SheDoesMoney was an Instagram account I started back in February 2020, previously called MillennialSaves. I created the account to document my journey paying off debt and turning my finances around. I was bored of being in debt, feeling like I had no money, and having nothing to show for my hard work building a career.
My focus when starting out was to learn everything I needed to know about money. So I went and did a tonne of free online courses around money management, budgeting and financial concepts. I then shared this learning on Instagram, alongside documenting my debt journey.
I quickly paid off my debt (in four months) and started to build an Emergency Fund, and increasing my income. Being helped myself by the many Money Bloggers out there, I decided to follow this path and set myself up with a website, however blogging was never for me.
My page started to take off, growing to 10k in 2021, and 20k in 2022. I found my passion was actually in the teaching. I hosted monthly workshops, often priced at just £1. I loved doing them, and they were received well. I’ve even had someone tell me they bought a house after attending my budgeting workshop, implementing the learning, and through budgeting and saving, managed to buy a house! Something they thought out of their reach a year or so before.
I had been asked by a few followers for 1:1 sessions to help them with their budget, and others to help with building or growing their side hustle. I LOVED these sessions, however I always felt the ICK around possitioning myself as a coach. So I called myself a mentor, or educator.
In July 2022 I had my baby boy, and while I had planning to continue with my business (at this point I had a financial education membership too), it just wasn’t a priority, and eventually I fell out of love with it.
For months I battled with the idea of bringing the page back to life, and one thing kept coming up, “I want to trade under my own name”. I’d thought about it before when re-branding from MillennialSaves to SheDoesMoney but I almost didn’t feel brave enough.
I started the page back up in 2023, changing the branding slightly. I went back to my old posting schedule (daily) and the same type of content (mostly educational, with some inspiration mixed in). I still didn’t feel the love for it. I enjoyed having a project, but the brand itself didn’t fill me with excitement.
[sorry this is much longer than I thought it would be]
In the late summer I took up an offer of a free coaching session by a business coach, who had recently pivoted to business coaching from being a mum coach, so I knew she would understand where I was coming from.
The session was amazing. The questions she asked me made me really question where I want to be in life and what I want to be known for. Who was Emilie 2.0 and what was standing in her way. It brought up a lot of emotions, I was nearly in tears in the session (but held it together as I wanted to see professional).
Here are the things it brought up:
⚡️ I want to be seen as an expert in my field
⚡️ I want to be a money coach and help people have meaningful transformation with their money
⚡️ I want to go beyond financial education, getting to the deep rooted cause of our money issues
⚡️ I want to write a book
⚡️ I want to build a business I’m proud of
⚡️ I don’t want to work a bloody 9-5
I toyed with the idea of re-eventing myself on my Instagram but it didn’t seem to fit. See, since coming back after almost a year off having my son, my engagement had tanked. A lot of my 23.8k followers were gained in 2020/2021 and were no longer active or no longer interested in my content.
The biggest issue however, was my audiences mindset. In 2023 I tried to market a workshop for women wanting to get their finances together in preparation of starting a family. It flopped. Only one person booked on. I later got some feedback, I had charged the workshop at £25, this included resources. I was told by an audience member that it was too expensive, and they were shocked that I, someone who talks about saving money, would charge this price.
I then realised I had a fundamental issue with how I had positioned myself. I did not intend to portray this message across, that saving money means not spending money.. the message I want to put across is that I want you to spend money on the things that are important, that make a difference to your life, and build wealth through intentional spending.. saving money is alongside that, by spending intentionally we build savings.
Spending intentionally is as much about putting £500 into your Holiday saving fund, as it is buying that Toffee Nut Latte from Starbucks.
So I decided to start again. A fresh start, with new intention and a love for my work.
To those who have already followed me on my new account, thank you. If you want to join me, you can here: https://www.instagram.com/emilienutley/
Spots are open now for my 12 week money coaching program starting in January. Let’s make 2024 the year you finally sort your finances out, and start to feel good with money!
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