237 | When You Get Tired of Managing Your Money

Have you ever found yourself getting bored with budgeting or whatever system you’re using to manage your money?

There are 3 primary reasons this happens, and if you don’t address them, it will be that much harder to achieve your financial goals and build wealth.

In this episode, let’s discuss the 3 reasons lawyers get tired of their money management systems and what to do about them.

• • lawyers getting bored with money management
  • 3 reasons lawyers get tired of their money management system
  • the effect of deprivation on your finances
  • your brain’s tendency to lie about needing to do more
  • a client’s experience with tracking her progress
  • the importance of the way you view money and money management

You’re listening to Personal Finance for Lawyers. 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. By the way, if you’re a lawyer who’s struggling with debt, you’re probably making at least one of five common mistakes. Grab my free guide on how to correct those mistakes and finally get out of debt for good. Head on over to rhothomas.com/guide. That’s G-U-I-D-E.

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 what to do when you get tired of your money management system. So I did a master class recently, and one of the things I asked the attendees beforehand was what was their biggest struggle with managing their money better and building their net worth? And one of the responses was that the person gets bored or gets tired of budgeting, gets tired of this money management system that they’re using, so they end up quitting. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever been in that position where you are doing this system, you’re doing whatever it is you’re doing to manage your money, and you get tired of it. You get bored, and so you quit. I thought it was really interesting. And something that I was thinking about was the reasons that that happens, like, why is it that people sometimes get tired of a particular money management system? And I came up with three things. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today, the top three reasons that I think lawyers get tired of the way they’re managing their money are, number one, the system you’re using is not working. Number two, you don’t see any progress with your finances. And number three, you view it as a chore. So are you down to talk about these things? Because once you address these it’s going to make it that much easier to stick with your system. All right, so let’s get into it. Number one, the system isn’t working, so maybe you’re doing something, but you’re not seeing any change with your debt or your savings or your net worth. It feels like you’re staying stuck in the same place month after month. A lot of times, the extent of people’s money management system is looking at their account and seeing if there’s money in there, and if there is, then, okay, I can spend or I can put some in savings, or I can pay off some debt, and there’s not really any strategy there, right? If that’s your system, you typically are not going to see any real results. I’m gonna just be honest with you, but when people do try to have a more structured system, if you will, often it’s based on deprivation. So it’s all about I can’t do this, I can’t do that, I can’t buy this. I can’t spend on that. And I call it like the equivalent of a crash diet, because if you’re familiar with diet culture, a lot of times, people will do these really crazy, extreme diets to lose weight really quickly, and then they’re able to get down to their goal weight. And it works in the short term, but it’s not sustainable long term, because they get to that goal weight, but then they go right back to how they were eating beforehand. So that’s how you get into the yo yo dieting, where you don’t like your weight, you do the crash diet, you get down to the goal weight, you go back to how you were eating before your weight goes back up. You do the crash diet again to get back to that weight. And it’s just this, this cycle, right? And it’s really restrictive and all of that to the goal. It’s like you brute force your way to your goal, and that’s just not sustainable. The same thing happens with money, where people will do these really extreme tactics, like, I can’t spend anything, I can’t go out to eat, I can’t buy anything, I can’t go on vacation, whatever the things are, and they just put all that money into savings, or put all that money towards paying off a credit card, and they get to that goal, but once they get to the goal, they go right back to how they were spending before. And a common example that I’ve seen with this is where people will do these really extreme things to pay off their credit card, and they get the credit card all paid off, but then they run it right back up again, right? And it’s because they never address those underlying spending habits that cause them to get into the credit card debt in the first place. So once they hit that goal, it’s like, who I don’t have do that anymore, like I can. I can get back to normal living. I can let that go. Because what they were doing, that way, that they were managing their money is not sustainable. And so then, because they go back to those old spending habits, they run the debt back up. So if you’re using a system that’s not working in the first place, including a system that’s based on deprivation and all these things that you can’t do and you can’t spend and whatever else, then, yeah, you’re probably going to get tired of that, because it’s not sustainable long term. So you’re probably going to give up. You want your system to be something that is sustainable, something that you can keep up with you can see yourself doing five years, 10 years, 15 years from now. It’s not something where you feel like you need a break from it, or you have to, like, give yourself a pass or whatever, right something that fits your lifestyle, that actually works for your life and allows you to achieve your goals, because being able to keep up with it, being consistent is how you achieve your goals and build wealth. So all right, the second reason that people get tired of their money management system is they don’t know if it’s working. So maybe it feels like your debt balance isn’t moving, or it’s not moving quickly enough, or your savings isn’t growing the way that you want it to. Maybe you feel like your net worth has just been stuck in the same place. And it might sound similar to number one, and there definitely is some overlap there, but in this situation, what I see with a lot of people is they are making progress. They just don’t realize it. Do it. This comes up with my clients, where they have a sustainable system that is working, but they feel like they’re not making progress as quickly as they would like to, or they’re not making as much progress as they would like to. They want to be further along, all that kind of stuff, and the same thing happened to me, like when my husband and I first started working on our finances, I felt like we weren’t doing enough. We should be further along. We should be making more progress than this. And this is exactly why we track our progress from month to month, and why I have my clients do the same thing. Because the thing is, your brain is always going to tell you you’re not doing enough. Your brain is always going to think that you should be doing more and you could be further and whatever else, and it’s a lie. And when you are tracking it, then you can actually look back and see where you were before, and you can see like, oh, actually, I have made progress here. If you’re not tracking it, you’ll just believe it and think that you’re not making progress and give up by tracking you can look back, you can see what’s actually happening. You can see the progress that you’re making, and from there, you feel motivated and you want to keep going. So case in point, I was talking with one of my clients recently, and she was saying that, you know, she thought that she should be further along. She wishes that she had more I don’t remember the exact thing, but like, you know, had more savings or whatever. Like, she thought that she should be further along in some way. But when we looked back just six to eight months ago, she had overspent by $3,000 her account was often getting down to a couple $100 she didn’t have any savings. She had these rising credit card balances, right? And she didn’t have any cash flow, any of that. And it was like she was either spending everything she made, or she was over spending, and so she was living paycheck to paycheck. And what happens in that situation is when unexpected things come up, like if you are, let’s say you make $5,000 and you spend $5,000 that might seem okay, because you’re not spending more than you make, but the issue is, there’s no wiggle room for those unexpected things that come up. So when an unexpected expense comes up, when some charge that you forgot about comes out now you’re overspending and you’re having to rely on credit to cover it, but anyway, she was in this situation where she was living paycheck to paycheck, or she was overspending, and now she has multiple 1000s of dollars in her checking account before her payday comes. She has 1000s of dollars in savings. She has built cash flow so now she’s got a couple $1,000 between her income and her expenses going out. And she did not have that before. Her brain is telling her, Well, I wish I were further along. I thought I would be further along by now, but she had forgotten about all of that progress. She had forgotten where she was, just like six months ago, and looking back at that, she was able to see how far she had actually come. So I share that story as an example of how our brains will lie to us. Our brains will always think that we’re not doing enough, that we should be doing more, when in actuality, you’ve actually done a lot. You can be making progress, but if you’re not paying attention and you’re not tracking it, then you’ll miss it. A lot of times, people just don’t know if their system is working because they’re not tracking their progress, and they believe that they should have made more progress, not realizing how much progress they’ve already made, that can lead to giving up. So when you track your progress, you’re able to look back, you’re able to see where you started from, see how far you’ve come, and that keeps you motivated to keep going. So make sure you track your progress along the way, as you’re working on your finances, all right? And the final reason that people give up on their money management system is they are thinking of it as a chore. So if you’re still stuck in your old way of thinking and your old thoughts about money, and you’re viewing the system as this thing that you have to do, and it’s not something that you want to do, right? You’re you’re much more likely to get tired of it and give up. Now, this could be an offshoot, or like a result of that first reason that we talked about, where you’re using a system that’s based on deprivation. So it does feel like a chore, but I think for some people, just the thought of planning their spending does not feel fun, right? It feels more fun to just spend and not have to worry about it, and they like to spend. The idea of managing money just doesn’t feel fun, all that kind of stuff. So if that’s the case for you, you want to change the way that you think about money management, think about the way that you view your money, right? Because yes, spending money might feel fun, but what does not feel fun is getting down to a couple $100 in your account, or overdrafting and getting hit with fees, or the stress that you might feel as you wait for your paycheck to hit, or rising credit card balances, or any of that stuff like that’s not fun, and we don’t think about that part when we’re spending in the moment, swiping, swiping, swiping. And swiping right. But that’s exactly what unchecked spending leads to, like not managing your money leads to, all of that stuff. When we’re more intentional with our spending and we plan how we’re going to use our money, so that we actually have money available, both to spend and to build our net worth to achieve our financial goals, then you’re able to have peace, you’re able to have less debt, you’re able to build wealth. I guarantee you that the client that I just told you about feels so much better now with 1000s of dollars in the bank and knowing exactly where her money is going, and her debt balances are coming down, and her net worth is increasing, and all of that, she feels a lot better in the situation she’s in now than the one she was in six months ago. You can create that same experience for yourself. So when you can be happier about your net worth and your bank accounts growing than buying the latest thing, when you can see your money management system as something that you want to do, not something that you have to do, when you shift your mindset and you’re thinking about financial freedom and financial security and wealth and you want to do the things to get there, then it doesn’t feel like a chore anymore, right? It feels like just the things that you do to achieve that goal. And when you can view it that way, you don’t get tired of the system. You just do it, right? You stick to it and you follow through. That’s really all it is. So those are the three reasons that I think lawyers get tired of managing their money and they end up quitting. When you fix those three things, you’re much more likely to stay on track going forward, all right, so that is it for this week’s episode. Please share this episode with a friend or two who you think could use this information. Sharing is caring. It’s also how we get this information in the hands of more lawyers, and I appreciate 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 and choice you deserve. Talk to you later.