Coaching on Budgeting

Coach Andrea was asked by a client, David, to work with him on money management.  Sometimes coaches hesitate to tackle this area.  Some coaches say they’d are not financial planners so it is inappropriate.  Other coaches cite a lack of experience.  Trained coaches realize that all clients deal with money and managing money.  In the Certified Master Coach class at the Center for Coaching Certification, money, budgeting, and financial statements are discussed.  The bottom line is that sometimes money management is a barrier for people doing what they want, including hiring a coach or retaining a coach.

A coach is not a financial planner and does not give advice.  The client is their own best expert.  It absolutely makes sense that a coach understands budgeting and financial statements.  Clients deal with personal budgets, many write parts or all of a budget at work, and many read financial statements.

How does a coach co-create tools for budgeting with a client?  The coaching relationship between Andrea and David provides one possibility.  David wanted to start with his personal budget.  Andrea set up a spreadsheet and asked David about his expenses.  Andrea and David sorted these into fixed expenses (a set amount each month), variable expenses (a monthly expense that varied so the budget was an approximate or average), and periodic expenses (occurring quarterly, semi-annually, or annually).  Then Andrea asked David how often he wanted to pay bills and note expenses.  David decided that once a week worked best for him.  In the spreadsheet, Andrea set up a column for each week of the month, a column with a monthly total, and a column with the difference between the planned budget and the actual expenditures.

Together David and Andrea co-created a budgeting tool.