Purse Strings Approved Professional Blog Series
The Money Question Nobody On Your Team Is Answering
By: Chelsea Scomak, CFP, Lifestyle Financial Planner and CEO
A successful woman sits across from her accountant in excited anticipation. She’s had more than a good year, probably her best one yet! The revenue is flowing, her hard work is paying off, and she finally asks the question she’s been patiently wondering for months:
“What do I do with the extra cash?”
He kindly responds,
“That’s a great question, but it’s not really my lane.”
The moment she realizes the person she trusted with her numbers was only ever looking backward is the moment something clicks.
She suddenly understands that nobody on her financial team has been responsible for looking forward alongside her.
Nobody has been helping her decide what the money is actually for.
Here’s what almost nobody says out loud.
Your CPA is brilliant at what they do, and the proactive ones do real tax planning that saves you money. Your bookkeeper keeps your records intact. Your business banker wants to lend you money. Every one of those people is valuable, but not one of them is responsible for the thing you actually need most: a plan that connects the dollars your business makes to the life you’re trying to build.
There’s a seat at your financial table that’s been empty this whole time. You just didn’t know this seat existed.
Of course you’ve felt scattered.
You’ve been trying to answer a forward-facing, full picture life question with a team built entirely for looking into the past. It was never going to work because no one was there to fill that seat.
There’s another important piece I’m going to call out, because it’s the reason so many women wait years longer than they should.
It’s the myth that planning is for later.
For when the business is bigger, the debt is gone, and the timing is perfect. That all-or-nothing thinking keeps capable, growing women on the sidelines of their own financial lives, waiting for permission that nobody is coming to give them.
It really doesn’t have to be either/or.
You don’t have to choose between paying down debt and building wealth.
Waiting until you’ve “arrived” to start planning your future is a detriment that doesn’t have to exist. A real plan is exactly how you make the hard decisions now at a ratio that fits your numbers and your season.
The women I see making the biggest shifts aren’t the ones who wait until everything feels “just right.”
They’re the ones who fill that empty seat early in the building stage and start making forward-facing decisions with someone in the seat with them.
The spreadsheets and the rules are a small piece, but the real work begins with the partnership.
This is a summary from a longer letter Chelsea published on the ViaBrio blog.
Securities offered through Registered Representatives of Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a broker/dealer, member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Advisor. Via Brio and Cambridge are not affiliated.
Chelsea Scomak, CFP
Lifestyle Financial Planner and CEO at Via Brio
Chelsea Scomak, CFP helps driven, entrepreneurial women move past financial overwhelm and build lasting wealth with clarity and confidence. Her work combines human behavior, money mindset, and strategic financial planning to create a personalized roadmap aligned with each client’s lifestyle and long-term vision. With an innovative, upbeat, and flexible approach—far from the traditional advisor model—Chelsea empowers women to step beyond the 9-to-5, achieve financial security, and create a legacy of financially confident female business owners who uplift their communities.
