[00:00:00] Linzy: Hello and welcome back to another Feelings and Finances episode of the Money Skills for Therapists podcast. These short and sweet episodes answer your questions; the listeners of Money Skills for Therapists podcast, the health practitioners, therapists, coaches. These episodes are lots of fun. We just started doing them last season and I’m really enjoying them.

[00:00:23] And today we have a question from Dana. Here’s Dana’s question.

[00:00:27] Dana: Hi Linzy, it’s Dana Corr, group practice owner from Manitoba. I’m loving your Friday Feelings & Finances episodes, and I’m so grateful for another opportunity to learn from you. My question is around expenses. I feel that my relationship and mindset with money and CFO time has made such a positive shift through my time and learning in Money Skills for Therapists and Money Skills for Group Practice Owners.

[00:00:54] I’m tracking and monitoring, I’m consistently forecasting revenue and analyzing the numbers, and this is all feeling really great. What I am noticing is I don’t have the same positive interactions with expenses. At the onset of the year I budget and plan for all the business expenses, but it seems that once I have a general idea of those expenses, I disconnect and hope for the best from there,

[00:01:18] looking at those expense numbers again at the end of the year. I don’t seem to be able to track and predict or to be on top of expenses in the same way that I can with income. I tried doing a weekly projection for expenses, but it felt completely overwhelming with so much uncertainty. My expenses are really fairly consistent, so I feel like this is a more of a mindset issue.

[00:01:40] I’d love your words of wisdom on how to better manage tracking real time or projecting expenses, and how to move through this block I seem to have. Thanks so much.

[00:01:51] Linzy: Thank you so much for your question, Dana. It’s so nice to hear your voice again. As folks listening would have heard, Dana is a graduate of both Money Skills for Therapists and Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, and has this amazing practice in Manitoba. So, Dana, my first question in response to your question is getting clearer with yourself. You might already know this, but I’m not totally clear on exactly where the block or like what the problem is.

[00:02:19] So is it that with your expenses you end up overspending? Knowing you, I don’t think that you do. But is there an overspending piece that starts to come in when you don’t know your numbers? Is it more around that emotional relationship like you mentioned of a certain avoidance around your numbers?

[00:02:35] So there’s a blurriness or a not knowingness there that even though you’re really clear on your income and projecting that forward, the expenses still have this emotional weight to them. I’m going to suspect it’s more the second one, knowing you. So I’m going to dig into that side of things more. But for folks who are listening, who are not Dana, yeah, this is something to look at when you are struggling with expenses is what is the real cost of not knowing the expenses?

[00:03:01] And is it literally costing you? Often when we avoid our expense information, we end up spending much more money than we want, and we’re out of touch with what we’re spending, and it might not reflect our values. And for many of us, probably most of us, that’s where the problems with expenses lie. In your case, Dana, I would suspect, knowing you, that that’s probably not the case.

[00:03:22] So my curiosity then is, what do you notice comes up when you try to be with this part of your financial picture? Cause I’m hearing you’re doing really well being with the other parts of your financial picture. What comes up when you start to look at the expenses? I hear you tried to track them weekly, and that was overwhelming.

[00:03:37] And that makes sense to me. I think that tracking your expenses in some sort of weekly way is probably going to be overkill. I know in my own business, I don’t track my expenses weekly. On my metrics tool, which you also have, Dana,through taking Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, I see the flow of my bank account, which is going to include, you know, money has come in and money has gone out, but I don’t actually get into my expenses every week because when I did try to do that as well, I found it was just too much information and not worth the effort.

[00:04:06] As a friend of mine would say, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, right? The effort of trying to see your numbers on a weekly basis in terms of expenses, isn’t really worth what you’re going to get out of it. But certainly having that monthly picture is really important so that you have a sense of, okay, am I on trend for what I expect my numbers to be?

[00:04:25] Have my numbers gone up? Is there something different happening here than I expect? Am I spending more than I thought? Have numbers gone down for some reason? Usually that’s not what happens with expenses, but who knows, right? So there is a piece there of being with that sounds like it’s difficult for you.

[00:04:40] And I would dig into that curiosity of: what is it about the expenses that’s hard to be with? Because with some of the other tools that you have for Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, you have the big picture tool, which also is going to include your expenses. So are you using that tool? Is there resistance to using that tool because of the expenses piece? 

[00:04:56] Could you go back to using that tool and just getting that nice monthly snapshot of what’s happened? On your team tool as well, there’s also those projections for understanding how your expenses fit into your group practice machine. So there’s a couple places where I know there are tools that you could be using for your group that will involve expenses.

[00:05:15] So it does make me wonder if this is blocking you from having a true big picture, if that’s part of the cost of this. But again, it’s this piece of what is the resistance? What do you notice comes up for you if you try to spend your attention on this part of the financial picture? Right? And this is like a slowing down and tracking that we can all do in all areas of our money.

[00:05:34] Do you notice judgments come up about how money is being spent? Do you notice just not liking that money is being spent at all? Is there a part of you that’s maybe more about scarcity, or clutching money, or not trusting yourself to make good decisions with money, so it’s stressful to see money go out the door?

[00:05:50] You know, what is it that is there that stops you from being able to be in that clear, empowered space that you can be with so many other aspects of your financial picture, that that’s not happening here with your expenses, right? So there’s that digging in piece that I think will be really helpful for you.

[00:06:06] And I know you absolutely have the capacity to do this, to be with what do expenses mean to you? Maybe that’s the question at the core of it, right? What does it mean to you to be spending money? Are there negative beliefs there? Are you comfortable with spending money? Do you like spending money? Could there even be joy that comes with some of those expenses?

[00:06:25] Because this is the other piece is when we’re cut off from a certain piece of our financial picture, just like when we’re cut off from certain pieces of our lives, it means that we might be protecting ourselves from any negative emotions that would be associated with that information, but we’re also cutting ourselves off from any positive emotions that could be associated with that information, right?

[00:06:44] We’re kind of blunting our emotional range. So it also makes you wonder, is there opportunity here for positive emotion for you around expenses of seeing, Oh, wow, I’ve really like got this certain area clear and in control that before I was feeling a little blurry, or I really am very consistent with my expenses.

[00:07:01] I can see that I am disciplined, or, Oh yeah, that investment that I made felt so good. That was so worth the money. Because this is part of it, too, is when we’re spending money on our business, we’re also investing in our business. So by being with your expense information, you get to stop and reflect, you know, just one month at a time.

[00:07:18] Are the investments that I’m making really paying off for me? Am I putting money into the right places? It means that you can choose to stop spending, but knowing you, Dana, it also means you can choose to spend, right? To maybe put money into more places that will pay off for you and to be really thoughtful about how you’re directing that expense side of your business.

[00:07:37] So those are my thoughts for you, Dana, in terms of this expense side. As you said, I think it’s more of a mindset. Knowing you, I seriously doubt that you are overspending, but there’s going to be something else here. And for folks who don’t tend on the overspending side of things, then we tend to be more on the clutching, hoarding.

[00:07:55] It’s scary to spend. It’s scary to take up financial space. And I do wonder if that might be part of this situation for you, Dana. So dig in. Be with these questions. Be with the tools that you already have to look at your big picture group practice expenses, like the big picture tool, and the team tool, and let your curiosity show you what might be here that’s in the way of you having a fully engaged relationship with all of the aspects of your group practice finances.

[00:08:22] It was lovely to hear from you. Thank you so much for your question, Dana. If you also have a question for me that you would like answered on one of these Feelings and Finances episodes, it’s very, very easy. All you need to do is scroll down in the show notes for this episode. You’ll see a link. You jump over to our podcast page and there’s just a little record button.

[00:08:42] It’s super simple. Just record it: share your name, share a little bit of context, if that’s helpful, and share your question. And I would be so happy to answer your question on one of these episodes of Feelings and Finances. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.