59 | Inner Independence with Catherine Collins

Mar 13

59 | Inner Independence with Catherine Collins

In this episode, we delve into the need for inner independence with Catherine Collins, a beacon of entrepreneurial spirit and the author of Mom's Got Money: A Millennial Mom's Guide to Managing Money Like a Boss. With her work featured on prestigious platforms such as Good Morning America, Forbes, and Business Insider, Catherine has co-founded a personal development company, Five Year You, aiming to help a million people become their best selves within five years.

Join us as we explore the transformative journey of short-term discomfort to long-term gains, and how embracing personal growth can redefine our relationship with money, parenting, and self-care. Catherine shares her story of being a now single mom to twins, her evolution from a blogger to a multifaceted businesswoman, and her mission to instill financial independence and self-reliance in her children.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS CONVERSATION:

The significance of personal development and deep inner growth in living a fulfilled life.
How moms are especially poised to understand and control their personal finances
Catherine's insights on overcoming shame and the societal pressures that come with it.
The power of teaching independence to children and its impact on their future.
The simplicity and effectiveness of organizing meal plans to alleviate daily stress.

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Catherine Collins - Entrepreneur + Author
Website | Five Year You Instagram | Five Year You Podcast | Episode: How to Love Yourself | Cat Collins Instagram

Email: hello@fiveyearyou.com

Struggling with meal planning or personal finance? Download Catherine's Easy Meal Planning Guide and Budgeting Basics: Micro Morning Magic.

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Intro: Welcome to A Pleasant Solution, Embracing an Organized Life. I'm your host, certified life coach, professional organizer and home life expert, Amelia Pleasant Kennedy. And I help folks permanently eliminate clutter in their homes and lives. On this podcast we'll go beyond the basics of home organization to talk about why a clutter-free mindset is essential to an aligned and sustainable lifestyle. If you're someone with a to-do list, if you're managing a household and if you're caring for others, this podcast is for you. Let's dive in.
Amelia: Welcome to Episode 59, “Inner Independence” with Catherine Collins. Catherine Collins is a nationally recognized entrepreneur and author of the book, Mom’s Got Money: A Millennial Mom’s Guide to Managing Money Like a Boss. Over the last decade, her writing and expertise have been featured in dozens of media outlets, including Good Morning America, Yahoo Finance, Forbes, US News and World Report, Real Simple, The Huffington Post, Kiplinger, Investopedia, Business Insider, and many more. She recently co-founded a personal development company called Five Year You and launched a podcast by the same name. The ultimate goal of Five Year You is to help 1 million people become their best selves in five years. I invite you to get comfortable, listen in for how short-term discomfort can lead to the long-term gains you may be seeking. And be sure to connect with Catherine after the episode.
Amelia: I am thrilled to introduce and bring Catherine Collins to the podcast today. Catherine and I, we met over, I don't know five years ago, of all places a ballet studio. Her twins were much younger and my daughters were dancing full-time in classical ballet competitions. We discovered that they went to the same school, and you and I connected around choosing to become parents in our twenties, being small business owners, and the never ending journey of making choices about our time and attention as mothers.
Catherine: Yes.
Amelia: You've seen me grow A Pleasant Solution.
Catherine: I was just about to say that. I was like, I remember the day that you announced that you started A Pleasant Solution and I remember being so excited for you and I've been amazed from day one how you kind of do everything. You were like the president of the PTA ,and then you were doing this, and then you started your business with such excellence, and I love that about you. You do everything with excellence, and I love the beginning of a business. It's fun and I'm so excited that I got to see the start and now I mean, well now you're just famous, so I'm just glad to be in the same podcast room today.
Amelia: Yes. Well every day is a new beginning with a small business.
Catherine: It's true, very true.
Amelia: Well, welcome Catherine. Tell folks one or two things about yourself.
Catherine: Sure. Well, I think the number one thing I tell people is my main identifier is I'm a mom, a mom to twins. I'm a newly single mom to twins. So that's sort of been my new adjustment over the last two years. But I'm also a small business owner. I started out as a blogger, and back in the blogging dinosaur early era days, so about 12 years ago. And what started as a small blog sort of grew into a freelance writing business, purchasing other websites, doing influencer work, public speaking, and as you probably know, being in a similar industry now, lots of different things to try, lots of different streams of income. And so it's sort of blossomed into this really nice thing where I'm able to have a flexible schedule, be there for my kids, but still earn an income. And so it's become such a blessing, especially in the last two years that I'm really grateful for.
Amelia: I love that you shared that because many listeners will know, there's so much time and hard work that goes on behind the scenes and the more that we can make that sort of transparent and visible, the better. So folks know that they're not alone when they're toiling after kids have gone to bed or those 15 minute intervals in between or in the car pickup line, if it's that.
Catherine: Absolutely. There was a lot of articles written during a twin nap time in the early days, and I agree with you, it's important to be transparent because the more people that come online and say like, you can make 10K a month overnight and you can just do this one thing, or there's a super easy thing called affiliate marketing, you can just boom, you just recommend stuff and then you're rich. I think that just does a disservice because anyone who tries it and starts it and realizes, oh my gosh, this might take a while, they might feel like they're doing something wrong. But my growth has been very slow, not linear. Lots of ups and downs, still have variable income, but I wouldn't trade it because I like having control over my day. So happy to answer any questions from anyone if they want to email me and be transparent about the whole process.
Amelia: I love that. It's so true. Yes. Life is always happening and business is not linear.
Catherine: No.
Amelia: So I'd love to ask all of my guests just this question. I know that you grew up in Louisiana, correct?
Catherine: I did.
Amelia: What did organization look like for you during your childhood?
Catherine: I didn't love it at the time, but I'm so grateful for it now. And my parents really encouraged us to be independent. My parents had very intense jobs that required a lot of their time and attention and so they created three very independent children. They did have some help around the house because of their intense jobs who would sort of help us along and scurry us along. But from a very early age, I was doing my own laundry, even if it wasn't doing it very well. Making scrambled eggs in the microwave, doing things like that. I will say even today, I'm way more organized with my work than I am with my house. I always view work as a priority and maybe that's a lesson I sort of came in by osmosis. So I will often prioritize that and then the house gets a disaster and then I have to be like, okay, it's fine. But it's something I instill in my children today. And a lot of people comment on it, like, oh wow, they do this and they do that. It's sort of like the minute they know how to do something, that's it. That's why I stopped doing it for them and I think I learned that from my parents.
Amelia: Thank you for sharing that because in the Fair Play Method, the Fair Play community, we talk a lot about transferring ownership to other human beings and I've raised my children in a similar way. And there's something to be said for that independence, the level of life skills that we have the ability to pass along to the younger generation. And it is relatively freeing to be like, "you know how to do that now, it's yours."
Catherine: It does tug at the heartstrings and stuff, like yesterday, my kids, they packed their bags to go to their dad's house, but like inevitably someone's going to forget something and they'll text me about it. And every now and then I'll be like, oh, I get why you need that thing but most of the time I'm like, oh no man, I'm having a weekend, you maybe should have thought about that. You maybe should write it down, have a list for next time. And it sounds harsh, but I can't do everything for everybody. I'll run myself down if I do that. And so in a way as hard as it is, as much as it tugs at the heart strings when they forget something or do something, it's almost like a form of self-care for me to teach them how to do things.
Amelia: I love that. And I mean honestly, consequences of our actions, even just forgetting. That's a life skill in and of itself and that's how we grow.
Catherine: Absolutely. Natural consequences, they're rough, but they're there for a reason.
Amelia: They're real.
Catherine: They're so real.
Amelia: So in my introduction, I mentioned that I've witnessed you from afar like this inner evolution that you've had these last handful of years and you really strike me as someone who is secure in who you are. And as someone who's put in repeated intentional work, whether that's through finances, business parenthood, to become this version of yourself, tell me about this newest venture that you have Five Year You and please just start with why personal development and deep inner growth is important to you?
Catherine: Well, yeah, I thank you for asking about it. I'm really excited about this next project. I started it with my longtime business partner, Andrew Dewar. He and I have been working together for six years and we own multiple websites together. We have this very complimentary set of skills that just makes business projects click. And both of us are personal development junkies and this is sort of like maybe you've been organizing since you were a little kid. I was writing like a paragraph in someone's school yearbook about, you're going to do great and you're going to go off to college, and I'm already an old lady in high school writing in people's yearbooks. But every single thing that I do, there's always a personal development aspect. Every time there's something tough in business, I'm trying to think about my mindset or what did I do to create this reality?
And personal development is such a part of it. And I was always reading personal development books, but as it applied to work, as it applied to parenting, being a mother, especially going through the divorce, always therapy. I'm a very introspective, very sensitive person and I'm always just trying to improve and I know it's a never ending process. And so after going through this big life change, you sort of ask yourself like, what do I really want to do? And what's my legacy and am I really making a difference? And for a long time I thought, my website and Mom’s Got Money and writing a money book would be that. And it still is a part of what I want to teach, but so much of that comes from within. And so he and I, Andrew and I sat down and thought like if we could teach anything and money wasn't an object and we were guaranteed success and we knew it wasn't going to fail and we knew we could help a lot of people, like what would we do?
And even though both of us were like 10 plus year personal finance writers, we both said we would do, like, self-improvement, personal development, we would just share with people not as gurus, but as fellow humans on this journey called life. And we would talk about the hard topics of being two sensitive humans, that other people wouldn't talk about with the goal of helping 1 million people become their best selves and whatever 1 million people hear about it, podcast, articles, anything. And so we're in the very beginning. We have like 10 podcast episodes, but it's fun, like I said, I love the beginning of things. It's always exciting and having started things from the ground up before, this is our most favorite thing we've done yet.
Amelia: What kind of things do you talk about or hope to talk about?
Catherine: Well, we have a lot of podcasts on how to be your own best friend, who's holding you back. We are very much focused on people living life from the inside out. So we created something called the Layers of Life and it goes from your inner being, your soul, however you want to view it, all the way out to these outer rings of life, which are society and social media and accolades. And so many of us, we live and we do everything from the outside in. We're trying to fill in all the gaps of this outer ring of the circle. And so our teachings are always going back to the inside, “What do I want? What are my preferences? What would make me happy?” All of our teaching, all the way all of us have been told by our moms growing up is that's selfish, especially as a mother, it's always your kids' happiness. And I default to that a lot. And then I have to say, wait, like what do I want?
It can be as simple as ordering yourself the gluten-free pizza crust because I know so many people, myself included, would be like, you know what? We don't need to add a third pizza or we don't need to, like I'll just eat a salad and the kids can have their pizza. So we're going and encouraging people to really look deep within themselves to learn who they are, how to like themselves and then living their life from that place, not from externally in.
Amelia: And this is why you and I are so aligned.
Catherine: That's why we're pals.
Amelia: Yes. I really believe that, especially for women asking ourselves what do I want is essentially a revolutionary question because it's working against so many years and generations of socialization that says yes other people's wants, needs, interests come first. And it becomes really a challenging question for many women to answer. And so I love that your program, your podcast, your writings are really touching on “how do I answer that question?” and getting to know oneself better because it is a process in and of itself to kind of be able to learn to answer that question and step up and then vocalize what I want.
Catherine: I think the hard part is that once you start doing that, your entire reality changes and that's where it gets hard. The easy part is saying, “oh I like this and I like that.” The hard part is sort of standing in your truth and the best example I can give, if women are listening and they're like, well I stand up for myself and I know what I like, is to ask them, “did you do what you wanted on Christmas day?” Or insert whatever holiday. Did you wake up in the place you wanted to wake up? Did you see the people you wanted to see? Or did you have to go to like six different aunt's houses because they're going to get mad if you didn't show up and do this and were you exhausted or did you cook a whole meal? Like did you do exactly what you wanted on that day?
Most of us can't say yes because of all the outside pressure and you're going to disappoint people and this. And that's the part where people start getting upset. And so you have to build up enough confidence and enough love for yourself to where it doesn't matter what they think because it's your life and you're going to live it how you want it. Again, kind of a hard thing to say, people might say it's selfish, but I think that is where happiness comes in, is being authentic to yourself.
Amelia: And I don't think selfishness, if we want to use that word is a bad thing because it is caring for oneself that makes us more available. It creates the brain space, the heart space to be present in a meaningful way for everyone else in our lives. And if you can do it on a major holiday, then you can do it for 30 minutes or three hours or three days during a random week.
Catherine: That's right. It's hard. It's hard to set those boundaries, but there's so much freedom that comes with it too. And there are so many people who walk around unhappy and it's like honoring your preferences is, sort of, how you tap into that happiness that so many people are looking for.
Amelia: And I'll offer, once you start, it can become easy.
Catherine: Yes. And addicting for sure.
Amelia: So the initial reason why I wanted to have you on the podcast was this brilliant book that you wrote called Mom’s Got Money. I was thrilled when you wrote it and I've actually sent it to several clients.
Catherine: So kind of you. Thank you so much. It's really nice.
Amelia: Yeah, you're welcome. Because women - we control so much of the buying power in the United States - especially, yet many of us feel really undereducated around the topic of money and your book makes it simple, getting your finances organized, learning about money, you speak in just such a straightforward manner. So what impact did you hope to make with writing Mom’s Got Money?
Catherine: I really appreciate that you noticed that or that it is approachable and that you picked up on that. Because again, I think one of the reasons that so many women aren't familiar or aren't well-versed in money is because of the language that is used. Because it's kind of finance bro culture, it's almost like intentionally exclusive. And so if I can explain like what an index fund is by being like, dude, it's like the best like make ahead dinner, that someone sends you that you don't have to even like think about and it's like my goal is to say, look and this is for Mom's Got Money, but it's for women too. It's like you're a mom, you can do anything. This is such a minor straightforward thing to learn. Think of everything, you have raised a human being, which is about a billion times more difficult than learning how to organize your money than learning how to invest.
So if you can do that, you can do this. But the main theme of the book is just to be the initial spark, to be the motivation for someone to go and read another book and another and another. I wanted to sort of be the first entry in like a friendly, welcoming voice that motivates them to take a seat at the table and to take some ownership. Because again, as I mentioned, I went through a divorce and even since that experience I've had a lot of emails and a lot of people come to me asking, they're afraid to get divorced because they have no experience managing money. And so I feel like that was a real strength of me being able to manage, survive, and eventually thrive after that is because I knew how to take care of myself in that respect and it's a life skill. It's like tying your shoes. It's just something everyone needs to know.
Amelia: Yes. And I see you often posting and speaking about your twins and how you were passing those lessons along to them as well.
Catherine: Yes, a lot. Sometimes I think I know too and I don't know, but it's like I was really proud because my kids went on a field trip and in my son's class they were learning about business and economy. They're in fourth grade so trading and then the person teaching them asked, well does anyone know what a stock is? And my son was the only kid who raised his hand and I didn't even know he really knew it. I just know I talk about it and say it and explain it, like, oh man, like he explained that pretty well what it's, and it's not that that's the most important thing I teach them, but it's so vital to every aspect of our lives and just the general enjoyment of life and not struggling. And I want my kids again to be independent and happy, but I don't want them to struggle with managing money because again, it's one of those essential skills that I can teach them, like tying their shoes.
Amelia: Yes. And it's that education component for moms, for women, for children. Just better understanding the concepts leads to us feeling more powerful and yes stepping into just a bit more control when it comes to life and home.
Catherine: Yeah. I'm team, “no kids living in the basement.” Like my goal is that they go to college, they figure it out or not, whatever. If they want to be an entrepreneur, like there's no rule book. Just the rule book is to know how to be self-sustaining on your own. If you need help you have mom and dad but like for the most part, by the time you go you should know how to survive on your own.
Amelia: I'm just breathing this in because I have junior in high school and I think she's well prepared but…
Catherine: Who is amazing and she'll be a star, no doubt. She'll be amazing. She could do it right now, probably better than most 25 year olds, and you know it.
Amelia: So I'd love to get a little bit more personal if you're willing.
Catherine: Sure.
Amelia: When I reached out and asked what you'd like to share, you highlighted a word that we're all familiar with in some way, shape or form, which is shame. And Brené Brown's research led her to define shame as, "the intensely painful feeling of believing we're flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging." Share with us why eliminating shame is part of Five Year You and how you've seen shame in particular interrupt lives.
Catherine: I mean I think shame is probably one of the worst emotions to feel worse than jealousy. Like worse than grief because as Brené Brown said, it's a grief inside of yourself about yourself and you can't escape yourself. We are always with ourselves and what is challenging about shame is that it pops up in every aspect of our lives. And so at least from personally, there's the shame of divorce, coming from families with very long marriages, very devout Catholic families, like there's the shame of that. Obviously I've read about and spoken to many people about the past 10 years about money shame. The idea that we should be at a certain place at a certain age, at a certain time or that anytime someone makes a money mistake, there's shame as though we're supposed to be perfect with everything all the time.
A lot of mothers are feeling shame from yelling at their kids and all of that. And so the idea of Five Year You and focusing on that inner circle is coming to accept yourself and again, knowing that we were all born perfect and we're living this human experience and that everything that we encounter, every mistake we make is all to learn. And if you view life through that lens and learn to have gratitude and forgiveness for yourself for any mistakes you've made or anything you feel like you're not measuring up to, again the goal for everyone is to experience more happiness. It's hard to feel happiness if you have a constant stream of inner shame running through your head and your body.
Amelia: And it really resonates with me and most likely with listeners as well because I talk a lot about home life and this myth of domestic perfection and so many of us feel shame around the way that we keep our homes and are we able to keep up with everyone's schedules and belongings and really believing that there's some personal flaw if we're not able to do that. And there's a growing discussion about how it's really a systemic issue around our mental load and how much capacity we have that we're giving to work versus family. There are many layers there but nothing can escape that feeling of shame even if you know that there are reasons why it might be popping up for you.
Catherine: That's right. And I agree with that. This goes back to 1950s, like 1950s wives when appliances started coming out, they described the problem that has no name and that was the fact that they felt like something was missing even though they were sort of finally achieving these levels of domestic perfection. And I still think we have the problem and now we've given it a lot of different names from mental load, depression, anxiety. And I'll tell you the number one thing I beat myself up about is my home. I know a lot of women, they beat themselves up about appearance or they should be skinny or whatever, for me, like it's always my house and it's always like, oh I should have done that or I should be more organized, rarely beat myself up about my work, but it is the house for me above anything else. And again, that is some inner work that I have to do and I have to tell myself like, “Catherine, you did a really good job today. You did this, you drove your little small humans to all their different things. You turned your article in. You are one person, you are a single parent, no one's coming over, go to bed. it's like you're a good girl.”
Amelia: Yeah, you have to counteract that automatic voice that says you are not doing enough. You have to counteract it with the voice that says I'm being enough every single day.
Catherine: That's right. And who gave me this list of what I was supposed to do? Where did I derive this list of perfection from and why do I think it has to be this way? Do I like waking up to a clean kitchen? Definitely. But it's not always a possibility depending on how the days go for me.
Amelia: Yes. We're both creating the standards and expectations and then beating ourselves up with them.
Catherine: That's right.
Amelia: I'm just curious, is there a special meaning behind the name Five Year You?
Catherine: I can't take credit for it. That is from the brain of my partner Andrew Dewar. And when I first heard it I was like in the Target parking lot, like picking up my pickup order and he is like, what do you think about this name? And I was like, I don't know. But it has grown on me so much. And the idea is that a five year period is a really good amount of time for personal growth. It is short enough that you can see it. It is a timeline that we can look back on. I feel like a decade is too long and I feel like one year is too short and it gives people permission to go at their own pace. We're not like in a speed race of trying to fix every single thing. I think when you start with your inner self and then maybe once you start feeling better about yourself and loving yourself and you learn how to honor your preferences, well now you can look at what kind of parent do I want to be?
And then you can say like, well I really haven't liked my job in forever so maybe I'm going to give myself the gift of taking a new course or getting a new certification. Maybe I can change it up. And it's kind of going like that. And for us, we tell people, think of you five years from now as your guide, your teacher. It's not us teaching you, like Lord knows, like who knows what we would tell you in five years, but what would you tell you? And it's hard for me to imagine my 10 year self. I feel like she's too far away. But my five year self is a little bit more attainable to me and closer in time.
Amelia: That's beautiful. And that's really what I wanted to hear because when clients come and seek my services, I typically work with folks for a minimum of six months. And then oftentimes we continue on after that because we need time to unlearn as well as learn and deepen the new habits that we want to make. So when I heard that I was like, there's a story there.
Catherine: I feel like I still every day just kind of fall back on those old neuropathways, those old habits and old things. And the way that I describe it is like, they're like your habits and the way you are, they have like very deep trenches in your brain, if the wagon wants to go like where the trenches are. And so it's really hard to be like, no, we're going to do this new one, we're going to make a new trench. So it takes time, it takes years. It's going to take more years than five and the work is never ending and that's the fun of it. But you should be able to look back, five years and say, yeah. A lot of good things have happened in the past five years.
Amelia: Oh that feels so good. Feels so good. So, what is one way that you employ organization, it could be a creative way as an adult?
Catherine: Yeah, well I have finally hacked for me, the dinner issue. The dinner, what's for dinner, every day issue. Look, if you're listening and you're great at cooking and it's like your vibe and you're like a vegetable chopper, it's not for you. But if you're somebody who's running through Tropical Smoothie because you forgot and you're like, this could be for you. So this is the longest I have figured out dinner. We have days, we have Macaroni Monday, any kind of pasta, it could be macaroni cheese, you could do whatever. But I know that I'm boiling some type of noodle on Monday. Taco Tuesday's easy, but again it could be a burrito, it could be nachos, but it's festive on Tuesday, wake up Wednesday, breakfast for dinner. So you could be naughty and just make some protein waffles because we don't do Eggos anymore in our generation, protein waffles or you can do scrambled eggs or whatever.
We have tropical Thursday, smoothies, fruit salad, some chicken, whatever. And fun Friday, which is usually pizza. And again, it is just loose enough to not be boring and just rigid enough for me to know what I'm doing. It has cut down on so much going out to eat and I'm pretty much ordering the same stuff with my grocery delivery order over and over again. I am somebody that used to like to pick up my kids from dance and be like, oh, like, “what's on the way home?” And like I didn't defrost the chicken and I'm just going to order something on Uber Eats and it'd be like 40 bucks. And we started this in August, so right at the beginning of the school year and we've done it consistently and the kids are totally fine with it. It was me that was giving myself issues with it.
Amelia: Yay. I get to say here you are more organized than you think.
Catherine: It's the laundry that gets me. It's the laundry, but that's next. We got the food, we got dinner. Okay. That is the five year process.
Amelia: Yeah. It's amazing because you have created a simple system, it benefits your budget, it's exciting. You can duplicate it and you've given yourself permission to work within the guidelines and boundaries. And I've helped several people with this topic of meal planning and there's a beauty in being, like you can pick your top 10 meals or however many there are and repeat them that folks are like, wow, I can do that. And I'm like, yes. So of course you can switch it up if you love to, but there's such a beauty in breathing into this is what we're going to do and it's going to be delicious and everyone's going to grow and survive and be healthy.
Catherine: Yeah. And if they don't want to eat it, they can make themselves a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. That's my rule. So as long as it's not me doing it, it's fine. Peanut butter and jelly is in the kitchen. I'm not going to have drama about it.
Amelia: Sounds like a perfect place to end. I'm not going to have drama about it.
Catherine: Full stop.
Amelia: Well it's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you Catherine. Please tell all the folks how they can pick up your book Mom's Got Money and find your new podcast and all the things.
Catherine: Thanks. Yep. You can order Mom's Got Money anywhere books are sold and I'm on Instagram @momsgotmoney and then the new venture is Five Year You and we're @FiveYearYou on all the social platforms and on podcasts.
Amelia: So good. I will definitely be talking to you soon.
Catherine: Thanks Amelia.
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