Has Helped Greatly In Times Of Financial Spiraling To Know That I Do Technically Have Some Money Somewhere - Tumblr Posts
Hey nobody has asked me about this ADHD money management tip and it depends on having at least a tiny bit of flex in your budget but I'm about to spend a frustrating amount of money on flour and I can only do it because of this tip:
Hide cash from yourself like a squirrel.
Use whatever receptacle you'd like, envelopes or a zipper bag or an old wallet, create labels for the stuff you're saving for, and tuck money in there occasionally.
My stash lives in an old wallet with strips of paper around it. It's got dividers for "car registration," "bulk food," "vet visit," and a couple other things.
These are things that I know happen every year or multiple times a year that take more cash than I can easily spare from a single paycheck. If I stick twenty bucks a month in an old wallet it will mean that even if I have to pay late fees, I don't have to put my car registration on a credit card and pay interest on my late fees. If I stick ten bucks a month in an old wallet I can buy 25lbs of flour twice a year. If I can stick a bit more or less cash as it's available into the wallet I can make sure that my twice-annual regular vet visits with senior dog bloodwork and vaccinations aren't going to be too much of a hit to that month's grocery budget.
Like, everyone talks about "put money in savings once a month" or "have an account you don't touch for emergencies" and that can totally work if you can swing it, but I know it's REALLY hard for me to keep from pulling from the "emergency" fund for stuff that's a minor emergency/or is regular maintenance that I should have planned for/etc.
It's much harder for me to pull from the actual cash sitting in a physical room in my house because A) I'll probably forget it and B) that means that I have to think through using those funds in a lot more of a direct way than I would when using a debit card and C) I literally can't access it when I'm out of the house (the emergency fund HAS to be on the card to be accessible, the "i need expensive groceries" money doesn't have to be ready to go at all times and if it is available I know myself and it'll get used before it's expensive grocery time).
Like. If you know you have an expense that you have to pay for every year, hide cash specifically for that expense instead of in a general "expenses" fund because if you're not great with money and you've got an iffy memory you might look at your expenses fund and go "okay my computer crashed and there's five hundred bucks in the fund I can replace it and get back to work, cool" and there goes your car registration and a vet visit. At least if you need to physically grab that cash for an emergency you can make note of what you're going to have a deficit for later in the year.