Money Without Shame: A Starting Point for ADHD Brains

In this episode of Organizing an ADHD Brain, Megs is joined by financial therapist Lindsay for an honest conversation about money, debt, and personal growth for ADHD brains.

If you’ve ever felt shame around finances, struggled with consistency, or believed past money decisions defined your worth, this episode is for you.

Megs and Lindsay explore the powerful overlap between financial organization and home organization, starting with a crucial reframe: debt and clutter are morally neutral. Neither is a personal failure. Both are signals that systems, support, and regulation matter more than willpower.

You’ll learn:

• Why persistence matters more than consistency with ADHD
• How to use financial data without self-criticism
• What “money dates” are and how they reduce avoidance
• How to externalize your brain when money feels overwhelming
• The impact of social media on financial shame and comparison
• Why community and coaching support follow-through and regulation

Lindsay also shares personal insights from her own financial journey, including navigating major life transitions and redefining success on her own terms.

This episode is a reminder that financial growth, like organizing your home or managing ADHD, isn’t about perfection. It’s about self-trust, awareness, and small sustainable actions.

Lindsey is your favorite financial therapist for women and couples, here to help you feel excited about money! (Yes, it's possible!) Money isn't 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!

Links:

• Join the Waitlist for the Financial Self-Care Course + Community here!
• Lindsey’s website
• Lindsey’s IG
• FREE Get Out of Debt Template & Guide

Episode Timeline:

04:12 Introducing Lindsay and the role of financial therapy
10:17 Lindsay’s personal and professional updates
23:31 Using data as a supportive tool in financial planning
28:42 Externalizing the brain for financial success
31:02 Learning from mistakes without self-judgment
33:13 Social media, comparison, and distorted expectations
36:21 Navigating emotions tied to financial decisions
42:01 The role of community and coaching in growth
46:05 Setting realistic, supportive financial goals

Would you like to learn more about hiring Megs as your ADHD coach? Start here> The Perfect Place to Start

The Community is OPEN! Join right here: Organizing an ADHD Brain

You can also learn more about the community HERE> OrganizinganADHDBrain.com

Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants: 0:39

Before we dive in, I just wanna share that I'm so excited to welcome Lindsay back to the show. We've talked about money a lot on this podcast. Part of the reason is because I'm going through my own money journey right now, myself and my husband, and I'm trying to share more openly and more vulnerably because I'm not alone in this. There are so many other people that are going through trying to figure out their finances and where they want to go in addition to this, what we talk about today has so many parallels when it comes to organizing and clutter and the state of what we've gotten ourselves into, if you will. But one thing that Lindsay says in this episode is that debt is morally neutral in that. Just because you have debt doesn't mean you're a bad person. It means that it's data telling you more information. I love data. Oh my God, I could talk about it all day, but it's more information that's telling you that there's a deeper rooted thing that's going on, When it comes to our clutter? It's morally neutral. Just because you have a perfectly organized home versus a cluttered home, because you have a ton of interests, doesn't mean that you are a good or bad person. It means you are a person and that you've learned different things along the way. There are people with A DHD who have meticulously clean and perfect homes. At least on the outside and. There are people with a DHD that have a lot of stuff, which is why we talk about it on this podcast. This isn't just about putting things in places and knowing exactly where it goes and making it perfect. Although we want that in our lives. We seek it. We try to strive for it on a regular basis, but that is keeping us stuck. So we are talking more about the messy middle today because it is the journey of continuing to come back to what you started. That allows you to learn and understand what you wanna do differently and more to that wherever you start, whether you're starting with. The way that you use food as a comfort or the way that you buy stuff as a comfort or the way that you attack your stuff as a way to make you feel better about the state that you're in. Or maybe you try to pay off debt and then you get right back into the same circle all over again. Wherever you start as far as figuring out why you do the things that you do, you're not wrong. You're just starting. It's so funny'cause I've been using those words lately with my business. I don't know where to start. And I heard one of my clients say that the other day, and I'm like, you're not starting, you're continuing. You've done so much. Right? And I had to remind her of that, and I was like, oh, that's so telling my own life and reflection and what I have done and not yet actually given myself credit for. I'm not starting, I'm continuing. Just like I've been talking about persistence instead of consistency. I'm continuing to come back to the things that I set out to do. Each time you do something and you start to see how much progress you can make, it proves to you that you are able to make these changes. If you're focusing on finances, then finances allows you to look at your patterns from a way that's affecting you. But guess what? That bleeds into what you're spending money on. If you now notice that you're spending all this money on bins, but you're not actually using the bins, they're just sitting there or they're getting filled up with a bunch of other stuff. Well then that is a neat truth to start to understand like, oh, I am trying to beat my organizing with buying bins. Okay. Let's go ahead and jump into this episode. i'm so excited to reintroduce you to Lindsay. She is a financial therapist. A licensed mental health counselor, she's also a fellow, ADHDer a mom of two. She's in the middle of a move to Costa Rica. So talk about messy middle. And today we're coming back to you to talk more about what it actually means to be in the messy middle. We're gonna talk finances and how that truly relates to the clutter aspect of our lives. There's so many overlapping themes, welcome back to the show, Lindsay. Thank you so much for having me. I love your show and I'm so happy to be back. Yeah, thank you. Since we started talking, you've done a presentation in my membership as well. I've learned so much from you. I've been on your podcast and oh my gosh, I had to share with you something really exciting over the last couple days happened, and I knew that you would be so pumped about it. In the beginning of the year, I consolidated a lot of my debt. And it was in an 18% loan. And I was like, oh, this is awful. But I did it because it was lower than what the credit cards were. And then I was able to reconsolidate a couple months later, so probably mid, I don't know, June or something, and I got a 12.99%. And yesterday I was able to refinance again. And I've been checking. I've been like, okay, who has the lowest rates? We actually got approved for 7.99. I know. That's amazing. Freaking insane. We decided to take a little bit of a higher interest rate because of the payment, just in our current situation, but the payment we're already making, we're able to pay that and we chose a 9.99% interest rate. Amazing. So. The amount of savings we're gonna have is fantastic. I just can't even believe. I was like, oh my gosh, look how I am doing things slowly but surely, and continuing to save money along the way. So I knew of all people you would appreciate that. Oh, I app. I'm like beaming inside. I just love this for you. And I don't think people totally grasp, and it's really hard to grasp the concept of interest and just how much it really is. Pushing you back. I just had a client that we were working with and we had looked at, she was spending her minimum that she had to pay towards her debt was like 300 and interest charges every month were two 60. And I was like, so you're only making$40? And she hadn't looked at her stuff. And we just walked through that. And so we talked about all her consolidation options. And I actually brought you up as an example. I was like, a friend of mine just went from an 18 to a 12 and she's gonna keep a pulse on it. And I was like, those make really big dents, because if you're still thinking, okay, well I'm gonna put 300 towards my debt, but you're only paying a hundred in interest, it just speeds up everything so much. And so I love to hear that. You're just so good at evaluating, your progress and where you're at and what the right next thing is, and you're really staying on top of it. It has taken me years to get to this point of constant tracking. But now I love it. You said you have money dates with yourself? Oh yeah. Yep. I love pulling up my budget and just making sure that things are going to the right places. And one thing that was really hard for us this year was. Adam didn't have an income because he left his job because we are moving across the country. And now he has an income again. And so I expected to be like, okay, money. Like let's just put it towards where we need to. But it takes time to get yourself to the position where you're not pulling from savings to pay things. You're actually pulling from your paycheck to pay for things. So that is where we're at. We're in the messy middle of adjusting to making more than what we're spending, which feels really good that we get to plan for our future now instead of just trying to scrape by living paycheck to paycheck. Yes. I love this. The money dates to me are honestly such a huge point, and it's really easy to move those to the back burner like you've never done them before, whatever. Right? But if you can keep a money date in the forefront of your mind, it changes. Everything, I look at money. Every Tuesday morning, I have a money date. I wake up before the house, I have my cup of coffee, I romanticize it. I put on something in the background, like, this is really great. And I just look because I'm a business owner, I'm looking both at my business finances and I'm paying myself that day and I'm moving money into my tax savings bucket and I'm doing this, I'm doing that right. And then I look at my personal finances and it's just a way for me. To stay on top of everything, to know what's going on with my money, to tell my money where I want it to go, rather than my money going and me being like, oh, what happened? Right. And I think so many people live in that avoidance. They are in the black box of shame and they are not looking at anything. They don't wanna look at anything. They don't know how to look at anything and respect. It can be challenging when you're first like, okay, I wanna do money dates. But like, what do I do? You know? I can tell if I miss a money date, I'm on vacation, I'm whatever. I feel like this underlying sense of chaos. And then I'm like, oh my gosh, I haven't looked at my wealth planner two weeks, I need to go update that. I haven't looked at my, this and, you know, whatever. And when you can regularly put those into your schedule. It doesn't have to be as consistent as I am with like every Tuesday, although, like I said, it does feel good. But I have a system, I have a whole system for like what my weekly money dates look like, what my once a month money dates look like, and then my big annual money dates. I live for my big annual money dates to do like my yearend review, my year ahead projections, like I think they're so fun, and I have heard very consistently from my clients who are now having regular money dates with themselves. They're like, yeah, it changes everything. It's amazing. That is so darn cool. I wanna talk about that block a little bit more. But first, share with us what's going on in your life. Oh, what isn't going on in my life? Yes. Since we last talked, gosh, when did we record? I don't even know. We are currently 12 days out. From our move to Costa Rica. So me, my husband and my two children are moving to Costa Rica for at least one year is our current plan. Who knows. We're newish real estate investors, so we closed on our first long-term rental in February. We closed on our first short-term rental in October, and our plan with our primary home was to just have that be a rental as well. The more I sat with it and I thought on it. As much as we love this house, we just renovated a ton in our house. We decided that we were gonna sell, which feels crazy because I have a 2.25% interest rate on this house. It is nothing. But I just had this overwhelming sense of like, we did with this house, what we were supposed to do with it, and it's time to pass it on to a new family. And we had quite a bit of equity in it. And that just feels really good. It's sad, but it feels really good ultimately. And so we are now not only just packing up to move to Costa Rica, but we're also now moving all of our crap out.'cause we initially were planning to rent it furnished. So that added a layer of. Complexity. I'm launching my first course for, helping people get out of debt, which launches on January, fifth. So there's a lot of moving parts. And so when you say the messy middle girl, I am right there. All he I just showed off, off. You guys can't see this, but in my background, there's like all my Costa Rica packing, all my Christmas gift wrapping that needs to be done. All of this other pile of things that need to be moved or packed or put in storage or sold, or we're just, we are messy. We are very messy right now. Oh my gosh. Wow. It's so incredible what you've been able to achieve. So you mentioned earlier there's this wall of shame that sometimes we can't break down, and right now it's before the holidays. This will be released right after the holidays. But I know in my world, I used to pretend that I didn't ever have to pay off my credit cards after the holidays. It was just so easy to ignore it. And buy the things and impulse spend and do everything that right is advised against. And I know for me, breaking down those barriers was. Actually seeing and coming to terms with what is actually behind that wall, and that is scary. So tell us when do people like typically seek you out? Are they at the wall? Have they broken down the barriers, or what is that like for you? Such a good question. I have people from every side of it. I have people who don't have any debt currently. They're not even a mortgage, they're renters or whatever, and they're like, but I don't know how to invest. So I have those people. I also have people like you who are like, I'm so sick of this feeling of being in debt and not knowing. What I need to do about it. I don't have the consistency or the skills yet to actually consistently get out of it. Or they've done this, you know, roller coaster thing where like they've gotten out, but then they get right back in and then they've gotten out and they've gotten right back in. And then you're just kind of wanting off the roller coaster and just have a little ease, a little clarity into some things. So I kind of run the gamut. Then we're also looking at how they are spending their money because one of the most interesting skills somebody can really learn like the, one of the most important things in finances is we are taught. Save, save, save. Don't spend your money, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And I am not in that camp. I'm like, yeah, spend your money. It's there to be spent, but spend it in a really intentional way on things that you really want. And nobody teaches the skill of spending money and spending money. Well, and so when you can introduce that skill and say, okay, I'm gonna recognize when the impulses come in, right? So we have spending triggers. Where are your spending triggers? How can we alter those if they're not serving you? Some might be serving you super well. Like I'm okay with you going and grabbing a coffee. I'm okay with you having a little yolo moment. I'm okay with you traveling as you're simultaneously getting out of debt, right? All of that's fine with me. So long as it's actually moving your baseline level of happiness up, it's moving that needle in the direction that you want it to go. You know, I'm hesitant to even say something'cause I don't, I really don't care. Whatever's fueling you and you need that and it really truly moves your happiness level, great. Buy it. But how can we fit that in to what your other goals are? If it is getting out of debt, if it is investing well for your future, if it is spending your money according to your, you know, like there's just a lot there. But I think developing that skill is one of the best things somebody can do for themselves. Oh, I love that. So like I know one of our big goals is buying a house again, and we also had a really low interest rate and decided to sell our house this year. It just made sense for us financially and has allowed us to work towards getting to where we are now. We're truly in the messy middle. Why do we expect organizing or finances to be something we finish instead of something we revisit? We are so much in the digital age that we are in, there's so much comparison, right? And so we are constantly looking at what we're seeing other people doing in the world. Not just our neighbors, not just our friends, not just our family, but people, random internet strangers, and we see what they have. We don't actually know if they have it, but we believe that they have it, right? Like, oh, she's cleaning a really beautiful house and it's super organized and it's really clean, and she must be that way all the time, and I should be that way all the time because they think there's a destination and it's actually so much more about the journey, but that's not what we're seeing in our feeds. That's not what we're noticing to be true. For other people, even again, because we don't see the whole story. But if you're consistently watching, you know, some woman who's keeping her house tidy and she's showing you, well, this is how I put my keys in my bowl, and this is how right. We assume that her house is never, ever, ever messy, and we think it's possible. I used to send out all of my numbers in my spending planner and I would send'em to my email list and say, here's like full transparency, this is what our percentages looked like this month and whatever. And I had one of my clients email me back and she was like, I spiraled. I'm just like, oh my gosh, we are not there. I'm sending it in pursuit of you having transparency into like how I shift things around or whatever. But if this is gonna turn into a comparison game between where I'm at on my financial self-care journey and where you're at on your financial self-care journey, that doesn't feel healthy, that doesn't feel good, and I don't wanna do that. So I stopped sending my numbers out. Because I didn't want people to think, oh, Lindsay has, we've reached Coast Fire, which means we've never, if we don't invest another cent into the stock market, we will still very comfortably retire between the ages of 60, 65. We retired my husband outta corporate America, we're moving our family internationally to a really fun, tropical destination, right? We are doing really, really big, really cool stuff. But that's not the end of the journey for us either. But it's so easy to compare like I'm in$20,000 worth of debt. I want what she has. And that's the piece that is really tricky'cause. Even for me, even right now, you guys just heard we are so messy over here with things that we are doing, and I don't feel like I have, quote unquote made it. I don't feel like. Right. And so I don't think there really is a destination. I don't think the organization can ever remain completely organized forever. I don't think your money ever just is an easy journey along the right. It's a journey the whole way. And frankly, money is the only thing that keeps on going after you die. So there's really truly no destination, right? There's always learning, there's always doing things different or shifting or whatever. But to answer your question, the short answer is we are constantly comparing ourselves to what we're seeing and we, we have this false belief that there's a destination that simply just doesn't exist. Yes. And we are time blind. So we don't think about the amount of time it's maybe taken someone to get there. And we automatically think that we should be experts at this because there are some things that we can pick up. And we're genuinely really good at it. But. I remember when I first started this journey fresh out of the corporate world in leadership, and I discovered Dana K White, and I'm like, she's brilliant. I should be like her. How come I can't be like her? Right? And then the shame spiral starts to set in and I start to put myself in this position where I'm comparing, not really thinking about the 15 years of experience that she has on me, 20 years of experience. That's with so many organizers out there. Mm-hmm. And the unique thing we have going for us is that we are ourselves and we've got our own really cool things we can build on. You said something though in there about the journey and why is it the journey that matters? What does that allow us to understand? The journey is the most important part, right? I'm not somebody who's like, you should enjoy the journey the whole time. Like I think this like bullshit, like I, it's even when like people are like, oh, I just wanna be happy. I'm like, okay, but there's other emotions that you have, like maybe you wanna feel more content like that's like. A general feeling that you wanna have all the while knowing there's gonna be ups and there's gonna be downs in all the emotions that you're feeling on that journey. But I do think, generally speaking. If you're not learning in the journey, if you're not enjoying the journey, like that's your whole life. The journey is simply your life. So we have to figure out a way to feel kind of balanced, kind of integrated, kind of whatever buzzword you want to use, right? Where you're like, yeah, I'm paying off debt, but I'm doing so, and maybe it's gonna take you two extra years to pay it all off. But in that time you also got to vacation with your family or you also got to go to a concert that you really wanted. And honestly if you want to go like super crazy fast and get outta debt in six months, a lot of people can actually do it, but they are truly eating rice and beans and I just don't see a lot of people wanting that way. And when you try that way, you burn out. And then you're just feeling restricted, you're feeling deprived, and then you get a case of the Eff-its and you just spend a ton of money again, and the cycle ensues. Right? And so I'm like, how can we actually. Enjoy this journey. And it's all about the climb, right? Miley Cyrus taught us a lot of things, That kind of stuff is so important to realize, the journey equals your life. And so if you're not generally enjoying it, let's shift. Let's fix it. And so much of that comes back to like, debt is morally neutral. You have been taught time and time again that like high interest debt makes you a bad person and shameful and embarrassing and you did something so wrong. And I'm like, all right, chill out. That's, there's probably circumstances, there's so much psychology behind the marketing campaigns that we're seeing, right? There's so much out of our control on this. So if you can just, turn down the noise. Turn down the volume. Turn inward. What is it that you want? What feels really good? What is the timeline for when you'd like to get outta debt or whatever, and what other things do you wanna experience? And then we fit the numbers to make that right. It's emotions first. It's people first, and then it's what the data is telling us. What do we have to, to use? What's their income? What is our expenses? What can we write? Do we wanna stay in the super bougie hotel? Or maybe we can like just be in a three star hotel this time instead, but making different choices that are for us, not for other people. Is something that you said reminded me of the summer. So we sold our house. Mm-hmm. And then we took our time getting to the East coast. We didn't know where we were gonna live yet, and we wanted to stay in a couple Airbnbs. We thought that would be fun. It would just give us a good memory. Now some people might look at that and say, that's so stupid. Why would you spend that money instead of putting it toward debt or doing this or that? I wouldn't trade those memories for anything. It was a part of our journey and we had a family member, come visit us at one point, and they mentioned to my husband like, I don't know how you guys are doing this with, with only one job or one income. My business, which is minimal as I'm building it, and also, traveling across the country. This is never something that I could do with my family. And it's so interesting because we just simply made a choice. For our family. We weren't thinking about their family or anyone else's family. We were just thinking about what we could feasibly do and what we thought could help our happiness in that moment, and really make the memories that we wanted that would allow this transition to this new area feel so much better. I like the way that you talk about data that has helped me so much because without the data. I would have no idea how far I've come this year. And so how important would you say the data is with the people that you work with or anyone getting out of debt? Super important, I always tell my clients I like to hear. The story from your mouth, what does it feel like? What have you know, what are you experiencing currently? All the things. But then the numbers tell me a story too. I could go into a session totally blind to like what a person is about to tell me, and their numbers are telling me one real interesting story. And then I hear their story and I'm like, wait, something's not matching up. And the example that I often give is. We talk a lot about values. We talk a lot about, priorities. We talk a lot about this kind of stuff and I very commonly hear people say, it's really important for me to take one vacation a year with my family at least, or, a couple weekend getaways with my family and then I look at their numbers and I'm like, you tell me it's super important for you to travel and yet you haven't traveled for months and months and months, years and years and years, and we have this misalignment for what their numbers are saying to me versus what they actually feel in their heart. And so that's when it's time to start looking at that intentional spending and saying, top priority for you is to travel with your family. What if we stop buying clothes for like three months, because right now I'm looking at the numbers and your clothing budget is. There's thousands of dollars being spent on clothes when I suspect your closet is full of perfectly good clothes. I like clothes too but I'm just as an example, right? And so when we can look at that and say, oh my gosh, like I've spent$3,000 on clothes for me and the kids in the last three months. Okay, do you need that? Is that something that you want to continue doing? Or you could go on a pretty healthy vacation with that money. And so that's what this conversation ends up being about is priorities. And I always teach in priorities because that's what I think we need to be talking to our kids about, right? We're not prioritizing that toy right now. We're not prioritizing that princess dress right now. Right now we're prioritizing saving for our trip to fill in the blank. And people are like, oh my gosh, that's a such a great language to use with kids. And I'm like, yeah. And also really great language to use with yourself. Yeah. Right.$1 can't do two things. So if your priority is travel, stop buying the clothes. If your priority is the clothes, then stop going out to eat. If your priority is going out to eat, then stop. Right. And. Again, it's not like an all or nothing situation and it takes time to practice this. Like, oh, I bought this thing. I really thought it was gonna bring me a lot of joy, and turns out it really wasn't for me. Okay, the data is there now, we learned and we can move through the world differently next time. There's no shame. There's no blame, there's no guilt, there's no whatever. It's just about learning and changing and adapting to what fits your current season of life. And to your point here, it's about truly noticing the patterns that you have. Those people may not have seen that they were spending so much on clothing, it was just part of their norm. Mm-hmm. And now the awareness allows you to see things from a different point of view, allows you to make more strategic decisions in your life. And with some of the things you said too, it could be that you forget with a DHD when we're trying something new. You are naturally gonna be really good at it right away and then after a couple days forget that was even an intention that you had. Yep. That's part of the change that is really difficult. It's not ingrained, it's not a habit. It's not something that you can do unconsciously like we do with so many other of the things that we do in life. It is. Literally something that you have to think consciously about, which is why having a coach can be so beneficial because instead of getting lost in your head about everything and when everything is important, nothing is important. You have a focus, you have a goal that they continue to remind you of, and then we can look at the data to see how far you've come. That was one thing I started implementing in my own coaching is I created a momentum map so that you could see what you wanted. it's so easy to get off. And go on these other tangents of things you also think are important, but when you write it down and you come back to it, right, it's not about consistency. It is about persistence. Coming back to it when you get off the ball, coming back to it when you might have made a mistake. And what does that tell you instead of shaming yourself. Looking at it from a data standpoint and saying, what does this tell me? How can I ingrain this into me in the future? Or where can I put this as a reminder so I have permission to forget as I continue to make these changes? Because I'm not off. I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm not stopping. I still know more than when I started. This is just simply the mess that I'm in. Mm-hmm. It's not pretty, it's literally, it's just a mess. It just is the mess. And you know, so much of what I talked about too is with A DHD and how we need to externalize our brain. And so if money dates are something that you're interested in doing. I live and die by my calendar.'cause I cannot remember a damn thing, right? So I'm like, put it on the calendar. I will see it. I have an external thing to help me. Remember what my next move is. This is why I have 86 browsers up with all 89 tabs on each browser because I'm like, as soon as I exit out of that, it is gone forever, right? Like, and so how can I keep something in the forefront of my mind? And that's what I really encourage people to do is externalize their brain, right? That's number one. In the community that I'm about to launch, we will be doing a lot of body doubling sessions. I think it is so, so, so helpful. If you wanna start tracking your expenses, fine, then let's have a body double where you guys are just sitting and we're not talking, we're not doing anything but just holding each other accountable by being in proximity with somebody else who is also doing. Some sort of semblance of the same work as you. Right. So I think that is gonna be really huge. I love body doubling. I think it's so, so, so powerful. And I always forget the name of these clocks, but what are they? It starts with a p you know it, I'm sure. Oh, Pomodoro. Thank you. those methodologies of just, okay, we're gonna work for 20 minutes, no interruptions, do not disturb, whatever, go to the bathroom before it and then you're gonna have a five minute break. Or if it's work for 40 minutes and then have a 20 minute break or whatever to then feed, you know, during your 20 minute break, you're feeding your brain with that input or whatever you're requiring, then I think those can work really great as well. So there's so many tips and tricks that we can also use. To give our brain the dopamine that it needs or give our brain the tools that it needs you have the old white guys being like, just sit down and look at your income and expenses. And I'm like, that is the most boring task in the world for an A DHD brain. You might do it once, you might do it twice. And then to your point, it's like they're, we are allergic to boredom. So if there is a mundane task like that, it's really hard to sit down and do it. So how can we actually use these different tools, use these different techniques? To do the things that are gonna help us with our money, with organizing, with whatever it is and set us up for success. It's those emotions that come up, right? It's genuinely uncomfortable to do these things, especially if we're not good at them, and especially if we're newbies. I'll use the example of wrapping presents with my kids because they're so into wrapping presents, and as a perfectionist and someone who truly enjoys wrapping gifts, I'm so sorry. It's painful. It's so painful and so uncomfortable, and I have to sit there and I'm noticing my reaction to it because what I want to say is what probably all of our parents said to us is like, you're doing it wrong. Let me just do it for you. And so I'm sitting here and noticing, and I'm like, I have to let them be really bad at this first. Mm-hmm. I just have to let them make the mistakes. And if it's wrapped all wonky under the tree, I can make peace with that. I could hide it if I really need to. I won't because it's a adorable, but even yesterday, Cora was helping me with a gift, and she's been having some trouble with the tape. She either pulls it too long and then she's like. I'm so sorry. I'm like, it's fine, it's fine. We just wanna do it smaller. We'll try again. And then she tries to do it small, but then it won't rip off the tape. So I'm like, keep practicing. But she hates not being good at something right away. And so she's like, I'm just gonna use the scissors to cut the tape. Sure. And I'm like, absolutely. That is an option. But I want you to try one more time. And she did. It was a little bit of a struggle, but then she did it again and it was better and she did it again and it was better. And it's these little things. We have to start somewhere and we have to allow ourselves to be not so great at it at first and have people around us to support us. Not being so great at it right away, but encouraging us to come back and saying, it's okay that you made that mistake.'cause here you are again. It's okay that you did that over there because here you are again. You're learning from it. It's all data and here we are. We get to grow from it. Even me, I get to grow as a mom. It's true. Yes, it is so true. We are so bad at being bad and that's, that's just a human experience, so much of my work really turns back to social media, like I think it's. The demise of us in many ways. I think it's also super helpful, but and that's why it's so challenging is because you learn. I just learned a really cool wrapping technique that I saw on some stupid reel and I was like, amazing. I can't wait to use that. So there's things like that where I'm like, oh, social media is so great. I learned a really cool wrapping trick. And then I'm like, oh wait. Comparison is the thief of joy. And all we're doing all day long is comparing ourselves to other people. But I do think there's something with that, right? Is we're constantly seeing other people do things really well and we assume, to your earlier point about time blindness, we assume they were just able to pick it up like this. So again, for somebody like me who's been having money dates with myself very regularly for. years and years and years. Now, of course, it's gonna take me 15 minutes to have a really cute money date, get a lot done, know exactly what I like, what I don't like, what I wanna accomplish in that date, blah, blah, blah, whatever. But if you're sitting down for the very first time having a money date, you're just gonna like stare blankly into the mess and be like, whoa. And so the value of that. Community to say like, Hey, what's worked for you?'cause what's works for me might not work for somebody else, especially if you're not a business owner. of course my system, my agenda isn't gonna be the same as it would be for you. So noticing some of that too, of like, this is where I'd like to start and that's why actually if you've never taken yourself on a money date before, I'm going off on a bit of a tangent, but I think it's great is just start with your goals. That is a money date in and of itself. The data is important. We like the data, and also that's not where we need to start. You could have a money date with yourself and just write three things that you wanna accomplish, maybe with your money or just generally in life, because money is a component to everything that you wanna do in life, what three things are you wanting to do different or see for yourself in 2026? That's a money date right there because then the next money date you have, you can pair that with, okay, I said that I want to go on X vacation in 2026, or I want to pay off$5,000 of debt in 2026, or I wanna, whatever your goal is, and then you can marry that with some more actionable items. And those money dates are actually. Way more fun than the money dates that are like just numbers related, right? Like when we give ourself this permission to dream, when we give ourself permission to be bad at something, to be new at something, when we give ourselves this permissions, that's really when we start actually seeing progress.'cause you're not gonna be perfect at it the first time. You're not gonna be. Amazing at paying off debt consistently every single week or every single month, or however you structure your system, you're not gonna be good at it, and so maybe your 2026 is just your year to learn, and that's okay. Right after that, we can systematize, we can do things a little bit different, but just learn, just notice, just be aware of your spending triggers of whatever it is, right? That's a really healthy place to start. That's beautiful and the emotions are gonna come up along the way. We're Naturally really emotional people. But something you said earlier is that you can be content while also feeling scared about the future and the unknown, and what this will actually mean for you. There's so many emotions that you can experience all at once and. I'm curious what emotions tend to show up right in the middle, especially around money I think more importantly is it's okay to start recognizing the conflicting emotions that you're having simultaneously. Right? And I'll give you an example of this in my own life. We have been investing for. several years, 5, 6, 7 years now. Really, really consistently. And here's kind of like our baseline of what I'm willing to have us between me and my husband investing every single month. If we had a three paycheck month when he was still in corporate America, that was a, a thing for us, right? Well, what do we wanna do with that third paycheck? How much extra do we wanna put towards investments versus something more fun or whatever, Because we had this big goal to get him out of corporate and to do, traveling and whatever. And then we got there. And so last year, about just over a year ago, that was when we hit that coast fire number. And then a month after my husband retired, he was like, I'm out. We're done. And we punched the brakes Investing. we bought two investment properties, so just a different type of investing, but we haven't been consistently investing in the stock market this year. And that felt so uncomfortable for me for several reasons, right? But one, I was so excited that we were going all in on my business and we were kind of doing the thing that we had really planned to do. and there's been times where I'm like, okay, well maybe I'll just take like$500 and put it in my Roth IRA. And I'm like, Why? Because eventually I could maybe need that money or whatever. We are in the messy middle of taking the leap and relying on just my income. And so we have to be really careful with where our money is going because we lost an entire income source. Right? And so that is, it's all very messy. It's both exciting and terrifying and there's so many emotions that go into that. And so I think understanding that, like, okay, I'm experiencing this emotion. I'm feeling the terrifying emotion right now. Like, this is like crazy, but that is gonna pass and I'm gonna feel the excitement in about two hours. like letting those kind of coexist and knowing. No, I don't need to do that right now. If I still feel like in four days that I wanna put money in my Roth ira. I can move some things around and I can fund that, but chances are that need that desperation to do the thing is gonna subside and I'm gonna be like, Nope, we're back on track. We're doing good. It's all okay. Like we're doing the darn thing. It's happening, it's going well. And letting those emotions coexist. Right. This is true for somebody who. Again is getting outta debt and they're feeling like they should sell their house and put all the money towards the debt or whatever. Right? And just slowing down and not making a really abrupt choice. Actually, this is a perfect example. I have another client who is also actively trying to get outta debt. And she was just feeling really good. Dopamine was high that day. She was like living her best life and she was like, I'm gonna put$2,000 towards one of my credit cards. It's just like a hen. It's in my account and blah, blah, blah. Right? And she did, and then what happened is she had thought she had already paid her rent, but she didn't because there was a delay. There was like a holiday in there or whatever. And so it hadn't actually been taken out of her account yet, even though she thought that it had, so she thought she just had a surplus of money in her account. We hadn't seen each other for a couple weeks at this point, so then the money got taken out for her credit card, and then rent still hadn't been taken out. And the next day it went to be taken out of her account and she was negative. And she was like, I just instantly was filled with shame. How could I be so stupid? How could I miscalculate that? and I'm like, well, it wasn't your fault that Thanksgiving or whatever had happened. but she was feeling a type of way that, oh my gosh, I have so much and now I don't have anything. And she was telling herself all these horrible stories about just what a bad person she was. And so we just looked at the numbers and we kind of talked about, okay, well your next paycheck is here and this is how we're gonna shift that and we're gonna, you know, make the minimum on this one. And, we're not putting any extra towards that one And we just resolved the problem. in a matter of three days, her account was gonna be positive again. It was all gonna be okay and really just talked her off the ledge of like just this whole mental breakdown that she was in the middle of. And that is so normal. On the right, she made a mistake. We all make mistakes. We all are in that middle. Like, okay, well next time I'm gonna know to check. Did my rent get taken out when I thought that it did? Yes. Okay. I do have an extra few hundred bucks that I can put towards my debt. But I think all of that is so important in recognizing where you are on your own financial self-care journey and knowing that things are gonna happen, right? Mistakes are gonna be made, circumstances are gonna change, but these emotions can coexist and that's okay. and that it's normal for emotions to coexist. And I wanna highlight the fact that you feel anxious and you feel overwhelmed in one moment. That is your one moment and you can start to get curious about that emotion and what it's telling you. And will it be the same the next day, likely, no. And if it is, explore deeper, right? It's coming up again. What the hell is happening? So one thing that I know we talk about a lot, you and I is like, it's okay if you don't shame yourself. It's okay if you don't beat yourself up. And if you're used to beating yourself up. That's likely your first thing you're gonna do every single time. And that's why having a community is incredible because people can remind you that you're worthy of being a human being. Mm-hmm. That's why having a coach is incredible because people can remind you're worthy of being a human being and one that makes mistakes and this is the space where, yeah, you'll start to notice that you shame yourself and when you start to notice, you're like, oh. Lindsay tells me this is data. What is this data telling me? What's something I could put in place next time? So this type of situation doesn't happen again? And instead of it being this is good or bad, and now I am a good or bad person, what is this data allowing me to know now? Because when you know better, you do better so that I can live my life not having to worry about something like this in the future. But when you are stuck in your shame spiral of a brain, that is the type of thing that could derail you for the future. So that's why I wanted to highlight that because like these emotions are real. They are fleeting. They don't stay with us. That's why we have like really good days with A DHD and really bad ones. But also when you are with people who get it, they can remind you that this is a normal thing that happens. It's not all good. It's not all bad. Those people who have the perfect homes on Instagram also have really messy homes when they're not taking Instagram photos. Have I taken before and after pictures where I've hid stuff in the pictures? Heck yeah, I have absolutely right. But that's why I wanna talk about the messy middle, is because it is not perfect. It is about the journey. And the journey is literally what you were saying is like you're making these mistakes, you're noticing the shame that comes up, you're noticing the things you wanna change, and that is what allows you to make decisions that will better you for the future. That's why I'm sure you can speak to this, like if people were to win a million dollars, that's why they blow it all right away, because they have these spending patterns that they've had their whole lives. It's not as if they're going to become savvy investors immediately. They win a million dollars, what are you gonna do? Same thing you always have. Mm-hmm. On an amplified scale.'cause now it feels like it's an abundance. Totally. I've had, I mean, I have one client who had a small inheritance who was like 40, 45,000 maybe or something. But like, that's a lot of money. And, spend a very large portion of it on shoes. And this was again before we were meeting and she has so many feelings around that. Like really happy with the shoes, but also tons of regret that money could have been used so differently. And how she kind of sees her life now is like if it, a couple years ago she hadn't done that. Where could she be now? So there's just a lot of interesting things that come up when we are talking about that type of stuff. looking back and learning is super important, but looking back and shaming. You are not gonna do anything about it. And so, yeah, if you can change your habits, if you can change your patterns, if you can notice your spending triggers, if you can do all of that, that is gonna serve you so much better. And then, yes, like we have told ourselves these same stories for 30, 40, whatever years of I'm so bad with money and I, I'm just not good at math. I'm like, honey, I was in. Extended algebra two that I needed to take twice. When you say you're not good at math, you're hold up a mirror. I'm terrible at math. And yeah, I can be really good with money. And surrounding yourself with people who can shatter these stories that are so deeply ingrained in your veins that need to just be changed, need to be altered, whether you're like. I've never had a money date yet, I've never done these things yet. I'm learning how to do some of this stuff. But hearing the stories that you keep telling, like, oh, I did it again. I, went to Target and spent way too much money. Like, okay, yeah, you and everybody else. And also whatever, we learn from it. What do you wanna change about that experience? Another example I'll give you with this is, I recently had a client who, we are looking at their eating out budget, and I'm talking, they are spending thousands of dollars of eating out every single month and they simply can't afford it. They just can't. And so we started putting boundaries around what feels good, like what is actually gonna be. Helpful in your life. They have two kids in sports and all the rest, right? And so they're often stopping and popping into Panera, popping into noodles, popping in Chipotle, whatever. But they also like to go to really nice restaurants on the weekends or what have you. And so we put a cap on what they thought would feel good. Like we feel really comfortable staying under$700 per month on eating out. Great. Let's see where we fall and is that realistic or not? And that's what we're exploring next month, is looking and saying, okay, that actually is a realistic goal. You guys were able to stay under it, or Yeah, you still went double that. And so maybe we need to move the goalpost up a little bit and say, okay, let's try and stay under$1,200 for eating out. See how that feels. Is that more manageable? Because once you blow past that 700, that's when that case of the eff-its come in and we're like. Who cares. I already messed it up, so I'm just gonna keep messing it up. And so we need to set these realistic expectations for ourselves along the way as well. So obviously I could talk about this for years and years and years because I love it, but there's so much opportunity for change. There's so much opportunity for learning for growth, and all of it is so doable when you decide that's what you want to do. All the while knowing, yes, there's gonna be mistakes, and yes, there's gonna be different things that you need to learn from the data and from your own experience and like what feels good in your body, what doesn't feel good in your body. But there is so much hope in this work, and that's the most beautiful thing about it, is when people start seeing that progress and feeling better about being in control with their money and feeling more at ease and at peace and all these things. Oh my gosh. There's just so much relief.'cause I don't think we all totally realize how much anxiety money causes us until we like look at it, oh my gosh, so much. and sometimes the awareness too is just, it's half the battle. You don't even need a plan. You just need to have the awareness. And I looked at my Amazon spending over the last three years. Three years ago I spent over$7,000. Two years ago I spent over$5,000. This year I've spent a little over$3,000 and I'm really proud of that downward trend, that's progress. Mm-hmm. Which is really cool. It's not where I wanna be, but I'm getting there and that's really freaking awesome. If someone is listening and thinking, I thought I'd be further along by now. What do you want them to know? You and everybody else, I haven't met a single per, this goes back to what we were saying. There's no destination. It's all the journey. Because if I knew now what I if I had known about investing in all the things at 15 when I was working at Plato's Closet, I would have way more money in the bank than I have right now. Right. But I didn't. And so. We can play that game with ourselves of, wow, I wish I was further along, or, I wish I had what she had, or, I wish this, or I wish that, but you didn't and you can't go back in time. And I'm sorry, that probably is not gonna be what you wanna hear because I wish I could say something that's gonna like turn back the hands of time. But it's, it's just not gonna happen. And I am all for. Sitting in that for a little while, right. If you need to feel sad about that, feel sad about that is perfectly acceptable. But I am an action oriented, solutions focused brief therapist. That is like what I do even in my generalist practice before I, just honed in on financial therapy specifically. And my framework is so much about let's learn from our past. Let's figure out what happened and what stories we're telling ourselves, but what can we do about it now? Like I, to me, I'm like, what is the purpose of dwelling on where you could be? That client had just explained that had, you know, spent a ton of money on, on shoes, multiple pairs of shoes, and kind of blew her inheritance basically on shoes. You can feel sad about that. You certainly have permission to do that. We're not gonna get that money back. It's not gonna like magically appear in your lap and be like, oh, there we are. It doesn't happen that way. So why are we dwelling on it? What can we do now so you don't feel like that in two years, in five years, in 10 years, in 20 years. It is amazing. I always think about it this way, right? If you can make 2026 a little bit harder, one or 2% harder for yourself, but it's gonna make the next 20 years of your life that much better, why don't we just do that, right? People are like, I don't wanna start because I'm, because of this exact thing. It's too late for me. I'm a lost cause, whatever story is coming up for them. And I'm like, but it might take you. 10 years to get outta debt and learn how to track well and spend intentionally and invest your money, smartly, to get you to a place where you feel really comfortable with the numbers that you're seeing. But to me, 10 years is way better than 30 years or 40 years, yeah, like you could sit on that for a bit and feel bad about where you're at, or we could just do something different. But our all or nothing brains go there. That's the only thing that we do. But that's where the noticing comes in. Again, notice that your brain goes to all or nothing and then say. Whoa. What's one thing I could do? How do we make this teeny, tiny and something actionable? Do you wanna share with everyone how we can reach you? I'll put everything in the show notes down below for sure. Yes, totally. Yeah. So I am financial therapist, Lindsay, on Instagram. That is where I mostly hang out, but my website is financial selfcare blog.com. Lots of free resources over there. the first round of my beta launch for the Get Outta Debt course and community is January 5th to the ninth. I believe the doors are open. There is gonna be, modules that come with that, but there's a community aspect and then there's also an opportunity for a small cohort of people who will be in like a group coaching with me. And so there's a whole situation on how you can be a part of that, but we're capping that, at eight or 10 people. I just really wanna make sure they have that individualized attention. And then I still will have my one-on-one clients in the new year as well. So, lots of different ways to work together, but you can also just consume the free content that we're constantly putting out there. And that's how you can get ahold of me. Amazing. It was so good to see you. You too. And the luck on your move to Costa Rica. I can't wait to see pictures and hear all about it. Oh my gosh. I can't wait. Thank you. All right. We'll talk soon. I love every conversation I have with Lindsay because there are so many parallels with us organizing or trying to make any kind of change in our life. Noticing the patterns and interrupting them in a way that helps us understand what we wanna do differently next time. But that comes from truly making mistakes. But some of us are so. Scared of making mistakes, I still am, but that doesn't mean I'm not gonna try. So one of the things that stood out to me today was talking about social media and how we're constantly comparing ourselves to other people and what other people are doing, and we see a perfectly decorated and meticulously organized home on Instagram. And we expect that that is what we should have too, Not factoring in all the work and effort that actually went into that person building their home much less money, right? What if they did have an interior decorator come in and decorate all of it? What if they did have a professional organizer that they paid a lot of money to do that? What if they bought a ton of bins and what if it was actually incredibly hard for them to start living this way? There's so much that goes into what you see on the outside that we don't necessarily factor in, which is why I'm continuing to have this conversation. I said this in the beginning, and I'm gonna say it again. Debt is morally neutral. You are not good or bad because you have debt. It just is, and that's a pattern. It's giving you signals of what you could be doing differently. Oftentimes with a DHD, we don't slow down enough to really even look at the data or analyze what we've done or where we've been or what we wanna stop doing or what we wanna continue doing. But having a coach allows you to do that. It allows you to stop and ask the questions that you're not asking yourself, that you've maybe never asked yourself before. What do I want? Or where am I spending all of my time and effort? It's getting really uncomfortable and looking at how much time you're spending on social media and what if you even spent 15 minutes of that time doing something that you really wanna work on, and all of that is uncomfortable. and that discomfort is allowed to be easier. You are allowed to feel a little bit less uncomfortable when you're around people who get it like a coach, and unlike a community that supports you. Lindsay talked about body doubling and Pomodoro timers. Those are all just tools that can support you. It's just about being willing to let them be something that could work. Instead of deciding ahead of time that it's never going to work for you, just because it's never worked before. In the end, you have to trust yourself, and that's really what this is all about. But as you grow and learn about some of the things that you've never tried before, and then you do start to see how they can work, you start to build self trust and getting comfortable, being uncomfortable, trying new things that you thought would never work before. And maybe they do a little bit better because you understand that you're allowed to try new things and be really bad at them. Also, a lot of these ideas and anything you listen to the podcast, nothing can be done all at once if you try to go and meticulously create this perfect plan when it comes to, you know, doing your money or getting clutter free. It's not gonna work all at once. In fact, if you have 20 things you wanna change, chances are you're gonna fail at 19 of them. And then the one thing you do succeed at, you're gonna beat yourself up for because you failed at the other 19 things. Not really taking into account that, oh wow, it's actually hard for me to change 20 things at once. And so that's what's really incredible about understanding change is that you can start really small. Lindsay had the idea of having a money date with yourself by just writing down your goals. I would say make it even smaller. Writing down a goal, that's it. That's actually all you have to do. You don't have to make a plan. You don't have to do anything else. You could simply just sit down and look at your money and say, I would really like to become clearer on my budget this year. I would really like to understand what that looks like. I do live by YAI Love you. Need a Budget is the company. I've been using them for years now, and it actually is what helped me keep a really good credit score as my husband and I accrued a lot of debt, and that's okay. It doesn't make us morally bad. We just simply did what we did, and we're not judging ourselves for it. We're now just making changes because we have bigger plans for our lives than staying in debt for the rest of our lives. But in the end, you're safe to start to be messy, and you're not starting from scratch. Chances are most of you are starting from a foundation. You're just not giving yourself credit for it. So where are you coming from? what are you continuing? What has worked in the past that could work again in the future? And you get to test it out. We're all in the messy middle somewhere. Even if you see someone who you know, you perceived to have it all. I love how Lindsay shared how she is. I forget the term that she uses, but they don't have to invest anymore in the stock market to feel comfortable in retirement. I never even knew that was a possibility, and now that I do, I'm like, wow, that's really cool, but also I'm not there. And so I could sit here and be sad about it all day, but then I could remind myself she's had a lot of years to build to that point to get to where her and her husband are now. I certainly have not put in the time or the work to be there, and it's okay to be where I'm at. She's just now given me another idea of something I could strive for one day. What all of these people are doing are simply just giving you evidence that it's possible, but not that it's possible immediately. That it's possible with work and time and micro changes throughout time that build up into something so much more. So those 1% changes. If all of this resonates with you today, I would love to talk to you about coaching or even joining the community. All you have to do is book a call in the show notes below and we have a conversation to talk about what coaching looks like, how it could fit into your life, and whether or not working together would make sense. I'd love to talk with you and I hope you have an incredible week.