Why Your Emergency Fund Isn't Growing | Budgeting for ADHD Moms | 113

You're not imagining it—your money disappears faster than it should.

In this episode, Jewlz breaks down how invisible money leaks quietly drain your budget and keep your emergency fund stuck, then reveals three simple 10-minute actions to redirect money, reduce financial stress, and start saving without overhauling your entire budgeting system.

Perfect for busy moms and anyone struggling with ADHD and money management.

Summer Savings Challenge Starts May 13th, 2026: https://www.debtrebelpodcast.com/

Download FREE resources: ⁠https://debtrebelpodcast.com/⁠⁠

Connect with Jewlz on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@jewlzthebudgetnerdPodcast Disclaimer:This podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only. As a financial coach, I share insights, strategies, and tools to help you make more confident decisions with your money—but personal finance is personal. Your situation, priorities, and goals are unique, and what works for one person may not be the right fit for you.This content should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. I encourage you to seek guidance from a trusted financial professional who can understand your full financial picture and provide personalized recommendations.Additionally, while we may discuss topics related to stress, habits, and behavior, I am not a licensed medical or mental health professional. Any insights shared are based on personal experience and research and are not intended to diagnose, treat, or replace professional medical or psychological advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider for support in those areas.By listening to this podcast, you acknowledge that you are responsible for your own financial and personal decisions.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello and welcome back to the Debt Rebel podcast.
I am so thrilled you're here. And I want to say a special
shout out to Carrie and Amanda. Thank you so much for joining me
on the show and also for downloading some info from the
website so that you can work on getting those financial goals in

(00:21):
order. So today we're going to talk
about something that I'm really excited about for the month of
May. We're going to be doing a
challenge and I'm going to give you some quick tips right now to
help you get started with it. But you can get all of the
information on mywebsite.rebelpodcast.com and
it's a special challenge to helpyou build your emergency savings
for this summer. So this is a time of year where

(00:44):
money can just fly out of our hands.
And so we're going to set some intentions with it and get to
work on building that emergency fund so we don't have to go to
our credit cards this summer. One of the questions that I
first asked my clients, but alsoyou're probably asking yourself
too, when you look at your bank account, is where does all my
money go, right? That's why having a budget, it

(01:06):
will help us figure out where that money is going.
But maybe you feel like you're working and you're trying and
things still feel tight. I hear this a lot today.
We're going to talk about that and address the situation that's
at hand. And sometimes the problem isn't
that we don't make enough money,it's that that money is slipping
through the cracks. It's money that we're missing

(01:28):
that we already have, but it's being spent on things that we
don't necessarily intend to spend our money on.
So some of the things that I hear, I hear people say, or
maybe you might be thinking thisyourself is, hey, I need to
budget better or I need more discipline.
And if you're like myself with ADHD, the word discipline is
like, you want to run and hide in the nearest closet.

(01:49):
Or maybe you think, you know what, I just need to make more
money. And then this problem will be
solved. And I will tell you what,
especially on that last one, making more money will not solve
the problem. And I know that absolutely first
hand it will. So changing, addressing the
addressing the, the situation athand will help with that.
Things that I leave my clients through is figuring out where

(02:11):
those little money leaks are going unnoticed because those
things are like, it's kind of like the tire, you know, like,
OK, there's a little tiny hole, but you don't know how it's
going flat. And so you keep driving, but the
tire sensors going off and you're like, where is this,
right? Where is this tiny hole that is
taking the air pressure from my tire?

(02:32):
And so the same thing can happenwith our finances.
And so it can be things that we already know of.
We already know that there's probably a subscription that we
could cancel. We know that maybe our
convenience spending, it might be a little bit more.
Maybe we're wasting food with, you know, buy food, throw it
away. Or maybe there's sometimes these
random charges that show up in our accounts.

(02:53):
And we're like, what in the world is that?
Where did it come from? So individually those things are
not that big a deal. But when you put those all
together, that's where that emergency fund is hiding.
And it is like the air that's being let out of your tire.
So it might not look like one ofbig obvious problem.
So that you go, that's what it is.

(03:13):
It's not like, hey, there's a nail in your tire and you can
see it, right? So today we're going to be
talking about those little tiny money leaks and what to do about
them. So one of the things, one of the
shifts that we want to, to thinkabout is instead of asking
ourselves, how do I budget perfectly or how do I budget
better is asking ourselves that question.
We look at our spending. Where is money already slipping

(03:38):
through the cracks? Where is money already slipping
through my fingers? Because when you find that
money, instead of restricting itand putting all of these
parameters and, and things on it, restrictions, our brain
won't fight it anymore. That's when we start to see the
real progress is when we go, gosh, where can we tighten up
our our grip so that that money goes where we want it to?

(03:59):
We can redirect it. So I'm going to talk about 3
quick ways that you can do that today that are going to take you
10 minutes or less. And it's also leads us into the
challenge because we are a busy parents.
We have a lot of things on our plate.
And also we don't want to spend hours at a time working on our
budgets. Even though I am Jules the
budget nerd, I'm not going to spend hours working on my own

(04:20):
personal budget. I want to help you with yours
and help you get your finances in order.
So sometimes 10 minutes is all you have, right?
So today that's what we're goingto talk about.
We're going to talk about these little, little steps and then
we're going to take this anotherstep further with that challenge
and do a 10 day challenge. But more on that in a second.
OK, so subscription creep. Just look at our last few

(04:41):
transactions and see is there a subscription in there that we're
no longer using that's no longerserving us that we can either
cancel or we can pause for a little while so that we can
build up the savings. Now, it might not feel like a
lot, right? This is a really easy one.
This is probably the one that you hear the most often, but
when was the last time you actually looked at what your
subscriptions are? I will sign up for things

(05:03):
thinking I'm going to use it andthen I might forget to cancel
it, or I'm like, oh, I'll do it next time or I'll set a reminder
and I'll miss the reminder. Things like that happened.
So it's easy for 10/20/30 Forty $50.00 to leave my leave my
account if I'm not on top of those things.
So going back and look at your last few transactions and see if

(05:25):
there's a subscription on there that you can pause or cancel for
a short time and then that moneyis going to go into that
emergency fund for you. I know I had a client do this
recently and she found $80.00. So if you think about $80 over
the course of the year, that's almost $1000.
That's from one subscription. So this is this is where these
little tiny leaks can really lead to big benefits.

(05:48):
So the next one is a use what you have meal.
OK, I talk a lot on this show about not skipping meals.
I am a notorious for forgetting to eat.
So I have a reminder set up on my watch to Hey, it's time for
lunch. My my reminder just went off a
little bit ago before I started recording, and I'd already eaten
lunch, so yay for me. But what if we don't have to go

(06:10):
grocery shopping this week? Or we could put our shopping
trip off for a couple of days and just paused.
So plan one meal or plan a couple of meals based on what
you already have on hand. So skipping one trip to the
store or a takeout order, that can save you a decent amount of
money. Sometimes it's going to be 20
bucks. Maybe it's going to be 60 bucks

(06:31):
somewhere in there. Maybe it could be depending on
what you have on hand. If you can, if you can stretch
it a few days, maybe you're going to save 100 bucks.
And so some tools that are superhelpful for me that I've used to
figure out what to eat based on what I have.
Cha Chi PT is a great one. You can say, hey, these are all
the ingredients that I have on hand.
Give me some recipes. If you don't like to use AI, I

(06:53):
highly recommend supercook.com. That's a great place to go to
plug in what you have. And there's an app as well in
your pantry, in your refrigerator, and it will give
you a list of things that you can make right now and still
feed your family. So that's also a great way to
meal plan and meal prep so that you can stay on your budget.

(07:14):
So I use what you have on hand meal.
We had a lot of those growing upand it was really and that was
before all of these great tools to help us come up with those.
My mom got really creative on some of those.
All right. And the next one is look at some
pending charges that you have onyour account.
So maybe you can open up your bank account and it shows you
what hasn't hit your bank account yet.

(07:35):
And if it's something that you can either cancel or you can
return or you can adjust in someway, do it because those are
those little things, like I said, they're going to add up.
And if it's going to you can, you know, return it or cancel it
before, before it processes, then that's going to be money
that hasn't left your account. And you don't have to worry.
These tips and these things don't have to be super

(07:57):
complicated and we don't have tospend a lot of time doing them.
But The thing is, once you do one, it's going to help build,
build momentum for the next one.And also, if you're like myself,
like I said, struggle with ADHD and you are dealing with a trust
issue with yourself because you're like, hey, I've tried
this before and it hasn't worked.
Maybe accountability and some help will help you with that.

(08:18):
And so I have found that that's been very helpful for me is to
have some outside accountabilitythat's going to help cheer me
on, but also encourage me and know that like, hey, I'm going
to be doing this too. And so knowing that you're not
doing it alone is really helpful.
And that's why I created the challenge the way I do.
It's only available for those onmy e-mail list.
So make sure you jump on that. You can get signed up at

(08:39):
debtrebelpodcast.com. And we're going to walk you
through these things because here's what really changes when
we start doing these things and we start building this momentum
is we stop telling ourselves that we're bad with money and we
start becoming someone who notices things.
So we start catching things early and we start making more
intentional decisions and that identity shift is where things

(09:02):
really start to shift, but they also stick and we can be more
committed to the goals that we have set for ourselves when
we're building that momentum. So inside that 10 day challenge,
there's just going to be 1 quickaction every day.
It's going to take you about 10 minutes to do and help you find
some hidden money so that you can start building that

(09:24):
emergency fund. It's absolutely free.
There is an option for the VIP pass that's going to give you
some additional support access to myself and some of the other
resources that are part of our part of my alliance coaching
membership. So make sure you check out the
show notes for that. I will put that in the show
notes for you. And remember we you do not have

(09:44):
to be perfect with money. You just need to start noticing
where it's going because once wesee where it's going, you'll be
able to start telling it where to go instead and be more
intentional. So it's like when your kid says,
hey, I'm going to go get something from the garage, but
then they start going to their bedroom and you have to like,
redirect them, right? That's what we're going to do
with our money too. So I'd love to see you inside

(10:06):
this challenge. It's going to be an amazing
challenge and it's going to helpyou set up for a more peaceful,
enjoyable summer and start building your emergency fund.
All right, we'll see you on the next episode.
Thank you for tuning into the Debt Rebel show today.
Ready to take your family budgeting to the next level?
Stop that paycheck to paycheck grind and start living debt

(10:27):
free. Head over to my website,
debtrebelpodcast.com. That's DEBTREDEL podcast.com to
grab resources, tools and tips to make it happen.
And don't forget, subscribe, leave a review.
And if you know another family that will love hearing today's

(10:47):
episode, it would be such a giftfor both of us, your friend and
me. If you share this episode and
remember your debt free life starts with one brave step and
I'm cheering you on every step of the way.
We'll talk soon. Debt Rebel.