Mom's Got Money. Catherine Alford

a master delegator.

      If you're a single mom, it might be uncomfortable at first to enlist the help of others, but it can have a dramatic positive effect on your daily life. Sometimes being strong means directly asking for help. You don't have to suffer to show strength. The more adults you have in your life to trade off help with your children and other duties, the better.

If you have a partner, you might think delegating tasks means more emotional labor for you. After all, isn't delegating going to be exhausting, and why can't they all see that we need help? But, according to a New York Times article by Britni de la Cretaz entitled “How to Get Your Partner to Take on More Emotional Labor,” communication is key.⁷ The article illustrates that it's possible to improve the negative effects of emotional labor, but both partners have to be willing to compromise, check in with each other, and talk about it in a healthy way. If that doesn't work, getting an unbiased, third‐party opinion in the form of a relationship therapist can be incredibly helpful.

The goal here is to improve your mindset and how you feel about yourself separate from anyone you live with because that will impact how you feel about your decision‐making. You're already making a lot of financial decisions, but I'd love for you to feel confident they're the right ones for your family. I want to encourage you to get excited about money, to be curious, and to keep learning.

      Remember, as moms, we are already incredibly influential in our families. We shape and mold our children in a way no one else can. But too often, instead of feeling empowered by that reality, we feel exhausted by the weight of our decisions.

      In order to transform into a boss mindset, first practice replacing the thoughts of overwhelm with empowering ones. We need to fill our minds with kind and motivating thoughts of what's possible, not ones that make us feel unappreciated and underqualified. This is especially true when it comes to money.

      Here are some examples of negative mindset statements as well as examples of boss mindset statements you can use to replace them.

Negative Mindset Statements	Boss Mindset Statements
I can't do this anymore.	I was born to do this.
These kids are driving me crazy.	I can handle this.
I've always been bad with money.	I know I can learn how to handle money.
My culture and upbringing have made me distrustful of money.	I get to learn and decide how I feel about money.
I hate being broke.	I have the power to improve my financial situation.
My parents never taught me about money.	I can learn anything I want about money.
The world is against people like me.	There are allies in the world who will help me.
Why does everyone expect moms to do everything?	Of course they're asking me to do everything. I am the best when I put my mind to something.
I'm so tired.	I'm going to put fresh sheets on my bed and treat myself to an early bedtime.
Managing money is hard.	I do hard things all the time, and once I get the hang of them, they're not that hard anymore.
I'm not good at math.	It's only math. Plus, calculators exist for a reason.
I have no idea if I'm doing this right.	I'm the mom. I know what's best for my family.
Why doesn't my partner realize I need help?	I'm telling my partner I need help.
I feel so alone as a single mom.	I believe there is strength in asking for help.
Don't they see I'm overwhelmed and drowning?	I'm telling them I'm overwhelmed and need them to step up.
I'm such a bad mom. Why do I yell so much? Why can't I afford that for my kids?	I am a good mom. Full stop.

Ultimately, I believe that all moms have the tools and talents within us to step into that boss role, to realize our greatest potential, and to lead with confidence. We absolutely possess all the intellectual capabilities to tackle hard problems, make difficult financial decisions, and decide what's best for our families. It's just that we've been overwhelmed with our responsibilities and unsure if we're doing things right in a modern world full of opinions and choices.

      I know switching negative thoughts to positive thoughts is a lot easier said than done. As I write this book, we're in the middle of the Covid‐19 pandemic. Families are suffering. Millions of people are filing for unemployment. Lots of people lost their livelihoods, and many people are getting sick. Moms all over the country found themselves with more tasks to do, teaching their kids at home, while still having numerous other responsibilities. It's been a challenging time for so many people.

      I'm quite literally in the trenches with you as I punch the keys on my computer to turn a group of words into a book. Throughout this entire process, my twins have been interrupting me every couple of minutes while I work saying things like, “Hey Mom, guess what? We turned the entire basement into a fort. We used every blanket in the house!”

      I never imagined that I'd be writing this book with my kids at home and my husband working at the hospital in a gas mask. Every word in this book was hard‐won, hard‐fought, and punctuated with words you can't see like, “Please, for the love of God, go in the other room!”

It's funny, though. As challenging as it's been to work and write with the kids in quarantine, something else happened over the last few months: I had to pause. All of us did. We all had to reevaluate our priorities.

      Many of you lost jobs and tragically lost family members and friends. An untold amount of you had babies during the pandemic and didn't get to show them off to your family members due to Covid‐19 restrictions. All of a sudden, in the haze of the uncertainty, we all clearly understood what mattered most.

      It wasn't online sales or salon appointments or extracurricular activities. It was our health, our kids, and our communities. We had to face certain realities and think about what would happen if we lost income for a week, a month, or a year.

      I don't know about you, but during the pandemic, I realized a lot of things in my budget that I could “never give up” or “couldn't live without” weren't as necessary as I thought they were. Right now, my budget has the fewest line items it's had in quite some time.

      All of us have had to pull strength from places we didn't know existed. We've had to learn how to sit with our thoughts, even the negative ones that are deeply ingrained in our system. We've had the very uncomfortable feeling of not knowing what's to come and if we can keep our kids safe.

      We haven't been able to see friends as often or travel, head to the gym or go shopping just for fun. There's been nothing to insulate our feelings or suppress them. This is part of why the pandemic has been so hard for moms, for families, and for the world.

      But, the beautiful thing is now you've seen you are very capable of handling something big, something unexpected. You've cared for your family against all odds. You've already led from a place of strength. You've zoomed and