Melissa Browne - Budgets Dont Work (But This Does): Drop the one-size fits all approach to money and discover the power of understanding your unique financial type

Melissa Browne is an author, financial educator, accountant, speaker and entrepreneur. She is CEO of the financial education business The Money Barre, co-founder of the long day preschools & learning centres Thinkers.inq, and in 2019 she sold her award-winning accounting and advisory firm A&TA.

Melissa writes a regular column for the Money section in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbournes The Age, and she has been a regular contributor to the CEO Magazine and Latte magazine. She is regularly asked to appear on TV and radio and at conferences to speak about money, finances and business (and occasionally shoes), including the Today Show, Weekend Sunrise, Weekend Today, Sky Business, Triple J and Vivid Sydney. She has also been featured in, or written articles for, Cosmopolitan, Who, Vogue, Elle, Huffington Post, Collective Hub, Harpers Bazaar, Rendezvous, Madison and more. In 2013 Melissa was featured as one of Australias 100 most inspiring women in Madison magazine, and in 2016 she was named one of the Financial Reviews 100 Women of Influence.

Also by Melissa Browne

Unf*ck Your Finances

Fabulous But Broke

More Money for Shoes

First published in 2020

Copyright Melissa Browne 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

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Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

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Web: www.allenandunwin.com

ISBN 978 1 76087 781 1

eISBN 978 1 76087 7470 4

Set by Bookhouse, Sydney

Cover design: Mika Tabata

What we know matters

but who we are matters more.

Bren Brown

PRELUDE

Too often I talk to people who feel out of control financially.

Theyre not certain if theyre doing enough, if they have enough, if they are enough. Theyre frustrated by their lack of knowledge, time and self-control and their unwillingness or inability to do something about it. Theyre desperate for a seven-step standardised financial plan and often just want someone to tell them what to do.

The truth is, for many of us, a homogeneous, one-size-fits-all financial approach just isnt right.

Instead, when it comes to our finances, most of us are missing the vital first step that all the financial knowledge in the world cant replace: understanding who we are and why we behave the way we do.

I know that by understanding your unique Financial Phenotypethe combination of your Money Type (how you intrinsically behave with money, or your money personality) and your Money Story (the influence of your environmental factors and life experience)and, by curating a bespoke suite of financial habits that are right for you, youll have taken a giant leap towards fulfilling your financial potential.

This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever felt frustrated at their inability to sort out their finances, to financially succeed or even to financially adult, if you will.

I want to offer you hope in knowing that youre not broken, the system is. And once you figure out who you are, you can create a financial environment that will mean you wont simply be financially adultingyoull be financially well.

Enjoy,

Mel x

How many books have you bought on money, business and finance? One, four, ten, twenty? Or maybe youve lost count?

Now, be honest. How many of those books did you read cover to cover? More importantly, how many of those books caused you to make radical, lasting money changes?

Thats what I thought.

The truth is many of us are enamoured by the idea of sorting ourselves out financially. In the same way we might get excited about becoming fit, running a marathon, finding a partner, losing 5 kilos or giving up sugar.

Starting the process can seem easy and even a little exciting. Maybe you signed up to gym classes, hired a personal trainer, made an appointment with a financial planner or accountant, signed up to RSVP or set up online bank accounts to start seriously saving. But its the second week of 6 a.m. sessions with your personal trainer when youre not on holidays where it starts becoming difficult. Or dealing with sugar cravings at 4 p.m. every day, trying desperately to resist the call of a Tim Tam. Or finding yourself on three dud dates in a row, wondering what the point of that RSVP subscription was. Or saying no to a day of shopping with girlfriends because you know your willpower wont hold out and now youre sitting at home, miserable, wishing you were there.

Thats when sorting yourself out starts to kind of suck. So, you stop.

Not permanently, mind you. Just for a little while. After all, its been a hard week and you want to give yourself a break. Or its the silly season/summer/birthday month and starting any kind of diet or budget is just madness right now. A week turns into a month, which turns into a year, and next thing you know youre making another New Years resolution to do something about it. And youre beating yourself up a little more because you cant seem to make any of it stick. Besides, lets be honest, this whole adulting thing, particularly financially adulting, isnt much fun.

So, you stop. Because lifes too short.

But what if it didnt have to be that hard? What if it didnt have to be so prescriptive? What if you didnt have to feel like you were walking uphill through inches of thick mud in really bad shoes? Imagine if you could find a system that was tailor-made for you?

My bet is when you think about sorting yourself out financially, you think of budgets. And spreadsheets. And restrictions. Most of us dont love a budget and we really dont love the idea of denying ourselves. Just look at the mantra were fed constantly by both the media and social media: were encouraged to seize the day, to enjoy the moment.

Is it any wonder were doing just that?

But what if I told you that financially adulting isnt about constant deprivation? That the reason youre financially stumbling or even financially sabotaging has nothing to do with your inability to cope with spreadsheets? What if I told you that budgeting doesnt work for the majority of us in the same way that diets dont work, and that budgeting can be harmful to your finances if it doesnt fit with your Money Type? And that the reason theres so much tension about money in your romantic relationship has nothing to do with one of you being a spender and one being a saver and everything to do with your Money Stories?

Now do I have your attention?

I thought so.

I believe that until you understand something I call your Financial Phenotype, youll never find flow with your finances. Money will always be something you battle with and youll struggle to achieve your financial potential.

What do I mean by Financial Phenotype?

If we head to a Dictionary definition, we can see the term phenotype is used in genetics to describe both the observable constitution of an organism as well as the appearance of an organism resulting from the interaction of the genotype and the environment. In other words, phenotype is the observable set of unique characteristics resulting from the interaction of nature and nurture.