Suzanne Ryan is the owner of T&H Financial Coaching, LLC, in West Des Moines. She empowers families by guiding individuals and couples toward worry-free, financially secure, and independent lives.
Tell me about your background.
I grew up and raised my family just west of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. I loved being a stay-at-home mom, but eventually I went back to college and then taught elementary school for 15 years. After my kids all went off to college, my husband retired and the two of us moved to Arizona, where I continued to teach.
I had to figure out how to manage my finances and budget on my own when our marriage ended in divorce. That’s when I realized that I could meld my love of teaching with my newfound personal finance skills. I wanted to guide others, so I trained to become a Ramsey Master Coach and opened my financial coaching business in 2015.
I moved back to the Midwest in October of 2020 to be closer to family, and I couldn’t be happier!
Tell me about your business.
When I moved to Iowa in 2020, I made the decision to put all my energy into serving my private coaching clients living in other states and my new clients living in Iowa. Financial coaching is all about helping people change their relationship with money. My clients use their new habits, strategies, and tools to save more, to pay off debt, and to reach their other financial goals.
My mission is to enable couples and individuals to take the path toward financial freedom. This means that they organize their finances, they are confident making financial decisions, and they are building wealth. I help take the fear out of managing money and put my clients on the same page with their finances.
I have worked with people from all walks of life in all 50 states. I have found that no matter what income people have, the issues they face are usually the same: talking about money is taboo, and managing their money is not part of most students’ education. With that combination, it’s tough to have a good relationship with your money. But once you do have a good relationship with your money, you also strengthen other relationships that you care about.
Next year I am excited to step back into workplace coaching, where employers provide on-site personal financial education for their employees.
What do you enjoy most about what you do?
It’s those aha! moments, when people suddenly realize that “YES! I can do this!” I recently had a client who checked her bank account every day. Then she realized that she didn’t have to check daily anymore because now she has money in the bank. I just love working with people and sharing those moments with them!
What did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a flight attendant, but they didn’t hire me! I also wanted to be a teacher.
What is one thing you want to bring with you from 2021 into the next year?
What do I want to take into 2022? The new friends I have made this year. When I moved to Iowa, I knew two people: my daughter and her husband. It was really lonely at first because I moved here before things opened up.
Since then, I have met so many wonderful people. The culture in the Midwest is just different from the culture in Arizona. I cherish my new friends and I’m bringing them with me into 2022. It’s going to be an amazing year!
