THE SHORT VERSION:

With both formal education and personal experience in resolving conflicts, managing finances, developing emotional intimacy, and understanding family systems, I’m an informed and empathetic guide along your love and money journey. My goal is to help couples uncover and understand the roots underlying their financial conflicts and move toward financial intimacy.

Financial Planning + Financial Therapy + Couples Counseling = Healthy Love and Money.

THE SLIGHTLY LONGER VERSION:

I have over 20 years of experience working with individuals, couples, and families experiencing a wide range of money-related distress. I started from the ground-up teaching in several different church-based financial programs. While I learned a lot, I was left with more and bigger questions about people and money. 

So, I went back to school. I earned an MBA with a concentration in corporate finance which led me to earn my designation as a Certified Financial Planner. At the same time, I was working at Vanguard Mutual Funds, working with clients across the wealth spectrum. These experiences gave me exposure to understanding investing and working with people around their investments. I felt like I understood how money worked but had no real formal training or understanding of how individuals, couples, and families worked. What did I do? I went back to school again and this time I earned a master’s degree in Marriage and Family therapy. This training filled many gaps in my understanding of how people worked. 

Working as a couples therapist has taught me a lot about the universal and unique experience of life in family. I am no stranger to the wide range of trauma that happens both in the family and outside the family. It comes from thousands of hours of sitting with couples and helping couples along the healing and restoration path that I have learned the power of empathy and connection to change the way couples see themselves and each other and the way they approach their shared financial life.

Along the way, I’ve become a thought-leader in the field of Financial Therapy - which is the professional field that blends personal finance and counseling psychology together to effect positive, lasting change for clients. I’ve helped a team of professionals develop the designation Certified Financial Therapist - I™ which ensures the highest quality of care to those interested in receiving Financial Therapy.

Now I have the distinct honor of working with all the technical and nitty-gritty details of a couple's financial life as well as the psychological and relational dynamics of the couples that shape how they experience and use money in their lives.

The end goal is what I like to call financial intimacy. The ability of a couple to grow closer together and feel safer and more fully understood of the meaning and role of money in their lives. 

The financial planning process is a powerful and meaningful way to connect all the pieces for couples.