#33 - 5 Laws That Secretly Rule Your Wallet (and How to Flip the Script)

Ever feel like your money has a mind of its own? In this eye-opening episode, I'm exposing the "secret laws" that might be unconsciously dictating your financial decisions. You'll learn why simply having enough money isn't the whole answer, and how your deeper beliefs, habits, and even societal influences are silently shaping your financial reality. 

Episode Highlights:

1. Murphy's Law: Prepare for the unexpected. Learn how to create an "emergency fund" to avoid financial stress when inevitable life events occur.
2. Kinley's Law: Don't be complacent. Discover how smooth financial sailing can hide underlying issues and why scheduling regular "money detective sessions" is crucial for financial clarity.
3. Gilbert's Law: It's the system, not you. Understand that struggles with budgeting, debt, or savings often stem from a lack of effective money management systems, and learn to treat your personal finances like a business.
4. Wilson's Law: Master the concept, not just the tools. We explore why oversimplifying financial systems creates new problems and emphasize the importance of understanding the "why" behind your money management.
5. Parkinson's Law: Boundaries build your financial future. Learn how to prevent expenses from expanding to match your income and how to consciously set limits to protect the money you make.

Get ready to uncover the hidden dynamics that impact your wallet and discover how to "flip the script," take back your power, and build a truly intentional financial future. Join me to decode these laws and start writing a new story for your money!

Links:

1. My HYSA recommendation  -  Use my link here to sign up and you’ll get a $25 bonus and up to $300 when you set up direct deposit. 

Always and Never About Money Episode Links:
Video Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@MoneyMasteryWithChelsea
Socials: https://linktr.ee/the_money_whisper
Money Mastery Website: www.moneymastery.work
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AlwaysandNeverMoney/

Always and Never About Money Episode Links:
Video Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@MoneyMasteryWithChelsea
Socials: https://linktr.ee/the_money_whisper
Money Mastery Website: www.moneymastery.work
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AlwaysandNeverMoney/

Transcript

Choose just one financial topic, whether it's your credit score opening up an HYSA, a high yield savings account, beginning to invest once you have that emergency fund or starting your emergency fund. Research it weekly. Invest in that relationship weekly. Sit down at the table with your numbers. Open up that app and have the conversation so that this becomes a relationship with your money.

Build your fluency. Not just your tools.

Welcome to Always and Never About the Money. Are you ready to embark on a journey that will forever change the way you perceive money? We'll get ready because we're about to dive deep into the fascinating world of finances and human behavior. I'm your host, Chelsea Williams and Money Whisperer. I am here to help you realize what your money story is telling you and how you can change it.[00:01:00] 

But hold on tight because this is not the dull black and white talk about money. We're gonna splash all the color into this typical nap inducing conversation on Always and Never About the money. We're gonna explore the intricate relationship between money and our daily lives. From the impact history has left on us and how we still manage it, how your habits shape your money, and what beliefs are driving your habits, choices, and relationships to the deeper values and emotions we've come to attach to it.

We are going to unravel it all through insightful conversation and personal anecdotes. We'll bring you the expert insights, real life stories and meaningful thought provoking ideas that will inspire you, educate you, and initiate some serious perspective change when it comes to your money. Remember, money is just a tool.

Together we'll untangle the web of emotions, beliefs, and values. We've come to attach to it and find a new perspective on how it can enhance our lives. So whether you're looking for motivation, practical advice, or a good laugh, always and [00:02:00] never about the money's got you covered. Thank you for joining us in this transformative journey.

Get ready to challenge your beliefs and embark on a financial exploration like no other. Without further ado, let's kick off the episode of Always and Never About the Money. Do you ever feel like your money just disappears faster than you earn it? Like there's some invisible force working against you?

Or how about how a $5 coffee becomes a $500 habit? Well, you might be right. Today we're naming those forces. Those things aren't accidents. They are laws, and they rule your money if you don't know how to flip them. Today I'm breaking down five real life laws, Murphy, Kinley, Gilbert, Wilson, and Parkinson, the Cruz all here.

And we're gonna decode all of them, and I wanna show you how they show up in your finances. Every single day because once you start [00:03:00] understanding and working with these laws instead of against them, your money will stop controlling you and you will start writing a new story. So we're gonna start with Murphy.

That darn Murphy. The Murphy's Law says What can go wrong? Will. It suggests that if something has a chance of going wrong, it probably will. And especially when you are least prepared. And when it comes to our money, what we can think about is unexpected expenses. You know, we have these life things that happen.

Our car breaks down. We need to replace a roof, we have a vet bill for our pets, and we act inconvenienced and almost surprised. But they are truly inevitable, like this is life. Things come up, things happen, and where we under prepare in our money is saving. Having that [00:04:00] Murphy's Law fund, that emergency fund and making it a habit.

That every time we receive money, we set something aside. I the amount is irrelevant. It is the act of when we get money, we protect some of it so that when something pops up, because it always will. We have the money there and we don't have to stress about it. We can just take care of it and keep on moving on with life.

Emergency funds are actually emotional and financial safety. They help to keep us in a place where we don't react out of emergency urgency. We are completely prepared, and that protects our peace of mind, though. Practical tip for Murphy's Law, automate $10 a week into an emergency savings account. Call it Murphy Proof Money Law number two is Kin Lee's Law and Kin.

Lee's Law says that if everything seems fine. [00:05:00] You're missing something. It implies that smooth sailing might just mean you're missing what's broken under the surface. And when it comes to your money, it tells us that when you're feeling comfortable with your finances, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're actually in good shape.

I come across a lot of business owners and individuals. Who don't have that pain of feeling like they don't have a lot of money yet they don't have that urgency to dive in and take control of their finance because it's pretty smooth sailing right now. But Kimley's law gives us a favor and reminds us that complacency creates blind spots.

So the absence of obvious problems does not mean. Financial clarity and a practical tip if this is speaking to you is schedule a kind of money detective session every Sunday review [00:06:00] one area you've ignored, like subscriptions, fees, or account activity on one of your bank accounts or your cards. You can also call this a date with your money.

So you have a relationship with your money. And think of it as a person. You need to have a conversation with your money. You need to spend time with your money and really pay attention to where is it coming from and where is it going. The third law is Gilbert's Law and. The Gilbert's law says that the root of the problem often lies in the system, not the people.

Systems are often flawed or inefficient, or outdated. When I think of Gilbert's Law, I think a lot about business leadership and when a business owner has a team. My biggest piece of advice on leadership. Is ask questions [00:07:00] before you draw conclusions. As a leader, it's almost like a natural instinct When something goes wrong, that we believe it, and we immediately start acting on that belief instead of digging deeper, asking questions to understand exactly what happened.

And drilling down to the system in our businesses that dictated the process that somewhere broke and led to this thing happening. And I can speak from experience because I exercise this in my own business. We will get clients that I call it coming into our email box, pointing fingers, blaming us and saying We did something wrong and.

When something like that happens, I do not immediately look at the person and say, what did you do? Why did you do this? How did you miss this? I don't do that. The first thing I do is ask questions to understand [00:08:00] exactly how this came to be and what I find. 9.7 times out of 10 is that it was not the person, it was not the individual.

More often it is actually the client not taking accountability. But sometimes, and this is why in my business, we do not see mistakes as a bad thing. We view them as learning opportunities, and we also know that behind every mistake we make. Is a glitch in our systems. And so we focus on improving the systems.

We do not immediately look at the person, and what this can be for you is grace. If you don't have a money system, if you don't have a budget in place, or some way to manage your money. It's not you. It's not that you're doing something wrong, it's that you either didn't know that these tools existed, you don't know how to [00:09:00] implement them and manage them, or you are.

Overwhelmed, and so you don't even try. So if you've struggled with budgeting, debt or savings, it might be because you just don't have a system for your money, and there are absolutely systems that you can implement in your money. In fact, this is what I teach in my course, my personal finance course. I give you the systems and the framework to manage your money to live in your life equation, which is how much you make, how much you spend equals what you keep to save and invest.

And I, I wanna encourage you to view your personal finance as your business. Treat it like a business. The same exact principles that I teach business owners around how to manage their money. Are these same exact principles that I teach individuals and how to manage their money. So view your personal finance like a [00:10:00] business, like a thing that you have created, that you need to monitor, that you need to control, and that you need to manage.

And you can do all of this in your money with systems just like a business does. If this episode hit home and you are realizing your personal money equation is off, whether that's how much you make, keep spend to save or invest, then I want you to do yourself a favor right now. I am creating a personal finance program designed to help you rebalance your entire money equation.

It's built on a proven framework that gets you grounded in your money right now without shame, spreadsheets or burnout. I'll help you move past the ick of budgeting and into a system of boundaries that protect your future financial freedom. While still giving you freedom within your spending today, if that sounds like what you've been needing, go to our website and join the email list.

As soon as the program [00:11:00] launches, you'll be the first to know, and trust me, you are going to want to be in the room for this. So if you're sitting here feeling like I am broken because I am not good with money, it is not you. You either don't have a system. Your system is broken. So instead of thinking that there's something wrong with you, what I encourage you to do is change the system, get the system, implement the system, and change your approach to that system.

Next up, we got good old Wilson Wilson's law, which says, if you make it idiot proof, the system creates a better idiot. I love this one. And this goes back to my own personal example in my business, like we are human. We do make mistakes. We've been doing this for eight years and we've been viewing mistakes as opportunities to learn and implement better systems for eight years and still to this day.

Sometimes every blue moon, [00:12:00] something will happen. An error is made and we find a new system. Systems can't be stagnant any more than you can afford to be stagnant. They are always changing and evolving, and there's always that thing that's gonna happen no matter how long you've been building your systems, that's just gonna seep through the cracks.

So what Wilson's law helps us to understand is that oversimplifying systems doesn't stop mistakes. It just creates new types of mistakes. So having the framework and a system around your money, money like budgeting, utilizing apps. They can only really, truly help if you understand the why behind them.

They require ongoing management because there is that thing that's gonna happen. There is this expense that you're gonna forget about when you first create a budget. You aren't going to have enough in emergency funds when you first start building it to cover your first emergency. Things [00:13:00] absolutely happen.

It's how we approach them and how we evolve because of them. That Wilson's law. Helps us to do better. Your knowledge around why you need to manage your money with systems and why those systems need to evolve beats the convenience of oversimplifying things or not looking at all because a pretty app won't solve a broken mindset.

A practical tip for you here is choose just one financial topic, whether it's your credit score, opening up an HYSA, a high yields savings account, beginning to invest once you have that emergency fund or starting your emergency fund. Research it weekly. Invest in that relationship weekly. Sit down at the table with your numbers, open up that app and have the conversation so that this becomes a relationship with your money.

Build your fluency, not just your [00:14:00] tools. Next step is Parkinson. And Parkinson is one of my favorite laws to talk about because I see it. So often in money, Parkinson's law says work or spending in financial terms expands to fill the space that it is allowed. In other words, an increase in how much money you are making, expenses.

We'll increase or exceed how much money you are bringing in within four to six months unless a specific force is put against it. And we see this when we know we're getting a raise next month. And what do we do? We go out and find a new car and we lock ourselves into a seven year loan payment. That accounts for that raise.

So we're really not making any more. We've spent it before. We have made it. Things including money and time will expand to take up the space that you give it. [00:15:00] On the other hand, if you put a force in place that does not allow it to expand. That is when you take your power back and in money. That means having spending boundaries, having the strategy, having the systems and upholding those systems to protect the money that you make because your expenses are gonna naturally rise to match your income unless you consciously set those limits.

We get a big, new, fancy job. We go buy a big new fancy house, we get a good raise, we go buy a car. We start living above our means and overcommitting financially compared to how much we're making and the security we have behind the consistency of how much we're making. So for those that can relate, I challenge you when you get a raise or unexpected income comes from somewhere, assign it to savings or debt before it lands in your account.

I. Don't let [00:16:00] lifestyle creep win, though. Which law has ruled your wallet the longest? And how will you take your power back this week we've got Murphy who says, prepare. Prepare for the mess before it arrives. We've got Kinley who says, dig deeper. When it feels too easy. Gilbert over here saying You didn't break it.

The system did. Wilson says, master the concept, not the app. And good old Parkinson reminds us that boundaries build your financial future. So I wanna know which ones really hit home for you. If you go to our website, we have a form you can submit, asking questions, giving feedback, tell me your story. I love hearing how you feel about the information that I'm putting out into the world and the things that I'm saying I want to know, I want to understand, and I'm here to help.

Money is always and never about money, and that law.