Hi! I’m Diane!

Hi there! I’m Diane Downs - certified public accountant, certified fraud examiner and master financial coach. This is the story of the path I took to become the best financial advocate for you and how I’m uniquely qualified to meet you where you are on your financial journey.

I had it all figured out in high school. I majored in business so that I wouldn’t have to take physics or a language and still graduate with a regents diploma. My typing teacher (this was pre-computers y’all!) asked what I wanted to do as a career; “I don’t know” I replied, “but I can’t do the same thing day in and day out. I bore way too easily”. She suggested accounting - work with different clients all the time, travel to new places. It sounded reasonable so I went with it. Four years later I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in accounting. A few years after that I passed the CPA exam and was a licensed professional. I was on my way! I also knew that I didn’t want to start a career, then pause it for a family, then try and get back in later. This was the path so many women were taking in the 80’s and 90’s and it made no sense to me. So right in line with my plans, I got married and had a couple of kids. That’s when it all went to hell in a handbasket. Figuratively.

I continued to work full time after my first, but after my second son was born, I went back to work part time. Feeling the financial crunch, I stopped contributing to my retirement account. <—- biggest.regret.ever. After my daughter was born five years later, I stopped working all together. A few years later, I went back to work per diem, part time from home for a local CPA firm.

Things were going well, life was good, but something was off. I wasn’t unhappy per se, but I was discontent. Something just below the surface was stirring. An unease. Deep into the rabbit hole of self help I went. After much soul searching, I realized that I was not living in alignment with my values. I didn’t know exactly what to do with this new-found knowledge though. I filed it away in the back of my brain so it could marinate. Life went on.

In 2014, our oldest son graduated high school and was headed to college. Shit was getting real. We do not want our kids graduating college with the burden of student loan debt, but we also didn’t have any college savings. Back to work full time outside the home I went, to help pay for college. At which point, retirement savings also started up again. (All told, our retirement savings took 16! years off)

What I didn’t realize at the time was that those choices were the beginnings of living in alignment with my values. One of my core values is Financial Security. I sacrificed it when I stopped working. In retrospect, I am at peace with it, because it was for the benefit of my highest priority core value - Family.

Once I made the connection between my values and my financial life, I began changing my habits to honor those values. My budget adapted from being a projection tool created in Excel, to a true budget-what-you-have-for-what-matters-most in YNAB.

Now I’m here, in my little corner of the interweb, sharing all that I have learned so that I can help as many women as possible live the life they envision. Free from financial worry, and empowered to make the best choices for them going forward.