Coffee With E
Welcome to Coffee with E—where great conversations meet inspiration! ☕✨
This podcast is for dreamers, go-getters, and those on a journey of self-growth. Whether you’re building a business, navigating relationships, or working on your mindset, you’ll find motivation, wisdom, and real-life stories to help you level up.
Each week, we dive into topics like self-worth, mental well-being, wealth-building, leadership, and entrepreneurship—always with a mix of honesty, luxury, and a little fun. If you love deep conversations, personal growth, and a good cup of coffee, this is the podcast for you!
Join me, Erica Rawls, and my guests as we keep it real, inspire action, and remind you that anything is possible if you’re willing to do the work. Subscribe now and let’s dream big together! ☕✨
Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe!
📌 Follow this link and let's get social--->
📧 For inquiries and collaborations, email us at: customercare@ericarawls.com
Coffee With E
Wait for What Matters: How to Build Real Financial Peace
Stop telling yourself “I deserve it.” I did, and it kept me from true financial peace.
In this episode, I get real about the money mindset shift that helped me replace impulsive spending with lasting wholeness. For years, I believed working hard meant I deserved that bag, that trip, that little splurge. But I learned true freedom doesn’t come from what you buy. It comes from the discipline to wait for what truly matters.
I’m sharing my journey from overspending and running my business like a “hobby” to building a life and company grounded in financial clarity. This isn’t about guilt. It’s about growth. If you’ve ever made a money move you regretted, you’re in good company.
🎙 You’ll Hear:
•The moment I realized “I deserve it” was holding me back
•My go-to test before I make any purchase
•How waiting taught me to appreciate what I already have
•Why treating my business like a business changed everything
•The 3 core values that keep me accountable and growing
My Challenge for You:
Before your next purchase, pause and ask yourself: does your bank account agree that you deserve it? Wait for what matters. I’m rooting for you and will walk along side you as we step forward into financial wholeness together.
🔗 Sponsored by:
TOCH Construction: https://www.tochconstruction.com/
Allstate Insurance – Rob Shaw: https://agents.allstate.com/robert-shaw-harrisburg-pa.html
Chavis Law Firm: https://www.chavislawfirm.com/
Dirty Dog Hauling: https://dirtydoghauling.com/
💼 Powered by The Erica Rawls Team: https://ericarawls.com/
Like this episode? Leave a review and share it with someone who needs a reminder to wait for what truly matters.
🔔 Subscribe and join our community for more real conversations about money, mindset, and growth.
#WaitForWhatMatters #MoneyMindsetShift #FinancialWholeness #MindfulSpending #FinancialDiscipline #FaithAndFinances #SmartMoneyMoves #FromHobbyToBusiness #FinancialPeace #CoffeeWithE
Follow Us for More Inspiration:
📸 Instagram: @erica.rawls
🎥 YouTube: Erica Rawls
📧 For inquiries and collaborations: customercare@ericarawls.com
✨ Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe to stay updated with our latest episodes!
Hey! You deserve it! Go get it! Go get that thing! Because you deserve it! Time out! You do not! And let me share why. I have a challenge for you. Let's roast that little voice that comes in your head and says, you know what? I deserve this when it comes to purchasing a thing. Because I do believe that you deserve it. Probably your whole family believes you deserve it. You worked hard for it. And yet I think that you should wait. And here's why. Because I'd rather you be financially whole, really being able to appreciate the thing when you purchase it. So let's check out that bank account. Is your bank account saying that you deserve it or is it saying otherwise? You decide. And I want you to do me a favor too. Laugh. Laugh when you make the mistake of spending money that you should not, because we all need to give ourselves a little bit of grace. And then let's go back and do the right thing and wait for what truly matters. Welcome to my little coffee chat, y'all. We're going to get dive deep into a conversation you probably won't feel comfortable, but it's okay because I had to feel uncomfortable too when I was going through this journey. You see, I actually hired a coach to help me through this whole process. And I love it so much that I wanted to make sure it was a mission that I actually was able to pursue to help people just like me. You want to know what it is? Always thinking I deserve a thing because I work so hard. I work hard all the time. And I used to think, well, because I work so hard, I deserve this bag or these shoes or the splurging of clothes once in a while. But then after going through my own process, I realized that do you really deserve it? And this is how I figured out I did not. You see, I am married when I have a bank account. We have a um a partnership, so we share a bank account. However, I have my own bank account. And the reason why we have that is because I like to spend money. So I would put myself on an allowance. Here's what I didn't realize that my allowance I was spending more than I actually was putting in. So I was asking, hey, from our partnership funds, hey, can I borrow a couple dollars? Well, what about the thousand dollars that you had over here? Where'd that go? I had to take two seconds to interrupt this episode. I would like to thank one of our most recent guests, attorney Jenny Chavis, for sponsoring this show. Chavis Law Firm is an elite law firm in central Pennsylvania that helps with estate planning as well as understanding what type of business entity you should enter into when starting your business. If you're looking for a great attorney that understands estate planning as well as business entity, how to start the right way, you want to check out attorney Chavis, Chavis Law Firm. Now, back to the show. Ooh, did not want to share that information. You want to know why? Because I couldn't account for it properly. So why am I sharing this with you? Because you probably were just like me, or you know someone that you can um actually apply this uh the same story to, and it doesn't feel good. Now, was I ever broke? No, I was never broke, but could I be where somewhere further than where I am today? A hundred percent. Because one thing I don't like to do is to hear people tell me, no, I can't get a thing. So I had my decision I had to make. Instead of saying I deserve this, I decided to look at my bank account to allow me to get an understanding of that was going to be my litmus test. If I had the money in my account, then sure. When I had that small voice saying, girl, you deserve this, you can go out there and get that back. If my bank account said it, then I would do it. But then I noticed when I started doing that little small thing, I realized that I really didn't deserve it, or I didn't want it. Why? Because I was building a financial habit that allowed me to wait for what matters. That is so golden. So I no longer worried about okay, looking at the latest fashions or the latest things that were out, or you know, the bells and whistles. Because you know what? In real estate, there's a lot of shiny objects, and you could actually spend a lot of money trying to keep up with all the latest and the greatest. So there's two dynamics here. So you have personal and you have business. Now remember, this platform is for all women and leadership, and more than likely you own a business or you run some type of business so you really can relate. So let's break this down, if you will. So let's talk about the personal side. Whenever you want to purchase something, think about how you're going to obtain it. A lot of times the best way to do that I'm learning is through cash, because building credit or debt through credit is not the best way. Now you can use credit responsibly, but it's not necessarily the best way. I found that your money actually goes further when you use cash because you don't have to pay for interest rate unless you get the 0% interest cards, right? And you're responsible enough to pay it off within a couple months. But a lot of us, the credit card companies, they love us because you pay just enough in order for them to actually earn some interest by the time that 18 months comes up. So if you're the type of person that is disciplined enough to do the credit cards 18 months and no interest in 18 months, then I say, okay, possibly you could use that. However, for the majority of the people, I recommend just saving up for that thing. And honestly, what is that thing that you're saving up for? Does it really matter? You're probably a little bit like me, and you have a lot of clothes, you have you have bags that you can recycle, or you can actually you have friends that no longer want to use a bag, which I've done it quite often, and I exchanged it for a bag that they no longer want. You're going to save a lot of money by doing that small thing. And let's talk about clothes. I know for me, my trigger when it comes to shopping is when the seasons change. I mean, the fashion industry knows it. Their perfect person is someone like myself that waits for the seasons to change, just get a little crisp in the air. It's fall season now. You know, the first thing I started doing is looking at the latest fashion trends. Now, you hear those people say you can design yourself on a dime, you have Fashion Nova, you have Shean, you have all these other small boutiques that you can buy for like pennies on a dollar. And yet, have you found that you still spend more than you probably budgeted for for those items? So I recommend looking in your closet. You probably have an outfit that has a tag on it that you bought last fall. I promise you, you have at least one item. And what I suggest is see how you can recycle that. Is there someone that you can walk you can wear it to? Dirty Dog Hauling. Thank you so much for your sponsorship. If you're looking for junk removal company, they are the go-to company. Whether you have a small job or a large job, and even excavation, you want to check them out. They are reasonable and also timely and effective. Dirty Dog Hauling. Now back to the show. For example, I have this shirt on. I never ever wore it. You know how long I've had it? Literally had it for five years. And I'm asking myself, why didn't I ever wear this shirt? I don't know. So because I'm applying these principles, what thing you're not going to find for me, I'm not going to be a hypocrite. So if I'm asking you to do a thing, you're going to see me in the streets, and you're going to know if I purchase something new. And I better be able to explain myself. I'm asking you to challenge me because I want to challenge you when I see you. That's how we're going to go together. We're going to be rooting for each other. So that's on the personal side. Wait for what matters, earn the right to save money, or earn the right to purchase a thing by saving money. And let's try not to use credit cards unless you can do it responsibly. And we'll dive more into that as we build this community. But I wanted to start there. Now let's talk about on the business side. There has come a time in my business finances that I had to make a decision. So I wasn't, because I have a stable income coming in on a monthly basis when it came to the partnership that I have, I realized that I wasn't being the most financially responsible when it came to my business. Because I wanted so much to make sure that the people around me, they were eating to the point where I was treating my business like a hobby. Meaning there would be some times when I would not even be able to pay myself in order to add to our personal wealth, my family's personal wealth, because I wanted to make sure everyone around me was eating. And I had to make a hard decision. It was the worst decision I had to make in my life to decide whether or not I was going to be keeping this hobby, because that's all it was. It was literally volunteer hobby work, or start treating my business like a business. Gratefully enough, I'm here to say that I decided to treat my business like a business. So all these things that you see out on the internet, people with these highlight reels, going on these vacations, running these so-called successful businesses. I remember being that person too. And it's not until you start peeling back the curtain that you really see, are you running a profitable business, profitable business, or what I refer to as are you running a hobby? A hobby is when you have a business that is not profitable, and you literally going to work to make sure that everyone else around you is eating. And if you're anything like me, it was exhausting for me. So it has to be exhausting. So how do you get yourself out of that? Well, for me, it started with figuring out what my core values were. My core values is what I was going to use to hire and fire good, talented people. And then once I got to my core values, I know what you're thinking. When you start with your finances, well, no, because I didn't want to go back to the situation I was. So I had to figure out how I was going to be able to hold myself accountable, is to create these core values. Hey, I need to take two seconds to interrupt this wonderful show that you're watching. I run a real estate business, and the way we fund this podcast is through that business, the Erica Ross team. I would love it if you would just give us one opportunity to service your real estate needs, whether you are in Central PA or around the entire world. Think of us first so we can help you. Now back to the show. Once I created these core values, I was literally able to go back, find a mentor that was going to be able to hold me accountable to these core values, you know, that innate feeling inside of you. So my core values is excellence, growth mindset, and collaboration. And it's with these three core values I'm able to see and actually appreciate the peace that I now have. Now let's go to the financial side of it. The financial side, I had to do a lot of soul searching. I had to do a lot of cuts. I had to do a lot of adjustments. And when I tell you, that's probably the hardest thing that I had to go through, but it was very necessary. Very necessary. Because again, do you want a hobby or do you want a business? Running your business like a business means you have to make hard decisions. And you have to be able to ensure that you implement things that you're going to be able to measure. And what you measure, you'll be able to improve. And what you review, you'll be able to gauge whether or not you need to course correct. There were times when I would avoid looking at financials because they were just, I knew they were dismal. They were egregious in my mind, right? Maybe not for you, depending on you know how much risk you're willing to take. But for me, the financials that we had, they were terrible. So I had the pivot. And I'm grateful that I did. So what did I do? Literally, like I was sharing before, is I actually got a mentor and sat down and then also incorporated the my help of my husband, who's a great, has a great business mind and said, okay, hey, this is where I am. This is what I want to cut. Do you agree or do you disagree? Hey, I'm hoping you're enjoying this episode of Coffee with E. I had to take 30 seconds to share with you one of our sponsors for this episode, Top Construction. They are a premier construction company located in Central PA. So if you live in Dolphin, Cumberland, Lancaster, and Lebanon counties, you want to check them out. Not only are they reliable, they are reasonable, and they get the job done. Now let's go back to the episode. Between that, that the three of us, I was able to determine, okay, so this is what I need to do in order to course correct. It was hurtful. Um, however, it was necessary. Now every week I have a standing appointment with myself to review my financials. So I'm able to see if I'm spending wisely, am I bringing in more income than I'm actually spending? And because of that, I'm able to make sure that I'm profitable. And I'm happy to announce that the majority of this year we were definitely profitable. And because of that, I have peace of mind. I'm able to service clients even better. And it just, it's funny because you know that saying, what you focus on expands? That is so true. So true. So I'm here to say to all small business owners, it's really important for you to run your business like a business. Sure, you may make huge mistakes when it comes to finances. You may make small mistakes when it comes to your finances. However, you want to make sure that you are profitable and you're running your business like a business and you do not have a hobby. You're not here to do volunteer work 24-7. Again, that's exhausting. Stop it. Be honest with yourself and the people around you. If you can't afford the people that are around you, then you need to kindly figure out how you can course correct and adjust. Otherwise, you're going to be miserable. Your culture is going to eventually just not be what you would like it to be. And you're just running your business into the ground. Had to take two seconds to thank Allstate Insurance for sponsoring this episode. If you're looking for car, life, or casualty insurance, they're going to be your ultimate insurance company. Thank you, Rob Shaw, with Allstate Insurance. Now, back to the show. That's a hard lesson. So that's all I have today. Thank you for having coffee with me. And remember, you are the greatest thing God has ever created. And you're going to have to make some very hard decisions when it comes to your business finances and your personal finances. And together, we're going to get through this. And I am cautioning you, actually, I'm going to challenge you, not caution, challenge you to truly wait for what matters.
