About WillowSpoon Creative
What's in a Name?
Strong, Flexible, and Resilient
Willow tree is a powerful symbol of endurance and renewal - able to flourish in difficult conditions, bending extremely far, but rarely ever breaking. On the rare occasion that they do, a broken branch will take root where it lands, growing into a new majestic tree.
Like Willow, we can find ourselves tossed about in life, perhaps on the verge of breaking. It can seem impossible to keep ourselves firmly rooted. Let’s face it - the world can be overwhelming! It’s easy to lose your footing.
Are you struggling to keep your financial bank account filled? What about your Emotional Bank Account? Are you paying yourself first with either one of them? Do the withdrawals exceed the deposits? It's easy to drain one account in an effort to keep the other plentiful!
In reality, we have to manage and balance all of our Resources - Time, Energy, Money, Body, Mind, and Soul. We're complex human beings who need all of these to survive and thrive!
Overall, Money may not be the most important Resource, but it is the one that can cause us the most stress, fear, and restriction. That’s because it is the one most necessary to our day-to-day survival and the one that creates - or denies - access to everything we want and need.
Society has a history of financial exclusion. It’s what many of our ancestors faced and they passed that mindset down to us, so that’s why we focus on creating financial inclusion. That starts with looking at those mindsets - our Money Stories and Money Wounds - and working to rewrite them.
The next step is to improve our financial literacy, instilling the knowledge, skills, and confidence to make informed and effective decisions on how to use your financial resources. Education is empowerment!
So, how can WSC help you take control of and protect your valuable resources?
What is Financial Inclusion?
Financial inclusion is more than having a good job or the opportunities created by generational wealth, although these certainly help. Bodily autonomy, voting rights, access to education, and employment protections ALL create financial inclusion with the ability to grow wealth and gain independence.
Financial inclusion also means having the ability to access financial services and products that work to further financial goals. Everyone has that safe and friendly neighborhood bank, right? RIGHT? Oh, wait - they don’t!
The reality is that not everyone has the same type of access to banking services, loans, financial literacy education, and other tools that will help them build wealth and independence. Systemic barriers are real and they include being unbanked or underbanked, having to use alternative financial services (like high-fee check cashing establishments or payday loans), and poor credit or no credit, which can mean lower loan amounts at higher interest rates.
We can’t change the way neighborhoods are built, but we CAN educate communities about financial literacy and empower members to build better credit. That is an excellent start.