June 27, 2024
Episode Description
Are you overwhelmed with where to start when it comes to your money? In this episode I will walk you through exactly how to complete a financial audit. This involves taking inventory of your income, expenses, debt, savings, and spending. The financial audit will give you a clear understanding of where you are in your finances, and help you create the roadmap for what you want to achieve in the future.
Thanks for listening to Dopamine Dollars! If you enjoyed the episode, I’d love it if you could leave a review 💚
What You’ll Learn
- why doing a financial audit is important
- how to audit your income, expenses, savings, and debt
- step-by-step process for tracking your spending
- questions to help you reflect on your spending
- how to make these tasks more enjoyable
- tips for completing an audit when you’re neurodivergent
- & more!
Important Links
Download my free spending tracker HERE.
Download my free Financial Audit template HERE.
Grab a copy of my book HERE.
Check out the episode on gamification HERE.
Let’s Stay Connected!
Follow me on Instagram@ellyce.fulmore
Follow me on TikTok @queerd.co
Check out my website www.queerdco.com
Stock Music provided by LevelUpMusicSolutions, SunSmileMusic, LeChuckz, goodmoodmusic, and SoundKit, from Pond5.
Transcript
The financial audit will help you get a complete understanding of where you are in your finances and help you create the roadmap for what you want to achieve in the future.
Hi friends, and welcome back to Dopamine Dollars, the podcast where we dive into the emotions, science, and real life impact of managing your money and your life when you’re neurodivergent. I’m your queer AuDHD host, Ellyce Fulmore, and today we are walking through how to do an audit of your current financial situation.
I am excited for this episode because the financial audit that we’re going to talk about this is like my bread and butter. This is one of the first things we do in the neurospicy money method. It’s something that I constantly refer back to whenever I’m feeling like my financial situation is kind of off track or my budget just doesn’t seem to be working the way it used to. This is just such a powerful tool. So I’m really excited to walk you all through it, but I just kind of want to catch you up a little bit on what’s been going on with me.
So I have been feeling very burnt out lately. As many of you know, this has been going on for like over a year now, I would say. But this summer, my workload will be lightening up in terms of, like, the work I’m doing for other companies and, like, for other people. So I’m really excited to be able to have more energy to spend on my own projects, which means there’s going to be a lot of new, exciting things for all of y’all.
I know you’ve been hearing me talk about my budget template for a long time. That is for sure coming this month. The project has gotten held up for a couple reasons, and I also am getting some beta testers to test it out, make sure there’s no bugs. So sometime this month, July, the budget template will be out, which is very exciting.
Also am going to be doing a lot more kind of fun promotions tied to my book Keeping Finance Personal I recently posted a video on my instagram talking about kind of the behind the scenes of marketing a book and how, as it currently stands, I haven’t sold enough books in the publisher’s eyes in order to really secure a second book deal for myself based on a conversation I had with my literary agent. So that is something that I’m really gonna be focusing on this year is increasing my book sales and really getting creative with some, like, marketing and campaigns in that process. So definitely keep an eye out for that as well.
Anyways, I’m just trying really hard to balance my schedule a bit more. Say no to more things, take care of myself, and yeah, really just work on the things that I’m really passionate and excited about.
In terms of personal things, I am currently watching Love Island USA, which I have never watched any of the Love Islands before. I like reality tv. I feel like it’s a way to turn off my brain and they’re entertaining. So I’ve been watching that. It’s honestly enjoyable. I’m liking it.
So that was just a quick little catch up on me. I feel like whenever I do these podcast episodes, I don’t really share a lot about myself. And so I thought doing a little check in at the beginning of the episodes would be a good way to kind of tie that in. Okay, that’s enough yapping from me. Let’s get into the episode.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed with where to start when it comes to your money, then this episode is the perfect place to start. One of the biggest issues I see when folks are trying to manage their money and create a budget for themselves is that they aren’t working with accurate numbers. Oftentimes people will know their income, but when it comes to allocating that money, they are just estimating how much they currently spend. So when you create a plan that’s like, okay, I’m going to spend $300 on groceries, $100 on eating out, and $50 on gas. You aren’t basing those goals off of your realistic spending. And oftentimes we tend to underestimate how much we’re actually spending in areas.
Because of that, you will likely struggle to stick to the budget that you created based off of these estimated numbers. You’ll end up beating yourself up and shame spiraling. This will probably discourage you from even attempting to budget again for a long time. The big thing that happens when we fall off these budgets that we created is that we just feel like we can’t do it. Like there’s something wrong with us. We see other people sticking to a budget and we feel like the problem is us, but we don’t consider that the problem was likely the budget itself and the numbers that you used and the fact that you were estimating and guessing on these areas instead of basing them off of the accurate current numbers that you are spending.
This issue also shows up when you’re trying to save for something or pay off debt. If you don’t know exactly how much debt you have, how can you accurately set debt payoff goals for yourself.? If you’re not sure exactly what you’re saving for and how much money you need to have saved by when, then how can you accurately set savings goals for yourself?
The key is to create a plan that is based on accurate numbers of your current situation. You can achieve this by completing a financial audit. This involves auditing your income, expenses, debt, savings and spending. The financial audit will help you get a complete understanding of where you are in your finances and help you create the roadmap for what you want to achieve in the future. Once you’ve done one, you will have realistic numbers to work with when creating a budget and a clear place to start if you’re looking to make changes.
Okay, there might be a part of you that is screaming to exit out of this episode because you heard the words financial audit and now you’re panicking. Trust me, I know how scary it is to look at your numbers, and I also know how hard it is to actually sit down and complete this task when you’re neurodivergent. I’m not going to sugarcoat the fact that this is a tedious task, but it doesn’t have to be scary. I’m going to walk you through exactly how to complete this audit step by step, encourage you along the way, and provide tips on how to make it easier to actually follow through on this work.
Okay, so for this audit, I am going to be using and referring to both my financial audit template and my spending tracker template. These are both free templates and I will put the link to download them in the show notes. For the financial audit I have a PDF version and also a Google Sheets version and then the spending tracker is a Google sheets template. I’ll be referring to the Google Sheets version of these templates in this episode because that’s what the majority of people use. If you would like to complete the audit while you listen to this episode, now would be a good time to pause and go and get that set up and ready to go.
Here’s a few things to do before you begin. Number one, set the vibe. Make sure you’re in a comfy cozy spot with minimal interruptions. You could light a candle, snuggle up under a weighted blanket, use a heating pad, stim toys, or anything else that helps you regulate. If you like background noise, put on your favorite playlist or comfort tv show. Just make sure that it’s not too stimulating that it’ll distract you.
Number two, make a yummy drink and or a snack to enjoy while you do this. I personally find it helpful to stim with food and drinks while doing tasks like this. And I’ll usually do a carbonated drink or I’ll just opt for chewing gum. Again, anything you can add to this experience, whether it’s something you’re consuming or the environment that you’re in to make it so that your nervous system is more relaxed and you feel more like comfortable, that will help with this process. Especially if you’re feeling a little bit nervous going into it.
And lastly, number three, take a few deep breaths with me and ground yourself. Let’s take some deep breaths together. Breathe in and out. And in and out. And last one, in and out.
Okay, amazing. Let’s get into it.
First up on the financial audit is auditing your income. So when you’re auditing your income, there are two different sections. There’s a section for if you have a consistent income, and there’s also a section if you have a fluctuating income. Now, some of you might actually fill out both of these sections. If you say, have a nine to five job that would go under consistent income, but then you also have a side hustle or you do some freelancing gigs or you pick up overtime shifts or whatever, that can go under the fluctuating income.
If you have a consistent income, you’re going to want to fill out the number of times you get paid each month. If you are someone who gets paid bi weekly, then you know that for most months you get paid twice a month. And then there’s a few months of the year where you get paid three times a month for that income instance, I would recommend saying you get paid twice a month because we want to create any sort of like budget or plan based on what normally happens. And that way you’re budgeting for the twice a month kind of amount. And then whenever you get a three paycheck month, you kind of have like a bonus paycheck to decide what you want to do with.
So you put the number of times you get paid each month and then the amount of each paycheck. And on the Google sheets template, it will automatically total up what your total monthly income is. Remember that I don’t want you guessing on anything, so pull up your pay stub so you can get an accurate number here. Make sure that the number that you’re putting in is like the number that actually hits your bank account. So the after tax net amount that you get paid, not the gross amount.
Now, if you have a fluctuating income, this is going to take a little bit more work. So for fluctuating income, you’re going to want to write down the last six months. So on the template, I just have it labeled as like month 123456, but you’d want to actually put the names of the last month so you know what you’re tracking. So it’s July right now. So we would put like June, May, April, March, February, January, et cetera. And then you’re going to put the amount that you got paid each month.
If you are a freelancer, an entrepreneur, a server, you have a very inconsistent income. This is definitely going to take some more work. And I understand that it’s definitely tedious, but this is very important. So you’re going to want to calculate, go find all of little the proof that you need to calculate how much you got paid each month and put those amounts beside each of the last six months. From there, the template will automatically calculate your average monthly income as well as your highest monthly income and lowest monthly income.
Next up, we are going to audit your bank accounts. So the purpose of this is to really just do an audit to see what accounts you currently have open and how you’re currently using them. And this will be helpful if you are making decisions in the future about a different type of account system or like switching what you use accounts for and like seeing what your account fees are and things like that.
So for any type of account that you have open, you’re going to write down what type of account it is. So is it a checking account, savings account, high yield savings account, whatever it is, you’re going to put the institution that it’s at. So bank of America, EQ Bank, Ally bank, Wealthsimple, TD bank, whatever it is.
The fees. So if you pay a monthly fee for that account, how much that is. Again, make sure that’s an accurate number and you’re going to check what that number is.
And then the purpose or use. So for the purpose slash use section, you’re writing down what you use that for. Maybe you use your checking account to pay bills and it’s also your spending card. Maybe one of your savings accounts is just like random savings. Maybe one of your high yield savings account is your emergency fund. Stick to like how you’re currently using that account. You might have some accounts open that you’re not even using and that’s fine, too. So you can just put that in the purpose slash, use that it’s not in use.
Next, we are going to audit your credit cards, if you have credit cards. So for this section, you are going to write down the name of the credit card. This is more so just to keep track of the different ones if you have multiple cards. So you might write down you have a Chase visa, a Neo Mastercard, Amex cobalt card.
Then you’re going to put the interest rate of that card. And if you’re not sure what the interest rate is, you should be able to find that on your credit card statement. So the interest rate of the card, whether it’s like 21.99, 19.99%. Then the fees, if you have any monthly or annual fees for that card, put those in there.
And then again, the purpose slash use. So whatever you’re currently using this card for. And it’s okay if you don’t have specific uses, like maybe you have a credit card that you’re just kind of used for random things. That’s okay, just put random. That box is just for you so that you know. And then if you want to make changes in the future, you will know how you’re currently using it and how you would like to change it.
Okay, you’re doing amazing. You’ve now completed three sections. We only have three more to go and then we have the spending tracker. So you’re halfway there already, which is incredible.
Next we are going to audit your monthly expenses. And I won’t lie to you, this one will take a little bit longer, but we’re just kind of going to do the brain dump version of it right now. And then once we move on to tracking your spending, you’ll be able to clean it up and add anything you forgot or fix anything that you might have messed up.
So the fixed expenses section is where you’re going to fill out all of your monthly bills and expenses that you have to pay every single month. So in the spaces provided, you are going to put the name of the expense. So this would be like rent, utilities, phone bill, Internet, car insurance, renters insurance, Spotify, Netflix, etcetera.
The monthly cost. What day of the month it is due on. So like the first, 30th, 8th. And whether or not that bill is automated. So on the template there’s just a little drop down that will say yes or no. So you can just choose whether or not it’s automated. Automated meaning there’s like a pre authorized debit setup or it’s coming automatically off your credit card. Basically, you don’t have to go and manually pay that bill. Your phone bill just like automatically comes out of your account.
You might have some bills that are not monthly. Maybe you pay them quarterly or bi weekly or annually or just like a different schedule than monthly. It’s kind of up to you in terms of how you want to include this. I would personally recommend still putting the expense, but then just calculating what the monthly cost is. So if you had like annual car insurance, for example, you can just divide the annual total by twelve months to figure out what the monthly cost would be. And then I would just use some sort of differentiator, like changing the color of the box on the sheet or something like that, so that you know, it’s different than your other monthly expenses.
Another question I often get is what about monthly expenses that have a lot of variability, like groceries or gas or things like that? So in terms of those expenses, it’s really up to you whether or not you want to include it. For me personally, my partner and I have a set amount that we each contribute to groceries, so that is actually like a fixed expense for me. So I do include that on my monthly bills and expenses.
But if you have a grocery amount that varies a lot month to month, maybe you don’t want to include it here because that could kind of throw off your monthly bills and expenses. But again, totally up to you. We’re going to account for it either way, because when we track your spending. We’re going to get absolutely everything that is leaving your bank account. So you make the decision there.
Now, like I said, we’re just doing this initial fixed expense audit as a brain dump version so you don’t have to go and pull up all your bank statements to check all of your bills, unless you would like to do that, because we are going to be doing the more thorough tracking when we get to the spending tracker and then we can go back and add things that you missed later on.
Moving on, we are now going to audit your savings slash investments. Now, if you don’t currently have any savings or investments, don’t worry. Just skip the stress, skip this section. You don’t have to fill it out. But you can definitely still listen to this part in the podcast because this will be helpful for future savings goals. If you do have savings, then we’re going to take note of where you’re currently at with those savings.
So you’re going to record what you’re saving for. This could be a safety fund, a new iPhone, a trip this year, down payment for a house, whatever it is you’re saving for.
The type of account. So is it stored in a high yield savings account? Is it in a GIC or CD? Is it a TFSA or RRSP account? Or a Roth IRA or IRA account?
Then you’re going to put the current amount of savings. So how much do you currently have saved for that specific goal?
The monthly contribution. This is only if you are making a monthly contribution. It might be less organized than that. Like, maybe you’re just kind of randomly, sporadically putting money in. That’s okay, too.
And then your goal amount, which is like the total amount that you would like to save for that specific thing. And on the template, you’ll automatically calculate the total of what you have saved currently, and also the total monthly contributions that you’re making towards savings.
Moving on to the last section of the financial audit template, we are going to audit your debt. This one might take some time to get all of the specific numbers, especially if you are someone who has in the past, kind of avoided looking at your debt and looking at these numbers. But I promise this will be worth it in the end.
Really make sure for this part, if you need to, if you have a lot of, like, negative emotions and feelings around your debt, that you take time to regulate yourself before even diving into this, you know, surround yourself with the tools that you need to feel more regulated calm while you’re completing this section.
So for your debt, you’re going to start with writing down the name slash type of your debt. So this might be like a car loan, chase credit card, federal student loans, your mortgage, etcetera.
Then you’re going to put the amount owing. Again, we don’t want to guess here, so you might have to pull up those statements to see the exact amount of debt that you currently owe for each of those things.
The interest rate of that debt, the minimum monthly payment. So for the minimum monthly payment, I’m not talking about what you’re choosing to put toward that debt or what you’re currently putting toward. I want to know what the actual minimum monthly payment is.
Now with credit card debt, I know that this can fluctuate, especially if you are putting money toward your credit card each month that is going toward, like, the principal and the balance is actually going down, that your minimum monthly payment can fluctuate and move around. Don’t worry about being exactly on point for this. Just give me, like, the minimum monthly payment of the last month, so the most kind of accurate that you can get in this moment.
Then you’re going to put what day of the month that minimum monthly payment is due on, and again, whether or not that payment is automated. The template will then calculate the total debt that you have and the total monthly payments that you’re making.
And you did it! You completed the first part of auditing our finances. I’m so proud of you.
So now we have a clear idea of how much money you have coming in each month, your current monthly expenses, the accounts you have, and your current debt and savings. The last part of our audit is to get clear on how much money is going out and where that money is going. So this will include some of the things we just looked at, like your monthly bills and minimum debt payments, but it’s also going to include everything else. So any bills that you might have forgotten, but also all of your variable spending and anything else your money goes toward.
I want to be clear that this experience is not meant to be shame inducing. There is no right or wrong way to spend your money. The goal is not even to necessarily spend less money, but rather to spend money in a way that gets you closer to where you want to go. We want to aim for spending that makes you feel good and supports your values and goals. This exercise will illuminate the areas that maybe aren’t in alignment for you so that you can make some positive changes in the future. It’s completely normal for some guilt and shame to come up while you look at your spending, but I encourage you to be kind to yourself. You were doing the best you could with the tools that you had, and there’s no reason to shame past you.
When it comes to tracking, you have a few options in terms of how you tackle it, depending on your current capacity. So option one is you can track your spending in real time, meaning that starting today, you record all of your spending until you’ve recorded a full month, or ideally starting on like the first of the month to the 30th or 31st of the month. I understand that this approach can be challenging because it does rely on you consistently remembering to track. For the neurodivergent folks out there, which is most of you, I know this is, this is really hard.
So there’s a few other options as well. Option two is you can backtrack your spending, meaning that you pull up bank statements from the last month and you track those expenses. And honestly, even if you are going to do the tracking in real time option, I would also recommend that you just start with a backtrack to see where you’re currently at. Because what can happen when you’re tracking in real time is that because you’re more aware of your behavior, you might start changing your behavior, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except for that we’re not then getting what you were spending. We’re getting like a new adjusted version of your spending, if that makes sense.
And lastly, option three is that you can use an expense tracking app, or maybe even your bank app if it has tracking capabilities. This option is mostly automatic, but you will still want to go in to manually make sure that the purchases are categorized correctly, and also to familiarize yourself with what you spent money on. This is the option that I definitely recommend the least, because the whole point of this exercise is to really help you be in touch with what you’re spending and get really accurate numbers. And I feel like with the expense tracking app, first off, there’s often a lot of incorrect categorization that happens and that you might not even catch. But it also is just, I think, too out of sight, out of mind that it won’t give you the same connection to how you’re spending that the other options will. But if that’s all you have the capacity for, that’s still amazing and more than not tracking at all.
So whatever is most comfortable for you, pick that option, and once you’ve picked your method, we can move on to the step by step walkthrough of how to track your spending. And remember that I do have a free spending tracker template again, that I will be referring to for this section. So just go to the link in the show notes if you’d like to download that for yourself.
Step number one, pick your categories. In order to get a more clear idea of where your money is going, and also help you when you go to create a budget, I suggest separating your spending into some broad categories. The categories that I use are, number one, groceries. Number two, transportation. Number three, personal spending, which would include things such as clothing, coffee or snacks, hair care, home decor, purchases related to hobbies, etcetera. Number four, recreation and entertainment, which would include purchases such as eating out, going to a concert or event, date night, birthday presents, etcetera. Number five, savings and debt repayment. So this is where we will get a more accurate picture of how much you’re putting toward these financial goals each month.
Number six, monthly bills. So this would be everything you put under your fixed monthly expenses in the financial audit. And if you end up executing this flawlessly on the first try, then after you track your spending, the total amount under the monthly bills will equal the total amount under your financial audit. Fixed expenses and no worries if they don’t match up. We’ll figure out what happened there. And lastly, number seven is the other category, which is basically a catch all category for any miscellaneous or one off expenses.
You can customize these categories on your tracking sheet and add a few additional categories if you’d like. However, I would suggest not getting too carried away with the categories and keeping it fairly simple for this exercise. The goal here is just to get it done. It doesn’t have to be perfect.
There is also space on the spending tracker template for you to add examples under each category of what that category would include. So when I was describing these categories to you, I gave a few examples like personal spending would include clothing, coffee or snacks, hair care, home decor, etcetera. Feel free to adjust the current examples that are listed there based on what makes sense for you. For example, I categorize buying coffee out as personal spending, but you might categorize it as recreation and entertainment spending. So put the things that maybe you see coming up a lot on your bank statements. You don’t have to be like, oh, what category was that under again? You’ll have like a nice reminder there.
I also often recommend to my clients that feel shame around their takeout spending to categorize it under groceries instead. It doesn’t matter what your categories look like, just try to stay consistent with how you categorize expenses so you don’t end up with something being recorded in two different spots.
Step number two, pull up your statements. Next, you’re going to pull up your bank statements for every account or card that you spend with. Use your financial audit to make sure that you don’t miss any accounts or cards. Even if you think you didn’t use a certain card that month, I would still pull up the statement just in case. And maybe there’s even like an automated payment that came out of it that you forgot about or something like that. Better safe than sorry. So just pull up all of the statements for any bank account and any credit card or other card that you have. You can also print these out if that works better for your brain and that way you can actually physically cross out or highlight the expenses as you go. Once you have all of those pulled up or printed out, pick one account or card to start with.
And then step number three, input that info into the tracking sheet. If you’re tracking in real time, you might be tracking every day or once a week, whatever you decide to do. So this step will be less tedious. If you’re backtracking, you’re going to want to record all the purchases from the previous month. I suggest doing a month from the first to the 30th or 31st rather than starting midway through a month.
So looking at your statement, anytime that money came out of that account was pulled out of that account, whether you bought something or it was an automated payment, you’re going to want to record what the purchase was on the tracking sheet. It just says purchase, but this would include like if you put money towards savings. You would still put it under purchase, just say like a money to emergency fund or whatever.
Then you’re going to put the amount. So what was the dollar amount? The date that that purchase was made. The category, which is just a drop down menu that will automatically pull from your spending categories. So you would just then select whatever category it is.
Additionally, there is a column where you can add notes about each purchase. This is obviously optional, but a great way to use this column is to add a note or emoji describing either how you felt at the time of purchase, like what your emotional state was, or how you felt about that purchase in general. This can help you recognize any unaligned spending and maybe negative patterns or things that arise and just give you a little bit more insight into why you made those decisions.
Step four is to repeat step three for all of your accounts and cards, so rinse and repeat until you’ve gone through all of them. As you’re tracking your spending, you might also come across some monthly expenses that you previously forgot about. Remember that our initial fixed expense audit was just a brain dump and we weren’t being really serious about it. So when tracking your spending, you might notice, oh, I totally forgot about my renter’s insurance, or I totally forgot about this streaming service that I have. If that’s the case, then you’re going to want to add them to the fixed expense section on your financial audit.
Remember that your tracking does not need to be perfect. If you missed a couple expenses because you paid cash or something like that, that’s all good. Just do your best. Keep an eye out for purchases on your statement that show up as one thing, but may have included multiple different types of purchases. So this is kind of the challenge with backtracking, is that unless you’re someone who keeps your receipts, you’re not going to get a fully accurate picture. Because sometimes whatever store you bought it at, how it shows up on your statement doesn’t give you the full picture.
For example, maybe you spend $100 at Walmart. It might show up on your statement as groceries, like it might be categorized as groceries. But maybe you actually spent $50 on groceries and $50 on makeup. You would ideally want that recorded under two separate categories, right? You would want $50 recorded under personal spending and then $50 recorded under groceries. But again, if you forget this and it all goes under groceries, that’s all good. Just do your best and try to make this experience as enjoyable as possible for yourself.
Step five reflect on your spending. Once you have a full month of spending tracked, you’re going to want to complete the reflection questions on the spending tracker template. I will also read these out loud right now in case any of you are using a different tool to track your spending.
Number one, did any of your spending shock you? In what way?
Number two, did any of your spending stand out to you? In what way?
Number three, if you shared your spending tracker with a significant other or friend, would they be surprised by any of your spending? Would they be surprised with how much you spent in certain categories? But also would they be surprised by like, certain specific expenses?
Number four, what area or areas would you like to spend more in in?
Number five, what area or areas would you like to spend less in?
Number six, do you feel guilty about any of your spending? What do you think is the root of that guilt?
Number seven, what three areas do you spend the most in and does this align with your values?
And number eight, what would you like to change about your spending? What would you like to maintain?
Spend some time reflecting on those questions to get a better idea of how you’re currently feeling about your spending.
And the tedious work is over. Yay! As I mentioned at the beginning, auditing your finances can be uncomfortable and tedious. Here are some final tips for helping you actually follow through and complete this exercise when you’re neurodivergent.
Tip number one body doubling try completing this exercise with a friend, or just recruit someone to body double for you. So have someone in the same room doing a different task while you’re completing this one. You can also try out virtual body doubling on a site like Focusmate or using a productivity app like Tiimo.
Tip number two, gamify the task. Check out my past episode titled, tips and tricks to gamify your finances, for ideas on how to gamify this whole process. Basically, the goal is to make the task of completing the financial audit more fun and enjoyable.
Tip number three reward yourself. Give yourself a reward for completing the financial audit. When it comes to rewards, they don’t always have to be given after you complete the task. You can reward yourself before the task or during the task, and ride the dopamine wave to help you complete the task.
Tip number four, schedule it out. If the whole audit feels like too much right now, schedule out a time to complete the different sections. Maybe you tackle the income section on Monday, and then the next section on Thursday and so on. Actually input this time into your calendar and give yourself more time than you think you’ll need. And add in some reminders as well. Depending on what kind of reminders you like, this might be a reminder on your phone, like a notification that goes off, or a note your physical planner.
Those are some tips that will hopefully make the process a little less painful. But overall, just know that it is a tedious task. It’s not the most enjoyable task, I’m not going to lie to you, but it is so, so important. Arguably one of the most important things you can do for your finances. So it’s 100% worth it. And I know you can do this. I know you are capable of doing it. You’ve got this.
All right, friends, that is it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening to Dopamine Dollars, and remember, you’re not bad with money, you were just working with unrealistic numbers.
