170 | Taking Care of Home First

Often the way we manage our money results in us taking care of companies before we take care of ourselves and our goals. This is very common and can happen in extreme and more subtle ways.

In this episode, let’s talk about how we take care of companies before ourselves and what to do about it.

• • extreme examples of money management that prioritizes companies
  • subtle and more common examples of money management that prioritizes companies
  • the key to prioritizing yourself and your goals over companies

Episode 135: Buckets of Money 

You’re listening to Wealthyesque. We are a community of lawyers who believe that true wealth is having control of our time. I’m Rho Thomas, and as a busy wife, mom, and former Biglaw associate, I know all too well the tension between the culture of the legal profession and pretty much everything else you want to do in life. That’s why each week, I’m bringing you the information and tools you need to improve your money mindset and manage your money to create true wealth. Because ultimately, it’s not about the money. It’s about the freedom and flexibility the money affords.

Hey friend. Welcome back to the show. I hope you’re doing well and having an amazing day so far. Today we are talking about the importance of taking care of home first and this tendency we have to prioritize companies over ourselves and our goals. People are not intentionally or explicitly doing this. It’s not like oh, let me take care of this company before I take care of myself. But that is the effect of the actions that many of us are taking. So on the extreme here, I have had clients who were so focused on getting out of debt or so focused on freeing up cash flow, that they paid all this extra money to pay down their debt faster or get ahead on this particular bills. They didn’t have to pay the next month, and then they were living on the edge as they neared the end of that month where they didn’t have money for groceries and I had to put it on a credit card or they had to delay paying this other bill that they forgot about. And before you think like wow, why would they do that? This is very common behavior. Those are some extreme examples of how it plays out. And and each of those instances they were trying to do what they thought was the responsible thing with their money, right. Like they were trying to pay off their debt or they were trying to get ahead on their bills, but they were just missing an important step. And I see the exact same thing all the time with other things like going out to eat or going shopping or you know, on Amazon or target and you’re getting you know, a cart full of things we were only planning to buy two, and then at the end of the month you don’t have any money available to save or pay off debt or achieve whatever financial goal you have. In both of these situations. The effect is the same. You don’t have money for yourself and your family and your goals because you gave it to chase and target and Amazon and Sephora and DoorDash. So they get the money. They’re managing it to grow their company and build wealth. And meanwhile you’re staying stuck in the same place or struggling to make it through the end of the month or just not making the progress that you want to make on your goals. All of this stems from not intentionally planning what you’re going to do with your money, because in the extreme examples that we just talked about, if those clients had been in the habit of looking at how much money they had coming in for the month, and planning out what they were going to do with that money, they would have seen that they didn’t have enough coming in that month to make those extra payments or maybe to make as large of an extra payment and they wouldn’t have given all that extra money to those companies and been struggling at the end of the month. When you plan out what you’re going to do with your money. You can also see oh, I won’t be able to pay off the amount of debt I want. If I keep spending on DoorDash like this. Having a plan helps you to prioritize yourself in your goals. It helps you to take care of home first and then you can use whatever’s left for the restaurant or the credit card company or target or whoever else. You make sure that your necessities and your goals are covered and then you do that extra stuff. The plan is how you make sure you’re not taking care of these companies before you take care of home. And of course the plan we’re talking about here is your budget. It’s your spending plan for the month. So you are deciding how do I want to use these dollars that I have? I have multiple episodes on budgeting. So definitely check those out. Specifically, check out the one on balancing your needs wants and goals. It’s episode 135 buckets of money and I will link it up in the show notes. And listen, I want you to use your money to move yourself forward financially before you move these companies for financially. So let’s make sure you’re planning your spending and accounting for your needs and your goals on the front end. And if you’d like specific guidance on creating a budget that you can stick to and achieving your financial goals join us and my money membership Money Mastery for lawyers, you can head to rho thomas.com/join For more information and to get in there. Alright, that is it for this week’s episode. Please take a second and think of a friend or two you want to share this episode with that is the best way to get this information in the hands of more lawyers who need to hear it and it would mean the world to me so thank you for your support. As we close out friend, I pray that you take the information you learn here, apply it in your life and open up to the realization that wealth is available to you. As you do that consistently. Week after week. You’ll continue to take steps to regain control of your time, build wealth and live the life of freedom of choice you deserve. Talk to you later.