In my last blog post, I announced that I’m creating a movement for women around the world.

Every month, I will host a Women’s Money Group Walk & Talk event. The first event is scheduled for the weekend of March 13th.

To my delight, women in Australia, England, the United States, and all over Canada reached out to say that they plan to participate in their area!

In a nutshell, the WMG Walk & Talks are intended to help women:

• come together in their communities around the world to make talking about money normal and fun;
• connect to share knowledge, contacts, ideas, opportunities, and support;
• grow their confidence;
• broaden their connections;
• deepen their financial literacy;
• learn from each other;
• get more done with less effort;
• and close the wealth gap.

Our first topic

To kick-start the Women’s Money Group Walk & Talk Events, we’re going to tackle the subject of clutter.

Where, in your life, has clutter accumulated? Is there a part of your financial system – documents or physical space – which could do with a clean-up? Which area have you been ignoring? When did the clutter start to accumulate? Why do you think it persists? What would you tackle first if you were to declutter and why?

These are the questions that we’ll chat about as we walk and talk with our friends and colleagues.

(Heads up: I’m going to launch the Spring Financial Cleanup Challenge on March 20th as a follow up! Once we’ve identified the cluttered bits of our lives, we’ll dive in, in one big group project.)

Spring is just around the corner here (or fall, if you’re in Australia), and that seems like the perfect time to do a bit of clean-up before heading into the next season.

The good that comes with decluttering

Here’s what I’ve noticed after sixteen years of working in the personal finance space: When you declutter, good things happen. And by good things, I mean:

• work opportunities show up
• your income grows
• you get really clear on what you want and suddenly, you make more progress in a month than you did in the entire preceding year
• your productivity skyrockets
• you achieve more of your goals
• suddenly, your debt repayment plan kicks into high gear
• you prune your spending and have more money to invest, something you’ve been trying to do for ages, but never quite managed.

These are just some of the outcomes I’ve seen with my clients.

I have no idea how or why this works; I just know that it does. The researcher in me is perplexed, but there’s no denying the outcomes.

Anjali’s surprising results

In fact, I had the privilege of interviewing one of my clients, Anjali Sastri, who has had jaw-dropping results over the past two and a half years after tackling scary-to-her decluttering projects.

Here’s our 23-minute interview if you want the glorious and, at times, hilarious details:

Check out what happened to her business and her income as she tackled different areas where clutter had amassed: beneath her desk, the basement, and in her office.

Anjali is one of countless clients who have stories like these to tell after addressing clutter.

Let’s Walk & Talk about it

One of the benefits of coming together as women and talking about our experiences is that we quickly realize we are not alone. Whatever challenges we’ve experienced, someone else has had them, too.

Together we can laugh, share, understand, gain clarity, and make progress.

Organize your own WMG Walk & Talk in your area or join me if you live in Ottawa. If you’re coming with me, we’re meeting at 10 am on Saturday the 13th and walking for an hour in a lovely area. Send me an email or a DM to reserve your spot. I’m limiting our group to 25 to respect Public Health guidelines. Please wear a mask for the walk.

If you live elsewhere, here’s how to participate:

1. Pick a location in your area that would be fun to walk around for roughly an hour.
2. Invite your girlfriends, female relatives, and colleagues to join you.
3. If you organize the Walk & Talk in your area, you decide the time to meet. If the weather is bad on the chosen date, we’ll set the next day as the “Rain Date”.
4. Share the topic with all participants ahead of time to get them thinking. When the walk starts, break off into small groups and have each group discuss the various questions as they walk, beginning with the first questions: Where has clutter accumulated in your life? Is there a part of your financial system that could do with a cleanup?
5. Don’t worry – you won’t be asked to share any confidential information. This isn’t an AA meeting! You decide how much to share.
6. Request to join the Women’s Money Group Community Private Facebook Group (free for all women) where I’ll post details and photos of the Walk & Talk events moving forward.
7. Introduce yourself in the Facebook group and tell us where in the world you’ll be walking. I’ll compile a list so we can track who is connecting from which parts of the world.
8. Take many pics of the women walking and talking, then post the highlights in the Facebook Group. Tell us how many women participated in your event. It’s not a competition! I’m just looking to keep track because I’m a numbers lady.  🤓
9. After your event, share one cool thing that your group learned, shared, or discovered during your Walk & Talk.
10. Please respect the guidelines from your medical authority regarding safety protocols during the pandemic and adhere to the No Shame, No Blame, No Judgement approach to all Women’s Money Group events.

Please share this!

I’m trying to get as many women as possible to connect and to grow together. Please share this post with a girlfriend and ask her to do the same.

I can’t wait to hear your stories and to discover which parts of the world are getting involved in this movement. Together, I know we can create results that look a lot like magic. It’s what happens when you empower women.