Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
The ADHD Friendly Approach to Budgeting, Saving & Thriving with Nicole Stanley
What if your biggest money struggles weren’t because you’re “bad with money” but because your brain just works differently?
In this episode, we are joined by Nicole Stanley, the owner and head money coach at Arise Financial Coaching. Her mission? Shame-free, accessible financial education that empowers women. As a Latina entrepreneur and personal finance expert, Nicole paid off significant debt and grew her family’s net worth through investing. This sparked her passion for helping women build wealth and transform their communities.
She discusses her personal experiences with money management, the impact of ADHD on finances, and how she leverages her expertise to help others. She provides practical advice on budgeting, setting financial goals, and avoiding common pitfalls. Nicole emphasizes the importance of making money management fun and shame-free, especially for those with ADHD.
00:00 Intro
00:13 Nicole's Financial Journey
01:29 Early Financial Struggles and Successes
03:29 Starting Arise Financial Coaching
15:06 The Role of Financial Coaching
21:03 ADHD and Money Management
28:58 Practical Tips for Managing Money with ADHD
33:35 Defining Financial Freedom
Nicole’s story proves that no matter your starting point (or how your brain works!) you can take control of your money. So how do you help the next generation build that same confidence? Join us for Money Talks on July 17 and learn how to teach teens what really happens to their first paycheck, so you can empower them early and set them up for long-term success. Click here to register for FREE and bring your questions!
Got a unique financial story to share? Whether it’s about crushing debt, building wealth, an unexpected windfall, or just a wild money moment, we want to hear it! If you’re a financial coach, attorney, CPA, or work in any area that empowers women financially, your story could inspire our community of women. Fill out our intake form here!
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Maggie: [00:00:00] Start with a big stretch.
Barb: Stretch goals and the ability to make it happen. It's scary, right? When we think, gosh, in a year from now, I wanna be in a certain place, or five years from now, or whatever it might be. I mean, it's important to set goals and, vision boards and things like that. Setting the goal, I think sometime is the easiest part.
Write it down. Like Nicole our guest next guest did, she wrote her goal on a napkin. And it's the day to day tenacity to stick to that goal, to make it happen and to really say Good for you. I think, in our lives to move ahead. We've all done some of that, don't you think? What's the stretch goal that you had, Maggie?
Maggie: Yeah, I mean, mine this year was just to get rid of all that credit card debt previously racked up. And so, I did the 0% interest transfer and there was an amount I was gonna pay every month, but I knew I wouldn't be done with it at the end of the year. And I was like, ah, I really just want [00:01:00] this to be like, done.
I'm very much a sprinter and onto the next thing. So I'd mapped it out and figured out how I could do it by December. But it was like a stretch every month that I'd be paying, but I knew that would be good because I was like, 10 months, we'll get it done. We'll stretch ourselves every month, and it's weirdly exciting when I pay it every month.
It's kind of odd, but sometimes still now I'm like, oh, this is only payment four outta 10. You know? It's like,
Barb: But it's payment four out of 10.
Maggie: I know. It's just the whole the days are long, but the years are short, and so sometimes like you pay it and then like 10 days later I was like, it might due for another payment, even though like, I don't really have the money to do that, and I'm like, oh, it was already, I already did it this month.
It's sometimes I forget, it's just the one time outta 30 days, but. It feels really good and I'm like, yeah, honestly, just can't wait. And I've never been so excited to pay a credit card, which is weird even when I say it out loud now, but it's nice to have that stretch goal and then I'm like, shit, this was a little more than I thought I could [00:02:00] pay, but what could I do with this lump sum of money into the new year when I don't have to pay it towards debt?
Barb: Exactly. So, what are you gonna do when you pay it off? What's your incentive?
Maggie: Honestly, just paying it off is like a big enough incentive to me and to have like this extra money then left over every month I can start stashing it away, investing more get ready to like move to a different apartment. So I. I got options. Trust me, I have ways I could figure out what to do with some extra cash to spend it, to blow it, to invest it.
I got options.
Barb: I'm so proud of you. That's such a great goal and I think. Many of us over our lives, especially starting out young, when it's harder to make bank and pay bills to be really conscious of what's the sprint that I can do to pay that off? I know when I first bought my first car, believe it or not, brand new car whopping $6,000.
For me it was like $600,000, but I remember getting a car loan through the auto dealership and then I was [00:03:00] working at a bank, but it was a savings and loan. They didn't have car loans, but the bank across the street had car loans and I looked it up and I could refinance my car loan to a lower interest rate,
Which I did, but I made the same higher payments on it and I paid it off early.
And yeah. So it made me feel good that I owned it free and clear. So. That was an achievement for me right there. So, Nicole did it, our guest, her story is amazing. I mean, what she did in order to pay off a big chunk of change in a small amount of time and her incentive to do that was pretty unique.
Maggie: But it is something like you've gotta have it short enough. So it seems
Barb: Like a game.
Maggie: almost. Yeah. Like a game. Because if you're like, well by 10 years,
Barb: Forget it.
Maggie: yeah, I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow, bro. Like, don't 10 year goal, me 10 months. That's as bad as far as we're going out. And I was like, it's more of the end of the year goal,
Barb: but I do think it deserves a celebration like anything else that you put hard work into.
Maggie: Okay, you
can take me out.
Barb: I most certainly will, but I remember [00:04:00] like in graduate school, my professor said, I never used to go to graduations and thought they were silly. He goes, everybody should go to their graduation.
It's a moment of celebration. It's saying, Hey, I did all that hard work. I. Day after day, and couple of years down the road, you earned a degree, you should go to your graduation and celebrate it. And I think big goals like that should be celebrated and acknowledged. And then you move on to the next one.
It strengthens that arm, that muscle, right, that says you can do big things. And once you put your mind to it, and I think Nicole has a perfect story and I think we should listen in.
Maggie: Let's get started.
Gloria Steinem once said, we will never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth. Barbara Provost and Maggie Nielsen are the team at purse strings that will help you navigate the ins and outs of financial independence so that you can be [00:05:00] financially fearless. This is women in money, the shit we don't talk about.
Maggie: Welcome Nicole to Women and Money, the shit we don't talk about. We are so excited to have you on today and you know, give us all your good insights and stories. But before we get started, could you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Nicole: Yes, so I'm so excited to be here and have this conversation with you guys. My name's Nicole Stanley. I'm the founder and head financial coach at Arise Financial Coaching, and I started my financial coaching business almost by accident because when I was in my early twenties, early adulthood, I struggled a ton with financial stress, anxiety, and it, in my opinion, really ruled my life.
I got married very young, and so I married, my husband. My husband is still my husband, not my husband at the time, but he was making like 26,000 a year when we got married. And my dad, who loved, who [00:06:00] loves me very much, was very concerned that I was getting married so young, so he really wanted me to. Be aware of the choices I was making.
So he used to drive me through the rough parts of town and tell me that if I got married this young, this is where I was gonna live. Right. And so I think maybe part fear, but also part like bratty Latina child, I really wanted to prove my dad wrong, so I could not let him know that I was stressed about money and I needed to figure out how to not be stressed about money.
I would say that that was my number one goal when I got married at 22. So it was when I was planning my wedding that I realized, okay, this is obviously a much bigger problem than I thought it was gonna be. So we enrolled in our first personal finance course and I took every single part of that personal finance course to heart.
I became a personal finance nerd, maybe a little bit of a fanatic, some might say, but it paid off. We paid off our first [00:07:00] $30,000 worth of debt. In 10 months of being married, we decided to buy a fix and flip, like a live and flip house, and we sold that for a profit. And by age 27 with two children, we had saved over a hundred thousand for our own retirement, which is hitting a cool milestone called Coast Fire, which is where even if you never invest any more money, you know you're going to be safe in retirement with plenty of money. And then we also built our family's net worth to over a quarter of a million dollars. And I share that because at the time, we were just really average people.
We made $56,000 a year combined for those five years of our marriage. We didn't get an inheritance. We didn't win the lottery. It was just plain old, boring, personal finance stuff. And so it was at that time that I started writing about personal finance and my friends started to notice, Hey, this girl does not make, they are not rolling in the Benjamins.
This girl's husband is a church worker and they [00:08:00] are, you know. Saving a lot. They're paying off debt, and so I naturally started helping friends and family with their money. Before I knew financial coaching was an industry, I just thought it was really fun to get into people's budgets and help them plan, help them get hyped, help them see things in a new way.
Maybe. I think another aspect of being Latina is I am a nosy girl. I am a nosy ass. Woman, I love to know what's going on in everybody's lives. And money coaching became, a really fun way to help people do what they wanted to do with their life in something that they don't usually talk about, right?
Like people don't just talk about their finances openly, it was in 2020 that I decided to launch my business April of 2020. And since then, we have served over 600 clients. We have two full-time female employees. We have some part-time female employees as well. And my goal is to just never stop talking about what is possible with your money, because if I didn't hear that message in my early twenties, [00:09:00] I would be in a completely different spot today.
Barb: Amazing.
Maggie: Yeah, it's such a great story and I think it's so interesting how your dad was kind of putting that fear in you, but you also didn't feel like you could ask him for help or direction. Which is just an interesting dynamic 'cause it is kind of that like prove yourself. It is kind of your parents, you didn't want him to be right, but it also wasn't someone you felt like you can turn to, which I think is just an interesting dynamic.
But you did persevere and push through. And I also agree that it's very helpful to see like, okay, they're not. Working for Google, making, a quarter million a year or doing these extravagant things where it seems so outta reach. Of course they hit those milestones. Of course they did that 'cause they have this great job.
It's like, no, we're just, you're everyday next door neighbor. You know? Which is really assuring. 'cause when you talk about finances, it does feel like, well of course because they have this job or they had this family, or they had this thing,
Barb: yeah, but I would have to say [00:10:00] that math doesn't math. How do you go about paying off, what is it, 30 k in debt and build a quarter million in retirement on a $56,000 salary. Please do tell.
Nicole: Yeah. Well, it's a hundred thousand in retirement. It was a 250,000 net worth. But it's funny because things were different back then. So when I graduated from college, I got a cold call sales job. So my entry level salary was 30,000. I hated my life. But I became the top sales rep because I told myself I just needed to make enough in commission to pay off our debt.
So I worked that job for about eight months. So it didn't equal a full year. Right? 'cause then I went into ministry, which I made 36,000 in ministry with no commissions, no bonuses, and then I worked that job until I got pregnant. So, those didn't really make it through. For me for the long term, but they definitely helped.
So I would say that a huge part of us paying off our student debt was that cold call [00:11:00] sales job. And then after that, I would say a really big part of us investing so much was because I took on odd jobs to find the extra money to invest. So I started investing because I nannied for a friend. I used to watch her son about once a week, and that was about $500 a month.
I used to flip furniture on Facebook marketplace. I mean, I would flip anything on Facebook Marketplace. It was really a tough time. And then the live and flip was also a really, really big part of our wealth building journey because we bought this horribly. Horribly disgusting house.
It was so gross, but we got at least 50 to 60 off in what would have been the equity, you know, just if another house at that time, that was a bit nicer. So we put. Our sweat, blood and tears into that house. I would say I put a lot of tears into that house and I probably wouldn't do it again, but it paid off for us.
We were able to make a really, really good profit when we sold it a few years [00:12:00] later and then from there invested a good part of that proceeds in our own retirement. So, yeah, that was in the year 2015 in Phoenix. So, the average annual salary for an American at that time was about 6,000.
Today it's around 70 something for the average American. So it would be equivalent to someone in 2025 saying, oh, we did that on $75,000 a year.
Maggie: I bet that was a great, way to start a marriage. Really put the test on that living in and at home and building it together, doing that fun project.
Nicole: know. I was pregnant. I was in my third trimester. I think the worst part about it was that it was so gross. It was like a smoker home. So we had to rip out everything in there. Right. But like I said, we couldn't really afford much. So we could either go live in the rough part of town, which I was not gonna do, or I could buy in the nice part of town, this disgusting house.
And I chose. The latter. But like I said, I don't think I would recommend that to many people with their first child. the [00:13:00] memories stick with you. Like I can still smell like what it's, you got like lightheaded, like when you So we had to do all that work before we came in the house.
And then bringing home a newborn baby.
Barb: Oh my goodness.
Nicole: Yeah, so that's why I, one of my main tenants is that when I look back at my financial journey, I made so much harder than it had to be just because, I think that I really used to worship this idea that frugality got you everywhere when really it wasn't.
And when I look back at my journey, I was super frugal while I worked my cold call sales job. But it wasn't actually what, like being frugal didn't get me to pay off my debt. It was that I took a commission sales job. Right. Like I think that there is this very real obsession in the personal finance world with frugality being everything.
And I think that if something is everything, it's really a clear plan because that's what I didn't have at the time. I [00:14:00] just had young person anxiety fueling me. And I think I could have made it a lot more sane if I just knew my plan. If I knew my plan was to make a little extra money, like. I just have to, you know, nanny these extra days and then I invest the difference, which, you know, for us that was like $500 a month in 20 16, 20 17.
That was a lot of money. That was more, that was half what we spent on our mortgage. But I was like, if I do this now, it is going to pay off. I know it. But I don't think I had to do it with as much stress as I did it.
Barb: Got it.
Maggie: But one of those things was just kind of your determination all the way through this, I think is what also kind of lit this fire. Part of that's from your dad, but you had a moment with like a napkin to really make your determination. Can you kind of share that story with our audience?
Nicole: Yeah, so I remember when my husband and I were newly married and we went on a date in Flagstaff, Arizona, and we lived in Phoenix. So it was just a [00:15:00] couple hour drive, but we wanted to get away and take a day trip and. For us. I'm still laughing at this like it was really fancy that like we went out for coffee 'cause we wouldn't go out for coffee 'cause we were always saving money.
And so I think this is funny, we like went to a tea or coffee shop and we wanted to do a lot of kind of brainstorming for what success looked like for us over the next five years. And I distinctly remember that we had a conversation that was around money. Right. And we did not feel super optimistic at the time about our financial future.
And we had our budget, but like I said, we were like squeaking by. And so we wrote down our top five goals for the next five years. And some of them were having children, some of it was buying a house. But I remember writing we will be a hundred percent debt free. In five years, and I remember when I wrote it, I felt this was at the beginning of our journey, so we hadn't started really paying off [00:16:00] debt and I didn't have a lot of experience in my sales job too.
So we were just seeing kind of like, oh, this salary plus this salary, what's left over? Okay. Not that much. And so when I wrote down we'll be debt free in five years, I remember thinking that that was a crazy. Goal at the time, not knowing how I would get there, but that napkin kind of conversation that we had finally gave us permission to aim for something, even though it didn't feel mathematically possible at the time.
Kind of like what you just said, where you're like, how is that possible? Like, how will you do that? I would say that that's been like the backing of every single financial goal that I make is that I first start with something that feels just a little bit. Crazy because if it doesn't feel a little bit crazy, then I don't feel that excited about it.
Like, I don't know if you guys are like that at all, but I always like to set a goal. Just a little. A
Barb: of your comfort zone, right?
Nicole: Yeah. And so, yeah, I remember that being a really big day for us. And then I remember 10 months later, we [00:17:00] took a drive out in the Superstition Mountains and we were doing the Dave Ramsey program at the time, which is not my favorite program, but I remember we rolled down the windows out in like the wilderness and we did our debt-free scream.
And I just remember thinking to myself like, gosh, I thought this was gonna take so long.
What could we do next? And I think that that's the most exciting part about financial goals for people is at least pivoting to with my clients what it feels like for them. Many of them can be really sheepish about their financial goals at the beginning.
Almost scared to even say it out loud because they're afraid like, what if this sounds crazy? What if I can't do this? And my favorite part about coaching is when people have a plan, I actually can find that their goals might be closer than they thought. That I think is the most fun thing to surprise someone with.
It literally just happened last week where someone had told me they live in Manhattan and they rent in Manhattan, and she had said to herself like, I would love it if in five years, maybe [00:18:00] five to 10 years, maybe I can own. A piece of property. And I remember like taking out her numbers and going through it with her and I was like, what if you could actually buy one now or in the next couple months?
Have you ever thought? She's like, I just never thought that would be possible. Right. Like it's multiple millions to own something, you know? And it's like, well, yeah, to own a house and Right, but you're renting a studio. Right now, like how much do those cost and her be kind of being like, I didn't know.
I hadn't really looked at how much a studio might cost and oh my gosh, that is like my rent and oh my gosh, I do actually have, more money saved up. Like, I think that that is the most fun part about financial goals for people is when they realize like, what if this is closer? But I just never gave myself permission to think about it, dream about it.
Barb: That's awesome.
Maggie: It's to me so interesting 'cause so many people are always afraid to look at their numbers and afraid to know what like maybe the [00:19:00] truth is or whatever that may be. That unknown is really the fear because so many people look at it and they're always like, oh. This wasn't as bad as I thought.
You know? And then you've been living on this fear for so long, and it's just always amazing to me. Like I've seen the situation over and over and over again where people think that they'll, you know, they can never retire, and then all of a sudden they sit down with a professional, they really look at it, they make the plan, and they're like, oh.
I actually can retire in two years. I had no idea. You know, and it's just all that fear that you've had for the past, you know, five years to even have that conversation. And then you have it and it's like deep. There you go. Snap of a fingers. You got it. 'cause you have been working hard. And I think we do need to set those, what do they call them?
BHAGs, brave,
Barb: hairy, audacious goals.
Maggie: But yeah, you can get it there. You can get there so much faster once you start putting real numbers to it, actually, you know, putting some oomph behind it. And so I wanna now dive into [00:20:00] kind of your company, A Rise Financial coaching, how did you get started and make money, feel fun and really shame free, which we know is, is definitely rare.
And then what's different about the way you teach people kind of to handle their money?
Nicole: Yeah, I think that financial coaching is a really cool new industry, right? Like we're used to this world in which once you make enough money, you meet with your dads. I. Financial planner. Right? Like once you get a big girl job, what typically happens is your dad or your uncle tells you you need to meet some guy who they've worked with for all eternity.
And then you meet with him and then he kind of talks down to you a little bit. Like, that's what I found when I was starting to invest. I
Maggie: And he is only meeting with you because your dad asked him to. He normally wouldn't take you as a client, but since your dad asked him, he'll do a favor.
Nicole: Yeah. And so for me, I remember like interviewing advisors and getting laughed at 'cause of how much we made. And anyways, that's a total side story, but yeah, financial coaching is a new part of the [00:21:00] financial industry because advisors kind of asked that question of, okay.
How much money can you invest? And then I'll go invest it for you and I'll manage it for you. And then accountants say, well, how much are you paying in tax? And how can I lower the amount you pay in tax? But there's literally nobody to sit down and help you figure out how are you gonna pay today's bills and also move yourself or your family forward.
Where are you gonna find that money? How are you gonna pay off debt? How much money is too much money to save? Right? And it's really those daily decisions with money that make up whether someone even needs a financial advisor down the line, or qualifies for those big hotshot advisors who manage over, you know, 200 to 500 in assets.
And so financial coaching is about helping people change their financial story in a way that they haven't been able to do on their own. I think that what I found for helping people is that nobody needs financial information. Okay? So I say this a [00:22:00] lot, that financial information in terms of literacy, right?
Like how to make a budget. What is compound interest everything anyone needs to know about money is available for free online.
Right. It's available for free at your local library as well, right? There are, you know, money is the second most talked about thing on the internet. The first is.
Not G-rated things apparently, right? But after that, all of what is on the internet is money content. People are always asking, how do I make more money? How do I save more money? So when it comes to access to information, we live in an age that we have all the information, women and men alike. What we struggle with though is the implementation of that information as well as the personalization.
Of how do I personalize this information and decide for myself how to take action and how do I get held accountable? A really great analogy I think is like a health coach, right? Everybody and their mother knows how to lose weight, [00:23:00] right? You eat less calories and you work out a little bit more.
You drink more water. Boom, ba bing, that's it. But it's the doing it. That is actually the really, really hard part. And so, I really loved just helping people do it and I realized that people needed frequent meetings. They wanted, they often needed education. They often needed some help figuring out which goal was most important for them.
But when it comes to gaining the skill of financial confidence, that is something that you can do in a few months to max, I think a few years in someone's life. And so. I really launched my business mostly because I was writing about personal finance online and I had someone ask if they could pay me to help them with their money.
And I was like, I don't know if I'm qualified enough. But then when my husband got furloughed in 2020, we kinda looked at each other 'cause we were single income at the time. I was a stay at home mom writing about money online and he was like, what if we let somebody pay you?[00:24:00]
And I was like, okay, well I have to get more training so that I can learn how to do this better. And so I got, you know, mentorship on how to run and give financial coaching in a more professional way. But that was really where I began to realize that financial coaching fills a space in the financial industry that has not been filled before.
And so I think that we're finding it is becoming more and more popular, more and more normal that people are saying, yeah, I think I'm gonna hire a financial coach, not I'm going to meet with an advisor who maybe isn't the right fit for me right now because I have a lot of debt, or I'm struggling to save.
That's usually when somebody needs a coach.
Barb: Absolutely. We totally agree with you, and financial coaches are fantastic because oftentimes we get the question, how do I get started? Like, where do I start? And a coach can help you create a beautiful pathway and help you sort things out and put a plan in place, help you get a [00:25:00] routine so that all of your goals are met and it's kind of set it and forget it in many ways and helping you to get started and get organized and have a plan in place and then.
Once that gets rocking and rolling, your debts are getting paid down, you're putting money in the bank, then maybe that's the time when you feel like you're at a place that you can step to the next financial professional, which §might be a financial advisor. So you're absolutely right. I mean, we get that question all the time, every day.
How do I get started? So, yes, a great launching pad, financial coaches, no doubt about it.
Maggie: So Nicole, something else that I know you kind of specialize in with your clients, that is such a big topic and becoming bigger and bigger. The more we talked about it is ADHD and money. So why do you find money like harder for people with ADHD.
Nicole: Yeah, that's a great question. And I realized I forgot to answer your other question about what's different because about our coaching practice. [00:26:00] Statistically, if you're listening to this and you have ADHD or you know, someone with ADHD in your life, statistically that person is actually worse off with money.
Typically people with ADHD carry more high interest debt. They struggle a lot more with impulse shopping. One of the main functions or kind of tenets of ADHD is that we have a bad executive functioning part of the brain. I don't wanna say bad, I don't wanna say different. It's wired differently.
And my favorite thing about ADHD is that we are the hunters. That's kind of why our brains exist. It's not because they're defective in some way. It's that back in the day we used to need people who were more distractible, more impulsive, because that's who won food, right? So, often our brain can feel very, very overwhelmed when it comes to money management because the way that money management has been taught in kind of popular culture has been very neurotypical focused, so it's very detail oriented, very [00:27:00] cumbersome. Just even the tenets of like budgeting are so asinine for a person with ADHD and as someone with A-D-H-D-I learned that very quickly in the personal finance world where I was like, oh my God.
Who wants to do this? Nobody wants to do this. And I kind of just owned that. This was archaic things like tracking expenses, things like the 4,000 different categories. Why do we have so many categories? For what purpose? Right? Like why am I going through my Walmart receipt and writing what was a toiletry item versus a grocery item?
This feels like a rampant waste of time. Right? And so when I started my coaching business, a lot of it was around teaching people kind of the innovative ways that I was budgeting in terms of proactively putting money into buckets versus trying to reconcile a past spending. Sheet and stuff.
There's a lot of different. Things that I was doing intuitively because I knew that, you know, the [00:28:00] advice I was reading in the book, I'm like, well, I'm never gonna do that. And ADHD or not, 80% of Americans don't have a budget, so it's obviously not working for us. And I think that even for people who don't have ADHD, we're finding that the attention span for most, most modern Americans is getting shorter and shorter.
And so I think that's all the more reason why innovative new ways of managing money, new ways of. Teaching about money, talking about money is so important. And so we really structured a lot of our client process around things that have worked for me and my clients with ADHD. And we found that like our neurotypical clients appreciate it because most people wanna spend less time thinking about their money and more time
thinking about their budget and more time thinking about their goals. And that's really how we try to set up the whole system because if we can infuse more dopamine, which is what people with ADHD lack, they don't have a fluid kind of rushes of dopamine from normal activities like the neurotypical brain does.
And so we have to [00:29:00] put kind of, not artificial, but intentional dopamine into money management because if we can do that, that will keep the ADHD brain engaged, keeping them in the gamified kind of game of it. And that's why, for me, I always have that goal that's a little bit too hard because that's the only way I can keep my brain.
Engaged in the process.
Barb: Yeah I think that's brilliant. It, because so many of the strategies out there seem punitive and they seem you know, like. After the fact rather than being proactive around it. So. Yeah. Sounds fascinating. And what are some of the typical struggles? Could you name some, like, describe some of the struggles typical ADHD people have with money, and then how you manage that with them?
Nicole: Yeah, so, a couple of them. The first one is, impulsivity. So there are three tenets of ADHD. There's impulsivity. Executive functioning. [00:30:00] And the third one is distractibility, which is always, so ADHD whenever, I forget the third one. But those three things. So. Impulsivity would be coming up a lot in how they shop or how they make financial decisions.
They have a really hard time with taking the time to make a good financial decision. So we find that people with ADHD, yes, they have a lot of impulse purchases but they also struggle with impulsivity in their big decisions too. So things like buying a home or starting a business. And so having help to slow down.
The decision making process, having someone to talk to about the process can help slow down those fast decisions. But to frame that in a positive note, impulsivity is great for entrepreneurs. If you have ADHD, I think you're seven times more likely to be a small business owner.
And some of the biggest and best entrepreneurs of our generation have been people with ADHD. So that impulsivity actually does. Help [00:31:00] you. Right? But that's one struggle with money management. Another one would be executive functioning. So it's really hard for someone with ADHD to be able to accurately prioritize what things they should do before other things.
And so because of that, that can lead them into tough spaces with, you know, should I pay this off or should I do this thing first? So people with ADHD statistically have more bank fees, late fees things of that nature. And they can often get really distracted by side quests of, oh, well this is what I'm gonna do to make extra money.
Right. I'm gonna. Start an Etsy shop and they don't realize that, well first we need to do well with the money that we already have. Another thing that is kind of hidden for ADHD that I find is that because we struggle with executive functioning and sometimes that affects care tasks that really affects.
Food budgeting as a whole. So they often struggle with more eating out because they forget about groceries, they forget to grocery shop, they [00:32:00] forget, right? Like all of those things can really affect their food budget, meaning that they eat out more often, losing a lot of money that way as well.
Maggie: Some of these are very relatable.
Nicole: Yeah, I think everybody, so we all have attention struggles, right? person with ADHD just has a constant struggle in every way, but I think the modern person really, I can identify with the ADHD struggles as well.
Maggie: I think budgeting for groceries and for food is like the hardest thing. I could not tell you what I want to eat on Friday for dinner and plan and like meal prep. Like I would rather go to the grocery store two to three times a week, which like, granted I don't have children, so maybe it's a bit easier, but it's like otherwise I'm losing all the food in the fridge and then it just goes bad.
I haven't figured it out yet, but maybe one
Nicole: It
is really hard though. I don't know if you live, I don't know if you're single and you live alone, but budgeting for food if you're single or you don't have multiple people you're cooking for is really hard because all the serving sizes, everything that you [00:33:00] buy is meant for families. And so I find that when you're like, if you're just.
You know, not cooking. For a large group of people, budgeting groceries is really hard, so I just wanna normalize that.
Maggie: And it's like, I can eat a bit of leftovers, but once you have the meal four times, you're like, don't gimme another stuffed pepper right now. Something like that where it's like, I just have to throw this out 'cause I can't even look at it anymore. But what are some of those super simple things someone with ADHD can try today if they're listening to this to feel better with their money?
Something that actually works.
Nicole: Yeah, so if you have A-D-H-D-I wanna tell you that any bill that you've told yourself that you're gonna remember to pay, you will not. And so it is time for you to not manually pay for anything. So it's really good idea for you to have all of your bills, auto pay, not on their due date.
But actually on the day that you are paid, that's a small little hack where you can set your bank account to actually pay your bills when you want. They have a free feature, most of [00:34:00] them called Bill Pay, where they'll send a check to the vendors that you work with. So let's say that you get paid every other week.
Great, let's send out those bills every other week or let's do them once a month, however you're paid, but. You know, you can always pay a bill early. No vendor gets upset with you when you pay a bill early, so, don't wait until they're due. Set them up automatically, that will save you a lot of money in bank fees.
Another thing you can do if you have ADHD right now is you can open up a high-yield savings account so that way you can set up a small automatic transfer on that same day. So the same day that you pay bills, if you take the money out before you see it, it's like it doesn't exist. So that is a really great thing you can do with your money.
Then if you are like hype level right now, I want you to spend some time thinking about what is something with your money that would feel so, so divine. But you've never actually set a goal for. Now, I don't [00:35:00] care if this goal is the quote unquote right goal that you're supposed to have with your money.
So you might have high interest debt right now. You might not have savings, but chances are the reason you are not doing your financial goal right now is actually because it's not giving you enough dopamine. And so I would challenge you to think about something that gives you. A great amount of dopamine to start with right now, depending on how large it is, if it takes you longer than two to three months to hit, I would say, can we have as a stepping stone over the next two months? Because if you have a dopamine goal that's gonna take you three years to hit, like you are just gonna lose interest. I'm not going there. You won't go there. So what is something that would make you feel delightful if you were able to do over the next 30 to 60 days, and how can you challenge yourself?
So I want you to look at it on paper and say, okay, well this will take me 60 days. Cut it in half. Okay, do it in half the time. Just like your papers that you did in college. Like how can you make a game of it and put something fun at the end of it? So that might be something that [00:36:00] feels really, really like just wasteful for you to do, right? But does it excite you? And then if you were able to save up a thousand dollars to do a staycation at that really nice spa, then next month you can save up a thousand dollars to do your debt payoff for that month or that extra debt payoff. So I want you to make a game out of it.
And then once you have the game, now you have a standard that you can start to see as a goal that you can put, right. ADHDers can find a way to get anything, find any money for something that they want. We struggle to find the money for something that we need. So sometimes it's better to start with something fun and then move on to the thing you really need.
Barb: Cool.
Maggie: I like how you can prove that to yourself. 'cause I have heard many different times where it's just like paying off the debt. I know I need to do it. There's a lot of things I know I need to do, but there's nothing about me that's really lightened the fire under my butt to do it. And 26% interest is somehow still not doing it enough.
But it is, you gotta prove to yourself that you can do it and then [00:37:00] realize how easy it was before you really get started on those goals. Because yeah, sometimes there's those things where you're like, every day you're like, I know I should do that, but maybe tomorrow.
Nicole: Yeah, we need to find something that connects it to your life today, right? Like I was somebody who was never, ever motivated by investing. But then once I learned how retirement wasn't an age like, oh, I need to wait till I'm 65 to retire. I could retire at 40. Then I was like
Okay.
Now we have a game. Now we have something fun and that, but again, it's the same action, right? It's just a different branding.
Barb: Yeah.
Maggie: Yeah.
Barb: Interesting.
Maggie: Well, yeah, this has been a lot of great tips. Just if you have ADHD or wanna learn more about financial coaching or just get some inspiration and get out of debt, that you don't have to win the lottery to get it done. There's so many other options and great coaches out there. Nicole, there is a question before we wrap up that we do like to ask all of our guests, and that is, what is [00:38:00] your own definition of financial freedom?
Nicole: I can tell you exactly what it is because I think about this a lot. For me, financial freedom is about time. I've learned that time is the most precious. Thing. Right? And I can never buy it.
I can't buy more of it. I can't buy my kids to stay at these ages. So if I can use my money in a way that supports the time that I want to have, that to me is everything right. So when I think about financial freedom, I think about spending time with my children in the afternoon. I think about not having a job that requires me to miss their sports games.
I think about the time to be able to not have to work so hard in my fifties because of the investments I made when I was younger. And it also helps me reevaluate my business a lot as it grows, right? What is the purpose of this for my employees, [00:39:00] for my clients I think that money often becomes about the rat race.
It becomes about how do I make more, have more, more, more, more all the time. When, for me, when I think about what more is, it's just more time with my family and more time with loved ones. And sometimes that costs money. Right. This year we moved to the northeast because we had some family with health problems.
We have a lot of family that lives here. We've told ourself for a decade that it was too expensive. We could never afford to move to Massachusetts. Everything is so expensive. And finally this year , we said we don't care that it's more expensive. We are going to move so that we can have those memories.
We can have the cousin time, we can have time with the grandparents, time with the aunt and uncles. And that's worth it for us to spend that money. And I know that doesn't sound like richness in a sense because I have a smaller house here than I had in different parts of the country, but I'm much [00:40:00] wealthier in the time that I get to spend.
And to me that's, that's what wealth and financial freedom is.
Maggie: Yeah, that's a great definition and it sounds like you have less of a house to clean, which is always great as well.
Nicole: When somehow kids make it messy, I can tell you something. Okay. This weekend we were cleaning our house for like sun up till sundown, and our kids were playing and we got done with scrubbing, toilet, scrubbing bathrooms, scrubbing the kitchen floors. And they had made a tornado in the living room and it was 7:00 PM after bedtime.
And I said, I just can't. I just, I will not. Like this house feels dirty when I spent all day cleaning it. And that tells you something, right?
Barb: kids
Nicole: Kids.
Barb: gotta love them.
Yep.
Maggie: Nicole, of course we'll have everything in the show notes as well, but what's the best way for people to reach out to you and stay connected?
Nicole: Yeah, so if you're listening to this and maybe you like hearing about automated finances, or you feel really stressed about all the budgeting you've tried to do in the past, I'd love for you to follow us on [00:41:00] Instagram. We put out a ton of free financial content @arise.financial Coaching. We also host free classes all the time because we love teaching people about investing and
what financial goals you should be focused on. And if you're somebody who's like, listen, Nicole, I have done the budgeting, I have done it all, and I cannot get the results that I want. I think it might be time for me to hire a coach. Consider filling out a free application. We have a free call where we chat about you, your goals, your problems, and see if financial coaching and working with us is the next step for you.
Barb: Fantastic.
Yeah.
Maggie: Well thank you Nicole for coming on today and sharing your expertise and be sure to reach out to Nicole or any of our purse strings approved professionals and we'll talk to everyone again soon. Until then, be financially fearless.
Outro: You've been listening to Women Money, the shit we don't talk about. Now it's time to take what you've learned and make bold moves towards financial independence. Stay in the know by joining our newsletter for exclusive tools, resources, and updates that keep [00:42:00] you financially fearless. Head to PurseStrings. co and sign up today. Need a financial professional who gets it? Turn to PurseStrings Curated Directory, your go to resource for financial experts who know how to put you first. Love this episode? Leave us a review and help us empower even more women to own their financial power. Until next time, be financially fearless.
