"The truth is, financial freedom isn't about how much you earn--it's about how much you keep, grow, and compound your earnings."

If you want to ditch the 9-5 life forever, you need to create financial stability through diversified income streams that won't disappear overnight. Today, I’m sharing three powerful lessons that have transformed the way I approach my finances as a $6-figure female entrepreneur.  

Whether you're running your dream business or just getting started, financial literacy is the key to staying independent and thriving. And that’s exactly what we’re going to dive into today.

Now, I know financial planning can feel overwhelming, but don’t worry! I’m going to break down the overly complex Wall Street bro jargon into simple, actionable step-by-step training for you, using my Fear to Fierce Financial Formula: a step-by-step framework to help you take control of your finances and secure your future without ever clocking into a 9-5 again. Here’s a concise way to sum up the Fear To Fierce Financial Formula steps:

• Profit – Making sure you pay yourself first and prioritize revenue streams.

• Prepare – Ensuring you are ready for disaster preparedness and unexpected expenses.

• Eliminate – Paying off debt and building strong credit to create financial freedom.

• Protect – Safeguarding your assets and ensuring your financial security.

• Grow – Building long-term wealth and creating passive income streams.

Today, to help you ensure you NEVER have to go back to a 9-5 again, I’m breaking down three powerful components of the Fear To Fierce Financial Formula.

With every episode of Fierce Feminine Finance, I like to empower you with a POWERFUL free resource that goes with the episode which you can implement right away to create some of the same results, if not better, in your business.

This week, since we are talking about how to avoid ever having to go back to a 9-5 again, I want to invite you to my Ultimate Investment Guide for Female Entrepreneurs to help you implement the strategies I talk about here...and a few extra I didn't mention!

After going through this free guide you will be able to identify which strategy for financial freedom is the best fit for you. So you can start taking steps right away to secure your future!

You can download it right away by clicking here or on the photo above 👆

1. Implement My Financial Grip System of Budgeting

First things first, you need to have a firm grip on your cash flow. My Financial Grip System of Budgeting helps me track, allocate, and prioritize my money so that I always feel in control. 

I used to only earn as much as I needed to pay bills.

See, I built my first business when I was just 19 years old. 

As a life-long entrepreneur, I've always been good at pulling sales out of nothing when I needed to. It was just pure necessity! 

But money also burned a hole in my pocket...I would burn through every dollar I earned because "I can always just earn more".

And because I wasn't thinking about tomorrow, I never had any savings for unexpected expenses! 

Then came the day I ran into a financial problem I couldn't just wave a magic wand to solve.

I got into a toxic situation with a colleague who spread lies about me: to get away from that situation I had to give up my career, my apartment... everything.

Ben and I made some hasty decisions and found ourselves homeless and jobless. We lived in his 1988 Toyota 4Runner truck for two weeks, with just $500 in the bank. 

I was broke and desperate and so traumatized by the experience, that for the first time my magic wand wasn't working. I couldn't cope mentally with the stress and I found myself unable to just glow sales into existence or pull money out of a hat.

We were in a strange town where we knew nobody but my family--and some were supportive but others were seriously questioning our sanity!

I realized that having no savings or fall back plan didn't make me "clever" or "magical"... it was actually really short-sighted.

So I decided to get smart with my money!

I started going to school to become a business coach, and started looking for a way to protect the wealth I was building.

That's when my husband Ben showed me his amazing budgeting method which we call The Financial Grip System.

See, where most entrepreneurs go wrong when budgeting is by just writing down expenses on a scrap of paper that sits in a dusty drawer somewhere... or a spreadsheet that sits on your desktop.

It's not IN FRONT OF YOU when you're spending the money. 

That means it requires enormous amounts of self-discipline to stick to your budget.

Have you ever tried to get better at managing your money, and failed, and then decided "I lack self-discipline with money"? 

The truth is: It wasn't YOU it was your budgeting system.

You're using a faulty system...So it's easy to overspend, see? And that makes it impossible to SAVE or have money to invest and compound your wealth.

What we started to do instead is put our budget right in front of our face while spending the money.

No more wondering where your money went—you'll know exactly where it's going and why. Here’s how it works:

• To start with, make a list of all your expenses. This step might be on a piece of paper, or a spreadsheet, etc.

• Next, create a separate savings account for each major category of your budget

• This forces you to transfer funds from savings to your checking in order to spend it, which prevents you from swiping without looking at your budget

2. The 2nd Thing You Need To Avoid Ever Having To Go Back To Work, Is To Get In The Habit of Paying Yourself FIRST

Now I don’t know about you, but as a female entrepreneur who has built multi $6-figure businesses, sometimes our income can be… a little inconsistent.  

Makes it SUPER hard to budget, doesn't it? 

Instead, most entrepreneurs just look at their bank account, and if it isn't empty they spend it. 

Be honest, is that you? 

Well, what if instead you took a consistent owner draw or salary from your book business, off the top (instead of only spending what is left over)? 

You started your business for freedom, right? But too often, we end up reinvesting every dollar back into it, leaving little for ourselves. That's where the Profit First system comes in. This method ensures that you, the business owner, get paid first—not last.

I learned this strategy in a book called Profit First. The author, Mike, says: 

“The old, been-around-forever, profitless formula is:

Sales – Expenses = Profit

The new, Profit First Formula is:

Sales – Profit = Expenses

The math in both formulas is the same. Logically, nothing has changed. But Profit First speaks to human behavior...”

So to be profitable, you first need to make a list of all your expenses so you know how much you need to earn, and then pay yourself that amount regularly. 

• This next step is why I like to do this inside the banking app itself. 

That way you CAN create a budget that is in front of your face whenever you go to spend the money, simply by dividing your expenses by the frequency you pay yourself.

For example, if I know my mortgage is $3k/month, and I pay myself a salary from my business every Friday, I would label the savings account “Mortgage $750wk” to remind myself how much to transfer to it every Friday.

I call this Finance Fridays.

That means I pay myself 4x a month, no matter how much is in my business checking account, which gives me four chances per month to apply the Profit First formula of Sales - Profit = Expenses.

See, your intentions create your reality. 

If you believe in your heart that you can't earn enough to pay yourself, you will create that reality.

If you practice reframing your thoughts until you TRULY believe that you ARE earning enough to pay yourself, you will create that reality because you'll see each week when you do Finance Friday that there isn’t enough left over to pay your business bills.

So sure, some weeks you might have to loan your business some money, but doing budgeting this way helps us stay motivated to DO the actions necessary to fill it back up so we can pay those bills. 

With this approach, you'll always have money set aside for YOU, ensuring you never have to fall back on a 9-5 paycheck.

3. The Last Step Is To Learn To Invest & Diversify Your Income Streams

Now that you are starting to save, let's talk about your options for where to put that money and make it grow:

The truth is, financial freedom isn’t about how much you earn—it’s about how much you keep, grow, and compound your earnings.

If you’re serious about staying out of the 9-5 grind for good, you need to make your money work for you through smart investments and create multiple income streams.

Let’s talk about the Rule of 72. This simple formula helps you understand how long it will take your money to double. You take the number 72 and divide it by the interest rate you're earning. For example, if you’re earning an 8% return, your money will double in about nine years.

Now, when it comes to investing and saving, there are three main options:

1. Savings Accounts: These are safe and easy to access, but they don’t offer much growth. A high-yield savings account can provide slightly better returns, but they still fall short of building long-term wealth.

2. Investment Accounts: These can grow your money significantly over time, but they come with risk. When the market dips, so does your balance—so it’s crucial to diversify wisely.

3. The Opulent Wealth Loop, or OWL Method: This is my signature approach to growing wealth safely and efficiently. It uses a special type of account based on IRS Tax Code 7702a, which allows your money to grow when the market does well but protects you against losses. The best part? You can access the funds tax-free to invest in your business, pay off debt, or build retirement wealth.

SUMMARY

And there you have it, my friends! If you found this article helpful, do me a favor—share it with a fellow female entrepreneur who needs this advice. Don't forget to subscribe to The Fierce Feminine Finance Show and leave a review; it helps us reach more women on their financial freedom journey. Remember, financial independence isn’t just a dream—it’s a strategy. Until next time, stay fierce and go financially free!