182 - ADHD and Money with Tina Mathams

This month we are all about the finances! Today's guest is the PERFECT person to kick it off for us. 

Tina's Bio:

Tina Mathams is an accountant, ADHD financial educator, author and host of the ADHD Money and Finance podcast. After discovering her own ADHD, she combined her expertise with her lived experience to help neurodivergent individuals manage their finances. Through her online platforms, she provides practical strategies for overcoming impulsive spending, budgeting effectively, and building financial confidence. Tina is a sought-after speaker and guest expert in the neurodivergent community. Her mission is to empower ADHD adults to take control of their money and to do that in a way that suits their ADHD brain.

Tina Matham Links:

Tina's Website

Pre-order her book "ADHD Money" on Amazon

Her Instagram: @theadhdaccountant

And here's her linktree with all her other exciting things, including her Facebook Group as well as her podcast: ADHD Money and Finance

Try the FREE ADHD Big Brother Episode Finder!  Type in your struggle, get two matching episodes. No emails, no sign-ups. Find your episodes →

Learn more about Russ and ADHD Big Brother and the various ways we help by visiting https://www.adhdbigbrother.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It's March. It's a new month. New month, and you know what that means? New theme. What to do? We're theming it out this year. March is all about finances. Let's take this month. Let's get our school spaghetti properly calibrated for healthy financial management. Let's go. You are listening to ADHD Big Brother, the podcast for adults struggling with their ADHD and their depression and anxiety and I'm your host, Russ Jones. I'm an ADHD coach, and I run a Platinum Award-winning community coaching of the same name, ADHD Big Brother. And I also have ADHD and depression. It's crapastic. Welcome aboard. Let's learn some stuff, laugh at some stuff. Ladies and gentlemen, here's some stuff. Welcome. Welcome, one and all. It's the first podcast of March of 2025. How you guys doing? February was all about routines. We crushed it. We had some great workshops in the community. Dr. Shane stopped by just last week, rocked our world as always. You know, taxes are coming up. I'm not trying to freak you out. I'm just putting it out there. This taxes are coming up. This would be a great month to theme it on finances. I mean, could you imagine getting your taxes done and over with? And then we can turn the page on that turd mountain of a task. Turd Mountain, of course, we're referring to episode 92, appropriately titled episode Turd Mountain. Check it out. Alright, before we get to talking to Tina, uh, Madams, I'll give you my mental health update. As we do, we like to normalize talking about our school spaghetti, the good, the bad, the weird, um, and all areas in between. For the most part, I had a wonderful week uh last week. I had one instance um worth mentioning of a glorious, glorious emotional dysregulation. Um things weren't going right one day, and my brain just wouldn't let me move on from it, sunk me into a dark place. I used the classic phone a friend technique, talked to my girlfriend, uh, just shared how I felt, acknowledged it was bullshit, and there's, you know, nothing to be done about it, but it's nice to express it, you know. And she's super cool and super supportive. Like that's just an amazing human. Done and done. And that's that. I've been meditating a little bit more, and I I think the routines that we worked on in building in February, that really was super helpful that this last month. And overall, mental health's looking good. Looking real good. So March is all about finances. I've got personally a lot of credit card debt, and I really love making budgets and then forgetting that I made them. Uh, what would be great is if we could bring in a ringer. Let's get an ADHD money pro in here and let's get our shit straightened out once and for all. You wanna? Because we got somebody. We got Tina Mathams. Tina is an accountant, an ADHD financial educator, author, and host of the ADHD Money and Finance podcast. After discovering her own ADHD, she combined her expertise with her lived experience to help neurodivergent individuals manage their finances because she's awesome. Through her online platforms, she provides practical strategies for overcoming impulsive spending, budgeting effectively, and building financial confidence. Tina is a sought-after speaker and guest expert in the neurodivergent community. Her mission is to empower ADHD adults to take control of their money and to do that in a way that suits their ADHD brain. That's awesome. She is absolutely sought after, and we sought after her. We sought and we got. And now we all get to learn. So let's jump on in. Here's Tina Mathams and your old buddy Russ talking about finances. Let's listen in. I was talking to the community and I was telling them that I'm going to be talking to Tina Mathams and that the month is all about finances. And uh I think I mentioned that to you before uh over the email, but the guy this guy was like, Can you not do a thing about budgets? Can you go deeper? Because we are all we're struggling, and I related to it big time because I, for one, uh I have like crippling credit card debt that I'm you know, for the past five years or so, I've been trying to work my way out of. But this is from decades of just the world's shittiest financial uh uh mismanagement, I guess. And then we're talking about people have bankruptcies and I mean, we uh I we should get all into that, but can you talk a little bit about what how you um what you see out there and what got you into uh working in finance in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Yeah, well, I mean, I guess in the first place, like before the neurodivergence um thing, I just started working in finance because I just really love numbers. I've always loved numbers. Um, my favorite subject at school was maths. Um, you know, in my spare time as a kid, I loved doing like maths equations, all that kind of stuff. So it was just kind of a natural progression for me, I guess. But being undiagnosed, neurodivergent in working in finance and accounting, it was really difficult. Um, couldn't couldn't figure out why I was struggling with um timesheets and why I was struggling with my time in general, prioritizing organization, all that kind of stuff. Um it just didn't make any sense. And I just thought I was a really bad accountant. I just that's what I put it down to. Um, and then the you know, fast forward quite a few years and the the um ADHD diagnosis came and everything just made sense. And at the time I was I had my Instagram account where I was just posting about ADHD because I just I didn't know I didn't know that there was a an online presence of ADHD, like not as big as it is now. This was going back, I think, like four years. So it was a little bit smaller, but because my diagnos my assessment and diagnosis came because of my son, I didn't know that people online were talking about this. So I thought that, you know, I didn't know any other adult with ADHD, and I just wanted to put my story out there and you know, my experience as an accountant with ADHD and all that kind of stuff. So that's sort of what kicked off my Instagram. Um, that's all it was at first. And then because of course my Instagram handle is the ADHD accountant, people started asking questions like money questions and all that kind of stuff, and it became very evident that there was a need to talk about money and ADHD, because at the time nobody else was talking about it. So, yeah, that's when I thought, well, I've got this lived experience. Um, I've got the professional thing to back it up as well. And that's when it kind of I switched my content from just talking generally about ADHD to talking about ADHD and money, and that's what set off everything.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

What has been set off? Where are what who are you now? What is you exploded? And who are you now? And uh the fact that you have the word math in your name seems a little serendipitous. I think that's right.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

You know, so many, so many people say that. It's really funny. So I have um here in Australia, I have my own accounting firm where it is um like tailored to um neurodivergent people on the side. I also do some um like money education, obviously, all my social media content, um, you know, got lots of stuff coming in that way as well, like resources and things like that. I've got a book coming out as well um around the end of May. So that's pretty much in a nutshell what I do at the moment. Um, and I guess to answer your other question that I just remembered, um, what I see out there when I've spoken, like when I've worked with clients, um, because I used to do sort of one-to-one money coaching as well. Um, and then talking to people on my social media, I think there's a big theme around, yes, budgeting and impulsive spending, all that kind of stuff, just money management and organization in general. But there's also this element of, you know, past financial trauma and a lot of emotions around our spending, feeling a lot of shame and guilt and judgment, like judgment of ourselves, judgment from other people that we carry a lot. And that makes people very avoidant of finances. So there's that sort of element. Um, if you, you know, if we go back to that email of going deeper, that's what the deeper issue is. It's all that internal stuff, the emotions, the judgment, the you know, past traumas, all that kind of stuff, which then externalize into this avoidance and not following through with budgets and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Oh man, I and I I resonate with that big time in in terms of of the avoidant aspect, because if I don't look at my finances, I don't see the monster. I don't see anything bad happening because I'm not I'm not looking. Um you see that a lot with uh like the ADHD folks.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah, that's so sad. Like it's sad to me. Like I'm looking back at myself about a decade ago, right? And I would buy things on credit because I because I could. And but in the moment it just it just means I get to eat dinner at a nice restaurant tonight because I decided that's what I wanted.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah, oh my gosh. So how in terms of helping people with ADHD get on the other end of these types of things, what do you what do you recommend?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

So I do recommend, and it's you know, it's it does sound really boring and a little bit fluffy, and I know it can be difficult to do the work, but it is a lot of that inner work. One thing that I have found with a lot of people that I've spoken to and worked with, like people come to me and just say, I'm just so bad with money. I've always been bad with money. But when we actually do the work, people know what to do. People end up being very good with their money once they understand how their ADHD affects their money. So sometimes we don't even make that connection. And then doing that inner work of, you know, trying to um work through the shame and the guilt and the judgment and all that kind of stuff. Um, obviously, not being a therapist, I can't sort of work with any past trauma. So if we do identify anything like that, that's you know, for people's therapist and things like that to work through.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

But it's it's very, very interesting when I've worked with ADHDers, the difference from when they come to me to when they, you know, then sort of exit our sessions. It's it's not the fact that we've put together a budget for them. It's not the fact that, you know, we've done all these other external things. It's the fact that we've done the inner work, the awareness of how they're feeling around money, the awareness of why they're not checking their bank account, the awareness of all the avoidance and the why, why, why. And that's what tends to get people better at, you know, budgeting if they want to, or, you know, looking at their finances, tracking their cash flow, things like that. So that's that's how I find it works really well. And that's, you know, I I've been saying to people since I told them that my book has been coming out. My book actually goes into all that stuff first before we even get to the budgeting, before we even get to the other stuff. It's like, this is, you know, what your ADHD is, this is how it affects your money, this is about emotions, this is about, you know, um, our past money stories, all this kind of stuff. And then once we've spoken about that, then the book goes into things like budgeting and tracking your, you know, expenses, cash flow, um, going through debt, all that kind of stuff. Because as we'll kind of, you know, when we first started talking, and I spoke to you about, you know, budgeting's often, you know, five steps down the track.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

That's why. That's why. Because if you don't have that awareness, if you don't have that understanding, a budget's not going to do anything. It's just gonna sit there and then you're gonna feel like rubbish because you can't stick to your budget.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Yeah, a thousand percent. I this is you're speaking directly to me uh right now. I I uh absolutely I've made budgets budgets of millions of times. And uh okay, so I'm I'm huge. Everybody that knows me in terms of ADHD Big Brother, I'm about the doing of the work. So if if we're doing this inner um what what does that look like? The the inner work.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Yep. So it's looking like um, you know, uncovering your money story, which is basically like your money past. What has your money past looked like? You know, what did money look like as a child? And I'm not necessarily talking about how much money people had, but what was the story around money with your parents, your caregivers? You know, often people have this story of parents or caregivers saying, you know, we don't have that kind of money, we're not rich people, we're not this, we don't have money for that, all this kind of stuff, which then gives us this story as we go through life of like that's what we believe, and then we carry that into adulthood. Um, so there's that that there's that part of it. And then that also gives you a bit of a mindset as well. You're, you know, whether you've got like a um fixed mindset or a growth mindset, you know, if you are in that you're stuck in that story of your past and you think, you know, coupled with ADHD, and then you have some people have this mindset of, well, that's just it, because I have this past, because I have ADHD, I'm not good with money. I can't get better with money. So rewriting those thoughts and rewriting that, you know, um, that narrative of just because there's these things doesn't mean that you're bad with money, doesn't mean that you can't get better. Um, so there's that element of it as well. And then working through our emotions, like understanding what emotions you have when you look at, you know, when you think about money, when you think about going through your bank account, what emotions are coming up, and not letting that make you avoid everything, you know, think about what emotions are there and why, and how can I work through this? How can I work with this to then be able to, you know, get past that to, you know, start my budget or look at my spending or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Oh gosh. Okay, so the my uh questions for this are I I'm I'm thinking about my own story. So, and you know, the way that um I mean, I'll just guinea pig myself. So the my my money story, I think in my childhood was that my parents were very quiet about money. We seemed to be fine, we seem to always be fine, but nobody ever talked about it. And they were very frugal in their their choices, so they would like compare toilet paper and things like that, yeah, but I would never know. But I th when you were talking, I'm like, I think that my takeaway was hey, we're fine. Just don't talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Yeah, which is quite helpful, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Which which makes sense for me just spending belligerently on a credit card to be like, I'm fine. I just not I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm fine. Yeah, um, but I also I carry with me also a very uh uh that which this I'm working on, but I carry a very strong oppositional feeling towards wealth of um it equals bad or something. And I know that's bullshit. I know it's stupid, yes, but it's um it's fed to me through the news, it's fed to me through all kinds of things, but um I I I struggle with that. So now if I I okay, so now I take all this, not just to just give everyone my history or whatever, but so now I take all this and what do I do? How like when I'm rewriting my money story, what does that actually physically look like? Is that me journaling? I I love money and I make money, or is like what what what is the um activity that goes along with this?

SPEAKER_00 16:41

It absolutely can be. Um, and just to sort of go back to that point that you were saying that you have this story about wealth because that's what's fed to you 100%. Like, and that's the other thing. It can be it's not only our money past with our parents or caregivers, it can absolutely be, you know, societal views and things like that, like what's happening in the news, what's fed to us through social media, and there is this very big, you know, being wealthy is bad. So that can also make us feel like, well, if if I get out of debt, we have this narrative if if I get out of debt, then I'm better, and that might be bad. So I'm gonna stay in debt. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Meanwhile, we keep saying, I need to get out of debt, I really want to get out of debt. And then we sabotage it.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Essentially, yeah, yeah. So, yes, it can look like journaling if that's something that people want to do 100%. It it's a case of under it's a case of awareness and understanding of what those narratives are, what that past story is, what you tell yourself, awareness of that, knowing what that is, and then rewriting that. So if you I I go through this exercise with a lot of people of whose views are these? Are they actually your own views or are they somebody else's? And as we've been talking about, is it parents, caregivers, social media, friends, you know, teachers, um, things like that? And if they're not your own views, then what is your own view? What's your own view of wealth? What's your own view of um financial wellness? What does that mean to you without everyone else's input? And that can be really difficult for people because um, I guess, A, because it's so ingrained in our in our brains and our nervous system, we might even not know what our own beliefs and views are. Um, so that's sort of the one thing. But the other thing is that we can be also, we just don't want to be honest with ourselves because again, we're gonna be scared of the judgment of, you know, even if we don't tell anyone, even if it's in our own journal, or, you know, um I often tell people to, you know, voice journal if they don't like writing or they can't write or something like that. We also get scared of, you know, I guess, yeah, the judgment from ourselves because again, that's coming from external sources. People are gonna judge me even if they're not going to know, even if I'm not gonna tell them, I still feel like I'm gonna be judged. And that's, you know, I guess like a bit of a self-judgment because we're still getting all those inputs from other people from external sources.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

I want to ask you about the doing of the the doing of the thing. So I'm in my experience with with people with ADHD, is a lot of times what we want to do is we we want to our mindset to be changed, right? And we go, oh, I've got a new view about money. And if we think it one day, we all of a sudden I've declared it, so I become it, and then I'm I'm done. And we all know that that's bullshit and that's not how it works, right? And I really struggle personally, so I've never really advocated for it of like affirmation type things of like I I saying what my mindset is or saying what my new view is. But what are your thoughts on uh I call them task formations, but like of of things that we do to prove to ourselves that we are this new view of money? Does that make sense? Is there anything is there anything you can recommend as a as a physical doing?

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Yes, I guess when it comes to like affirmations and things like that, if people want to do them, obviously, you know, the physical stuff is writing it down and you know, sticking a post-it note somewhere or writing it in a journal or things like that. But the thing is, it needs to be somewhat believable. So we can't go from like A to Z. We can't go from I'm terrible with money to I'm gonna make a million dollars in my business this year because it's not gonna be believable. Exactly. That's what you know, essentially that's what people are trying to do with affirmations. They're trying to just take too many steps. It's not believable. We don't believe it ourselves, and that's why we tend to, you know, quote unquote fall off the wagon or something like that and go, well, this is rubbish because I'm not believing it. Affirmations don't work. It's not that they don't work, it just needs to be that, you know, you just need to bring it down a bit. So rather than, you know, that A to Z, it's more like just A to B. So if someone's feeling, you know, terrible with money, perhaps their new affirmation could be something like, I'm going to learn, you know, one of the ways to pay off my debt or something like that. So it's not even like I'm going to pay off my debt this year. It's just that step of let me just look into this first, let me get curious. And then that might be a bit more believable for somebody. And then they've made that step up a little bit. And then it's just that step up, step up, step up. So once they once they believe, because they've done the thing, they believe that they can see how to pay off their debt. Then it's the next step. Okay, I'm gonna pay off, you know, five thousand dollars this year rather than I'm gonna pay off all my fifty thousand dollars of debt this year.

unknown 21:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Oh my God, this is uh that hit me really hard. I literally, short story. I went to the Trader Joe's this morning and went shopping with my girlfriend, and we were talking, and credit score came up. For some, we were just shooting the shit. And she's got a really high credit score, and she uses the credit card to buy things and then you know pays them off. But she because the points, right? And I my I and I had, I told her, I was like, I don't use credit cards anymore at all. I've just banned myself from using them because I'm paying them all off. And I'm like, I think that is what you're talking about. As that's my one step on the journey of I'm paying off my debt. I've yeah, I started the process of shutting it down. And now I'm is it is am I right on track now? And now I need my next step after like, okay, I don't spend on credit card anymore.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Now I'm looking at ways to pay down quicker, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. So you haven't gone from, you know, being in all this credit card debt to I've suddenly paid all this off because you know, that's what that's again, that's what social media and stuff tells us with affirmations and mindset and things like that. It's exactly that. It's okay, I'm I'm someone that doesn't spend on my credit cards anymore. You know, you've shut them down, whatever. And then the next step is okay, now I'm somebody that's starting to pay off my credit cards. And then you just sort of step that through.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Yeah. Okay, brilliant. This is the pieces are coming together, Tina. They're they're they're starting to do so. As we move into um, so I'm excited to work with you this month. It's like you're coming back right at the end of the month to check in on us, maybe. Okay. Yes, yes. What what what my hope was is for this process is that you give us something to do. You you give us all of us that are in financial ruin, all of us that are like, what do we do? And what would be the the actionable thing that we could do? And then I'll on the podcast next week, I'll just come in and talk about where I'm at, invite people to talk about where they're at, and we we grow throughout the month and then come back at the end of the month and be on the podcast and give us the next step to take us into the future. Does that sound cool?

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Oh my god, I'm so stoked. Okay, so what do you what do you got for us? What would be the big idea?

SPEAKER_00 24:18

So, I mean, I guess like, you know, people listening might be at obviously different stages of their, you know, finance or whatever, but for people who really just are in that bit of, I've got no idea what I'm doing, I've got no idea how to organize this, you know, I'm not sticking to a budget. I guess on theme of what we've spoken about, I would just love people to have that awareness and have that understanding of what they actually want with their money. So putting aside all that external noise and things like that, what does what does financial management for you actually look like? Is it a budget? Is it is it, you know, you want to be somebody that tracks their spending? Is it um, you know, is it that you do want to be debt-free or something like that? Just have that awareness of who, who you actually want to be when it comes to your finances um and have a really good think about that. And I guess, you know, from what we've spoken about, people, if they want to, can also do that. They can take that, you know, thinking about their money story, thinking about their past, um, thinking about all that, you know, what do I, what's all that input, what do I take from external sources and make it like make myself believe it? They can do all that as well. And then that will bring them to a bit of a better awareness and understanding of who they actually are, who they actually want to be, um, and what does working on your money look like for you, not for your friend, not for your, you know, influencer person on social media who, you know, have might have a completely different financial environment. But what is this for you? I think that is a really good first step because it's hard to do all the other things when you don't even know what that is.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Can we raise the bar on that one bit and say, because I'm super stoked to do this. So here's my summary of this. Okay, I'm gonna take the time to really contemplate my money story historically. What uh like what has it been to me? I'm gonna uh fantasize future dream. What does money management look like in an ideal world? What's my perfect vision of me? Um, I have my RV dream, I have like what I want to make, but I but I don't know that I have what does my ideal money management vision look like? Like, how do I handle so that is a I'll give an awesome think on that. And then this is what I want to can I rate you tell me if I if it's a no, but yeah, can I pick like what's one thing I can do that's in alignment with that future money management vision?

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

And make a go of that, that one thing for a week.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Absolutely, yeah. Okay, so yeah, for I guess for example, there, if somebody's like, yes, I want to be somebody who looks at my spending, like I want to do that weekly, have a go. Just bring up your um, you know, bank bank transactions for the past week, um, you know, and just have a look at them. It it doesn't have to be something that, you know, you sit down and you actually write down what you've been spending and all that kind of stuff can literally just be something as simple as, I'm just gonna bring up my transactions, I'm gonna bring up my spending and I'm gonna look at them. Um, because that's gonna be, if that is in somebody's financial future, it's gonna give you a really good idea of, you know, what that feels like. It's gonna give you a good idea of the emotions that might be coming up in your body as well that you might be able to sort of have awareness of. And yeah, I think that's, I think that's perfect. As long as, as I said, as long as it's like, you know, that baby step. Um, okay, you know, not going too far where you're like, this is too hard, I can't do it. Just make it, make it, I guess, remove any barriers, is what I'm trying to say there. So, you know, just make it a nice, easy step. But 100% if somebody can identify that, go for it.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Okay, awesome. Uh this brought up another question too, which is how do you respond to people that are okay, if if I'm looking at my finances, it makes me uncomfortable. I don't like how it feels, I hate it. So how do you how do you talk to people about that? Because my my guess is that it ha it's going to be uncomfortable. And that it's it's not a thing that can magically go away. But how do you how do you work with that?

SPEAKER_00 28:46

Yep. So again, it's that uh and uh going back to journaling, journaling is great for this because writing down sort of um those what like why you're feeling not really why you're feeling uncomfortable, I guess that's sort of the step up, but what's what's feeling uncomfortable? Where are you feeling it in your body? Is it like a stomach feeling? Like maybe is it a bit of anxiety? Is it um maybe a bit of judgment? So the understanding why it feels uncomfortable. Um, and again, it it's just that even if people don't understand why exactly, it's just having that awareness of what am I feeling? Like, you know, where is it in my body? Is it more that I just, you know, is it sort of in my brain? Maybe just it's not feeling anywhere in my body, but it's my brain that's like, I don't want to do this as a bit of resistance, maybe. So just having awareness, writing down what that actually is, how you're feeling uncomfortable. Okay. Um, and then from there, um, you know, I guess the next step from there is to go, okay, well, I felt these things in my body. So then try to sort of think about why that might be. So if somebody's feeling a little bit anxious, often that can be because, you know, they don't know what they're spending. They don't know what they're gonna find in their transactions. Because often we forget, we forget that we've purchased things, right? Because um, I don't know how it is over in America, but here, like we just tap. We tap our card, we tap our phone, our watch, whatever it is. Yeah, um, and we go and we forget about it. Oh, but wait, but there's I've been there.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Wait, there is there's always literally always that moment of fear and tension as you slap as you tap the card, waiting for the word approved to show up.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

I always I was like, you hold your breath a little bit, and you're like, please don't don't make this the one where they say declined.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Yeah. Oh, look, I've been there. I've been there where I've had to use like three different cards. Oh, sorry. Oh, there must have been something come out of there, and really like, I know it's just because, like, you know, I've spent too much money, but I'm trying to make this story so it doesn't like make me look terrible. Um totally. But um, but you know, there's I guess from there, there's always a reason for the emotion, you know, just like there's a reason for behaviors, there's a reason for that uncomfortableness. And it's just a case of trying to dig deeper to find out what that is. And it starts with just that awareness of where is it in my body, what's happening, why, you know, how is it feeling uncomfortable? And then from there, it's like, well, now that I can, you know, visually see these again, even like writing down is really good to be able to visually see it. Um, from there, people can sort of go, well, you know, if I'm feeling anxious, like, why is that? And you just keep asking yourself, why, why, why. Um, you know, coaches often do that as well. They're asking those questions to get to the deeper meeting. And that's what people can do for themselves. Um, obviously, if that's a really hard, that can be hard for people who are new to that kind of thing. Um, so you know, there's there's no reason why you can't work with a coach or something like that if people can, you know, if if it's in their um financial space right now, um, you know, they can also work with somebody to sort of go, well, you know, what's happening? Why is this happening? Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Cool. I'm really, really excited to do this work. This is awesome. And you know what I love? I love the fact that we didn't talk about budget. And I like that we didn't talk about any apps and any of the yeah, but what's my thing that I can do to plug all my data into? I love that we're not even touching that because it has nothing to do with that, is what I'm finding based on this conversation. Yep. Okay. Exactly right. Yep. Let's not corrupt it then.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

Yeah, and I guess now you're kind of seeing why I often say these things are actually down the track. You know, we need to address all this other stuff because if you're just pulling up um an app or if you're just doing a budget, if you've still got all these issues around feeling uncomfortable with your money, feeling anxious about it, not um, not knowing what you're spending on, all that kind of stuff, it's you know, it's not really gonna help any with anything. It's gonna help with a bit of awareness, yeah. But you still need to, you know, if you're having all these issues with impulsive spending and things like that, this is all the stuff that gets done to work on that. So then you can do the apps, you can do the budgeting if you want, and so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

Yeah, that's great. I mean, it really does feel like the the apps and things like that are it feels like our attempt. Um, because I'm super guilty of that. Of it's our attempt to make the crappy thing fun. I found a cool app that that does it all. And it's finally it looks pretty and fun, and I want to do it, but I never stick with them. I never do it for longer than just the data entry. Is there anything that we're missing on your uh this feels like an amazing primer on on a month of finances? So I'm really stoked to move forward on all this. Is there anything that we're missing?

SPEAKER_00 33:48

I mean, I guess as far as sort of, you know, that sort of deep work that we're talking about, um, I think that's probably, yeah, probably a good starter. We could we could go even deeper. We could probably talk for hours and hours. Um, but you know, we need that.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

We'll save it, we'll save it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Exactly, because we we don't want to overwhelm ourselves as well. It's like, you know, if we give all this information, then we get to a point of like, I don't even know where to start, so I'm gonna avoid it. Um, so I think that's probably a lot of information for people to hopefully go, okay, I've I've got this understanding of what it means to do to do the work. So let me start with this one thing. Um, and then you know, we can we can go from there.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

I love that. Yeah, I love that because and I I know us. We are we are of the people that are like, oh, I think I got an idea about this, so I'm gonna go from zero to a thousand and burn out and it won't work. Um, yeah. What's what's your book called, by the way? I want to get it. How do I get it?

SPEAKER_00 34:53

It's not it's called ADHD Money.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

You don't say you don't say that's right on that's right on the nose.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

You know, I'm not, I always say to people, I'm not creative whatsoever. Like if people ask me to make a business name or something, like my business my accounting business is called Diverse Accountants because but that's the thing. I know as an ADHD, I just like it to be to the point. I want to know if something is for me. So a book called ADHD Money, you can't miss it. It's gonna be for an ADHD.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

Yeah, you know exactly. And then what's your you have a podcast?

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

And what is your podcast called? Let me guess.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

It's a really finance podcast.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

ADHD Money and Finance Podcast. I wonder what that one's about.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

Yeah, well, yeah, take a guess. Um but yeah, with the book, um you I it's it's kind of like it's for pre it's available for pre-order. Um in Australia and the UK, you can get it on Amazon. Um it's not available yet on Amazon US. It should be soon. I think it's kind of just sort of making its way into different areas. Um but I just sort of tell people if you just sort of um if you Google ADHD Money Tina Matham's pre-order, it will actually bring up a whole lot of links um for you know whatever region you're in.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Okay, then how about I do this then? So the link for it will be in the show notes to pre-order. I'll I'll put the I guess the Amazon UK link in there. Um because we're global here at ADHD Big Brother, we're all over the place. Um so we'll we'll put that link in there. And then when the link for the US shows up, I'll put that in the show notes as well. Um and then the link to your podcast, like everything. How do people connect with you on Instagram um or uh are there other socials, socials that you're on?

SPEAKER_00 36:42

There are, but I always say Instagram's probably the best place to go because I've got that link in bio situation happening. So you can always just go to my Instagram, um, go to like the bio page and then click that link, and that link will then give you all these other links to um, you know, listen to the podcast. To my I've got a Facebook group as well, um, which is called AHD Money Community. Um, and then you know, it'll give you all those other things.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

Oh, that's awesome. So the Instagram link in the bio of the Instagram will give people access to your your community on Facebook and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Yep. Oh my god, that's awesome. Thank you so much for doing this. This is monumentally helpful. I cannot even tell you. I'm I'm taking so much out of this personally. So thank you for thank you for being here. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Yeah, thank you. This has been fun.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Wow, this is amazing. Did you guys are you guys doing this? Are you are we gonna do this together or what? Let's get a wrangle on our finances this month. So we're kicking it off. Here's my summary, here's what we're what I'm posting in the community. This is the challenge that I'm gonna put to everybody there, and I'm put it to everybody listening right now. Let's get our money story going, and let's get our the vision of our what does financial management look like to us? Let's do the work. So we all have seven days now to sit, to take one work session, two work sessions, and really think about uh this money stuff. And then what's one action item that we can do to move the needle forward towards that vision of financial management? And please go down in the show notes and connect with Tina. Thank her for the amazing information that she gifted us, and you can connect with her through her socials, through her Facebook group. We'll put all the links down there and the link to pre-order her book, which, by the way, it looks like you can pre-order it on Amazon US. When I went to the link, it worked. So that's that. That's it. We're we're done here. We have plenty to do and think about. Thank you, Tina Mathams. Appreciate you. And uh everybody else, uh, I hope you guys have a fantastic week. And I will talk to you later.