Conversations with the Inspiring Danielle Davis

Danielle, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
As a young teenager, who grew up in New Orleans, LA, I found myself budgeting my very small summer camp paychecks. I would budget for bus fare, lunch and anything else I needed in order to not have to ask my mom for money. I’m the oldest of 6 children and my mom spent a good portion of our lives as a single parent. So, everything had to be stretched. Since I refused to be a burden, as soon as I could, I got a summer job across town at the tender age of 14.

Fast forward a few years, and the mindset that I developed as a young teenager has continued to stick with me. Over the past decade, I’ve managed to work my way up the corporate ladder and steadily increased my income, while continuing to follow a monthly budget. Despite earning a pretty decent salary, my husband of whom I’ve been married to for over 12 years, can attest to the fact that we have had our share of money struggles. However; the bills were paid on time and we always managed to keep some sort of savings account, even if it wasn’t much.

After my husband and I had our first child two years ago, life drastically changed for me. I desperately wanted to stay home to raise my daughter. Hence, MoneyinMatrimony.com was born. I saw this as an opportunity to not only exit the rat race, but to also teach married couples what I’ve learned about personal finances, while also being more present in my daughter’s life. What started out as just a blog is now flourishing into a business.

My passion for helping others manage their money, build their marriages and change their mindsets was ignited when I would receive phone calls from friends and family asking for advice on these topics. I’m thinking this had something to do with the longevity and the transparency my husband and I display in our marriage. So, I decided to take the financial experience that I already had and couple it with what I’ve learned in order to create a platform geared towards teaching married couples how to improve their money habits by changing their mindsets.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My journey has definitely not been smooth. The very first area I struggled with initially was not knowing my purpose in life. I knew that I wanted to teach people how to manage their money, but I couldn’t figure out how to turn that into a business.

And then there was fear. Once I realized I wanted to go all-in with my blog and offer consulting services, I became fearful of putting myself out there and not being good enough. I feared making mistakes. I feared failure. I feared the lack of being accepted in the personal finance space.

I eventually pulled myself together and started to bring my ideas to life. However; in the midst of the building phase, I lost both of my grandmothers in March of 2019, exactly nine days apart from each other. Then to make matters worse, 3 of their siblings passed right after them. 2019 was nothing short of a difficult year for me. However; despite all of the losses, I still went on to launch my blog this past September.

What advice would you like to give to other new female entrepreneurs?
The most important advice I can give young women when starting out is to seek God during both the good and bad times, especially if you are a believer. The only reason I’m still pushing through is because He is giving me strength in order to do so. This road is going to get very lonely at times and that’s when you will need to have a higher power to lean on.

– Speak life into their current financial situation and change their money mindset
– Improve the dynamic of their marriage as it relates to communication and finances
– Learn how to better manage their finances, earn more money, and save for the future

What Gives Me Credibility

I have 11+ years of corporate work experience in Accounting and Finance. I earned my Bachelor’s degree and then shortly after my M.B.A. However; it is not the level of education that makes me a credible resource. It’s actually all of the challenges and life lessons that I have endured. In a very short period of time, my husband and I were able to pay off thousands of dollars of debt. I’ve made some very silly mistakes as it relates to money, but I’m willing to share what I’ve learned from those situations so that other married couples can improve their lives much faster than my husband and I did.

What do you feel are the biggest barriers today to female leadership, in your industry or generally?
I believe that there are many barriers today to female leadership in the Finance industry, in particular. However; two of them stand out to me which are: 1. a lack of support from more experienced professionals and 2. work-life balance for mothers and caretakers.

There are people in this world who believe that if they help someone else achieve their goals, it will somehow threaten their future potential for success. So, in turn, the woman asking for support in order to move to the next level often spends a great deal of time securing a trustworthy individual who will help her do so.

The second big barrier is work-life balance for mothers and caretakers. As a new mom, I have witnessed this first hand. In the past, while working in corporate, I had no problem raising my hand to take on difficult and possibly time-consuming tasks. However; after I gave birth to my daughter, I felt very limited in regards to the roles I could accept due to my new responsibility and the uncertainty associated with motherhood.