August 4, 2025 • 37 mins
Lindsey is a financial therapist, here to help you feel excited about money! (Yes, it's possible!) Money is more than just a math problem; there is always so much more to the equation. Merging behavioral therapy and financial education, Lindsey helps you live your dream life!
Instagram: FinancialTherapistLindsay
Financial Self Care Blog: https://financialselfcareblog.com/blog/
Financial Self-Care course & Community Waitlist
In this episode of 'Organizing an ADHD Brain,' our host is joined by Lindsay, a financial therapist and coach, to discuss the intersection of ADHD and financial management. They delve into Lindsay's personal ADHD journey, the common financial challenges faced by those with ADHD, such as impulsivity and executive function difficulties, and practical strategies to overcome these hurdles. Lindsay shares insights into behavioral approaches to money management, her unique method of tracking expenses, and the importance of understanding one's money story. The conversation also touches on the generational shifts in money habits and the emotional aspects of financial decision-making. This episode is filled with actionable advice for anyone looking to improve their financial wellness while managing ADHD.
00:56 Lindsay's ADHD Journey and Financial Therapy
02:47 Common Financial Issues and Solutions
05:43 Personal Finance Tips and Tools
08:49 Budgeting and Emotional Spending
14:58 Generational Money Habits
21:58 Financial Therapy and Wealth Management
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Looking for ADHD-friendly support with decluttering, organizing, or just making life feel a little less chaotic? The new Ways To Connect page is your go-to hub for real-life tools, gentle guidance, and ways to connect—free and paid, no pressure.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, beautiful people.
Welcome back to another episodeof organizing an A DHD Brain.
I'm so excited to talk to youthis week about finances and
getting those organized andfigured out.
This week I'm joined by Lindsay.
She has a podcast calledFinancial Self-Care.
It's a weekly chat about how totake care of yourself and take
(00:20):
care of your money.
And she's also a financialtherapist and coach, so she
coaches people no matter wherethey are in their financial
journey.
I'm so excited to chat with herbecause we have a real life
conversation about.
A DHD finances, gettingorganized with your money, but
also how organizing your moneycan truly impact your physical
(00:43):
organization and how you manageyour money in spending and
impulsivity and things likethat.
Without further ado, let's goahead and jump into this
episode.
I'm so excited to introduce youto Lindsay.
Lindsay, tell us a little bitabout you, your A DHD journey
and what you do.
Yeah, I am a financial therapistand so I am deep in mixing like
(01:06):
behavioral therapy withfinancial education.
I myself have a DHD and it is arecent diagnosis actually within
the last year.
And to be honest, I have so manyclose connections with other
psychologists who do testing forA DHD that every single one of
them have told me, don't bothergetting tested because it's just
(01:28):
so clear that you have it.
And so it's been a very.
Interesting year to learn about,my A DHD brain.
Because for so long I was like,I don't have it.
I don't have it.
I don't have it.
And then the more and more Ilearn it, I was like, okay, I
think I just need to come toterms which isn't even really
coming to terms, it's actuallyjust.
(01:50):
Like to navigate the world andfeel validated in my
neurodiversity.
So that's who I am, what I do,and where I'm at in my journey.
I was listening to your podcastand it's fascinating to listen
to the relationship that youhave with money and your
husband, the way that you handleyour money.
Because for so long I know I'vestruggled with money, whether
(02:12):
it's a scarcity mindset or justunderstanding what to do with it
when I have a surplus orunderstanding what to do when I
don't have a surplus and reallynavigating the world of finances
because in most cases we see acorrelation of A DHD equals not
financially savvy.
And I would love to bust thatmyth wide open because so many
(02:37):
people I talk to with A DHD arealso great with finances.
It's just about knowing how tonavigate that.
Your podcast is amazing, so Ican't wait to link it below and
have everyone go and listen.
What do you see is one of thebiggest issues that people come
to you with when it comes tofinances?
Such a good question.
There's so many different layershere because.
(02:58):
For a very long time, financeswere taught by old white men who
were.
Like income minuses is yourbudget, blah, blah, blah.
And they actually left theemotions out of it for so long
and then they leftneurodiversity, symptoms as well
out of that.
So when we're talking executivefunctions when we're talking
(03:18):
like time management so there'sso many different things.
Impulsivity is a big one that Isee with ADHDers.
And all of these things actuallyneed to be brought into the
conversation with money.
So then we can learn, oh wait,it's not just me.
I'm not thoughtless, I'm notcareless, I'm not stupid.
I am actually just trying tonavigate the world differently
(03:41):
than what we've been taught forthe last several decades.
And so when you can actuallystart.
Feeling some of those things,you can start noticing like, oh,
I'm doing that thing again,where I'm being really
impulsive.
Instead of going onto Amazon andjust clicking two buttons to buy
something to get that superquick hit of dopamine, I'm
actually gonna add that thing tomy wishlist in a different app
(04:03):
on my phone.
So it's still the same kind ofmaneuver.
We're just changing the habit alittle bit.
And it feels better already toget that thing that I can't get
outta my brain, onto a list thatI can come back to later.
And it's almost that same levelto just be like, Ooh, it's gone.
It's out of me.
And now I can revisit it in ahealthier way.
(04:24):
There's different things that Isee.
So that's probably not a supercomplete answer for you, but
it's so common.
That, that people, just tellthemselves this story.
I'm so bad with money.
And the reality is, no, we justhave to train you a little
different, relearn some things,reframe some things, and you can
be very good with money.
And when you're reframing thebelief that you have around
(04:46):
money, it reframes your actionsthat you have.
When it comes to money, like ifyou say, I'm really bad with
money you're gonna look for allthe evidence and then because
you see the evidence and youbelieve that you're going to
continue acting in that waybecause there's no help for you,
right?
I'm using quotations herebecause that's just who you are.
(05:06):
And then because that's what youbelieve, your algorithm is
trained to show you all thevideos that ADHDers are bad with
money.
And this is why you can'tsucceed at everything.
And.
All of these other things.
So what you're doing isbeautiful and fascinating and
just so what's needed in thisworld.
Because for me, I know we werenever meant to be this busy,
right?
Or to pay for so many things orto have so many subscriptions or
(05:29):
to have so many freaking billsto pay.
It's not just about paying foryour phone and your electric and
all of this, like it'severything else that you need to
survive.
And there's so much in thiscrazy.
Technological world that wehave.
When you work with people, isthere a specific tool or support
system that you find reallyhelps them or is it different
(05:50):
per person?
It's really individualized andso some of the reason I love
doing the work that I do isbecause I do one-on-one work, so
I am launching a course.
Soon, which I'm excited.
And that will be speaking moregeneralized, but I was very
cautious to do that because Ithink the problem has been
historically that generalizedinformation, right?
(06:12):
And so there's ways looking onmaking sure that people feel
heard and seen within thatgeneralization.
But speaking to the one-on-onestuff we can tailor it.
So specifically, for example, Ihave a mom that I'm working with
and her volume of transactions,to your point, is so lengthy
that one of the things Iactually really like to work on
(06:32):
with people is manually trackingit.
For a little while becauseactually this electric world
that we live in, this digitalworld that we live in when we're
constantly.
Paying with a credit card, notanti credited cards at all, but
it does have this disconnectionbetween you and your money
because it doesn't really feelreal if you're just tapping a
card and moving on with yourday, right?
(06:53):
It doesn't really feel likeanything.
So if we can actually manuallytrack some of this stuff, it
brings it closer to the chestand it feels a little bit
different when you're looking atall of these transactions now.
And going back to that mom, hertheme of transaction, she's in a
super busy phase of life.
Summer camps, all the equipmentthat comes with that, all of the
(07:14):
right toys and clothes, andmostly they're just growing like
weeds.
And it's nothing bad that she'sdoing but there's so many
transactions and that becausethose volumes are so high.
Manually tracking is simply justnot going to happen for her, and
so we are introducing I reallylike the app Monarch Money for
people who are looking for anapp to track things really well
(07:37):
really cleanly.
I like that one.
Now, it is a pay to app.
I don't have an affiliate withthem or anything, but if
somebody is like truly unable tomanually track things, which can
sound really scary andintimidating and.
I promise we make, I romanticizeit.
I track manually all of mystuff, so it's very possible.
But if you're in a season whereit just, it's not gonna happen
(07:57):
for you, that's okay.
Then we pull in these differenttools, right?
And there's so many differentlevers to pull and dials to
turn, and your money.
again, make it a reallyindividualized, unique
experience for you to make sureit's working for your brain.
For example, I have a money datewith myself.
Every Tuesday morning I sit, Ipay myself out from my business.
(08:20):
I track all my expenses, and Imake it so cute, and I do it
before the kids are even awake.
I have my coffee and I like lovethe experience.
Some people are like.
It is my worst nightmare to wakeup at five 30 on Tuesday before
the kids are up and have a moneyself.
And I'm like, great.
Let's find a different time forthat to be true in your life.
So again there's these tricksand techniques that we can do,
(08:40):
but you can apply them reallyuniquely to your world to make
sure it fits with your brain andyour lifestyle.
I like that a lot.
I love budgeting.
I can't believe I'm saying thesewords out loud.
I'm looking at myself.
I'm like, who is this woman?
But I really do.
I didn't think that I everwould, but it's because.
(09:01):
When you put your money in theseplaces where you know you're now
allowed to spend, you take allthe guilt and the fear and this,
shame that I've had my wholelife about spending money.
It's taken out of the scenario.
My husband saw this trend onTikTok and he did it.
We didn't post a TikTok oranything, but it was the Skittle
(09:22):
challenge where him and my girlsset out a bunch of Skittles on a
plate and they were like, youget$10 for every Skittle.
Before you get the poison one.
When you get the poison one, itstops.
And every$10 you got on abudget, you can just spend it
however you want, wherever youwant.
And it was so fun.
So I had$350 in the end.
(09:43):
He's oh my God, I thought that Iwas gonna have to just feed you
the poison one.
But it was so freeing in a waythat I haven't had for a long
time.
'cause most of the time I'mputting money away for clothes
and for the girls, right?
I can spend money on my kids soeasily, but when it comes to me,
I'm like, ugh.
So it was so fun to have thismoney and say, oh, it's okay
(10:06):
that I spend this money onmyself, and I felt so great
about it.
And I haven't had that in areally long time.
So I love budgeting, but Iwasn't budgeting for myself.
And this skittled challengeallowed me to, so like coming
back to this mindset and theemotions behind it too is it's
really fascinating.
There's so much psychology aboutmoney that we forget to
(10:29):
acknowledge.
Like it was, so much of this isemotion driven.
And to your point, for momsespecially, we are always put on
the back burner some of it iscertainly societally inflicted
upon us, but a lot of it is ourown doing I was a stay at home
mom for a long time and I had togo through a lot of emotional
processing behind, like mespending my husband's money,
(10:49):
which we have joint accounts,like it was our money, but it
didn't feel that way.
So again, it's so nuanced andactually one of the things I did
once I felt.
Pretty in control of our money.
I had done a little bit morework around my thoughts and
feelings behind it, so this isseveral months and years into my
journey.
I was like, I am doing a hard nospend month because truly I just
(11:12):
need that deep dopamine resetbecause we are getting those
quick hits of dopamine all thetime.
And one of the things Ichallenged myself to do was not
only not spend money in ourlike.
We spent, we bought groceriesand paid our bills and all those
things, but the extra stuff, noclothes, no toys, no books, like
all this stuff I make excusesfor in a lot of scenarios.
(11:35):
I buy my kids books because theyneed to read, obviously.
That's okay.
And I buy my kids clothesbecause they need to look.
Cute, but also drawers that areoverflowing with clothes.
So I did this challenge formyself and I just was like, what
is it gonna feel like to say noto my kids?
And they did not care at all.
(11:56):
Like I would just be like, oh,not today, honey.
We're not prioritizing the book,or we're not prioritizing that.
Instead we're prioritizing andsaving for a vacation in a
couple months to go see yourcousins in Texas.
And she was like, okay, mytoddler daughter did not care.
I was so committed to myself inthis.
That we actually went to themall together one day and she
(12:18):
asked to ride like the littlecarousel ride.
And I was like, we're not gonnado it.
I had it in cash.
It was no big deal.
And still I was like, Nope,we're not doing it.
And that was a reallytransformative month for me just
to.
See, oh, I'm not being a badmom.
If I say no to my kids, I'mactually being a really good mom
to teach them these lessonsabout how we are choosing to
(12:40):
spend our money.
Because to your point, it is achoice.
It is about our priority thatday.
And so when we're prioritizingeveryone else.
Not prioritizing puff debt orwhatever the case may be in
life.
Really it puts you in this shamebox and then nobody opens it and
it like boils and gets reallymoldy and gr there, and we need
(13:03):
to start like letting some lightonto the situation.
Okay, this is the deeper level.
This is where that shame hascome from.
Yeah, I just wanted to touch onthe emotions aspect of things.
When I started my business, Iwas like, this will be easy.
And then emotions came intoplay.
And when I started managing mymoney, I was like, this'll be
easy.
And then impulsivity andemotions came into play.
(13:25):
And when I'm helping people,organizing, this'll be easy
except then emotions come intoplay.
The emotional aspect of thesedifferent changes that we make
in our life is everything.
And I don't think we talk aboutit enough.
So I'm so glad that's such ahuge part.
Of what you do, because we arebig emotional people.
(13:45):
A DHD comes along with a lot ofreally big emotions.
It could be really happy on thisside, but it's also like really
yucky on the other side of it.
But that's huge.
I just recently started teachingmy girls.
We have like little bankaccounts for them, so I'm trying
to teach them about money whileI'm also learning about money
myself.
(14:05):
So this has been a journey.
I don't remember growing up andlearning the value of money.
It was just about I earned moneyand then I spent money.
That is just, it was just verycyclical.
There was no investments.
And then when I was 18, I signedmy life away in student loans.
I remember 18 years old, Ico-signed with my parents.
(14:26):
A$15,000 loan for my firstsemester at college.
And it wasn't until morerecently, that I'm looking back
and seeing how, gosh, I had noidea what the hell I was doing.
That's what's so powerful aboutour generation is that we're
doing things differently.
We're not doing things the samebecause they've gotta learn for
themselves or doing thingsdifferently because.
(14:47):
They need to learn from us sothat they can show up in the
world a hundred percent moreprepared than any of us ever
were.
At least from my perspective.
Oh yeah, a hundred percent.
When we talk about generationalcycles, one of the biggest
cycles that needs to be brokenis how we're showing up with our
money.
The city that you talked aboutat the beginning.
And interestingly, one thingthat I.
(15:09):
Really leaned and noticed is,especially in my life, but with
clients certainly as well, is mygrandparents, especially my
dad's parents, they grew up inPanera, so they were so
restrictive my dad would belike, oh, can I have this toy or
whatever, and it was, oh no,like we are rationing, we are
saving, or, keeping all of ourreserves as high as we can.
(15:31):
And they had to do that.
And so no judgment there at all.
But that's just the reality ofit.
And so then when my dad, becamea dad himself.
He wanted to change that cycle.
And instead when my brother andI would ask for something, when
we were small kids, it was like,yes, we could have these toys or
whatever.
And there was like this influxof like stuff,'cause they wanted
(15:53):
to do things differently thanwhat their parents did.
And now this generation, for meas a mom, I'm like, I don't want
to give my kids.
Stuff like I'm actually so overthe stuff, and you probably get
this more than anybody being anorganizer.
We are so inundated with crap,and so actually what I really
value spending my money on andwhat I very intentionally spend
(16:15):
my money on is experiences withmy kids, time with my kids.
How can I buy back my time?
Whether that's hiring a cleaningservice to help clean my house
because I just don't want to doit and I don't have the time to
do it.
Instead, I would rather takethose hours and be outside with
my kids, right?
Or, spending money on vacationsor, for like birthdays.
Instead of buying them a wholebunch of crap, we're going up to
(16:37):
Duluth, which is like one of ourfavorite cities up northern in
northern Minnesota and, going ona hiking trip or whatever.
And so it's really interestingto see how the generations
really play out.
Now, again, I'm not saying likethey did anything wrong.
But that's one of the thingsthat we're evolving into.
The hard part about that is inthe world that we live in with
(16:59):
I, like I said, the one click tobuy options, convenience of
everything.
And this, comparing those toeveryone around the world with
the social media being a hugefactor in our lives, it gets
really challenging to know.
Even what is it that we want forourselves?
Because my job is never ever totell you what you should be
(17:22):
buying.
It is teaching you how should bebuying the things that really
move that baseline level ofhappiness up and move that
needle.
In the right direction.
So again, for me, like that'svacations.
But for someone else oh, I loveclothes.
Like That is what I, you know,really, and whatever, great.
Do your thing, but then are youspending money on that?
(17:43):
You actually don't value somuch, and how can we like really
drop that down And so you havemore abundance for the things
that actually bring you truelasting joy.
Yes.
Oh my gosh, yes to all of that.
And when it comes to anorganizing perspective I love
stuff.
I still love stuff, and I'm nowjust way more purposeful when I
(18:07):
buy it.
Right now we're going throughthis journey of we're selling
everything in our house, sowe're not taking anything with
us when we move.
And part of it is I just wanted.
To see if I could do it.
But because we've gone throughthis process of letting go for
so long, now I'm evaluating,first of all, I don't wanna
(18:28):
spend six to$12,000 to bringeverything across the country.
That's a whole nother cost thatnow I have all of this stuff.
I don't use all of it, and now Ihave to pay for it to bring it
across the country.
But yeah, in this journey it'sjust been really interesting to
see what matters and whatdoesn't.
We have some pictures that wewanna bring with us.
(18:50):
We have Harry Potter bookendsthat we really like.
It's Harry Potter runningthrough platform nine and three
quarters.
It's so cool.
And then, it's just crazy howeasy it is to let these things
go now.
But I say that because I valueexperiences so much, but I also
value the things that, like mykids do play with like toys for
(19:11):
me, I don't just buy toys to buytoys anymore.
I'm buying toys that, first ofall aren't gonna have tiny
pieces that I have to find aplace to put.
'cause I'm just gonna curse theworld if that happens.
Like LOL dolls, get out of here,throw them all in the garbage.
They need to reimburse us forthe hell that it's created in
our lives.
I found these adorable littlemice that you can buy and they
(19:33):
come in like these little shoeboxes with like little blankets
and like these tiny clothes, andI'm like, this is cool.
This is what I'll spend money onbecause this is something that I
would be proud to give mygrandkids someday.
Part of the generational thingis like they had cool things.
They had really like nicequality, beautiful things,
whereas now in the society thatwe live in, the click of a
(19:55):
button, it's crap that we'regetting.
And then when it fails, insteadof holding the company
accountable to replacing it ormaking a better quality item,
we're so exhausted witheverything that's happening.
That we just buy another one.
But because we have somethingthat's still broken and could be
fine, we keep that too.
(20:15):
And then we're just inundatedwith all this stuff.
And now we've got a to-do listthat's miles long and our chaos
in our brains is representedaround us in this stuff that we
have.
And coming back to theimpulsivity of the one click,
most people will buy somethingand then it'll get there and
they'll leave it in the box Iremember one client, she had a
bunch of boxes like just abovethese cabinets and they were
(20:38):
Christmas presents and she waslike, oh, I forgot about all of
these.
And it's just like we forgetbecause we're doing things in
the moment and we're not in theforefront of our brain, the
prefrontal cortex making realrational decisions.
We're just doing things to dothings'cause it feels good in
the moment.
Back to those emotions.
So this stuff is just sofascinating to me, and the world
(20:58):
of finances and organization,they come together so amazingly.
For those of you listening, I'vealready invited Lindsay into my
community, so we're gonna have atalk about finances in the
upcoming months, hopefully.
So you know when you, when didyou start your podcast?
How long ago now?
I launched it in September oflast year, so 2024.
(21:19):
So I've had one season.
I'm actually taking a break.
Over the summer because I wasdoing my podcast one day and I
was like editing it and it wastaking forever.
And I was like, honestly, Ilove, love, love the podcast.
But if I'm gonna take six hoursto do something, it's gonna be
go out on the lake with my kidsduring the summer.
I will happily podcast in thedepths of the winter of
Minnesota and not worry aboutit.
(21:42):
So yes, that's kinda how theseasons will work out.
I'll podcast from September.
To May every year is the plan.
And then take summers to, letpeople do their thing.
Oh, that is brilliant.
I love it so much.
And then how long have you beena financial therapist?
Yeah, so I have been atherapist.
I was licensed in 2019 and now Iniched into financial therapy
(22:05):
just over two years ago.
And that's been so amazingbecause what I was noticing in
my generalist practice isthere's this through line of
people can't afford things orlike money was the issue because
they just actually needed theseother tools.
Like they were good at copingskills, they were good at
understanding their strengthsand their weaknesses and playing
to that or whatever.
But until they could increasetheir income, until they could
(22:28):
spend intentionally, until theycould invest for the future,
until they could pay forservices that they really truly
needed they were going tocontinue feeling this financial
stress, which seeps into everyother facet of their life.
We know financial stress impactsus physically, emotionally,
relationally, and all theseother facets because it is part
(22:50):
of our whole body wellness.
And so when I started noticingthat, I was like, I feel like
there has to be something I cando with money.
But actually I kept tellingmyself this story, like I'm a
therapist who's gonna listen tome about money and this and that
and whatever.
And then I was listening to anaudio book totally unrelated to.
(23:12):
Finances and therapy andwhatever.
But the narrator said the wordsfinancial therapist, and I was
driving on my street.
I remember this so vividly, andI paused the book.
It was like four houses away.
I like zoomed into my drivewayparked.
Running inside.
And my husband was like, are youokay?
What's going on?
And I was like, I need to Googlesomething this instant.
(23:32):
And I did.
And it turns out because I was amaster's level social worker,
that I was able to get thecertification and so I did
nothing but that certificationfor weeks.
I would wake up early during naptime, like at nights, on the
weekends.
That's all I did.
And I got the certification,started my business, and the
rest is history.
It's been the best decision I'veever made.
(23:56):
That is so freaking cool.
So when people come to you, areyou able to dive into the
relationship they've had withmoney their whole lives and
really talk about the past aswell as the future?
Oh yeah.
That is actually where I startwith almost all of minds.
There's some people that do comeand feel like they have a really
(24:18):
good handle on their moneystory, and they've done a little
bit more of that work, and sothey just need the number, which
is fine.
We can certainly do some ofthat, but actually it is the
marriage between the emotions inyour money story and what a lot
of people don't know orunderstand.
Is that your money habits areactually established by the time
you're 10 years old.
There's a study out of theUniversity of Michigan to
(24:41):
support this data, and they werestudying kids from five to 10,
noticing habits were, andwhatever was being modeled in
their house was actually beingdisplayed.
By these children and certainlyby 10.
Now if you're hearing that as alistener and you're like having
heart palpitations, don't worrybecause habits can be changed,
right?
We are living proof that habitscan be changed.
(25:03):
And so there's certainly thingsthat we can do, but like it's
really important to explore whatyou saw growing up.
And for those of us do feel likewe have some more self-awareness
just in general.
It's very interesting to tellthat.
Story to talk about your moneystory because we've talked about
it from maybe the side of likeyour mental health or your
(25:25):
personality or whatever the casemay be.
But that money piece reallyhasn't been explored all that
much.
And so when you can take alittle time to understand like,
oh, my dad was always gettingangry on vacations for what we'd
spend.
And it really ruined thevacation for me.
Like how is that now impactingyou going on vacations and how
you spend, some people are like,I'm not spending a dime on
(25:48):
vacation because you knew thatdad would be mad.
And then other people are like,oh, I'm gonna go balls to the
walls on vacation because dadwould've been mad so it did
impact you and so we need toexplore that and unpack it a
little bit.
So yeah, definitely a huge partof my work.
Oh, that's so cool understandingyour habits and the way that
you've done things your wholelife totally helps you
(26:10):
understand what you want thechanges to be, how you wanna
change for the future.
So when you're working withpeople do you work with all
facets?
If I had my money under controlbut I had no idea about
investing, could I come to you?
Or is it more just I don't knowwhat I'm doing and how do I pay
bills?
Can I come to you then too?
Oh, totally, yes.
I run the gamut from if you aredeep in the depths of debt all
(26:33):
the way to wealth building andmanagement.
I don't advise anyone.
I'm not a financial advisor, butI do educate.
And so what I think people alsodon't really know is, from,
childhood you might.
Not know when your habits areestablished, but in the wealth
building phase, a lot of peopleare like, oh, I have a financial
dude.
That's like the most commonlanguage I hear all the time is
(26:53):
oh, I have a finance guy and Icringe a little inside.
'cause I'm like, oh my God, whatis he charging you?
And the lack of transparency infinances is really tough on me.
'cause I believe in full pricetransparency.
I'm like, look, if you arepaying for a service, no matter
if it is ordering a.
Starbucks latte or paying afinancial advisor or anything in
(27:14):
between, you need to know whatyou are paying for that service.
And what I don't like is if I goon a photographer's website and
they don't have their priceslisted, I'm instantly like.
I'm not buying from you becauseI want to just know.
I don't want to have a touchpoint before I know if it's a
waste of your time, if you'reout of my realm of possibility
or if you're maybe way under my,but I wanna know that upfront.
(27:36):
And so I am a big advocate ofprice transparency and we often
see with financial advisors.
There is very little pricetransparency and unfortunately,
if your financial advisor ischarging you what's called an
assets under management fee, andit might be 1% and somebody's oh
1%, that's nothing.
(27:57):
But when you actually do themath over the course of your
lifetime, that often ends upbeing closer to 28% of your
overall portfolio.
Wow.
When I learned this, I lost myfreaking mind because I had a
financial advisor and I wasrunning the math on it and doing
all the calculations andeverything.
And this guy was like, oh, we'refamily.
That was what he always wouldtell me.
(28:18):
And I was like.
Look buddy.
I never charge my family whatyou are charging me.
Ultimately, if we had kept ourportfolio with our financial
advisor over the life of our,work with him, he would've had
over a million dollars of ourmoney his pocket.
Because of the way the feesworked out and they pitch it to
(28:40):
you, these financial advisorspitch it to you like, oh, it's
just 1%.
Don't worry about it.
Like you little dummy, don'tworry about it.
It's so belittling the way thelanguage is, and so I really
encourage, especially women, butanybody to really understand
what it is that you are payingthese financial advisors, how
that's gonna impact your generalwealth and what you can do
(29:04):
instead.
Because I do all of my owninvesting.
I love a good index fund.
I love a good target date fund.
And we will do much, muchbetter.
What he would've charged us,because the part two of this
then is you think I have afinancial advisor.
They know more than me.
So their performance is gonna bemuch better than what I would
choose.
'cause I don't know, how toinvest or whatever.
(29:26):
And the reality is, if you justchoose something like a basic
index fund, there's so much datato support that.
There is a very slim chance thata fund manager is going to
outperform a simple index fund,which is basically a big group
of companies all in one bigbasket, and you just buy the big
basket so you don't even have toworry about it.
(29:49):
They simply can't outperform itbecause you don't know what's
gonna happen.
In the stock market and mightpitch themselves as these really
smart financial people.
But the reality is over thelongevity of it, they are not
gonna outperform an index fund.
And so not only are you gettingslammed with this big.
Fee, but you're also performingworse than you would if you were
just doing it on your own.
And yeah, so I definitely teachand I can get on such a soapbox
(30:12):
about this, so I'll hop off.
But I definitely talk aboutwealth management and just how
to do it on your own.
'cause you totally can.
Yeah.
And it's scary to think aboutdoing it on your own.
This year I really wanted to getmy finances under control.
And one thing that we had donewith finances before is we'd put
a bunch of money on credit cardsand then I'd get a bonus and
we'd just pay it off.
(30:34):
And then we'd be like, awesome.
Look at us, how great we'redoing?
And then we'd put a bunch ofmoney on credit cards and then
we'd pay it off.
And then I was like, there's gotto be something about this where
it's like this immediategratification where I'm paying
something off, but I'm like.
There's gotta be some better wayto handle this so that we're not
losing this bonus, this amountof money that could be
(30:57):
supportive.
And then of course, starting abusiness is a whole nother money
game.
But I say that to say this yearI knew that investing was gonna
be more important for us.
And as we're figuring out whatwe wanna do in the future, I
just started dabbling inlearning some things.
So the things that you're sayingnow, for those of you listening,
if it sounded like foreign orunfamiliar, that's okay.
(31:19):
It's okay that you're hearing itfor the first time now, because
I.
The next time you hear aboutsomething like that, you're
gonna have a little bit more ofa foundation to build upon.
And with A DHD, we wanna be goodat something right away, which
is why oftentimes we can avoiddoing the things that feel
overwhelming and feel like toomuch for us to learn.
But this is it.
You've already just startedlearning about investing just by
(31:39):
listening to this conversation.
And so then you get to startsaying maybe I'll read an
article or maybe I'll go listento Lindsay's podcast and hear a
little bit more about what is anindex fund?
Or maybe you just Google indexFund.
What is definition?
It's things like that that getyou curious and get, you start
to learning more about money andhow it can support you and.
(32:00):
Just this conversation aboutwomen in money, is so powerful
and so incredible because it'salways been about the investing
bros.
And now it's about, investingpeople, it's all of us.
'cause all of us have thiscapability.
You don't have to have a certainGPA or like literally anything
else to start doing it.
I really appreciate thisconversation today and I would
(32:22):
so look forward to us being ableto do this again.
Any wise words of advice for theADHDers listening and they're
like, there's no hope for me.
Oh my gosh.
There's just so much foreveryone, and that's why I get
to do this work.
If you're like, oh my God, myhabits are so bad and I'm just
so bad and this and that andwhatever.
It's you're really not, there'sjust a lot of education to be
had because truly you were nevertaught this stuff very unlikely
(32:45):
where you taught this stuff athome.
You were certainly never taughtit in school, and yet, the day
you turn 18, it's like you gottago figure it out.
And now you're an adult and youdon't know how to do money.
And so we put this pressure, alittle bit on ourselves, but
that's more of a societal thingto be like you just gotta figure
it out.
And that's true for so manyfacets as well.
But there is so much hope andit's really not hard.
(33:06):
It's really simple when we breakit down.
And that's honestly my wholeangle is just making this stuff
simple.
Like, why are weovercomplicating something that
actually doesn't need to beovercomplicated?
Now the emotion.
And certainly bringcomplications into it, but from
like account structures and thisand that and to your point about
the investing stuff, yes.
Like we're just planting.
Little seeds, you can always domore.
(33:26):
You can always expand andexpound and even doing money
work.
I've been on my own financialself care journey really since,
I don't know, the late 20 teens.
I've learned so much and I'm.
Forever gonna be learningbecause this is a journey with
money work.
There is no destination.
You are learning constantly.
And yeah.
So I just, if there's a messageI can leave with somebody.
(33:47):
It's there's certainly hope foryou.
I often hear women come to meand they're like, I'm like, the
biggest mess you've ever seen.
I know it.
And I'm like, you are not, Ipromise.
Like it's totally fine.
Yeah just.
I really encourage people to dothis work'cause I really think
it's really important.
That's awesome.
Thank you for you doing the workso that you can show up for
(34:09):
others and support them throughthis journey.
Thank you so much for coming ontoday.
It was a pleasure talking toyou.
It was so much fun talking toyou.
Thank you for having me.
It was such a pleasure tore-listen to that episode and
get some of these incrediblenuggets of remembering how
possible it is for us to get ourfinances in order.
It comes back to just starting,and it's so hard to know where
(34:33):
to start, but part of startingis taking the tiniest step
forward.
Our executive function oftenprevents us from being able to
take that step forward becausewe don't know where to start.
So here's an example of how tostart listening to this episode.
That's a first step.
Listening to so many otherepisodes, maybe jump over to
(34:55):
Lindsay's podcast and listeningthen starting to take action.
Maybe you go And start trackingyour finances to get a better
idea of where you're spendingyour money, things like that.
Maybe you give Lindsay a callbecause it makes sense for you
to start working with someone tocoach you on where to go next.
So many options.
All of Lindsay's links andinformation will be in the show
notes below.
(35:16):
As I've mentioned in previouspodcasts, I am not taking on any
new coaching clients right now,and my community is gonna be
closed until the upcoming fallyear.
If you're interested in learninga little bit more about some of
the programs I will have comingup this fall, go ahead and go to
organizing an ADHDbrain.com/community.
(35:37):
You can also go to organizing anADHD brain.com/coaching
depending on what you're moreinterested in.
I'll see you all soon.
Hey, beautiful people.
Welcome back to another episodeof organizing an A DHD Brain.
I'm so excited to talk to youthis week about finances and
getting those organized andfigured out.
This week I'm joined by Lindsay.
She has a podcast calledFinancial Self-Care.
It's a weekly chat about how totake care of yourself and take
(00:20):
care of your money.
And she's also a financialtherapist and coach, so she
coaches people no matter wherethey are in their financial
journey.
I'm so excited to chat with herbecause we have a real life
conversation about.
A DHD finances, gettingorganized with your money, but
also how organizing your moneycan truly impact your physical
(00:43):
organization and how you manageyour money in spending and
impulsivity and things likethat.
Without further ado, let's goahead and jump into this
episode.
I'm so excited to introduce youto Lindsay.
Lindsay, tell us a little bitabout you, your A DHD journey
and what you do.
Yeah, I am a financial therapistand so I am deep in mixing like
(01:06):
behavioral therapy withfinancial education.
I myself have a DHD and it is arecent diagnosis actually within
the last year.
And to be honest, I have so manyclose connections with other
psychologists who do testing forA DHD that every single one of
them have told me, don't bothergetting tested because it's just
(01:28):
so clear that you have it.
And so it's been a very.
Interesting year to learn about,my A DHD brain.
Because for so long I was like,I don't have it.
I don't have it.
I don't have it.
And then the more and more Ilearn it, I was like, okay, I
think I just need to come toterms which isn't even really
coming to terms, it's actuallyjust.
(01:50):
Like to navigate the world andfeel validated in my
neurodiversity.
So that's who I am, what I do,and where I'm at in my journey.
I was listening to your podcastand it's fascinating to listen
to the relationship that youhave with money and your
husband, the way that you handleyour money.
Because for so long I know I'vestruggled with money, whether
(02:12):
it's a scarcity mindset or justunderstanding what to do with it
when I have a surplus orunderstanding what to do when I
don't have a surplus and reallynavigating the world of finances
because in most cases we see acorrelation of A DHD equals not
financially savvy.
And I would love to bust thatmyth wide open because so many
(02:37):
people I talk to with A DHD arealso great with finances.
It's just about knowing how tonavigate that.
Your podcast is amazing, so Ican't wait to link it below and
have everyone go and listen.
What do you see is one of thebiggest issues that people come
to you with when it comes tofinances?
Such a good question.
There's so many different layershere because.
(02:58):
For a very long time, financeswere taught by old white men who
were.
Like income minuses is yourbudget, blah, blah, blah.
And they actually left theemotions out of it for so long
and then they leftneurodiversity, symptoms as well
out of that.
So when we're talking executivefunctions when we're talking
(03:18):
like time management so there'sso many different things.
Impulsivity is a big one that Isee with ADHDers.
And all of these things actuallyneed to be brought into the
conversation with money.
So then we can learn, oh wait,it's not just me.
I'm not thoughtless, I'm notcareless, I'm not stupid.
I am actually just trying tonavigate the world differently
(03:41):
than what we've been taught forthe last several decades.
And so when you can actuallystart.
Feeling some of those things,you can start noticing like, oh,
I'm doing that thing again,where I'm being really
impulsive.
Instead of going onto Amazon andjust clicking two buttons to buy
something to get that superquick hit of dopamine, I'm
actually gonna add that thing tomy wishlist in a different app
(04:03):
on my phone.
So it's still the same kind ofmaneuver.
We're just changing the habit alittle bit.
And it feels better already toget that thing that I can't get
outta my brain, onto a list thatI can come back to later.
And it's almost that same levelto just be like, Ooh, it's gone.
It's out of me.
And now I can revisit it in ahealthier way.
(04:24):
There's different things that Isee.
So that's probably not a supercomplete answer for you, but
it's so common.
That, that people, just tellthemselves this story.
I'm so bad with money.
And the reality is, no, we justhave to train you a little
different, relearn some things,reframe some things, and you can
be very good with money.
And when you're reframing thebelief that you have around
(04:46):
money, it reframes your actionsthat you have.
When it comes to money, like ifyou say, I'm really bad with
money you're gonna look for allthe evidence and then because
you see the evidence and youbelieve that you're going to
continue acting in that waybecause there's no help for you,
right?
I'm using quotations herebecause that's just who you are.
(05:06):
And then because that's what youbelieve, your algorithm is
trained to show you all thevideos that ADHDers are bad with
money.
And this is why you can'tsucceed at everything.
And.
All of these other things.
So what you're doing isbeautiful and fascinating and
just so what's needed in thisworld.
Because for me, I know we werenever meant to be this busy,
right?
Or to pay for so many things orto have so many subscriptions or
(05:29):
to have so many freaking billsto pay.
It's not just about paying foryour phone and your electric and
all of this, like it'severything else that you need to
survive.
And there's so much in thiscrazy.
Technological world that wehave.
When you work with people, isthere a specific tool or support
system that you find reallyhelps them or is it different
(05:50):
per person?
It's really individualized andso some of the reason I love
doing the work that I do isbecause I do one-on-one work, so
I am launching a course.
Soon, which I'm excited.
And that will be speaking moregeneralized, but I was very
cautious to do that because Ithink the problem has been
historically that generalizedinformation, right?
(06:12):
And so there's ways looking onmaking sure that people feel
heard and seen within thatgeneralization.
But speaking to the one-on-onestuff we can tailor it.
So specifically, for example, Ihave a mom that I'm working with
and her volume of transactions,to your point, is so lengthy
that one of the things Iactually really like to work on
(06:32):
with people is manually trackingit.
For a little while becauseactually this electric world
that we live in, this digitalworld that we live in when we're
constantly.
Paying with a credit card, notanti credited cards at all, but
it does have this disconnectionbetween you and your money
because it doesn't really feelreal if you're just tapping a
card and moving on with yourday, right?
(06:53):
It doesn't really feel likeanything.
So if we can actually manuallytrack some of this stuff, it
brings it closer to the chestand it feels a little bit
different when you're looking atall of these transactions now.
And going back to that mom, hertheme of transaction, she's in a
super busy phase of life.
Summer camps, all the equipmentthat comes with that, all of the
(07:14):
right toys and clothes, andmostly they're just growing like
weeds.
And it's nothing bad that she'sdoing but there's so many
transactions and that becausethose volumes are so high.
Manually tracking is simply justnot going to happen for her, and
so we are introducing I reallylike the app Monarch Money for
people who are looking for anapp to track things really well
(07:37):
really cleanly.
I like that one.
Now, it is a pay to app.
I don't have an affiliate withthem or anything, but if
somebody is like truly unable tomanually track things, which can
sound really scary andintimidating and.
I promise we make, I romanticizeit.
I track manually all of mystuff, so it's very possible.
But if you're in a season whereit just, it's not gonna happen
(07:57):
for you, that's okay.
Then we pull in these differenttools, right?
And there's so many differentlevers to pull and dials to
turn, and your money.
again, make it a reallyindividualized, unique
experience for you to make sureit's working for your brain.
For example, I have a money datewith myself.
Every Tuesday morning I sit, Ipay myself out from my business.
(08:20):
I track all my expenses, and Imake it so cute, and I do it
before the kids are even awake.
I have my coffee and I like lovethe experience.
Some people are like.
It is my worst nightmare to wakeup at five 30 on Tuesday before
the kids are up and have a moneyself.
And I'm like, great.
Let's find a different time forthat to be true in your life.
So again there's these tricksand techniques that we can do,
(08:40):
but you can apply them reallyuniquely to your world to make
sure it fits with your brain andyour lifestyle.
I like that a lot.
I love budgeting.
I can't believe I'm saying thesewords out loud.
I'm looking at myself.
I'm like, who is this woman?
But I really do.
I didn't think that I everwould, but it's because.
(09:01):
When you put your money in theseplaces where you know you're now
allowed to spend, you take allthe guilt and the fear and this,
shame that I've had my wholelife about spending money.
It's taken out of the scenario.
My husband saw this trend onTikTok and he did it.
We didn't post a TikTok oranything, but it was the Skittle
(09:22):
challenge where him and my girlsset out a bunch of Skittles on a
plate and they were like, youget$10 for every Skittle.
Before you get the poison one.
When you get the poison one, itstops.
And every$10 you got on abudget, you can just spend it
however you want, wherever youwant.
And it was so fun.
So I had$350 in the end.
(09:43):
He's oh my God, I thought that Iwas gonna have to just feed you
the poison one.
But it was so freeing in a waythat I haven't had for a long
time.
'cause most of the time I'mputting money away for clothes
and for the girls, right?
I can spend money on my kids soeasily, but when it comes to me,
I'm like, ugh.
So it was so fun to have thismoney and say, oh, it's okay
(10:06):
that I spend this money onmyself, and I felt so great
about it.
And I haven't had that in areally long time.
So I love budgeting, but Iwasn't budgeting for myself.
And this skittled challengeallowed me to, so like coming
back to this mindset and theemotions behind it too is it's
really fascinating.
There's so much psychology aboutmoney that we forget to
(10:29):
acknowledge.
Like it was, so much of this isemotion driven.
And to your point, for momsespecially, we are always put on
the back burner some of it iscertainly societally inflicted
upon us, but a lot of it is ourown doing I was a stay at home
mom for a long time and I had togo through a lot of emotional
processing behind, like mespending my husband's money,
(10:49):
which we have joint accounts,like it was our money, but it
didn't feel that way.
So again, it's so nuanced andactually one of the things I did
once I felt.
Pretty in control of our money.
I had done a little bit morework around my thoughts and
feelings behind it, so this isseveral months and years into my
journey.
I was like, I am doing a hard nospend month because truly I just
(11:12):
need that deep dopamine resetbecause we are getting those
quick hits of dopamine all thetime.
And one of the things Ichallenged myself to do was not
only not spend money in ourlike.
We spent, we bought groceriesand paid our bills and all those
things, but the extra stuff, noclothes, no toys, no books, like
all this stuff I make excusesfor in a lot of scenarios.
(11:35):
I buy my kids books because theyneed to read, obviously.
That's okay.
And I buy my kids clothesbecause they need to look.
Cute, but also drawers that areoverflowing with clothes.
So I did this challenge formyself and I just was like, what
is it gonna feel like to say noto my kids?
And they did not care at all.
(11:56):
Like I would just be like, oh,not today, honey.
We're not prioritizing the book,or we're not prioritizing that.
Instead we're prioritizing andsaving for a vacation in a
couple months to go see yourcousins in Texas.
And she was like, okay, mytoddler daughter did not care.
I was so committed to myself inthis.
That we actually went to themall together one day and she
(12:18):
asked to ride like the littlecarousel ride.
And I was like, we're not gonnado it.
I had it in cash.
It was no big deal.
And still I was like, Nope,we're not doing it.
And that was a reallytransformative month for me just
to.
See, oh, I'm not being a badmom.
If I say no to my kids, I'mactually being a really good mom
to teach them these lessonsabout how we are choosing to
(12:40):
spend our money.
Because to your point, it is achoice.
It is about our priority thatday.
And so when we're prioritizingeveryone else.
Not prioritizing puff debt orwhatever the case may be in
life.
Really it puts you in this shamebox and then nobody opens it and
it like boils and gets reallymoldy and gr there, and we need
(13:03):
to start like letting some lightonto the situation.
Okay, this is the deeper level.
This is where that shame hascome from.
Yeah, I just wanted to touch onthe emotions aspect of things.
When I started my business, Iwas like, this will be easy.
And then emotions came intoplay.
And when I started managing mymoney, I was like, this'll be
easy.
And then impulsivity andemotions came into play.
(13:25):
And when I'm helping people,organizing, this'll be easy
except then emotions come intoplay.
The emotional aspect of thesedifferent changes that we make
in our life is everything.
And I don't think we talk aboutit enough.
So I'm so glad that's such ahuge part.
Of what you do, because we arebig emotional people.
(13:45):
A DHD comes along with a lot ofreally big emotions.
It could be really happy on thisside, but it's also like really
yucky on the other side of it.
But that's huge.
I just recently started teachingmy girls.
We have like little bankaccounts for them, so I'm trying
to teach them about money whileI'm also learning about money
myself.
(14:05):
So this has been a journey.
I don't remember growing up andlearning the value of money.
It was just about I earned moneyand then I spent money.
That is just, it was just verycyclical.
There was no investments.
And then when I was 18, I signedmy life away in student loans.
I remember 18 years old, Ico-signed with my parents.
(14:26):
A$15,000 loan for my firstsemester at college.
And it wasn't until morerecently, that I'm looking back
and seeing how, gosh, I had noidea what the hell I was doing.
That's what's so powerful aboutour generation is that we're
doing things differently.
We're not doing things the samebecause they've gotta learn for
themselves or doing thingsdifferently because.
(14:47):
They need to learn from us sothat they can show up in the
world a hundred percent moreprepared than any of us ever
were.
At least from my perspective.
Oh yeah, a hundred percent.
When we talk about generationalcycles, one of the biggest
cycles that needs to be brokenis how we're showing up with our
money.
The city that you talked aboutat the beginning.
And interestingly, one thingthat I.
(15:09):
Really leaned and noticed is,especially in my life, but with
clients certainly as well, is mygrandparents, especially my
dad's parents, they grew up inPanera, so they were so
restrictive my dad would belike, oh, can I have this toy or
whatever, and it was, oh no,like we are rationing, we are
saving, or, keeping all of ourreserves as high as we can.
(15:31):
And they had to do that.
And so no judgment there at all.
But that's just the reality ofit.
And so then when my dad, becamea dad himself.
He wanted to change that cycle.
And instead when my brother andI would ask for something, when
we were small kids, it was like,yes, we could have these toys or
whatever.
And there was like this influxof like stuff,'cause they wanted
(15:53):
to do things differently thanwhat their parents did.
And now this generation, for meas a mom, I'm like, I don't want
to give my kids.
Stuff like I'm actually so overthe stuff, and you probably get
this more than anybody being anorganizer.
We are so inundated with crap,and so actually what I really
value spending my money on andwhat I very intentionally spend
(16:15):
my money on is experiences withmy kids, time with my kids.
How can I buy back my time?
Whether that's hiring a cleaningservice to help clean my house
because I just don't want to doit and I don't have the time to
do it.
Instead, I would rather takethose hours and be outside with
my kids, right?
Or, spending money on vacationsor, for like birthdays.
Instead of buying them a wholebunch of crap, we're going up to
(16:37):
Duluth, which is like one of ourfavorite cities up northern in
northern Minnesota and, going ona hiking trip or whatever.
And so it's really interestingto see how the generations
really play out.
Now, again, I'm not saying likethey did anything wrong.
But that's one of the thingsthat we're evolving into.
The hard part about that is inthe world that we live in with
(16:59):
I, like I said, the one click tobuy options, convenience of
everything.
And this, comparing those toeveryone around the world with
the social media being a hugefactor in our lives, it gets
really challenging to know.
Even what is it that we want forourselves?
Because my job is never ever totell you what you should be
(17:22):
buying.
It is teaching you how should bebuying the things that really
move that baseline level ofhappiness up and move that
needle.
In the right direction.
So again, for me, like that'svacations.
But for someone else oh, I loveclothes.
Like That is what I, you know,really, and whatever, great.
Do your thing, but then are youspending money on that?
(17:43):
You actually don't value somuch, and how can we like really
drop that down And so you havemore abundance for the things
that actually bring you truelasting joy.
Yes.
Oh my gosh, yes to all of that.
And when it comes to anorganizing perspective I love
stuff.
I still love stuff, and I'm nowjust way more purposeful when I
(18:07):
buy it.
Right now we're going throughthis journey of we're selling
everything in our house, sowe're not taking anything with
us when we move.
And part of it is I just wanted.
To see if I could do it.
But because we've gone throughthis process of letting go for
so long, now I'm evaluating,first of all, I don't wanna
(18:28):
spend six to$12,000 to bringeverything across the country.
That's a whole nother cost thatnow I have all of this stuff.
I don't use all of it, and now Ihave to pay for it to bring it
across the country.
But yeah, in this journey it'sjust been really interesting to
see what matters and whatdoesn't.
We have some pictures that wewanna bring with us.
(18:50):
We have Harry Potter bookendsthat we really like.
It's Harry Potter runningthrough platform nine and three
quarters.
It's so cool.
And then, it's just crazy howeasy it is to let these things
go now.
But I say that because I valueexperiences so much, but I also
value the things that, like mykids do play with like toys for
(19:11):
me, I don't just buy toys to buytoys anymore.
I'm buying toys that, first ofall aren't gonna have tiny
pieces that I have to find aplace to put.
'cause I'm just gonna curse theworld if that happens.
Like LOL dolls, get out of here,throw them all in the garbage.
They need to reimburse us forthe hell that it's created in
our lives.
I found these adorable littlemice that you can buy and they
(19:33):
come in like these little shoeboxes with like little blankets
and like these tiny clothes, andI'm like, this is cool.
This is what I'll spend money onbecause this is something that I
would be proud to give mygrandkids someday.
Part of the generational thingis like they had cool things.
They had really like nicequality, beautiful things,
whereas now in the society thatwe live in, the click of a
(19:55):
button, it's crap that we'regetting.
And then when it fails, insteadof holding the company
accountable to replacing it ormaking a better quality item,
we're so exhausted witheverything that's happening.
That we just buy another one.
But because we have somethingthat's still broken and could be
fine, we keep that too.
(20:15):
And then we're just inundatedwith all this stuff.
And now we've got a to-do listthat's miles long and our chaos
in our brains is representedaround us in this stuff that we
have.
And coming back to theimpulsivity of the one click,
most people will buy somethingand then it'll get there and
they'll leave it in the box Iremember one client, she had a
bunch of boxes like just abovethese cabinets and they were
(20:38):
Christmas presents and she waslike, oh, I forgot about all of
these.
And it's just like we forgetbecause we're doing things in
the moment and we're not in theforefront of our brain, the
prefrontal cortex making realrational decisions.
We're just doing things to dothings'cause it feels good in
the moment.
Back to those emotions.
So this stuff is just sofascinating to me, and the world
(20:58):
of finances and organization,they come together so amazingly.
For those of you listening, I'vealready invited Lindsay into my
community, so we're gonna have atalk about finances in the
upcoming months, hopefully.
So you know when you, when didyou start your podcast?
How long ago now?
I launched it in September oflast year, so 2024.
(21:19):
So I've had one season.
I'm actually taking a break.
Over the summer because I wasdoing my podcast one day and I
was like editing it and it wastaking forever.
And I was like, honestly, Ilove, love, love the podcast.
But if I'm gonna take six hoursto do something, it's gonna be
go out on the lake with my kidsduring the summer.
I will happily podcast in thedepths of the winter of
Minnesota and not worry aboutit.
(21:42):
So yes, that's kinda how theseasons will work out.
I'll podcast from September.
To May every year is the plan.
And then take summers to, letpeople do their thing.
Oh, that is brilliant.
I love it so much.
And then how long have you beena financial therapist?
Yeah, so I have been atherapist.
I was licensed in 2019 and now Iniched into financial therapy
(22:05):
just over two years ago.
And that's been so amazingbecause what I was noticing in
my generalist practice isthere's this through line of
people can't afford things orlike money was the issue because
they just actually needed theseother tools.
Like they were good at copingskills, they were good at
understanding their strengthsand their weaknesses and playing
to that or whatever.
But until they could increasetheir income, until they could
(22:28):
spend intentionally, until theycould invest for the future,
until they could pay forservices that they really truly
needed they were going tocontinue feeling this financial
stress, which seeps into everyother facet of their life.
We know financial stress impactsus physically, emotionally,
relationally, and all theseother facets because it is part
(22:50):
of our whole body wellness.
And so when I started noticingthat, I was like, I feel like
there has to be something I cando with money.
But actually I kept tellingmyself this story, like I'm a
therapist who's gonna listen tome about money and this and that
and whatever.
And then I was listening to anaudio book totally unrelated to.
(23:12):
Finances and therapy andwhatever.
But the narrator said the wordsfinancial therapist, and I was
driving on my street.
I remember this so vividly, andI paused the book.
It was like four houses away.
I like zoomed into my drivewayparked.
Running inside.
And my husband was like, are youokay?
What's going on?
And I was like, I need to Googlesomething this instant.
(23:32):
And I did.
And it turns out because I was amaster's level social worker,
that I was able to get thecertification and so I did
nothing but that certificationfor weeks.
I would wake up early during naptime, like at nights, on the
weekends.
That's all I did.
And I got the certification,started my business, and the
rest is history.
It's been the best decision I'veever made.
(23:56):
That is so freaking cool.
So when people come to you, areyou able to dive into the
relationship they've had withmoney their whole lives and
really talk about the past aswell as the future?
Oh yeah.
That is actually where I startwith almost all of minds.
There's some people that do comeand feel like they have a really
(24:18):
good handle on their moneystory, and they've done a little
bit more of that work, and sothey just need the number, which
is fine.
We can certainly do some ofthat, but actually it is the
marriage between the emotions inyour money story and what a lot
of people don't know orunderstand.
Is that your money habits areactually established by the time
you're 10 years old.
There's a study out of theUniversity of Michigan to
(24:41):
support this data, and they werestudying kids from five to 10,
noticing habits were, andwhatever was being modeled in
their house was actually beingdisplayed.
By these children and certainlyby 10.
Now if you're hearing that as alistener and you're like having
heart palpitations, don't worrybecause habits can be changed,
right?
We are living proof that habitscan be changed.
(25:03):
And so there's certainly thingsthat we can do, but like it's
really important to explore whatyou saw growing up.
And for those of us do feel likewe have some more self-awareness
just in general.
It's very interesting to tellthat.
Story to talk about your moneystory because we've talked about
it from maybe the side of likeyour mental health or your
(25:25):
personality or whatever the casemay be.
But that money piece reallyhasn't been explored all that
much.
And so when you can take alittle time to understand like,
oh, my dad was always gettingangry on vacations for what we'd
spend.
And it really ruined thevacation for me.
Like how is that now impactingyou going on vacations and how
you spend, some people are like,I'm not spending a dime on
(25:48):
vacation because you knew thatdad would be mad.
And then other people are like,oh, I'm gonna go balls to the
walls on vacation because dadwould've been mad so it did
impact you and so we need toexplore that and unpack it a
little bit.
So yeah, definitely a huge partof my work.
Oh, that's so cool understandingyour habits and the way that
you've done things your wholelife totally helps you
(26:10):
understand what you want thechanges to be, how you wanna
change for the future.
So when you're working withpeople do you work with all
facets?
If I had my money under controlbut I had no idea about
investing, could I come to you?
Or is it more just I don't knowwhat I'm doing and how do I pay
bills?
Can I come to you then too?
Oh, totally, yes.
I run the gamut from if you aredeep in the depths of debt all
(26:33):
the way to wealth building andmanagement.
I don't advise anyone.
I'm not a financial advisor, butI do educate.
And so what I think people alsodon't really know is, from,
childhood you might.
Not know when your habits areestablished, but in the wealth
building phase, a lot of peopleare like, oh, I have a financial
dude.
That's like the most commonlanguage I hear all the time is
(26:53):
oh, I have a finance guy and Icringe a little inside.
'cause I'm like, oh my God, whatis he charging you?
And the lack of transparency infinances is really tough on me.
'cause I believe in full pricetransparency.
I'm like, look, if you arepaying for a service, no matter
if it is ordering a.
Starbucks latte or paying afinancial advisor or anything in
(27:14):
between, you need to know whatyou are paying for that service.
And what I don't like is if I goon a photographer's website and
they don't have their priceslisted, I'm instantly like.
I'm not buying from you becauseI want to just know.
I don't want to have a touchpoint before I know if it's a
waste of your time, if you'reout of my realm of possibility
or if you're maybe way under my,but I wanna know that upfront.
(27:36):
And so I am a big advocate ofprice transparency and we often
see with financial advisors.
There is very little pricetransparency and unfortunately,
if your financial advisor ischarging you what's called an
assets under management fee, andit might be 1% and somebody's oh
1%, that's nothing.
(27:57):
But when you actually do themath over the course of your
lifetime, that often ends upbeing closer to 28% of your
overall portfolio.
Wow.
When I learned this, I lost myfreaking mind because I had a
financial advisor and I wasrunning the math on it and doing
all the calculations andeverything.
And this guy was like, oh, we'refamily.
That was what he always wouldtell me.
(28:18):
And I was like.
Look buddy.
I never charge my family whatyou are charging me.
Ultimately, if we had kept ourportfolio with our financial
advisor over the life of our,work with him, he would've had
over a million dollars of ourmoney his pocket.
Because of the way the feesworked out and they pitch it to
(28:40):
you, these financial advisorspitch it to you like, oh, it's
just 1%.
Don't worry about it.
Like you little dummy, don'tworry about it.
It's so belittling the way thelanguage is, and so I really
encourage, especially women, butanybody to really understand
what it is that you are payingthese financial advisors, how
that's gonna impact your generalwealth and what you can do
(29:04):
instead.
Because I do all of my owninvesting.
I love a good index fund.
I love a good target date fund.
And we will do much, muchbetter.
What he would've charged us,because the part two of this
then is you think I have afinancial advisor.
They know more than me.
So their performance is gonna bemuch better than what I would
choose.
'cause I don't know, how toinvest or whatever.
(29:26):
And the reality is, if you justchoose something like a basic
index fund, there's so much datato support that.
There is a very slim chance thata fund manager is going to
outperform a simple index fund,which is basically a big group
of companies all in one bigbasket, and you just buy the big
basket so you don't even have toworry about it.
(29:49):
They simply can't outperform itbecause you don't know what's
gonna happen.
In the stock market and mightpitch themselves as these really
smart financial people.
But the reality is over thelongevity of it, they are not
gonna outperform an index fund.
And so not only are you gettingslammed with this big.
Fee, but you're also performingworse than you would if you were
just doing it on your own.
And yeah, so I definitely teachand I can get on such a soapbox
(30:12):
about this, so I'll hop off.
But I definitely talk aboutwealth management and just how
to do it on your own.
'cause you totally can.
Yeah.
And it's scary to think aboutdoing it on your own.
This year I really wanted to getmy finances under control.
And one thing that we had donewith finances before is we'd put
a bunch of money on credit cardsand then I'd get a bonus and
we'd just pay it off.
(30:34):
And then we'd be like, awesome.
Look at us, how great we'redoing?
And then we'd put a bunch ofmoney on credit cards and then
we'd pay it off.
And then I was like, there's gotto be something about this where
it's like this immediategratification where I'm paying
something off, but I'm like.
There's gotta be some better wayto handle this so that we're not
losing this bonus, this amountof money that could be
(30:57):
supportive.
And then of course, starting abusiness is a whole nother money
game.
But I say that to say this yearI knew that investing was gonna
be more important for us.
And as we're figuring out whatwe wanna do in the future, I
just started dabbling inlearning some things.
So the things that you're sayingnow, for those of you listening,
if it sounded like foreign orunfamiliar, that's okay.
(31:19):
It's okay that you're hearing itfor the first time now, because
I.
The next time you hear aboutsomething like that, you're
gonna have a little bit more ofa foundation to build upon.
And with A DHD, we wanna be goodat something right away, which
is why oftentimes we can avoiddoing the things that feel
overwhelming and feel like toomuch for us to learn.
But this is it.
You've already just startedlearning about investing just by
(31:39):
listening to this conversation.
And so then you get to startsaying maybe I'll read an
article or maybe I'll go listento Lindsay's podcast and hear a
little bit more about what is anindex fund?
Or maybe you just Google indexFund.
What is definition?
It's things like that that getyou curious and get, you start
to learning more about money andhow it can support you and.
(32:00):
Just this conversation aboutwomen in money, is so powerful
and so incredible because it'salways been about the investing
bros.
And now it's about, investingpeople, it's all of us.
'cause all of us have thiscapability.
You don't have to have a certainGPA or like literally anything
else to start doing it.
I really appreciate thisconversation today and I would
(32:22):
so look forward to us being ableto do this again.
Any wise words of advice for theADHDers listening and they're
like, there's no hope for me.
Oh my gosh.
There's just so much foreveryone, and that's why I get
to do this work.
If you're like, oh my God, myhabits are so bad and I'm just
so bad and this and that andwhatever.
It's you're really not, there'sjust a lot of education to be
had because truly you were nevertaught this stuff very unlikely
(32:45):
where you taught this stuff athome.
You were certainly never taughtit in school, and yet, the day
you turn 18, it's like you gottago figure it out.
And now you're an adult and youdon't know how to do money.
And so we put this pressure, alittle bit on ourselves, but
that's more of a societal thingto be like you just gotta figure
it out.
And that's true for so manyfacets as well.
But there is so much hope andit's really not hard.
(33:06):
It's really simple when we breakit down.
And that's honestly my wholeangle is just making this stuff
simple.
Like, why are weovercomplicating something that
actually doesn't need to beovercomplicated?
Now the emotion.
And certainly bringcomplications into it, but from
like account structures and thisand that and to your point about
the investing stuff, yes.
Like we're just planting.
Little seeds, you can always domore.
(33:26):
You can always expand andexpound and even doing money
work.
I've been on my own financialself care journey really since,
I don't know, the late 20 teens.
I've learned so much and I'm.
Forever gonna be learningbecause this is a journey with
money work.
There is no destination.
You are learning constantly.
And yeah.
So I just, if there's a messageI can leave with somebody.
(33:47):
It's there's certainly hope foryou.
I often hear women come to meand they're like, I'm like, the
biggest mess you've ever seen.
I know it.
And I'm like, you are not, Ipromise.
Like it's totally fine.
Yeah just.
I really encourage people to dothis work'cause I really think
it's really important.
That's awesome.
Thank you for you doing the workso that you can show up for
(34:09):
others and support them throughthis journey.
Thank you so much for coming ontoday.
It was a pleasure talking toyou.
It was so much fun talking toyou.
Thank you for having me.
It was such a pleasure tore-listen to that episode and
get some of these incrediblenuggets of remembering how
possible it is for us to get ourfinances in order.
It comes back to just starting,and it's so hard to know where
(34:33):
to start, but part of startingis taking the tiniest step
forward.
Our executive function oftenprevents us from being able to
take that step forward becausewe don't know where to start.
So here's an example of how tostart listening to this episode.
That's a first step.
Listening to so many otherepisodes, maybe jump over to
(34:55):
Lindsay's podcast and listeningthen starting to take action.
Maybe you go And start trackingyour finances to get a better
idea of where you're spendingyour money, things like that.
Maybe you give Lindsay a callbecause it makes sense for you
to start working with someone tocoach you on where to go next.
So many options.
All of Lindsay's links andinformation will be in the show
notes below.
(35:16):
As I've mentioned in previouspodcasts, I am not taking on any
new coaching clients right now,and my community is gonna be
closed until the upcoming fallyear.
If you're interested in learninga little bit more about some of
the programs I will have comingup this fall, go ahead and go to
organizing an ADHDbrain.com/community.
(35:37):
You can also go to organizing anADHD brain.com/coaching
depending on what you're moreinterested in.
I'll see you all soon.
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