My journey

Hello,

You may have found yourself here out curiosity or through a desire to take charge of your personal finances. Either way, I’m glad you found me and it’s my hope to share with anyone who is interested, the processes that helped me in my journey to financial stability.

How I got started

The catalyst for Tidy My Money started when I was 11 years old when my Father passed away in a car accident. He had just turned 40, had a wife and 3 young children. Not only did we go through a deep emotional loss, we also ended up losing our entire financial livelihood.

We discovered Dad was not so organized with his finances. My Mum had little money knowledge and did not know about bank accounts, shareholdings or if there was insurance. Back in the 1980s, sorting through papers files proved too complicated for our grieving family. The money we could not find, became lost to us forever.

While my Dad was alive, he ran a successful business, and we were living between two countries. My Dad played polo, my sisters and I attended private boarding school and my parents travelled extensively. After his death, we went from being wealthy to struggling to make ends meet. It came as a big shock and impacted our lives for many years. It took me years to get to a good place with money.

Learning to be aware of my money was empowering

When everything unraveled, we hit rock bottom as a family. At 15 I left school for good and started working towards getting our lives back together. The four of us had very limited financial knowledge so it took huge effort to get myself out of a dark place. Along my journey, I had some angels who encouraged me and lifted me up so I could see where I wanted to go.

While working two jobs, I managed to study bookkeeping part time and that got me better jobs which moved me forward, and on and on I went. By 28 I was still not in a great place with money. I was working very hard and had a great salary but no matter what I earned, my status quo seemed to be staying the same.

The real change happened when I became radically honest with myself on exactly where I was with my money, both mentally and monetarily, and to do this I had to own my cashflow completely, which lead to the beginnings of the Tidy Money Tool.

I discovered through tracking my own money, I was gaining an incredible sense of empowerment from making decisions from an informed position.  When everything is based on fact, actual numbers (good, bad or ugly), we can make choices that help us design the life we want to lead. Today, my husband and I use the tool to help us make joint decisions. It is incredibly helpful to see the numbers clearly laid out in front of you when you’re having a discussion with another person.

Getting organised for our chlidren

When we had our children, I wanted a place to keep all our important information together in the event of something happening to either of us, we called this our Heaven Sent Box. Discussing death is still taboo for many people but having an open discussion upfront can be life changing, it can be the turning point between years of struggle or a secure and stable life.

Speaking out loud about money

By learning to pay close attention to my money, I finally got to a good place and was able to talk about money more clearly and unemotionally with myself AND my family and then friends and then clients.

I realised it is so hard for people to talk about their money and because of this, they can’t get their head around the basics which then blocks them from gaining confidence.

So when my friends and clients asked me how I became steady with my money I started speaking out loud about it. First, to a small group, then one-on-ones and then at workshops. I really enjoy helping people and seeing those light bulb moments turn on! And though I had nerves about speaking up at first, I wanted to push myself even more as I believe this is important knowledge for people to have and so, Tidy My Money was launched online.

No shame, no blame, simply begin

Gaining control over your personal finances is learnable. It does not matter what your current financial position is or how old you are, it is never too late to start. Having found my own light after the dark, these processes and tools helped me improve my own choices over time. They can be learnt by anyone who wants to strengthen their confidence over money.

Tidy My Money was born to secure the wellbeing of myself and my family and it’s my hope that it will help you secure your wellbeing too.

Amanda Edwards
Founder, Tidy My Money

“ Tidy My Money was born to secure the wellbeing of myself and my family and it’s my hope that it will help you secure your wellbeing too.”