it was quite difficult but it was necessary to find ways that they can contribute to the household income. Um and then we helped them create a new normal um with the particular case of getting used to a particular lifestyle. Um we had to really be honest. they had to be honest with each other and with themselves that their lifestyle could not sustain the way they were going. Um so they looked at downsizing the size of their home to the to their food and and dining out habits. Um and then again the most difficult was approaching their their two adult kids to contribute to the household income.

All right. So, those case studies I hope provided some of that theory in practice, but I want to present to you in this last section how you can apply um any of these love languages, I'm sorry, any of these money languages or modalities um not just my own, but the the four others that I presented here. How do you integrate that into your practice for financial counseling? And the first the very first thing is assess after your consultation. Maybe it's just a um a discovery call with your couple client. Th these modalities can even help with individual clients as well. But specifically, if you have a couple client, assess whether identifying a language is helpful at all. Is it going to be the five languages that I've developed or one of the Christines? Um, it's funny that two Christines developed money languages. Um, is it the attachment theory? Is it helpful at all? Maybe it's not. and maybe there's ways that you figured out as a financial counselor that can be more effective. So, assess first. It may or may not be applicable to your client. Um, the modalities I introduced to you are just a few that I've come across so far and it's a great start in matching your client's style to money. So find your client's style. Each person has a different relationship style when it comes to their money. So meet your clients where they're already at. We're not trying to impose a language. We're not trying to impose a modality onto them. Um and it's not like I'm telling them, hey, you have this love language, or hey, you have this avoidant um attachment to money. I'm not explicitly saying that to my clients. I'm using it more as an assessment tool for myself to understand how to move forward. How do I move this case forward where the client feels supported and and good about the work that we're doing together. Um, for example, if your clients are into games like I am, money habitudes might be a good fit. um if they're already familiar with attachment theory or they some might already t say that hey I get really anxious when it comes to money well then that's an easy perhaps an easy application for you to understand okay if if you're avoidant with money here are some steps that you can take some baby steps to go from um avoidant to secure and of course sessions with your clients will will naturally be dynamic um and so will their relationship with money. So make adjustments or pivots whatever you need to do in order to understand um between your two your couple clients the progress that they're achieving in their financial goals or if those goals are kind of still far out or perhaps they need to be adjusted a little bit because certain circumstances have come up or maybe they've calibrated their budget and realized you know what maybe that goal is not going to happen. So, make those adjustments and be honest with your clients. Make sure that they are being brought along with you as much as possible because again, we want to meet them where they're at and not be so rigid about the goals that we have for them or that they have for themselves.

All right. So, if you're wondering where um I had those where I sourced those languages or modalities, I have them in this slide here. Um many of you have many of you have asked if we're going to share these slides. Of course um you you'll have access to these slides with the help of um the AFCPE staff. So thank you. Um and with that I will open it up for questions. Um I have on the screen my email address and go ahead and follow me on socials. I would love to hear from you. Before we get going, I will say the code so everybody's got it. The CE code is love 2026. That's love in capital letters, L O V E206. And you're going to put that in your my AFCpe.org dashboard. All right. I do have a couple of questions. While people are thinking, feel welcome to put uh questions in the chat, but we did have a couple come in throughout the presentation. So, Abby had asked, "Do you weave in IFS parts work so they don't feel boxed into this language?" This is when we were talking about the five languages and they each had to identify with one.

>> Yeah, that's why I mentioned, you know, one might have multiple languages. And I also recognize that distilling money relationships into five languages might seem so simple. It we don't want to get boxed in into those five. Um and that's why I presented the other modalities. I want to make sure that you have other tools at your disposal to help understand your couple clients and again even your individual clients. Um these can be certainly applied to any any makeup of client.

Fantastic. And then we've got John asking a question here. He says, "Can you talk a little bit about some of the techniques you use to help Jake come to grips with the need to downsize and get on board with making significant behavioral changes?"

>> Well, that was what made it so difficult. I think we all know a client or two who were willing to be helped, but you know there he had built such a defensive wall. Um, and so I had to counsel Jake and his partner separately sometimes and they they agreed to that. They wanted to like kind of get at the heart of what was going on. And so I did counsel them separately with their permission. Um, and then we came back together to talk about um our individual sessions because they they did need a lot of individual guidance and then we brought it all together um in our in our three-way session. Um it did take a while for Jake to know what what was wrong with the whole money management system. I and it was a you know a balance of not bringing blame and not not showing or or really not you know it's a collective it it was a collective effort. Um so it wasn't just on him that it was an overspending issue. it was a household issue. And so that's really what I had to um bring him to that conclusion. And with the help of his partner Bo, like she had to reassure him a lot. And we had to we had to reassure each other a lot in terms of we're going to move forward. It's going to be difficult. It's not going to be easy. Um uh but eventually, you know, it it kind of came together um even through those difficult conversations.

Fantastic. Next question. Can you talk about your approach when someone who is a survivor is triggered in these conversations around money? Trauma is so difficult to deal with.

>> Yeah, I agree. Um, and that's one of the reasons why I started my practice to um help survivors of financial trauma. Um, and it has grown from there. Um I bring a lot of um uh social work modalities to financial counseling. So if you are familiar with um financial social work, they have a lot of great resources for uh folks who have experienced financial trauma. Um there is also uh a school called trauma of money if you are interested in that as well. they have a whole I think it's a six-week course um concerning this type of work. But um the mo the things that I bring in when I I'm dealing with clients who experienced financial trauma is we do a lot of breathing exercises during our sessions. I might start with a breathing exercise uh uh before each session. Um I plenty of uh plenty of clients I've asked to journal about their money. Um and that's been you know an eye openening experience for both myself and the clients. Um you know I kind of approach it as think think of the journal as a pensive. If you're a Harry Potter fan you know what I'm talking about. A pensive is a place where you um store memories. And so look at your journal as a way to store some of those really hard feelings, those really hard uh emotions when it comes to money. And hopefully it'll help you break through some of that um uh difficult uh things with money.

>> Thank you. And thank you for sharing such great resources. Uh we're really enjoying getting all of those and people are sharing some in the chat as well. It's super helpful. Uh next question. I have a very avoidant client. She never handled money in her marriage and now she is divorced and in crisis mode. What do you suggest that she do to be more comfortable managing her money?

>> Oh, I feel for I feel for her and and clients like that. Um uh my immediate response is slow it down to slow to to speed it up later. Um slow it down in terms of you know what are her biggest money issues and um since she is in crisis mode, address the most urgent ones first. Um so I'm guessing there she might be experiencing some form of food food or housing insecurity. So address that first where you know it's um Maslo's pyramid of needs, right? We're going to start with the physical needs first um and then move up that pyramid as she is able to build rebuild her own life um on her own. So um yeah, I would recommend that maybe Maslo's hierarchy of needs is a great place to look at and some literature to read.

>> I've got a couple more questions if you're still up for it. We got like two more.

>> Love it. Yes, keep them coming.

>> That's fantastic. Uh do clients in your sessions do clients self-identify? Do you suggest what they which language they you know identify with? How does that work?

>> Yeah. Um I typically don't say aloud what it is. Um if if if a there there are two ways I do this and rarely do I say, "Hey, I have these five love languages. Which one are you?" Um if I if I find that appropriate, I will do that. But I rarely do that. The most common approach that I have is I keep that internal. Um I I kind of assess like I said in my theory to practice section, I assess where the client might be with their money and I think of okay which modality does does it does that apply to and then I identify that language or the the the attachment theory or whatever it is. And then I that's what helps me inform how I move my case forward. So if I have an avoidant and secure couple mixture, then how can I make sure that I'm bringing along the attached person but also not leaving behind the secure person. Um so I yeah, like I said, I don't say that explicitly. I don't share that you're a secure person, so this is what we're going to do. Um, it's more again an internal tool that I use to move them along our sessions.

>> And then, have you ever worked with clients that one party was an addictive gambler and she was a survivor?

>> Oh, interesting mixture. I have worked with um a couple of clients who struggled with gambling, but not in a couple. Um, so I I can't help you specifically there, but if there I if if that h I would say the top of my at the top of my head um that I would actually Yeah, Heidi, thank you. I was going to suggest Gamin or Gamblers Anonymous. Um cuz the that's a you know addiction is is something that is out of my wheelhouse. So, I do my best when I recognize those things to refer them out to resources like that. Um, so I that's what I would recommend if you if you feel you're out of your um your skill set, there are resources available to them that they can find support in, including Gamin or or Gamblers Anonymous.

>> All right. Well, thank you so much. We've gotten some great insights and tools, a lot to help us make our couples have a wonderful Valentine's Day. So, thank you again. That code is love 2026, capital letters, love 2026. Thank you for spending your um afternoon, your lunch hour, whatever this time is for you. Um thank you for spending it with us. We truly appreciate you coming. All right. Thanks everybody. Bye. Thank you, Joan. Happy Valentine's Day to everybody who celebrates.