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Money Made Human Podcast
Personal finance with a human touch.
Money Made Human is a show about what it actually looks like to handle money well. Not the rules. Not the hacks. The real, human experience of building a financial life that fits how you actually live.
Hosted by Kelsa Dickey, founder of Financial Coach Academy® and creator of the SpendFirst® methodology, this show is for two kinds of listeners. People who want a better picture of their own money. And the financial coaches and practitioners who do this work with them.
For almost two decades, Kelsa has built her practice around one belief: most financial stress isn't a discipline problem. It's a visibility problem. When you can see where your money is actually going, what's already spoken for, and what's coming, the decisions get easier. The system doesn't have to be tight. It has to be clear.
Season 2 is the chapter-by-chapter reading of Kelsa's book, SpendFirst: The Surprisingly Simple System to Stop Stressing About Money. One chapter per episode, in her voice, from the introduction all the way through. The book launches November 11, 2026. You'll hear it here first.
If you're a coach or practitioner, this is the methodology your clients will be learning. Hearing the whole thing will make you better at teaching it.
If you're trying to figure out your own money, this is a season-long invitation into a way of thinking that doesn't ask you to be more disciplined. It asks you to see your money clearly.
New episodes every Thursday. Subscribe wherever you listen.
Episodes
201 episodes
Chapter 6: SpendFuture - Planning for What Doesn't Happen Monthly
Here's the wave that makes so many capable, responsible people feel like they just can't get ahead. You have a good month, put a little toward a card, and then the tires and the vet bill land in the same week and it's gone.In this episod...
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Chapter 5: SpendFreely - Where Real Life Happens
If you feel a little pang of guilt almost every time you spend money, that guilt was never really about your choices. It's about a hundred small purchases with no clear place to put them, so every one turns into a question.This chapter i...
Chapter 4: SpendFixed - Your Monthly Commitments
If you’ve ever felt fine at the start of the month and strangely broke by the middle of it, this is for you. There is a clear reason for that mid-month squeeze, and it comes down to timing you’ve never been shown how to see.Today we're d...
Chapter 3: The Three Ways Your Money Moves
Some months your money feels calm, and some months it feels like chaos, even when your paycheck stays exactly the same.This week on the podcast I'm reading Chapter 3 of my book, SpendFirst®. It's the chapter where a lot of people finally...
Chapter 2: The Heartbeat of SpendFirst - Your Paycheck Rhythm
Does your budget feel like it’s fighting your calendar? Most financial advice tells us to plan in 30-day blocks, but your life happens paycheck to paycheck.In this episode, we dive into Chapter 2 of SpendFirst to explore the Pay...
Chapter 1: Why Traditional Budgeting Keeps Failing You
If you’ve tried budgeting apps, spreadsheets, and rules and still ended up unsure, this is the episode that explains why, and why it was never a flaw in you. Kelsa Dickey reads Chapter 1 of SpendFirst, including the story of Jessie and Joe, a c...
What If You Could See Ahead?
This is where it begins. In the Introduction to SpendFirst, I'm reading the opening of my new book and laying out the premise the whole season is built on: You can manage almost anything in your life, so why does money still feel like a guessin...
Welcome to Money Made Human
The Financial Coach Academy Podcast is now Money Made Human, and Season 2 starts here. In this short welcome episode, Kelsa Dickey shares what the new show is about and what makes this season different from anything she’s done befor...
Goodbye Season 1
This is the final episode of the Financial Coach Academy Podcast and the final episode of Season 1. Starting June 25, this show becomes Money Made Human.In this episode, we’re talking about what 157 episodes built, sharing the story of a...
Why Conference Fears Are Actually Reasons Financial Coaches Should Attend (with Philip Taylor)
Every year the same hesitations come up when I talk to coaches about conferences:I won't know anyone. It's too expensive. I'm not far enough along. I don't have time. I can pro...
156. How to Prepare for a Conference (So You Don't Waste $4,000)
Someone on Reddit spent more than $4,000 on a conference and came home with six business cards on their desk and nothing else. No meetings booked, no follow-up calls scheduled, no real conversations. They did all the things people tell you to d...
155. How to Connect With People Who Need You (When You Feel Like You've Tried Everything)
A few weeks ago, an email came across my desk from a financial coach who said she'd never struggled this much to make something work. She'd been posting consistently, running webinars, building a community, and getting engagement on every post....
154. The One Question That Simplifies Every Business Decision
Every business decision you make has three stakeholders, and most coaches only think about one or two of them. That's usually why the decisions feel so hard.Pricing, marketing, who to hire, what to say yes to, what to say no to. If you'v...
What You Need (and Don't Need) to Be a Financial Coach
If you've been thinking about starting a financial coaching practice, there’s probably a list running in the back of your mind. The certification you should probably get. The website you need to build. The LLC you think you're supposed to file....
153. The 4-Stage Client Journey Every Financial Coach Needs to See
Every client you work with moves through a journey. The situations are always different, but the stages are remarkably consistent. I’ve watched them unfold across hundreds of clients over nearly two decades, and at some point I started giving t...
152. The Framework That Changed How I Coach
Your client just made a choice you wouldn't have made.You walked them through the options. You built the understanding. They applied it, reflected on it, and came back with their decision. And it's not the one you would have picked.<...
151. Inside the Session: Three Things to Notice in a Real Coaching Session
Last week you listened to a real coaching session with Lauren, a financial coach working through competing goals, limited margin, and a jumbled mind full of priorities she couldn't rank.This week I want to give you something to do with w...
150. A Real Coaching Session on Prioritizing Financial Goals (Part 1)
Lauren is a financial coach. She knows exactly what she'd tell a client who was juggling competing financial goals with limited margin. She'd say: pick one. Prioritize. Stop trying to do everything at once.And yet, when it came to her ow...
149. How to Make Financial Progress Visible
Coaches are really good at helping clients build plans, organize their money, set goals, and adjust their behavior. These are excellent things.But something that comes up in almost every coaching relationship, usually several months in, ...
[The Client Seat] When Your Emergency Fund Creates More Stress Than Relief
If you followed the recent series on calibration and the three rhythms that money flows through, this session is where both of those ideas come to life.Mary Ann Stenquist is a spending coach who helps ambitious women break free from the ...
148. The Three Rhythms Your Client's Money Actually Follows
Most clients walk into a session already convinced they failed.The bad month is fresh. They went over budget. The spreadsheet is in the red. And every line item feels like evidence that they just aren't good with money.But here'...
147. What I've Learned About How Practitioners Actually Grow
There's a question many financial coaches don’t stop long enough to ask: What actually makes us better at this?Not what we think makes us better. Not what the industry says we should do. What actually moves the needle when it comes to t...
How to Take Feedback
Getting feedback used to make my chest tighten. I'd spend so much energy trying to live a life where I'd never have to hear that I let someone down or disappointed them. The problem? That's impossible. You will inevitably get feedback as a coac...
146. How to Talk About What You Do So People Actually Want It
Something trips up a lot of really good financial coaches, and it has nothing to do with the actual work. It's how they describe it. When someone says, "So what do you do?" the response is often off. And it's not because you don't know what you...
145. What Your Client is Really Telling You When They Say “I Just Need to be More Disciplined”
There's a sentence you've almost certainly heard from a client. Maybe more than once. Maybe even in the last week. "I just need to be more disciplined." It sounds like self-awareness. It sounds like accountability. And most ...