Productive Living: Managing Your Money Well, with Alaina Fingal – TPW339

Have you been thinking about your finances lately and wondering what you can do to become more organized with your money? Join Alaina Fingal and me in this episode of the Productive Living series as we discuss how you can overcome fear related to your money, learn how to establish a budget, and save for your future. Managing your money and making a life that matters Alaina Fingal is an accountant, certified financial coach, author, and content creator. She helps busy people who struggle with budgeting and time management use a paper planner to get organized. She shares her easy approach to productivity & finances through her YouTube channel. Her work has been featured in many significant publications, and she was recently selected as one of LA Wire's 40 under 40 along with such notables as Mark Zuckerburg, Rihanna, and actress Jessica Alba. Alaina lives in New Orleans, Louisiana with her husband Torrey and their two daughters. Alaina started her business in late 2017 when she was trying to figure out to "adult" better. She was a wife and mom and wanted to lead a more organized life. She had been working as an accountant for several years but didn't feel like she was as productive as she could be. At that point, Alaina decided that she was going to get organized using her paper planner. When Alaina writes things down and has a plan for the day, she feels the most organized, so she knew her paper planner was the key. From there, Alaina started to organize and manage her money better, and then her friends and family started asking for help too. Her YouTube channel grew from that experience, and it has spiraled into the company it is today. Alaina loves teaching people systems and routines to help them adult better. Alaina's favorite planner and why it works Alaina's paper planner of choice is the disc-bound Happy Planner. She likes that you can remove and add pages and how customizable it is overall. She has tried other planners such as the Erin Condren Life Planner and Passion Planner, but the Happy Planner has worked out the best for her. Alaina currently has two planners: one for home life and one for her business. Each planner is customized to exactly what she needs, including sections for health, home, money, and business. Alaina refers to her planner as a "Frankenplanner" because she has take sections from multiple planners and combined them into one large book with different sections. She has categories such as goals, mood, schedule, etc. This larger book allows her to have all her plans in one place. Alaina has created downloadable budgeting templates that are available in her Etsy shop. They allow you to break down your budget by paycheck and plan exactly what you're going to do with your money. Alaina hopes that by using these templates and watching her YouTube videos, you will be able to duplicate what she has done with the same amount of success. Alaina's advice on how to get started with managing your money Alaina recommends you start first by learning your "Money Personality", which is the typical way you handle your money and your relationship to...