Episode 880 {Rebroadcast} Episode 400 Breaking the Habit of Sucking with Money
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 880 of the inspired stewardship podcast, a special rebroadcast of episode 400.
[00:00:11] Julie Tofulio: [00:00:11] I'm Julie Tofulio. I challenge you to invest in yourself and others develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, talent, and treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to communicate and build relationships is vital.
[00:00:29] And one inspirational way to develop that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.
[00:00:40] Scott Maderer: [00:00:40] using your family of origin, using your friends, using time, using all of these other things is really just an excuse. It's really not a reason. It's an excuse because the real reason you suck with money is simply because you haven't. [00:01:00] I'll allow that to become a priority. You haven't. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:01:08] If you truly desired, become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you. Can impact the work
[00:01:29]in today's episode about investing in yourself through storing your treasures. I talk with you about identifying the real reason you might suck with your money, unpacking your money habits, and six specific ways you can substitute. Better money happens. We talk about stewarding your treasures. Wouldn't it be great.
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[00:02:20] Scott Maderer: [00:02:20] That's a coach who works with a lot of different people around their money. Works with small business owners, works with individuals, work with couples. I've seen a lot of budgets that I've taught to a lot of people who are struggling with their money. It's a common problem. It's something that comes up time and time again.
[00:02:40]I make the joke that Jenny Craig and weight Watchers and budget coaches are not going to. Run out of clients anytime soon, because it seems like there's almost an American tradition and it's not just American. It's actually worldwide because I have clients in [00:03:00] six different countries right now where we just.
[00:03:04]We suck with money. We end up letting our money, control us instead of us controlling our money. And when I've, what I've looked at it. And when I've talked to different people, I've heard all sorts of reasons and excuses. I'm not good with money because I never learned how to be good with money.
[00:03:22] My parents never taught me. My school never taught me. I just, I haven't learned. And yet there's. 1,000,001 really great books on finances and how to do this. You live in a information age where you're a Google stop away from as much information as you could ever want about how to do things well with money.
[00:03:49] So not having learned. Is really just an excuse. Another one is, I just, I'm not good with my money because I just, I don't have time. I'm too busy. [00:04:00] I've got kids and a job and a spouse and a this and that. And I've got all of these demands on my time. And so I just, haven't got the time to be good with money.
[00:04:17] And yet, number one, there's tons of people that aren't exactly the same situation, just as busy. And yet they managed to do things with their money that get them ahead. And what's more, the real truth is, as we've talked about before on this podcast, when you start using phrases, like I don't have time, you should really replace that with, it's not a priority because the truth is, it simply means you haven't made.
[00:04:42] Dealing with your money, a priority. And what's more, it really doesn't take that long. Once you've built up systems and processes and habits to get good with money. It really doesn't take that long to maintain the habit. Other people will tell me that the reason they suck with money is [00:05:00] because.
[00:05:01] Their spouses and on board there, or they're single and they don't have anyone else to hold them accountable and keep them on target. First off I work as a coach. So obviously you could hire a coach to do that for you, but there's also other ways because the truth is that you are your single biggest advocate for how you handle your money.
[00:05:29] Using your family of origin using your friends, using time using all of these other things is really just an excuse. It's really not a reason. It's an excuse because the real reason you suck with money is simply because you haven't allowed that to become a priority. You haven't put learning how to handle your money.
[00:05:55] At the top of your list of things to do, because if you did that, [00:06:00] it wouldn't take you that long to really get to a point where you've got better money habits. So how do we actually identify the things that are holding us back when it comes to money? Because, again, we live in an information age.
[00:06:14] If you start Googling how to deal with your money, you're going to find time after time, way after way that you should be handling your money. There's as many opinions out there is. There are. People just about, if you go to work and you ask around the water cooler, what should I be doing with my money?
[00:06:31] You're going to get a ton of opinions. If you ask your family and your friends, you're going to get a ton of opinions and odds are good. Some of those opinions are going to be contradictory. So you need to actually unpack your money habits. You need to look at what you actually do with your money. The easiest way to do that is to start with actually tracking everything you do with money.
[00:06:55] You can do that with an app or a tool, or you can do it by hand. And in [00:07:00] many ways by hand is actually better because you get a better emotional connection to your money, but whatever it is, you need to actually just start keeping a list, tracking everything you do with money. And I do mean everything.
[00:07:14] What do you spend your money on? How often do you think about your money? What do you do when you've got a problem? And you can't make ends meet. If there's an emergency that comes up, how much do you have in savings? How much debt do you have actually looking at all of these things helps you begin to identify what's going on with your money.
[00:07:38] You also want to think about how much time you spend on your money, how much time you spend both doing things in terms of budgeting and tracking and all of these sorts of things. And how much time you spend worrying about your money or stressing about your money or thinking about your money. You want to identify what you've done in the last six months or a [00:08:00] year?
[00:08:00] To actually learn something new about your money. How many articles have you read? How many blog posts have you read? How many podcasts have you listened to? How many of the different things that are out there that can teach you about money? Have you actually availed yourself to listening to, and as you do that, you're going to begin to unpack some of the ways that you emotionally and behaviorally.
[00:08:27] As well as mathematically deal with money, because see, it's more than just the math. It's also the emotion and the behavior behind it. And so let's talk about six specific things that you can do to begin building better money habits, to begin to replace sucking with money, with succeeding with money. The first one is this, earlier I talked about doing things.
[00:08:53]Manually to get more emotional, get more connected with your money. You can do that by going to cash, you [00:09:00] can go to cash in areas where it's walking around money and you have a tendency to overspend for most people. That's things like groceries, eating out money, fund money, or mad money.
[00:09:12] Clothing money, these sorts of things where it's very easy to overspend, so start spending cash for those, instead of putting it on any sort of plastic, because there are studies that show that there is something about spending cash that actually causes our brain to register pain and slow down. You tend to not overspend as easily when you use cash.
[00:09:34] So that's something you can substitute to begin breaking and building better money habits. Second one, you can automate savings. One area where a lot of us struggle is putting back savings. So what you can do is actually have a certain amount taken out of your check and put into a savings account that you don't actually see every day.
[00:09:56] Automatically we're just happens month in and month out, whether you [00:10:00] want it to or not. And every time you get a raise at work, increase the amount that you have automatically going to savings as well, so that you won't get lifestyle creep, but instead your savings will increase over time. That's another technique next.
[00:10:17] And here, this gets to the emotional side of it. You need to identify what your wealth definition is. And what's your reason for wanting to get better with money is what's your why? And it needs to be a big enough why that you'll actually stick to things. That means it can't just be, I want to get better at money.
[00:10:37] So I won't have debt. Not having debt is a great goal, but it's not a reason why don't you want to have debt? What is it about not having debt that emotionally charges you and makes you feel good? What is it that really, it lets you do, does it give you freedom? Does it give you flexibility? Does it allow you to travel?
[00:11:00] [00:10:59] What are the things you want to do? If you would just stop being bad with money and got to be good with money instead next implement a 24 hour rule. This means, identify an amount of money. And if you're going to spend more than that amount of money, you have to wait 24 hours, no matter what for my wife and I, when we were getting out of a debt, that amount of money was $10.
[00:11:26] We couldn't spend more than $10 without stopping and talking about it and waiting at least a day. Now that we're doing a little better that's a hundred dollars. But even there we don't spend without actually thinking about it and sleeping on it, praying on it, talking to each other about it.
[00:11:45] That's a 24 hour rule. Next, you can create a system that allows you to plan your spending. That's the budget. Track your spending that's did you live into the [00:12:00] budget and review what you're doing in a regular way every week and every month, so that you begin to identify where your money is going and where you'd like it to go and then begin to live towards that.
[00:12:16] And lastly, you need to build an accountability system. That accountability system includes that regularity of plan, track and review, but it can also include working with your spouse in terms of a weekly meeting, working with a coach, working with an accountability group of some sort, but you have to build a regular and systematic way that you are held accountable to the budget that you've identified.
[00:12:46] And if you do all of these things, You'll begin to not suck with money, but instead, succeed with money.
[00:12:57]Thanks so much for listening to the [00:13:00] inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of treasures, you can sign up for our treasures tips by going to inspired stewardship.com/treasures or text in the U S four four two two two treasures tips.
[00:13:35] And we'll send you five weeks of our best tips on stewarding your treasures until next time. Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world. .