Lessons from a Profit Coach: The 15-Minute Monday Money Meeting

If money feels like it’s constantly slipping through your fingers -  this episode is for you.

This week on the Get Rich podcast, I chat with Profit Coach Clare Wood about her simple but powerful money system that takes just 15 minutes a week.

Clare shares:
🧾 How to run a Monday Money Meeting to stay on top of your cash flow
💑 Why she and her husband do Friday Money Dates (and how to make them fun!)
📊 The monthly review that helps her grow wealth - not stress
🚀 How to start a side hustle without a website, logo, or fancy plan

She’s proof that when you treat your money like a business, everything changes.

Clare Wood’s simple cash-flow system, Friday money dates, and monthly reviews for real-life results

💌 Want more money confidence straight to your inbox?
Join thousands of Australian women at ladiesfinanceclub.com

CHAPTERS

00:00 – Welcome to Get Rich, Molly’s money story
01:23 – Why every woman needs a simple, stress-free money system
01:44 – What Claire Wood does, “Profit Coach” explained
03:27 – How Claire manages her personal finances (same as business systems)
04:11 – The “volatile income” reality, mortgage, kids, and why systems matter
04:53 – The 15-minute Monday cash flow forecast (week-by-week)
06:06 – Practical setup, export bank transactions, map bills + dates
07:31 – Why most apps don’t do forecasting well (Excel wins)
08:42 – The power move, seeing future negative cash before it happens
09:43 – How to start your own cash flow forecast (simple template logic)
11:04 – Quarterly reviews, updating numbers as costs change
12:10 – Side hustle steps, start without a logo, website, or business plan
14:42 – Molly’s “overcomplicated first business” lesson
15:21 – Friday money meeting as a couple, the agenda + action list
16:14 – Accountability loop, actions assigned and reviewed weekly
17:18 – Making money meetings fun (coffee, pub, beach, dopamine hacks)
19:12 – How money systems reduce relationship tension (CFO vs “I hate spreadsheets”)
21:53 – Monthly review, personal “profit and loss” and budget check
23:07 – Why control feels freeing, not restrictive
24:46 – Side hustle first steps, use your network and solve a real problem
27:02 – How big a side hustle can grow (real examples)
28:42 – Trying things isn’t wasted time, it builds skills
29:18 – Where to find Claire Wood
30:04 – Wrap up 

LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Episode where Molly was on Claire’s podcast: https://clarewood.com/podcast/episode352/
The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau: https://100startup.com/ 

CONNECT WITH CLARE WOOD

Website: https://clarewood.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clare_wood_coach/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clarewoodcoach/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpNnY8fVgyqzlQYrtwqj3yQ
Book: https://clarewood.com/intentionalprofit/
Podcast: https://clarewood.com.au/podcast/

CONNECT WITH LADIES FINANCE CLUB

Join our free Facebook group - Ladies Finance Club Money Chat
Website: https://www.ladiesfinanceclub.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ladiesfinanceclub/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ladies-finance-club/

TAKEAWAYS

• Clare Wood is a profit coach who focuses on helping women build wealth.
• She uses the same financial systems in her personal life as she teaches her clients.
• Regular cash flow forecasting is crucial for financial visibility.
• Setting up financial meetings can help couples stay accountable and informed.
• Starting a side hustle can be as simple as offering a service to friends.
• Financial meetings can be made fun by choosing enjoyable locations.
• Transforming financial conversations can improve relationships between partners.
• Monthly financial reviews help track progress and adjust budgets accordingly.
• Starting small is key to building a successful side hustle.
• There is immense potential for side hustles to grow into significant businesses.

SOUND BITES

"I love to talk money."
"It's not set and forget."
"Just start small."

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Molly: Welcome to Get Rich, the podcast that helps you do just that. Get rich and stay rich. Hey, I'm Molly Benjamin. I'm the founder of Ladies Finance Club, one of Australia's largest financial education platforms for women. But before I started helping thousands of women take control with their money, I was a hot financial mess when it came to my own finances and not the fun kind of hot, more like crying in a supermarket, wondering where all my money went kind of hot.

[00:00:29] But here's the thing, if I can go from financial mess to owning a share portfolio, investing in property, and building wealth. Then you can too. My mission is simple to make women rich because when we have financial freedom, we have choices, confidence, and control over our future. Every week on Get Rich, I sit down with some of the best experts in the industry to break down how we can all start investing, growing our money, and creating long-term financial security without the jargon, boring bits or overwhelm.

[00:01:02] Because when women get rich, we don't just change our lives. We change the world. So if you're ready to start making some smart Money moves, hit that subscribe button and let's get Rich together. Hello and a big welcome back to Get Rich, the podcast that helps you do just that. Get rich and then stay rich.

[00:01:23] I'm your host, Molly Benjamin, and today we are talking about something. Every woman needs a simple stress-free system for managing money. And my guest today is Claire Ward. Now she is a profit coach. I hear you. When you say, uh, what is the profit coach, and it basically means she helps people actually keep the money they make.

[00:01:44] So in this episode, she's sharing like. All the money systems that her and her partner follow from a 15 minute Monday money meeting check-in. And then she also talks about tips for starting a side hustle. And you don't need the website, the logo, a complicated business plan. She actually shares how you can get started right away.

[00:02:05] And as always, we would love to hear from you. So if there's a money topic you want us to cover. We had someone reach out recently and they want us to cover, you know, uh, finance for over forties and rebuilding. So we're gonna be doing an episode on that. Just head over to Ladies Finance Club on Instagram and shoot us over a DM with your thoughts.

[00:02:25] Alright, I hope you enjoy my chat with Profit Coach Claire Wood. Claire, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for coming on.

[00:02:33] Claire: Oh, it's great to be here.

[00:02:35] Molly: So you are a profit coach, which I love. But for our listeners who might be like, what is that? What is a profit coach?

[00:02:44] Claire: That's a great question. I don't actually know anyone else that's a profit coach.

[00:02:48] It's a term I think I made up myself. So basically, I'm a business coach, but my background is in accounting and I realized that like my unique kind of. Slant as a coach is that I do go into the numbers. I love to talk money. I get my hands dirty with my clients. I'm literally like, let's open your zero file.

[00:03:07] Let's pull up your profit loss report. So I love to talk all about money and yeah, I really same as you. Like my mission is to help more women to become wealthy and to be running wildly profitable businesses.

[00:03:21] Molly: I love that and I feel like it's the profit coaches, the perfect guest for the Get Rich podcast.

[00:03:27] So what I would love to know is. A lot of our listeners, there's some business owners, but a lot of them are also kind of like that corporate listener, or they work a nine until five. How do you Claire manage your personal finances being a profit coach?

[00:03:46] Claire: Well, I actually use the exact same systems that I teach my business owner clients in my personal life.

[00:03:53] So what we do, and maybe if I talk you through what that methodology looks like, you know, I know it might be different to what you talk about, but this is the little framework that we've got. And just for context for the listeners as well, my husband is also an entrepreneur. We both started our businesses 10 years ago.

[00:04:11] I was seven months pregnant when my husband quit his job and started his business, and then I got made redundant six months later when I had a six month old baby or seven, whatever the maths is on that. Six, six plus two, eight months later when I had a little tiny baby was when I started my business. So we had been really.

[00:04:29] In a very, I guess, volatile financial situation. While having a young family, we've gone and had another child as well, and at the time we were living in Sydney in a suburb called Jo Moines, which is very expensive, and we had a massive Sydney mortgage to completely unpredictable incomes. So being across our money has always been very, very important to us.

[00:04:53] I don't wanna pretend that we haven't had really. Challenging times we have, but the systems that we've used have really helped us to navigate and have the visibility over that. So the first thing that we do is every Monday morning we do a 15 minute cash flow forecast. Yeah, and what we do at this meeting is that we have a look across both the businesses, but also in our personal life at what is coming in and what is going out and when.

[00:05:22] So this is on a week by week basis, and what this does is it gives us a two to three month forecast. Of the bills and things that are coming up. So for example, we have private health insurance. Yeah. We can see, oh, our quarterly health insurance is coming up. Well that's, you know, it's a pretty big sum of money.

[00:05:42] We need to be prepared for that. We are looking ahead now and we've seen Christmas is coming up. Okay, we need to put money aside for presents. Have we put money aside for accommodation? Have we allowed for the fact that for us, our incomes actually go down when we are not working? So that is our Monday morning meeting.

[00:05:59] It's looking forward at least two, if not three months in advance on a week by week basis.

[00:06:06] Molly: And just to ask a question on that, so on practical terms, do you do that in an Excel spreadsheet? Like are you looking at your bank statements? How do you kind of like make that call of what you have coming up?

[00:06:19] Claire: Yeah, so it all started with a big historical review. A lot of people don't know what day of the month their insurance comes out. I'll say they dunno.

[00:06:29] Molly: Yeah.

[00:06:30] Claire: They dunno how much it's, and I'm gonna be honest, when I first started this process, I freaking didn't either. So I basically went and did a massive, I went to my bank statement, went and did a massive export, a CSV export, and just got all of the history of the transactions and I'm like, right, what date does my house insurance come out?

[00:06:48] How much is it? Okay, cool. That comes out on that date each month. Okay. Our rate. When is our next rates bill? How much is our rates bill? How much is our, again, a lot of times you can kind of lose track and be like, I don't even know how much my electricity bill is. Yeah. And then what we did, we mapped all of that out so that we had a little frequency, the amount and when the next one is due.

[00:07:13] Molly: Yeah.

[00:07:13] Claire: And so that actually sits in a column on our cashflow forecast. So basically we have each line is separate out. So I might have health insurance, gosh, house insurance, car insurance. We've got a boat, boat insurance, all of those lines. And then we've got, what, when does it come out? How often and what's the amount?

[00:07:31] And then that way when we put it in, it's very, very easy. I know that there's technology that does do cashflow forecasting. I'm gonna be honest, I have not found one that I love yet.

[00:07:41] Molly: Yeah.

[00:07:42] Claire: Have you sort of found the same? Yeah. The forecasting one's tricky. There's not many out there. Yeah. That do it.

[00:07:49] Especially for personal, not business. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I kind of, I'm still old school to be honest. I love my Excel spreadsheet and we can kind of have the volatility to move things. Like I might go, oh, you know, we might push the Christmas shopping out for a week. So I actually just manually move things across.

[00:08:06] I actually learn this, I used to work for a big corporate, like a, a multi multimillion dollar since become a billion dollar company, and we literally had our little Excel spreadsheet. And we'd be looking forward and we'd be like, no, let's push that shipment back a week, or let's bring that forward. And that's what we did in the big company.

[00:08:23] Molly: Yeah. There you go. And I think as well, it gives you a bit more accountability when you're doing it like that

[00:08:28] Claire: too.

[00:08:29] Molly: Hundred percent feel like, because it kind of, sometimes when it's automated, it's out of mind, out of thought, but this kind of, you're getting your hands dirty every, every week.

[00:08:38] Claire: What we do with the forecast as well is that we've then got a closing cash balance.

[00:08:42] So what I can see, 8, 10, 12 weeks out, I can see, oh my gosh, through Christmas, we are gonna go negative if something doesn't change. Yeah. So then we've got the power to say, I'm gonna contact the a TO and ask for a payment plan. Or, okay, we do not need to spend 3000 on Christmas presents. Maybe we could just trim it back a little bit so that we stay positive through that period of time.

[00:09:08] So we actually use the information to make decisions about the future. And that's what I love about it, is that it's not, we don't avoid financial surprises, but we're a bit more prepared for it, and we can start to say, let's make a decision to push that back. Let's make a decision to, mm-hmm. Cut that back.

[00:09:28] Maybe we don't need to spend that much on the holiday. We, yeah. We, we are looking forward and the first time I did this meeting took, gosh, like an hour and a half to set the spreadsheet up. Yeah. We now spend 15 minutes a week on it. That's it.

[00:09:43] Molly: Wow. And so for someone who's listening who's like, oh, maybe I wanna set that up with my partner.

[00:09:49] What would you say? Is it just like mapping out, okay, when are the bills coming in? Like what are the bills and what are the frequency? Is that a good starting point? Absolutely. Yeah. So the spreadsheet that I've created

[00:09:59] Claire: is literally just like week by week cash in cash out. Mm-hmm. And then closing cash balance so that you can see.

[00:10:07] Okay. If I've got, I'll give you a really, really simplistic example. I've got $5,000 in my bank account. I've got $1,000 coming in, and I've got $2,000 coming out. That means that at the end, I'm gonna be $4,000 because while I've had money coming in, I've got more money going out. So it's looking forward and saying, where is my cash gonna be at the end of that period?

[00:10:29] When I talk about cash, I'm talking about real cash coming in or going out. So for example, if you've gotta pay out a credit card bill that goes in there as a cash outflow.

[00:10:41] Molly: Oh, I love that. And that actually like, that's not complicated. Yeah. 'cause you're literally just looking at cashing cash out, like Yeah, there's nothing else going on.

[00:10:50] Claire: Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:10:51] Molly: Love it. Okay, so you do that every Monday. Do you do any like once a year, like you do a big kind of overhaul or anything like that? Or is it just like that? That's all you need now, that 15 minute check-in,

[00:11:04] Claire: I'm very blessed that I'm at the stage where we've got a bookkeeper who works for us, so she actually does a quarterly review of.

[00:11:12] So every quarter she'll sit down and she'll be like, do a little bit of a review, which she then shares with us.

[00:11:18] Molly: Yeah.

[00:11:18] Claire: So I sort of go, Hey, can you just do a quick check in? Like how did we go, are these bills all looking right? And she'll go, actually, your health insurance has gone up. So in your forecast, we we're gonna need to increase that moving forward.

[00:11:30] But yeah, I would really suggest that this is not like any system. It's not set and forget. It's like, okay, let's do a bit of a check-in.

[00:11:38] Molly: Yeah.

[00:11:38] Claire: How are we traveling? But yeah, that's the first little money meeting that I have, but there's many more.

[00:11:44] Molly: I think it's a great starting point and it's definitely something like our ladies can be doing by, either by themselves or with their partner as well.

[00:11:53] Now let's jump through because as you said, you work with a lot of business owners, and I know for a lot of women working in like that, that nine till five, which by the way, I say nine till five. I know it's way more than nine till five, and normally it's like eight till bloody seven or whatever it is, but.

[00:12:10] I think this kind of term of side hustle has popped up. And I know for me, when I was working corporate, like my business started as a side hustle and then it turned into ladies finance club. But it's definitely a thought for many people, but we might not know how to action it or what are those first steps.

[00:12:27] So, I mean, can you maybe just kind of talk through what you would suggest as those first steps for women out there who are thinking of maybe I would like to kind of bring in a little bit of extra income.

[00:12:40] Claire: Yeah, look, I think the biggest thing, you know, I, for years had wanted to start my own business. So I was in the corporate world for I think 15 years, and I kind of thought I'd love to start something.

[00:12:53] The biggest thing that I, I just didn't do it. And I think that this is the thing that a lot of people overthink it. They over-engineer it. They think, oh my gosh, I'm not an expert in this area, or I don't know enough. I know that I had a ton of insecurities and stories. I thought I had to have a full blown.

[00:13:13] 30 page business plan I thought I had to have. And the truth is like whenever I am talking to my friends who don't have a business yet, I'm just like, babe, just start it. Just say to someone, Hey, I'll help you out. You know, like literally you could say to someone, I'll look after your dogs for you and charge you 30 bucks for it and you've started a business.

[00:13:34] Yeah. It could seriously be that simple to start. And yet I think we have this tendency to sort of. I've gotta think of a concept and I've gotta have a website. You don't have to have any of those things. It can be so, so simple. And I think about something my mom's approaching at retirement and my mom works as a receptionist, and I keep saying to her, why don't you just start doing like a bit of VA work?

[00:13:59] Molly: Yeah.

[00:13:59] Claire: I pay my virtual assistant $50 an hour, and I said she works whatever hours she wants. She takes off whenever she goes, Hey, just to let you know, I'm taking off next Tuesday, Thursday. Yeah. So long as she's getting the job done. And I said to mom, it's just such a great way to start making some cash so that if when you do retire, if cash does get a bit tight, you can turn it up, you can crank it down.

[00:14:21] And she goes into all the stories about needing a work. I, I'm like, you don't need a website.

[00:14:25] Molly: No, you don't.

[00:14:27] Claire: You

[00:14:27] Molly: don't need any

[00:14:28] Claire: of

[00:14:28] Molly: these

[00:14:28] Claire: things.

[00:14:29] Molly: The first time I tried to start a business, I totally overcomplicated it. It was, um, a dress rental business I wanted to do called what the frock. And instead of just going, let's test this idea, let's do a Facebook page.

[00:14:42] Let's see. I was like, I need a web developer, I need a logo, I need this, I need that. I didn't need any of that. I just needed to make sure the idea worked and there was people who were willing to pay for it. So I think sometimes we really complicate it where. You don't need it all. And I do hear as well, like we're, we're both saying you just start, but actually that can be so scary for someone who's never done it before.

[00:15:06] So when you think of like you're just solving a problem, just find if there's a couple of people whose problem you can solve and you can charge for it, that takes the pressure off. So we just spoke about the 15 minute meetings. Are there any other money meetings you recommend to do?

[00:15:21] Claire: Yeah, so the other thing that we do is every Friday morning, me and hubby sit down and we do a money meeting, which is all about our personal finances.

[00:15:29] So all of the things, Molly, that you talk about all the time, we've actually got a little book. It's a bit dorky, but it's, it's our money book and we've got a bit of an agenda. So every single Friday we go through and we talk about. Key things that are affecting our, our money, both in our business and our personal life.

[00:15:50] And so some of the things are superannuation. We have a look at our shares, we talk about our insurances. It's just a really focused time for us as a couple to revisit all of these money conversations and make sure that they don't fall off our, yeah, our area of focus or priority.

[00:16:10] Molly: Yeah. Fantastic. And so how often, sorry, do you do those ones?

[00:16:14] Claire: So we do this every single Friday. It sounds like a lot, but you'd be surprised what conversations, you know, we've got an investment property, we've got shares, and what we do. These aren't just like, oh, let's have a bit of a chat. We have our agenda and then we also have an action plan. And so each thing, for example, it might be, okay, Claire, you are gonna go and reget, um, like go and get quotes on new health insurance.

[00:16:41] And so it will be like health insurance quotes and the action sits with me or the action will sit with hubby. And then every week we come back and he goes, how did you go getting the health insurance quotes? And I'm like, oh babe, you know, I've been smashed this week. I didn't get a chance to do it. And he's like, that's okay.

[00:16:55] We will visit it again next week. But basically it means that these things don't fall off our radar because it's just too easy for things to just slip by. Yeah. And then that way we kind of keep moving forward on all of these things towards our, our money goals.

[00:17:09] Molly: Oh my gosh, I love that. That's like pinup board, five star example on what everyone should be doing.

[00:17:18] Oh, I had a question on that as well. Two things on that. How can we make that fun if we're doing it with our partner? And it's not like this daunting task because everyone comes into money with different money, stories, beliefs, people get defensive. And then the other question I had about that as well is the couples that you've taught this to, how have you seen their.

[00:17:41] Relationship as a couple change over time.

[00:17:44] Claire: Yeah, I love that. So the first thing about making it fun, so just to be clear, I mean, I am, uh, embarrassing, like I'm slobbering Labrador when it comes to talking about money. I love spreadsheets. You know, you can probably hear how enthusiastic I am. My husband on the other hand is not he, um, he likes having nice things where he's got goals, but he's just like, oh, I don't wanna look at health insurance.

[00:18:12] So what I wanted to do was come up with a system that kind of made it fun. So what we do is we do our money. Somewhere that's expensive. We both work from home. We're around each other a lot, but he has a favorite coffee shop. Yeah. And so we will go to his favorite coffee shop. He gets to sit there with his long black, and sometimes we go on little adventures.

[00:18:33] We go to other coffee shops. We've gone to the beach sometimes. We've even gone to like a fancy hotel lobby. Yeah. And we sit there and do it together, but basically we make it. I've even taken him to a pub. He was very happy with that. Doing it with a beer in his hand. But basically we try and think of ways to make it fun.

[00:18:49] Molly: Yeah.

[00:18:49] Claire: And the second thing that we do is he actually leads the meeting now because it used to just be me railroading him, like, come on, like, let's do the agenda. Isn't this so fun? Let's look at his spreadsheet. And now he actually takes the lead in these meetings. Yeah. Great. So he's got the book, he takes ownership of it and it kind of gives him a bit more.

[00:19:09] Empowerment around being part of the process.

[00:19:12] Molly: Yeah,

[00:19:13] Claire: so that was the first thing that you asked. The second thing is, how have I seen this transform people's relationships? So a lot of times in, you know, I work with a lot of husband, wife teams, and a lot of times what we see is there's the person who is more excited about money,

[00:19:30] Molly: cfo,

[00:19:32] Claire: cfo, and then sometimes there's a partner who's perhaps.

[00:19:36] Not as excited. And what we find is that the person who does value money or whatever might they, they're getting frustrated because I'm like this, why don't you see how important this is? And why aren't you on the journey? And then the other person's getting frustrated 'cause they're like, I hate spreadsheets.

[00:19:54] Yeah. I don't wanna talk about insurance. It sucks. They, they don't wanna be on the journey. And so that's why I think trying to find those little. Tools to make it a little bit more fun. And you know, you can even say, you know, if you're in a partnership, how can I make this more fun? If you are the person who doesn't care about money, how can you make it fun for you?

[00:20:15] So sometimes my single clients, I'm like, what's something you love? And they're like, I love ice cream. And I'm like, every Friday, why don't you just go and have an ice cream or on a Saturday or whatever day works for you? And you're eating an ice cream while you are looking at your finances, and that way your brain's getting that dopamine hit.

[00:20:32] It's, it's something you look forward to rather than something you isn't.

[00:20:37] Molly: Yes. And I imagine with your clients as well, you set them out with the templates and the agendas.

[00:20:42] Claire: Absolutely. Uh, well, the thing is with the money, you know, I've got in people's, um, business side, there's a full agenda that I've got.

[00:20:49] But when it comes to personal finances, I say to people, set what's important for you, your household, your priorities. So, you know, some people might not have shares yet. Hopefully once they come into your world, Molly, they will. Yeah, absolutely. But you know, you sort of start with like, like what are the key things?

[00:21:06] So it might be like credit card, it might be loan, it might be insurances like you. So I've got the key, the recurring things on the agenda. And then each week there might be specific things. So for example, we've got children. We then have, okay, we need to work out the plan for the kids' school holidays. So that kind of becomes something that goes in that action plan.

[00:21:27] Next week we have to make sure we talk about this thing that's popped up. Next week we have to talk about our Christmas holidays because it's not something that's happening every week. But at the moment, this is something that we need to talk about as a couple. Wow. And if you're on your own, it's even easier 'cause you don't have to argue with anyone about it.

[00:21:47] Molly: Awesome. Okay, fantastic. And if, I guess as well, if you're doing it by yourself, do it with a gal pal.

[00:21:52] Claire: Oh, needs hundred percent. A hundred percent. So I'm gonna keep you accountable. And then the very last thing that I do is a monthly review. Okay. And again, very similar to what I teach in the business world, but when you get to the end of it, every single month, I actually have basically a profit and loss report for my personal finances.

[00:22:14] And so we sit there and I look at my budget, which I've said, and so I'll say, okay, you're meant to spend this much on eating out and you've actually spent this much on eating out. And I kind of have that a bit of a bitch slap moment. And I say, okay, we are gonna have to reign that in. Or I can say, Hey, you've done really well.

[00:22:32] We've actually come in under budget this month. Yeah. And it's a beautiful little moment to celebrate and recognize. We did well.

[00:22:40] Molly: Yeah. Oh, I love that. Okay, so I can imagine your finances are looking in at tip top shape with the Monday meeting, the Friday meeting, and then that monthly review. But how good?

[00:22:52] Because money is such, plays such a big part in our life, so to be completely in control of it must be extremely freeing. Whereas I think sometimes people think, well, I've been completely in control of my finances. It's gonna really restrict me. But quite the opposite.

[00:23:07] Claire: It is totally the opposite. And we have seen.

[00:23:10] Like when we, just to be clear, when we first started this process, we were not in a good financial situation at all. Yeah. And then we'd start doing exactly what you say, Molly, like how can I just put a little bit aside? And we have watched our share portfolio grow. We've watched our savings account grow, and it's just because we've put the focus on it.

[00:23:29] You know, your energy flows where your energy goes. Yeah. And if you wanna focus on something and say, you know what, money is important to me. It should be important to everyone. And the more time that you spend looking at it, you'll start to go, it starts off small, but it gets a little bit bigger, and then suddenly you're like, wow, I actually have a really good handle of what's going on when it comes to my money.

[00:23:50] Molly: Yeah, absolutely. And you are not a bad person. If you want to have lots of money or you wanna know where your money is going, that is fully within your right. I'd say it's a really good thing to know where your money is going and to be money focused. So many times people, especially women, would be like, money ist important to me.

[00:24:10] I'm not really money focused. Almost like it's this bad thing, and I'm like, well, you should be because money can be your best friend if you let it. It's the one that's gonna take you on the holidays, take you on the adventures, or have your back during the tough times. Like, we need to make money our bestie.

[00:24:27] And then just quickly jumping to another topic. We know a lot of women are wanting to start side businesses that when I go speak to corporates, I'll be like, hands up. Who's got an idea for a side hustle? Everyone's kind of like, oh yeah, I do. Like, it's very rare. Like it will be no one. It's like generally like more than 50% of the audience.

[00:24:46] So for women out there who have, uh, idea, a little dream of a side hustle, and they're like, how do I make it happen? What are some good first steps because we can get very overwhelmed with, I need a URL, I need a logo, I need a website. And we don't even have like the basic. Yeah.

[00:25:04] Claire: Gosh, I wish I could go back to old me and just say, just start.

[00:25:09] Just start anything. Our side hustle is looking after your friend's kids and saying, I'll charge you 30 bucks an hour, or looking after their dog for them if you have a skill set. I think for so many years I thought, oh, I don't have enough qualifications. I had a university, a Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in accounting, and I'm A CPA and I'd been working for years in finance and I thought, I don't have enough experience or qualifications to be a business coach.

[00:25:36] I thought I had to go and get a coaching qualification or something. And the big thing is, is it's just like, just start. Yeah. If you've got a skill that people need, you don't need a website. When I launched my first course in my business, I literally launched it on a Facebook page. I'd record the videos for free in Zoom, I'd upload them on Facebook.

[00:25:58] And I wasn't spending anything. It was literally so lean and I had 24 people join my first course.

[00:26:05] Molly: Wow.

[00:26:06] Claire: Um, just start. And, you know, there's so many ways in today's day and age too. You know, back in the olden days, you had to go and get a billboard and put your name in the yellow pages. Now you can start an Instagram account.

[00:26:18] Start a Facebook account. Just start posting. Yeah, and sharing. Hey, if anyone's looking for a cleaner, if anyone's looking for someone to reconcile their books for them, if anyone's looking for a bit of admin help, whatever your skillset is, I assure you there are people. Who are out there. Yeah. And who need your help.

[00:26:36] And just start small.

[00:26:37] Molly: Yeah. And, and exactly. I love that. Start with your own network and then if I see a friend who's like doing some social media, let me know if you know someone who needs social media. I know so many people who always are looking for social media experts. Like it's amazing just how like.

[00:26:53] Using your network that you've already got just through your friends and family is a great first step. And where can like a side hustle grow to?

[00:27:02] Claire: Yeah. Well this is what is so exciting about businesses, and this is why I'm so passionate about being a profit coach. I think that a lot of the people who I work with are making well over six figures a year.

[00:27:16] So over a hundred thousand. Most of 'em are making multiple six figures a year. Most of the people I hang out with now, most of my biz friends are making over a million dollars a year in their business. And I know sometimes we see this stuff online and we think it's bullshit or it's overinflated. And I'm telling you that this is so what?

[00:27:36] One of my friends' businesses is valued at $20 million. And I think that this is what is possible when you actually do start to step into the online world. And I'm not saying that every business is gonna grow to that size, but I do wanna get you excited about, there's a fantastic book I was sharing with Molly before I've just finished.

[00:27:56] It's called The a hundred dollars Startup by Chris Gillum Bao, I don't know how to say that. And he talks about how you can start a business from a hundred dollars. Yeah, like start something, sell it. If you cro, like to your point, Molly, start with your network. Like sell it to your friends of friends, babies, their little booties.

[00:28:15] Start somewhere. And the biggest thing that I just look back now and I'm like, I wish I'd had the courage just to try something start, and then it can grow from there.

[00:28:26] Molly: Absolutely. And I think that's the big thing. Like I had a few, not failed businesses, but businesses that I'd started doing, but just realized I wasn't passionate enough about, and I was like, if I'm gonna be spending my whole time doing this, I wanna be real passionate about it and I wanted to have impact.

[00:28:42] So yeah, I had like a basket business. I had tried to do a dress sharing community. I've always tried little bits. But all those things were teaching me skills that I could then use when I found the business that I wanted to actually do. So it's no wasted time. Even if you do try something and it doesn't go ahead

[00:29:01] Claire: a hundred percent.

[00:29:02] And you know, my business has taken pivots and switches and along the way you kind of going, you try things out and you go, okay, that didn't work. Let's, that's the nature of our business ownership. We're

[00:29:13] Molly: doing that all the time at Ladies Finance Squad. Like Pivot. Pivot.

[00:29:17] Claire: Yeah.

[00:29:18] Molly: This has been such a wonderful conversation.

[00:29:20] Thank you so much. If people, uh, maybe some business owners are listening and they're like, I might need a bit of cla wood of my life. Where can they connect with you?

[00:29:30] Claire: So, um, the best way is probably through my website, which is just CLA wood, C-L-A-R-E. Claire wood.com. You can drop me an email over there or connect with my socials, but I do work with established business owners helping them to grow to that next level of growth.

[00:29:45] Thank you so much, Molly, for having me on the podcast today. It's been a beautiful chat and I hope it's inspired some of the listeners to get, look at their money in a bit of a different way.

[00:29:55] Molly: Absolutely. Thank you Claire, and I know I was also on your podcast, so I'll make sure I pop the show notes where people can check out that episode on your podcast as well.

[00:30:04] That all the best, and thank you again.

[00:30:07] Claire: Thanks,

KEYWORDS

profit coach, personal finance, cash flow, side hustle, financial meetings, women in business, wealth building, financial literacy, budgeting, entrepreneurship