If you’ve ever told yourself, “I’ll start in January,” this episode is for you.
The end of the year can feel like the worst time to focus on your finances. Between the holidays, family expenses, and travel, it’s easy to push your goals aside and tell yourself you’ll start fresh later. But what if that mindset is the reason you’re stuck?
In this episode of Money Files, I’m introducing what I call The Five Figure Reinvention, your invitation to save or pay off $10,000 before the end of the year. This isn’t about restriction or deprivation. It’s about becoming the version of you who ends the year calm, confident, and in control.
You’ll learn how to stop postponing peace, avoid the “I’ll start Monday” trap, and create a simple system that helps you follow through. Whether your goal is to save $3,000 or pay off $10,000, this episode will show you how to use the next two months to change how you think, plan, and lead your money.
Listen in to learn:
[01:05] Why waiting for January keeps you stuck in the same cycle
[03:20] The emotional and financial cost of delaying your goals
[05:00] Why slow seasons are actually preparation seasons
[07:40] The three reasons to start your reinvention in November
[09:15] How the $10,000 challenge builds structure and proof
[10:40] The difference between restriction and reinvention
[12:10] How to build a system that fits your real life, not someone else’s
[13:30] The mindset shift from “I’ll start later” to “I’m already doing it”
Tune into this episode of Money Files to learn how to start your Five Figure Reinvention now, build momentum before January, and finally become the person who keeps her word to herself financially.
Are you ready to start asking for help with your finances? Apply to work with me, and let’s start working towards your financial goals.
If you loved hearing about The Five Figure Reinvention, check out Episode 98 How To Plan Ahead And Budget For Holiday Shopping. You’ll learn how to protect your progress and keep your finances aligned through the holidays.
Transcript for “The Five Figure Reinvention: Reinvent Your Finances Before January”
Intro: Hi, and welcome to Money Files. I’m Keina Newell from Wealth Over Now. I work everyday with professional women and solopreneurs to help them get out of financial overwhelm and shame so they can experience more flexibility and ease with their finances. Are you ready to gain confidence and learn to manage your finances intentionally? Tune in and grab financial tips that will help you master the way you think about and manage your finances.
Keina: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Money Files. So I’m just going to go ahead and jump right in. Do you know what I noticed about this time of the year? Everyone starts saying the same thing. I’ll start in January and it sounds so reasonable, right? The holidays are coming, life’s expensive, there’s family, travel, gifts. So we tell ourselves I’ll just get through these next few weeks and then I’ll start fresh. And you might even be thinking I’m going to get some new notebooks because if you’re me, that’s what I’m doing, right? A new notebook changes everything. But what if that’s the exact mindset that’s keeping you stuck? Because while everyone else is waiting for January to feel ready, you could be building momentum right now.
This episode is about what I’m calling the five figure reinvention. It’s your invitation to save or pay off $10,000 your choice before the end of the year. And before you start doing math in your head, like Keina, how in the world am I supposed to do that? I want you to pause because this isn’t about pushing harder or restricting yourself. It’s about becoming the version of you who ends 2025 and walks into 2026, calm, confident, and in control. So let’s talk about what happens when you stop waiting for the perfect time and instead decide to start your reinvention right now. So let’s just go back for a second. Do you remember how you felt this past January? You probably had that post-holiday fog. You might have told yourself you’d figure it out later and suddenly later became March and you were still carrying the same balances on your credit card. That’s what waiting does. It tricks you into thinking you’re making a responsible decision, that you’re buying time, but really you’re just postponing peace because the cost of waiting is real.
It’s the extra debt that piles up during the holidays. It’s two more months of interest on your credit cards. It’s two more months of missed savings. It’s the kind of growth future you needed. And it’s the emotional cost of starting January already behind. Every time you tell yourself I’ll deal with it after the holidays, you reinforce the story. I’m not good with money during this time of year. You’re teaching yourself that November and December don’t count, that you can’t be trusted with money when life gets busy or emotional. But that’s not true. And I am here to help you prove it. Because what if next January looked different? What if you could walk into 2026 saying, girl, I already know the plan and it is what it is. But you were saying it out of a place that was empowering and not avoiding. The kind that comes from knowing your money is doing exactly what you decided it would do. Now listen, I can already hear you trying to tell me through your headphones right now, Keina, but you know things, they’re like slow for me right now and I really am going to get it together when my money gets back up.
Okay. So let’s just talk about this. That’s actually not a reason to delay. That’s your signal to start. The fact that you’re even talking about a slow season lets me know that you need this challenge. Slow seasons are preparation seasons. This is when you set up the infrastructure, the systems that let your next wave of income work for you, not against you. When your bonus or your tax refund or your raise comes in, you are already going to have a plan that’s ready to receive it and not a mess of trying to clean it up because you spent that increase 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 times because you didn’t actually know how to prepare for it. Or maybe you are thinking about like, but Keina like I’ve never really been able to save money. The last time I tried to save, like I had to keep dipping into it. And let’s just be honest, that belief didn’t come out of nowhere. It came from your past experiences and I know that it might feel really, really true for you, but you built that belief and you building that belief, we can also unbuild the belief. I think that’s the word unbuild. We’ll see. But maybe the only reason you haven’t saved consistently is because you didn’t have a system that worked for you. You were trying to save what was left over or save large amounts of money without considering what else was a part of your financial picture.
And so that’s what this reinvention is going to give you. It’s going to give you structure, support and proof that you can follow through. And I know that some of you are thinking, I can’t enjoy the holidays and make financial progress. You even rolled your little neck in me. I see it. This one’s big because the holidays are emotional. But progress doesn’t mean deprivation. It means intention. It means deciding what matters most. How do you want to participate and letting go of the pressure to buy your way into connection. You can absolutely enjoy the holidays and honor your financial goals at the same time. And then of course there’s the classic, but Keina I think I really should just wait until January. And I want to say this gently. That’s why January always feels so hard because you’re starting from behind. You’re trying to create structure and recover from chaos at the same time. But what if January wasn’t your comeback? What if it was just your continuation?
So I want to give you three reasons to start in November, right now. It’s a perfect time to start your reinvention. The first reason is the momentum advantage starting now gives you something January starters don’t have and that’s practice. While everyone else is waiting for the New Year, you’re already going to have a rhythm. By the time the calendar flips, you’re not going to be learning or guessing, you’ll be executing. Reason number two is the stress test. This is the best training ground you could ask for. If you can manage your money during the most emotional expensive season of the year, you can handle any season. It’s like training at a high altitude. If you can breathe here, everything else feels easier. And then lastly, my reason for you starting in November is the math matters. November and December, that’s almost 20% of the year. That’s significant, if you think about it. Every two months is a 20%, right? So that’s two months of payments, two months of savings, two months of rewiring your habits and 20% of a year isn’t just about dollars, it’s about identity.
Those two months can completely change how you start the next 12. So now you might be wondering, okay Keina, but what does this actually look like? How do you save or pay off $10,000 in the weeks we have left of this year? And here’s what I want you to know. This will look different for everyone. Some of you will hit it with a bonus or commission check. Some of you will piece it together, $2,000 here, $1,500 here because we’ll intentionally redirect money you’d normally spend without thinking. And some of you will build a plan that carries into the first quarter of next year. But you’ll start the momentum now because the real question isn’t how will I hit $10,000? It’s what’s my capacity right now? Not what you think you should do, not what someone else is doing, but we want to identify what’s real for you with support structure and a plan.
Maybe it’s $3,000, maybe it’s $7,000, maybe it’s the full $10,000. Whatever it is, that progress counts because what you’re really building here is proof. The $10,000 challenge isn’t about a finish line. It’s about becoming the kind of person who knows how to lead their money through any season. The $10,000 plan is your how. It’s the structure that turns someday into a timeline. It’s the system that makes your money do what you decide. And you don’t have to wait until January to have that. These next two months aren’t throwaway months. They’re not survive the holidays and start over later months. They’re the bridge between what you’ve been doing and who you are becoming. So when you think about your five figure reinvention, define it for yourself. Do you want to save your first $10,000, pay off $10,000 worth of debt? Maybe you want to split it, you want to save $5,000 and you want to pay off $5,000 worth of debt. Whatever it looks like we’ll create the plan together based on your real numbers, your capacity, and your actual life.
So let’s be clear, this isn’t a 30 day no spend challenge. If you have listened to my podcast for any amount of time, you will know I’m not really a fan of those. This is an actual financial identity shift. It’s not about restriction, it’s about reinvention. So inside my five month coaching partnership, this is what we do. We create a plan that matches your actual life. We look at your habits, we look at your feelings and the stories you’ve carried about money. And we build a system that works with you, not against you. So we build a simple system. It’s the three money bucket system. We are going to have bills, savings and spending. We do the mindset work and we do the math work because we want your results to stick. We want you to have something that’s sustainable because I can give you a budget. Any financial coach can give you a budget. But what we are doing is different. We are addressing why you haven’t stuck to the budget before. We’re dealing with the shame, the avoidance, your, I’ll start Monday loop or like, dang, I overspent so my whole budget is gone, so let me just give up.
But we’re building the skill of you following through for yourself financially because this isn’t about a quick fix, it’s about a long term safety for you. When you say yes to this reinvention, when you work with me, you’re not just paying off debt or stacking cash, you’re building belief. You’re building the identity of someone who keeps her word to herself financially. So I just want to fast forward for a moment. It’s November 20, 25 and you start this journey. By January, 2026, you’re in a flow, you’re not catching up.
And by next December of 2026, you realize, that $10,000 that I’m talking about was just the beginning. You’re going to have built proof, consistency, and calm. That’s what the five figure reinvention gives you. So my invitation to you is here, what happens if you say yes right now? So you’re going to get support through what’s seemingly the hardest financial season of the year. You’re going to stop waiting for the perfect time and you’re going to build momentum while everyone else is pressing pause.
You’re going to become the person who doesn’t need January to change because you’ve already started. And what happens if you wait? Well, you already know, you are going to get the same cycle different year. January starts from behind. Another round of I’ll get to it. The belief that you can’t gets louder. If you’ve been thinking, I want to believe I can do this, I just don’t know how. This is your how. So inside my five month coaching partnership, here’s what we do. We’re going to build your 10 K plan in our first session together. We meet three times a month. They’re 45 minute coaching calls. You are going to get me in my fullest capacity. You are going to meet all in your business. And we can address the real things that keep you stuck with your money, not just the numbers, but we’ll look at the beliefs and the patterns underneath them and we’ll build a simple system that will help you make progress that not only feels simple, but also sustainable after our coaching partnership. So this isn’t about me telling you what to do, it’s about us building a financial life that actually works for you.
So if you are like, dang Keina, you read me like a book today, I want you to apply to work with me so you can start your reinvention. So you can go to wealthovernow.com. You can book a call or you can go to the show notes to apply to work with me. I work with a small number of clients at a time and I have limited spots before the end of the year. So if this is resonating with you, if you feel that pull, please don’t wait. Like this is your divine sign that now is the time for you to pull the trigger because some of you may have just met me today, some of you have been here for a long time, this is your sign, you are hearing it. So everyone else is waiting for January but you, you’re choosing reinvention over resolution. You’re building momentum while the world is pausing. And 12 months from now, you’re going to be so grateful you didn’t wait. So thank you so much for tuning in this week and I will chat with you next week.
Outro: Thank you so much for listening to Money Files. If you’re ready to take the next step to reach your financial goals, head to www.wealthovernow.com/appointment and let’s get started.
