Episode three ninety Managing Money with ADHD or neurodivergence.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live at your life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today we are talking about something a lot of people struggle with and a few struggle with a lot. Is ADHD, or just as we're calling it currently, neurodivergence.
Yeah, well, neurodivergence being an umbrella term for a lot of different conditions that impact cognitive functioning. So that can include some learning disabilities, it can include a and a
plethora of other things. I think there's so many different ways that we humans can show up and experience the world, and so this definitely isn't going to be able to cover all of it, but hopefully be able to look at what are some of the uniquenesses when it comes to managing money that you might be facing if you are also managing ADHD or some other type of neurodivergence, that might be a little bit different from someone who
is neurotypical. So we're going to turn to the internet for this because we're not exactly experts on all of these things.
Jill is much more so than I am. So I feel like this is a Jill episode.
Well, and I hope to not have it be incredibly like clinical in its approach, but to just see and recognize because we've had a lot of readers of the newsletter and listeners of the podcast reach out to us about this specific thing and in our membership of Yeah, but what about for me when I've got some of the additional barriers to some of the typical pathways for managing money, And so I think it's worth looking at
because it does impact a pretty significant portion of the population. So, Yeah, glad to be here for I'm excited about some of these articles just to kind of highlight. But at the same time, if you do consider yourself neurotypical, I think a lot of these tips are helpful as well. I think we're just finding that there's going to be extra doses needed for people who have additional barriers or circumstances to overcome.
Yeah, and it can help empathize, help you empathize with people who may be struggling with this. I know a lot of the times. For the people we love most, it's hard for us to understand why they spend or why they manage money in the way that they do. And this could be a real eye opener if somebody in your life is struggling with ADHD or any kind of neurodiversions, to get a little insight in maybe how you can speak to them in a way that's more kind.
Yeah, oh, that's such a good point for sure.
But first, this episode is brought to you by What Sorry, I was distracted. It is something that I experience personally in my life and I have never been diagnosed with any kind of neurodivergence, but as a human being with multiple people living in my household, I do get distracted and I will have hyper fixations. And so while I don't think this is clinically, I'm not gonna diagnose myself with anything, I do find it really helpful to have these continual reminders of how to best spend money and
how to stay on track. And the friend letter is the way I do it when I can't listen to the podcast. Personally, I don't listen to the podcast because I don't want to hear myself speak. But if it's you saying this. The friend Letter is our three time per week newsletter where we help you in your inbox
stay motivated. We've got savings tips, we have all kinds of things to help you stay focused and on track, which is really the core problem that we're having when we are so distracted by all of the directions that life is pulling us and our money. That was literally our first day. One description of the podcast is how do you figure out how to spend money when life and marketing is pulling your focus in all these different directions. We said it more eloquently than that's sound a great yeah.
But so that's why we are so passionate about podcasts and so passionate specifically about the friend Letter. If you are not getting it, highly recommend that you get it Frugal Friends podcast dot com.
And we did send out a poll to all of you, in those of you who are receiving that friend Letter that Jen just talked about, and there were quite a few. We asked our listeners who are managing ADHD or other neurodivergences and what are your biggest struggles when managing your spending and the majority of you did say impulse buying, which we will talk about that in some of these articles. That does coincide with some of the symptomology of what
we're talking about. And then in second is making a spending plan or budgeting, and then neck and neck after that was saving for emergencies and retirement and making or earning money. But again, impulse buying is at the top of the list, and there are so many reasons for this, so many layers, but I think, yeah, additionally, if you are managing, you know, one of these things that we're talking about today.
Yeah, and we're definitely going to be writing about this in the book is specifically a little bit on ADHD and neurodivergences and how they play into impul spending. From your responses, what I found really interesting, So I learned one of you was saying that menopause on set ADHD. I had no idea that was a thing. So not struggling with ADHD your whole life and then menopause hits and you've got it. A lot of you were saying it's actually easy for you to make money because you're
doing ten different side hustles. But on the other hand, it's hard to make money because maybe you get bored more easily at your job, or if you're a business owner, you're always onto the next shiny new thing, which that's my issue. But I just thought that the differences between making money were really stark because yeah, we have done a lot of side hustles, yes, but it's sticking with them that is the hard thing. Yeah, we found a
lot of insight in your your responses, so please. Another reason to get on the friend letter is that we'll do these polls to incorporate what we learn into the episode. And one final thing I'll say that I got out of this was one of our readers says, our economy rewards specialization. In my ADHD makes it hard to specialize. I want to do a little of everything, and I think that's a huge reason why it's hard to spend money or not spend money. It's easy, it's spend money.
It's hard to manage money when your brain wants to do a little bit of everything and you're not and you don't fully know everything about everything and money, and it makes it really overwhelming.
And so I.
Hope this episode will help you organize some of that.
I mean, isn't that the truth about anything that is divergent, yes, from the typical, and there are beautiful things about it, and there are some real struggles and difficulties because the majority of the world and ways that things are managed or set up for a certain general population. So when you find yourself different from that, divergent from that, again beautiful pieces come along with it. But then it's like, I don't know how to fit into this system because
it's not made for me. And so I think again a lot of us can relate. I mean you've already mentioned it jen to some of the symptomology, like we all can experience impulsiveness, procrastination, difficulty focusing. But then for those of you who have true diagnosises of these neurodivergences, I mean all the more like, hats off to you and what you're managing, but also hope that there can be tools and resources available to be able to manage your money well, even in maybe a world that is
set up for your more typical people. But we can forge our own paths here people.
Yeah, I think the true secret is is identifying what is what gives you, what your neurodiversiens, what edge it gives you.
Yeah, yeah, oh I like that. Yeah, okay. So for this first article, it comes from money Geek and it's titled supporting Neurodivergent people in Personal Finance. I think this one was a great foundational article because it really lays the groundwork for what are we even talking about here, not a ton of tips, well, at least we won't go through all the tips and this article it's pretty lengthy one, but I want to utilize at least some of this first portion about what we're talking about here.
So we already did kind of describe what neurodivergence is and variation of cognitive functioning in people. So some of the learning disabilities that can fall under that neurodivergent umbrella is things like dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and so that's like difficulties when it comes to reading, writing, math, Holy smokes, like that is money management, like to be able to do all of these things. But then if you've got one of these diagnoses and the symptoms that come along
with it, yes there's some additional barriers. And then also with ADHD just being quite a common diagnosis, something we hear again many of our listeners talk about and at this point they say, it's really hard to get percentages of the population because there's a lot of people who
do struggle with ADHD but are undiagnosed. But for those who are diagnosed, it's somewhere between five to eight percent of adults in the US, which doesn't sound like a ton, but you're creeping up on ten percent there, and so that's like, that's a pretty large part of the population. And we can see it just in our listeners and
friendly people who respond to the friend letter. But specifically with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, there is a tendency towards impulsivity, inattentive for long periods of time, frequent procrastination, periodic bouts of hyperactivity, or problems starting and or completing tasks. There's a longer list of again like the diagnostic criteria for this, but we can see just from that definition how difficult it is and can be to do some of the
tasks associated with healthy financial management. If there's an increased tendency towards impulsivity, if we are having difficulty focusing for long periods of time, if procrastination is something that we're experiencing quite a bit, so we could just see by just each of these adjectives how difficult this can be
but not impossible. And I think I really appreciate some of the things that this article starts to describe in the next one on how can we respond then, but I do think it's worth going through some of the top difficulties that this article laid out with money geek.
Yeah, so the top one is definitely budgeting. So this can stem from people not understanding how much goods and services may either may cost or how much they may spend on them month to month. If you've ever you know, had like a like a manic episode or a hyperfixation, you definitely will spend more on something in one month, and you know, maybe nothing on it the next month, or be in there for a couple months and then be done with it. So it's hard to predict what
that will be. And we also have this thing where we we feel like our budgets need to be perfect and typical, right, and so as somebody who is who may struggle with like different different things every month that you can't predict. Instead of having specific categories of spending, you can have a general category for maybe like a
hyperfixation category. Right, you're giving yourself a budget and the freedom to have to take advantage of the edge that your brain may give you, but still kind of giving it a boundary because we don't want to let these things run wild. But we also it's if we try to cut it off and pretend it doesn't exist, then it gets worse. So don't try to make the perfect typical budget. Try to make a budget that will fit
for you. And that's where the ninety day transaction inventory we talk about all the time comes in, because then you can start to see, like, oh, I was overspending on this, I spent this much. How can I maybe get just one percent better? That's another thing in your times where you're not super motivated, trying to do just one thing that's a step in the right direction when you're not motivated can be very helpful because we have this all or nothing mentality with our budget, so we're
either doing the most or doing nothing right. But it's especially important in time in downtimes, where we just say I'm gonna do just one thing that's a step in the right direction. I'm getting one percent better, and that can help us make movement when we don't necessarily aren't super super motivated to make movement.
Yeah, I think freedom is going to have to be an umbrella term across this whole thing. I think if you've been managing your neurodivergence for your whole lifetime, you know yourself better than anybody else possibly could you know the edge that you have, and you know the barriers that you encounter. And I've got to imagine that you've also probably experienced degrees of success for lack of a
better word, in some of these categories. So I think part of this is going to be looking back into, well, what worked in this aspect of my life, what was I able to implement there? And are there crossovers that
could be correlated to my money? I think so. Some of the other barriers that they list in this article is just not understanding loan terms and costs, and some of just the jargon that is around financial resources and just the language that is used, and so certainly with people for people who are managing learning disabilities, of course,
just difficulty in understanding or figuring out the math. But I think there can also be just some things that are prohibitive to all people when it comes with loan terms, cause jargon wording, and so a lot of times that can just be a barrier in and of itself. Then the is just beyond me. I'll never be able to understand it. If neurotypical people are saying that they're struggling with it, then like, what use is it for me?
So some of that can either lead to maybe not making use of some of the financial resources available or falling victim to some loan sharks or different types of resources that are not actually beneficial.
Yeah. I think when you're looking at words that have numbers in them, like four oh one K, four oh three B, stuff like that, it can make you believe that all finance is super complicated. And I think, really this is especially if you might have like a reading limitation. I think, honestly this is where audiobooks might become really helpful. And if you're listening to this podcast, hopefully you receive
audio education better than reading. And so there is so many there are so many good books that kind of that break these concepts down and make them more attainable that do not involve words that you have to physically read. Audiobooks are are great. I am finishing up Rich af by Vivian two. We had her on the show a couple months ago, and it is I thought it would be a good book. It is a fantastic book.
I love it.
I think all of our frugal friends should definitely read it or listen to it. It truly changes your mindset from you know, being rich is this like unattainable egotistical bad thing too? The rich are just playing by it, you know, they just know things that we don't and now I can. And it's not even all about that's that's just like the first chapter of the book. It is a really good demystifying book. And then another one would be I Will Teach You to Be Rich by
Ramit Seti. So these are all these are some some good books that will help you kind of understand even these these words that you might need to understand or go into reading loan terms and costs, and even another one on here is people who have any kind of disability can be victims of fraud. So knowing these terms doesn't just get you better rates, it can also protect you against potential fraud, which we know scams doing our Halloween and our Valentine's Day episodes scammers know how to
get us, and they just spray and pray. They are trying to get everyone. And if you're at the wrong place at the wrong time, and then you have this neurodiverension on top of it, you're very you're more susceptible to fraud. So audiobooks for the win on this one for some some more person well finance education.
Yeah, so to move past some of the just highlighting the difficulties, which is important because it's normalizing. But let's let's get into the second article. So this next article comes from Unmasked. It's titled Money Management Tips from a Neurodivergent Financial Expert, and I really liked this one.
Yeah, we're going to get into this one.
There's there's so much on the internet that can be helpful in giving tips and tricks, but this one was so to the point. It's written by someone who identifies as neurodivergent and works in this space with others in helping to give tips on managing money. Well, so we're gonna give you. We're going to give you all of
them because they were so good. But I do want to highlight what they mentioned the author about what was learned when they chatted with clients who were experienced who are neurodiverse clients, so they reported lower capacity to deal with admin or paperwork, feeling amplified emotions when it came to spending and saving, maybe feeling on top of the world when you have money left, but then feeling severe guilt and shame when you spend. Impulsive spending, especially like
takeaway food and maybe entertainment, special interests, hobbies. Trouble with planning ahead for future purchases, maybe even including things like annual subscriptions or possibly even like insurances that maybe come out annually or bi annually. Difficulty splitting money up and budgeting in general, and finally feeling quickly overwhelmed or general overload of information and the number of options available.
The more I read about this, the more I feel scene You'll see, Yeah, I feel super seen in this, and I think it's one of the reasons I don't like to budget because of all of these things.
And you found a way that works for you. I think, like again, for all of our listeners, it's a freedom to find what works for you. There is not a one size fits all, and just because you don't fit the typical ways doesn't mean that you can't be good at managing your money.
Well, you could host your own frugal living podcast one day.
Oh man. Yeah.
I also liked that she references in a study I love, I love me some studies, but so research done in I think it's somewhere in Europe that showed living with ADHD can cost an extra sixteen hundred pounds a year, and I mean just from all the extra like impulse costs and the difficulties with managing your money. So this is something if you okay, yeah, from the UK, this is something that if you start to be intentional with you'll never be perfect, right. We want to be perfect.
We think if we can't do it right and be perfect and be typical, why do it at all? But if you were to just do it one percent better, save yourself one hundred and sixty bucks in a year, and then get you know, one percent more better and more better, and then you're saving another one hundred and sixty and just making these small changes that help you again work with the edge you have thanks to your
neurodivergence instead of working against it. So the first that we will go through the first tip I we are one hundred percent simplify rather than organize. So with ADHD you super you very much want things to be organized.
Right.
If it's not, then even if it's an organized chaos, you want things organized. Or it's overwhelming and functioning literally stops, there is no functioning to be had, But organized chaos is not where it's at. Simplify and then organize the less you have, the less. And this you see this with brains, not just with neurodivergence, but typical brains as well. The more things we can see in our eye line, the more clutter we literally have in our brains when
we're making decisions. So if it worked, if it's a problem for typical brains, so much more do you need to be doing it? If you have overwhelm due to some of these things.
Yeah, because organization only lasts for so long, but simplified and maintained simplification can really help in all these other areas. I like the questions that she asks under this category of do you have multiple bank accounts? Is there a lot of PaperWorks still coming through? Can you make it digital? Do you have multiple credit cards? Is it possible that you could just use one? Do you get a lot of email marketing. What can you unsubscribe from? How many
subscriptions are you managing? Can you get all your direct debits to come out of one account on the well, she says the same date. I mean, that's up to you and how the money's coming. But I think not having all these different things swirling in, the different cards in your wallet and the different digital emails coming through, can help to manage these things, not even in a
more simplified way, but it takes less time. You don't have to have a full day with your full focus if it's not that complicated.
Yeah, and this is I live by, honestly. Since I don't budget regularly. I make everything as simple as possible. We're using each one credit card at a time. I instead of unsubscribing from things, I use unrolled dot me and that rolls up everything into one email. I also have like twelve thousand unread emails, so part of it is just not checking my email. That's in my personal not in my business. If you email me at Frugal Friends, I'm checking it. But yeah, and we try to keep
things as simple as possible. When stuff comes in the mail, it goes straight to the trash if we don't need it. Sometimes even if we do need it, then and we have very few bank accounts, we have our high held savings for our emergency, we have our checking in savings, and then we have like one more traditional brokerage saving.
Yeah. Yeah, So number two on here is they've described it as seamless from start to finish. So again on this simplified notion, but making it uncomplicated, they describe this thing called spoon theory. You know, we talk about capacities, but here's another way of looking at it that this simplified version is that as a neurodiverse individual, you wake up with a number of spoons that can vary from
day to day. And so you've probably heard us describe this as capacity, Like we all have capacity, some of us have a little bit more than others, but and it varies from day to day. So this is in a much more tangible way like spoons. You only have a couple of spoons every day. Maybe Monday you wake up with more spoons than you do on Thursday. But every time you're performing a task, you use one of
your spoons. And really what that's pointing towards is eventually you're going to be out of spoons and unable to complete the tasks in front of you. Or if we're talking about capacity, eventually you're going to reach capacity and we're not going to have any more to give to
the situation at hand. So wherever we can really make this a seamless process where it's not going to require a lot of spoons from us, the better, So things like passwords, keeping all of your passwords in one place and having easy access to that, making sure that logging into your different accounts is very easy for you, and that you have ways of tracking and that doesn't always have to be on you. There are amazing apps out there.
Just having a singular bank account and credit card account can help with the tracking process to kind of know what what do you have at hand. And so this is probably two where we would recommend our episodes on the apps that we recommend, like money managements, so that it's not all on you to be sitting down and writing or figuring out how to manage your breadsheet, like let technology do that for you.
Yeah, I personally, if you're if you want to spend money on an app that tracks everything for you, I like Monarch, and we talk about that in the Budgeting app episode that we did just a couple of months ago, back in December. But if you've tried Monarch and you're not really liking it, then check that episode, because we we cover several others. Another one we learned about afterwards Copilot, and we didn't talk about that in the episode, but it's another one to try. Yeah, I like having the
everything in one place. I don't have to go into multiple card like accounts to check you know, the transactions, and it automatically updates, so that's super helpful for me getting distracted and not being able to manually update. Another reason simplifying is so important is that when you're beginning, when you're starting out in this journey, it is super important to manually input transactions, and if you are ADHD or neurodivergent, it's going to be a lot harder for
you to keep up with that. So the more you simplify, the easier it gets. We don't have an excuse not to do it just because of the extra struggle. We identify the extra struggle and we make other things easier or eliminate them in order to advance. Despite you know the things that might normally hold us back. The next is to buddy up, and we love this. It says finance tasks aren't very dopamine friendly and that's where accountability can come in handy. But I don't love the word
accountability and that it's like it seems negative. But I love the like encouragement aspect of being of someone you can share your wins with that is more inspiring and encouraging and quote unquote accountability than somebody checking in with you saying like, did you do this? Did you have your no spend day? I hate that that's bad. But if I like, oh my gosh, I drove right past Starbucks and I didn't get a coffee, and you have somebody to text that too, it is not just like
a silent celebration, right. I love celebrations. Yeah, and that is that's how we like to see accountability.
Yeah. Well, and also just a trusted person that you can go to for some of these questions. We cannot do it all. It's part of the reason we started this podcast. Like Frugal Friends, I don't know all the things that Jen knows and vice versa. And then from our community we've learned so much from you all over
these last six years. But when it comes to I'm thinking back to the other article where it talked about complicated loan terms and financial jargon and how do we muddle through all of that, And I think having some
various friends in our community. You know, you've got your one friend that you're going to text your accomplishments too, But do you have somebody that you can also reach out to to say, Hey, I'm not understanding like what these credit card terms are, or I'm thinking about taking a loan for xyz, but can you help me think this through? Like that's okay to have someone to help
you think through big decisions. I think there's wisdom in that and that the collective community being able to speak into some of our decision making, which is not very common for us, especially in the United States, But I want to make it more common, so to have some collective wisdom and implemented.
Okay, So if you want a little bit more inspiration
on this. I know this is slightly off topic, but I was just reading a study where they looked at the wealth trajectory of adults from childhood and this was done in like Cincinnati, so there's affluence there, but it's not like a New York City or in LA And they saw that the kids who went to school, like the middle class kids that went to school with more affluent children who had connections to their were more likely to be I think it was like twenty or thirty
percent more wealthy than the middle class kids who only associated with other middle class income children and families, and so not a. Not only do we have a responsibility to be building wealth so that we can be bringing up others with us, but we have a responsibility to be talking about this with other.
People well, and engaging in more diverse communities, because yeah, I think that is true then at all levels, if it's true for the middle class, and it'd be true for all levels, if you're only surrounded by the people who are experiencing the same as you, then most likely it'll be more of the same.
Yeah, talking about money and growing wealth does not just affect you, but it affects affects all the people around you as well.
Okay, Number four on this list is add friction to purchases. So this is particularly getting at that impulsivity that we can all struggle with, but particularly we heard from you. All I mean is it's just it's part of the symptomology of ADHD and it also coincides with some of your other neurodivergences. And so this is where whenever we see an increase in one thing, then our antidote also
needs to increase to meet and match that. So, while yes, a large majority of the population struggles with impulse purchases, if this is even more of a difficulty in barrier, then what you add in and the resources that you utilize also need to be amplified here. So this is considering deleting saved bank account detail from your regularly online shopping sites, or not utilizing auto fill passwords. This isn't
a quick fix. Maybe it's a bit of a band aid, but it is something that can help to create that pause, that friction, as they describe it, this can be even I like some of the things that they're recommending, try it out. Like again, this is not a one size fits all. No part of money management is a one size fits all, but seeing what works for you trial
and error this. So they also mentioned writing notes on your credit cards, So if your impulse shopping includes pulling out a credit or debit card, putting a note on there, or something that's going to alert you to think about your purchase, maybe even a rubber band that makes it kind of difficult to pull out and you're feeling the rubber band and you're remembering, oh, I have other goals in mind than like buying this candle or whatever it
is the store. And then also they recommend stick post its on the or have visual reminders about what you're saving money for or why you're not purchasing what's the bigger thing that you want to say yes to that makes this know all the more easy? And then before you make a purchase, trying to implement that habit of pausing that. This could include pulling out a little journal or having some a notesap on your phone of Okay, why do I want to buy this? What will it
add to my life? Will it add clutter or will it add value? So I actually need this? What are you saying no to by purchasing that item? And then maybe just setting up different accounts where your money goes in and spending comes out. So just friction wherever you can think of what type of friction can I add to my impulse spending that creates more of a pause and allows me to be a bit more intentional about this is going to be helpful.
Here's a horrible idea that nobody should do. Okay, if you have the option of get a picture on your debit or credit card, instead of putting a cute picture of your kids or your dog, put an embarrassing picture that you don't want people to see. That you would be really embarrassed if people saw. So you don't want to take out your card.
To pay for things? Is straight off the dome. Yeah, this is holious and brilliant. I mean, you don't do it because you don't want it. You don't want to create like shame around sunding. But this is very funny to me. I mean that would add friction. Don't do it. Do you want to go down this rabbit hole?
Okay. The last one on this for me is get the system to work for you. You are entitled to have the system work for you. I'd like to remind you that you are the one with the money, and the companies and the bank they need your money. So you're the one with the power. So make the systems work for you, and you are entitled to have them work for you, even if you're not thinking quote unquote
in the typical way. So we're using the instant notifications, we're using real time balance updates, we're using the upcoming payment reminders. We are setting money aside automatically every month for sinking funds. Those are very important if you have a neurodivergence and your emergency fund, if you're still funding that. And we are using web chat features. We are avoiding phone calls because we all know if you have a phone call to make, you are not making it. And
that's I'm talking about me. If there's a phone call to be made, it will never get done. It will never get me.
Do you have a quick chat it can resolve your problems.
Yes, we are utilizing web chat features. And we are using visuals. We are using Google sheets, the spending wheels and the charts and the line graphs.
That's where it's coloring.
Yeah, that's where like the Monarch money can come in helpful because it has a beautiful user interface. We are using these things to our advantage. We're not trying to fit in to the system, making the system work for us.
Yes, and again I will call us back to what has worked for you in the past, even unrelated to money, where have you experienced Oh man, there were barriers there, but I moved through it. Here's how I implemented xyz. It's most likely going to be very similar when it comes to your money. Was it friends who were helpful? Was it learning in a different way than yeah, auditorially
or visually, you name it. Okay. The last and final thing in here that we're going to highlight is review review review, review, meaning reflect, look back on what has happened in the previous week, couple weeks, month. Making time in your day somewhere on the calendar to be able to reflect and see what went well where you want to course correct is going to be vital in moving forward and continuing on some of the lovely progress that you're experiencing. So some of the questions you can ask
yourself is did I save more than I spent? Or did I spend more than I saved? And what went
on there? What do I see happened? Again, avoiding some of those why questions we've been talking about lately on the podcast, Avoiding asking ourselves why that puts us on the defense, but instead continue being curious about yourself, the things that make you unique, the things that give you that extra edge, because there's something in there, there's some secret power and special sauce that can be implemented to help you. Are there any purchases that I made now
that I didn't I didn't feel worth it? And how can I create some more friction in the future to make sure that doesn't happen? And one that I love? What can I celebrate that I did well? And text somebody yes to your body is calling your bill of the week?
Oh my gosh, Yes, call your bill of the week. That's what we're here for. If you don't have a buddy to text, you need to be calling us because we are your buddies, yes, or your budgeting buddies.
And then one more question, what did I learn about myself? Because that's what this whole journey is all about, is learning about ourselves and managing ourselves well in the midst of our reality and circumstances. So the more you are equipped with knowledge about yourself, the better you will be able to respond to whatever barriers, challenges, celebrations, excitements come your way. When you have a true knowledge of yourself and you're not just trying to fit this round peg
into a square hole that is not you. Yeah.
And if you have someone around you with a neurodivergence that you love or just have met before I don't know that you've interacted with, and you see something in their power that they should be celebrating, then tell them because it may be hard for them to accept or recognize or see what they need to be celebrating. So if you see something that somebody needs to be celebrating, especially if it's someone with a neurodivergence working in their power, please tell them.
Yeah, yeah, point these things out in your friends, because that's gonna go a long way. We all love encouragement, you know the type of encouragement that I love.
And I'm just so inspired and I hope that we get an influx of these after this episode.
The bill of the week.
That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. That's bills, butffalo bills, Bill Clion, this is the bill of the week.
Hi, Jen, Hi, Jill, This is Becky from Madison, Wisconsin. I just wanted to share my bill of the week. So my insurance bill came due. This would be my annual homeowners and umbrella insurance as well as six months of my car insurance. It was one five and forty one dollars. But because I had a sinking fund, I already had it budgeted for. But because I paid attention to my credit card offers, specifically my American Express, I got two hundred and seventy four dollars back in statement
credit because of an offer that they had going. So it's pretty to pay this bill. Thanks guys, love your podcast.
Wow, you know I also that's the thing about the credit card rewards is so we have to buy cabinets here, and I'm actually very excited to buy them because I know it's gonna get my minimum spend and I'm going to get a Southwest Companion pass. So great bills we're excited to pay.
Yes, so amazing, And this Becky speaks to you just being on top of it and aware of this bill that's coming up, having already prepared for it, having a sinking fund for it. For those of you who don't know. That's just a place where we can set money aside within preferably a high yield savings account where a money can earn money, and it's for some of your short term goals. So the money is meant to be spent.
It's not like a retirement investment. It's a we are saving up for XYZ and so for you, one of those sinking funds for this insurance. So already having the money for it does Oh, that is such a good feeling, like I'm prepared. And then when you can stack on stack this goodness of having a statement credit for that type of bill and take advantage of it, It's so
beautiful and I'm so excited. Woo. If any of you listening have a bill you want to submit, it has to do with sinking funds, if it has to do with statement credits, if it has to do with what life was like being Bill?
What was what was life like when you were Bill?
Because it Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Bill, leave us your bill, and now it's time for my being.
Around show you in today's vulnerability round. What do you struggle with the most when it comes to managing your money? I think this is where you and I are the compl menory opposites. Yes, we have so much in common, and this is where we differ.
Not right here, so Joe, right, baby girl. It is a hyper focus for me. Ah, yep, explain your hyper focus, like what do you okay? And that can ebb and flow. I do notice that I will focus more on my money when I feel strained in finances, whether that means we're just hemorrhaging a lot of cash because of renovations or you know, some other thing that's happening, or like recently when we took a bit of a pay cut, so just and part of that is necessary. I do need to be more on top of it when there's
not as much margin. But I think it can cause me to want to look at my money and obsess over it more than what's actually necessary. And so what that means for me is maybe looking at my bank accounts or like logging my transactions more regularly than I need to, and so I will try my darndest to put certain dates to it. So me looking at my transactions and kind of balancing my book so to speak, and moving money around can happen every two weeks that's plenty.
So when I start to see myself kind of getting into these accounts more regularly, I'll just put it in my calendar, like I've got a day that I'm going to do this. It doesn't need to happen now, there's not much that's gonna nothing's going to move the needle. I can look at this on you know, Thursday, when the paychecks come in and most of the bills go out. So that's one of the things that has helped me. I can't say I'm always doing that perfectly, but I
can tend towards hyper focus. I think I think that I'm having like more control over it or something. What about you, my exact complimentary opposite hyper ignorance.
I ignore everything. I'll just go I'll go months without looking at anything financial, which is so funny funny. I will spend all day researching and writing ways to help people spend money better. And that's my passion, that's my life's work. I love that, and that I do practice in my own life. I truly do practice what I preach when it comes to frugality and spending. And I mean it's not like I'm preaching something that I don't practice with budgeting.
I am very open and transparent that it's just I it's a namesnxiety for me, but there's more of an anxiety of not checking it. So I have this like dual anxiety.
Yeah, how do you manage that?
We have a big chunk of money in our checking account, way more than we should. Part of that is we saved for our renovation before we started renovating, so that's a lot of that is renovation money. We also have we have a hefty emergency fund separate from that, and I will I am confident that because I spend in what I value that my income will you know it'll come out in the wash, and for me personally, it does.
So I think you have figured out a way that does work for you. I think you're describing some things that you're like, Oh, maybe I wish you were different, but you're not the same as everybody else. You are your own unique individual and you've learned how to live below your means so that you don't have to be worried and focused on these things. And that didn't come
easily or quickly. I mean it's been at least a decade for you of journeying through this to now be at the point where I've actually set it up so that I don't have to be looking at it all the time, because that's not something you want to be doing, and that that's a beautiful thing that you figured out how to make that work.
Yeah, this would be a different story if I didn't have literally tens of thousands of dollars of cushion.
Yeah, and that could help somebody else.
I mean, there you go with you and if you're there, just I failed yourself a solid cushion to fall on.
You don't like the mundane, I think you really do thrive in the kind of new idea, the thing that's going to be helpful for you for what you're doing right now, and that's beautiful. And then you figured out how to make the rest that is mundane work, like building the cushion for yourself, but then being able to figure out how to hack buying your cabinets and then
get a free companion pass. And there are some beautiful ways that, like your unique expression of humanity benefits yourself, your family, me, the people listen to this podcast, So thanks so much for listening. Everyone. Many of you know
that we do have a newsletter. It's called the friend Letter because of course we'd call it something fun that goes out three times a week where you can hear about what's for free that week, usually food savings tips, lifestyle hacks that will help you save money, spend better, avoid some of that impulse spending that we all kind of want to rein in a bit more. And we want to give out a shout out to one of our friends for replying to our email with this sweet email.
It was about the No Spend challenge. They said, the No Spend challenge was so helpful, I am extending it another month. Thank you Liz. That Yeah, we are.
Still getting through these emails of you guys from No Spend January. How helpful you found it and that you are going to try another month. That's so our power to you. We I mean, as long as you are continuing to learn about yourself and not depriving yourself for the sake of deprivation, right you do.
You beware of the extremes. Yes, we don't ever want to encourage people to live in the extremes, but allow the extremes to inform you. But if it's being helpful for you right now in this season.
Hurrah, Yes, let the extremes pull you into your radical middle.
Oh beautiful. If you want more from us, like this friend letter, where again you get that freebies, those freebies, the saving STIPs, spending hacks, frugal friends, podcasts dot com. And if you already get the friend letter, start sharing it with your friends. There is a unique referral link at the bottom of every email that we send to you, and when you forward that to your buddies, then you get some goodies. Like one referral gets you some stickers, stickers.
Five referrals gets you a tote. It gets better and better from there. No one has gotten the better and better be on the tote. But there's mugs, there's sweatshirts.
Oh yeah, we'll see see you next week. Banks Google Friends is produced by Eric Siriani.
How many people have gotten a mug? Do you know? We should probably check you out? I check every month I send out a mug, a tote.
Oh gosh, there's a lot of.
People have gotten toe.
Yeah, nobody's done mug yet. Nobody's got mug yet. But there's a lot of people who've got tots.
That's awesome. I feel so great about my tote.
I feel tots great about my oats. So it's because I have like two hundred of them at my house.
Yes, I've been passing them out to my guests. Oh wow, they can go back to wherever they're from and support the frugal friends. Yes, and I take it to the grocery store. Mm hmmm. Yeah, someday I'm going to take it to the farmer's market because we just did an episode about that and that was very fun. Yes, inspired me.
In back in May. That's back up, so we'll take it to the farmer's market.
Yes, oh see you there ya