Little By Little: My Signature Financial Framework for Beginning Investors
Sep 29, 2023
As-Salaam-Alaikum everyone! Welcome back to Muslim Women Invest.
When a lot of people first come to me, they often ask, “What is your client financial framework?
How can you help me achieve the exact same things as your previous clients?”
Today, I want to explain exactly that. Let’s go over the pillars of my signature financial framework and how I know that I will be able to help you the same way I’ve helped others!
Mindset First
There is one prerequisite to my financial framework that you’ll want to develop before you start to work with me: mindset.
If you missed my last post, head over there and read to discover why mindset is the foundation to any new thing you want to explore…including investing. Then come back and finish reading about my full financial framework!
Now, I want to caution you of this: don't get too stuck on needing to have the right frame of mind from day one. It's good to know why you should be in the right frame of mind, but you are not going to be perfect every single day. All of us have our doubts; all of us have days when we can’t seem to get motivated.
The most important thing is that you start this journey out believing that you can learn this skill; if you try to begin this journey while believing you aren’t capable, minor setbacks will have the potential to become huge discouragements. They might even make you `want to quit.
This is one of the things I bring to the table, though it’s not technically part of my financial framework: I will remind you, as I remind myself every day, that this is a marathon, not a sprint.
Everything is figure-outable. I have to coach myself through these mindblocks often, and I will help coach you through them, as well.
My Three-Step Financial Framework
Motivation
The first piece of my financial framework is asking you to define your financial goal.
Why do you want to invest? Do you want to invest for a long-term goal or something that is immediate? Why is it important to you?
This is part of my financial framework because it’s important for me to know what your goal is so that I can help you create a plan tailored to your means and desires. The steps toward that goal will look different if it's in the far future or if it's nearby.
Without a financial goal, we cannot begin investing, because we don't know what we are trying to do. Are we trying to invest to fund our retirement? Are we trying to save up money for college, either for ourselves or for our children? Are we trying to pay off debts? Are we trying to buy a house? Are we trying to save for a wedding? Are we trying to take our kids on a vacation?
All of these things are valid goals. All of them matter. And if you don't have a financial goal when you begin, investing itself is not going to be as effective.
Another reason why I ask people to have a financial goal is because there are going to be times when you are going to be tempted to stop investing and put those funds toward other, more immediate wants. If you don't have a goal that remains as a constant motivator in your mind and in your heart, you’re going to blow through your budget and not invest any of it.
Emergency Fund
The most important part of my financial framework (even more important than what your financial goal is!) is learning whether you have an emergency fund.
An emergency fund is defined as having enough money—either in cash form or in a checking account—to cover six months’ worth of big financial expenses.
This is done so that if things were to go topsy-turvy unexpectedly—for instance, if you were to lose your job or experience an unexpected medical emergency—you’d have a six-month cushion on major bills, including mortgages, car payments, cell phone payments, gas and electric bills, water bills, grocery bills, and insurance.
There's research out there that shows that the majority of Americans do not have even a thousand dollars set aside to cover their emergencies. This is not how we should be living life.
You should always have some kind of emergency fund. So when somebody comes to work with me, I work not only on their investments, but I also work on building their emergency fund.
You can do both simultaneously, but I feel more comfortable getting the emergency fund out of the way before we begin to allocate a huge chunk of money to your investments.
Cash Flow
The third thing I ask you about in my financial framework is your cash flow. Cash flow is the amount of money you have coming in.
This is important because I need to know how we are going to budget. I need to know how much money is coming in, how much money is going out, and how much money you're left with so I can determine how much you should invest.
And if it turns out you're left with very little, I help you make adjustments so that you have a little bit more money to put toward either your investments or your emergency fund.
If you are a homemaker, and if you do not know what your cash flow is, you can always ask your partner. Even an estimated idea is better than having no idea.
It Can Work For Anyone
If you aren’t sure that this can work for you, let me tell you a story about a single mother I worked with.
She came to me a few years ago, and she told me that she wanted to send her son, who was nine at the time, to college. However, she did not have a lot of money to invest, and she asked me if I had something that could work within her small budget.
I was well into investing myself, and I told her that it was absolutely possible. So we began working together using my financial framework.
It was a long journey, but this year, her son is going to be heading off to vocational college. And I'm happy to report that with the financial plan I created with her, she is now able to send him to the vocational university without taking on any debt.
This is the success that I want for each and every one of you. And I know we can make it happen.
Ready to Begin? Reach Out!
So this is the financial framework that will allow you to find success through investing.
These are the same steps that I take with actual paying clients: defining their financial goals, creating an emergency fund and investing at the same time, and determining their cash flow so that we can automate their investing.
If you think you are ready, you are more than welcome to email me at [email protected], or use the link below to book a consultation!
WORK WITH MIRAL:
If you're ready to transform the trajectory of your life and the lives of your family members through investing, book a consultation with me: https://www.invest4lifemk.com/services
CONNECT WITH MIRAL:
Want to learn more? Visit my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@muslimwomeninvest
Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/muslimwomeninvest/