There is a phrase you have probably said to yourself this week, maybe even this morning on the way to work, when that bill you keep pushing to the back of your brain showed up again. And that phrase is “I’ll figure it out.” It feels harmless in the moment because it always has been, you’ve made it work, you’ve kept the lights on, you’ve gotten to the next paycheck. But that quiet habit of figuring it out has become a financial identity, and it is costing you thousands of dollars every single year.
In this episode I am calling you out in the most loving way I know how because I want you to understand what is really happening underneath the surface when you tell yourself you’ll figure it out later. For a lot of high earners it has become a default response that lives right next to a low level of guilt and shame about the gap between what you earn and what you actually have to show for it, and when shame is running in the background, avoiding your finances feels safer than looking at the truth.
I will also walk through exactly what figuring it out is costing you in real dollars, from overdraft fees to forgotten subscriptions to the intention tax that keeps eating away at money you could be putting toward something that actually matters to you.
In this episode you’ll learn…
[00:04:18] What the “I’ll figure it out” identity actually looks like in real life and why it has nothing to do with you being bad at math or not making enough money
[00:08:45] How shame quietly drives financial avoidance for high earners and why not looking at your bank account feels like the safest option when you make really good money but don’t have much to show for it
[00:13:20] The real dollar cost of figuring it out, from overdraft fees that add up to hundreds of dollars a year to subscriptions quietly draining three hundred dollars a month from your account in money you never meant to spend
[00:18:10] Why the figure it out mentality could actually be limiting how much money you earn, because if you don’t trust yourself to manage what you already make, it becomes harder to go after the opportunities that would pay you more
[00:23:45] What it looks like to actually figure it out, not just survive to the next paycheck, but have a real system that lets you travel, pay off debt, and come back from summer knowing exactly what is in your bank account
[00:28:30] What the intention tax is and how closing the gap between what you intend to do with your money and what you actually do is where thousands of dollars are hiding in your finances right now
Tune in to this episode of Money Files to understand what the figure it out mentality is really costing you and what becomes possible when you replace it with an actual plan for your money.
Are you ready to start asking for help with your finances? Apply to work with me, and let’s start working towards your financial goals.
If you loved this episode on summer budgeting, check out last week’s episode on how to avoid blowing your budget with summer travel, Episode 227 The 7 Questions to Answer Before Every Summer Trip (So You Don’t Blow Your Budget).
Transcript for “If You’ve Ever Said I’ll Figure It Out About Your Finances, This Episode Is for You”
Intro: Hi, and welcome to Money Files. I’m Keina Newell from Wealth Over Now. I work everyday with professional women and solopreneurs to help them get out of financial overwhelm and shame so they can experience more flexibility and ease with their finances. Are you ready to gain confidence and learn to manage your finances intentionally? Tune in and grab financial tips that will help you master the way you think about and manage your finances.
Keina: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Money Files. If you haven’t done this, I would invite you to go to the section where you can leave a review and rate my podcast. Whenever you do that, it helps other listeners just like you find me. And I want to make sure, especially in 2026, that more people just like you are finding my podcast. So thank you so much in advance for leaving a review, sharing an episode. I love you more than you even know.
So in today’s podcast, I want to talk to you about a phrase you have probably said to yourself literally this week. Maybe it was this morning, maybe it was on the way to work, when you were thinking about that bill that you’re going to pay half of or some other financial expense that you keep pushing to the back of your brain. And that phrase is, I’ll figure it out. Now, before you just shut me out and you’re like, Keina nobody asked you to be in my business, I just want you to stay with me because I am recording this episode out of love for you.
And it’s the type of love that I hope inspires you to take action because I know that you saying, I’ll figure it out, like that is not a financial strategy, not a real one for you. And it’s literally costing you thousands of dollars whenever you tell yourself that you’re going to figure something out. You’ve used that in your life. It’s a quiet habit that you have. And it’s a consistent habit that allows you to move forward and kind of make peace with where you are financially. But it’s not a piece that you would go tell somebody like, Hey, look at my accounts or look at my financial accomplishments.
It gives you enough peace to keep doing the thing that you’re doing, even though you find yourself up at night, even though you find yourself worried about like, if something happened tomorrow, would I even be able to make things work for me? Do I have money in savings? Do I have any space on my credit card? And so you use, I’ll figure it out as some sort of filler to give yourself space. So you don’t actually have to look at your numbers. And so today we’re going to talk about what figuring it out is actually costing you, because anything that we do has a financial cost. And I want to talk to you about where your desire to figure it out, where it might come from. And we’re also going to talk about what it looks like to finally stop figuring it out and what it looks like to have an actual plan.
I want to start by being really honest about what I mean when I say I’ll figure it out, because I’m not actually talking about you problem solving. And I’m not talking about you sitting down and like making a concrete plan that goes beyond a list of bills. If you were doing that and making a very concrete plan, an actual detailed budget, like the ones that I love, then of course I want you to keep doing that. But the figuring it out that I’m talking about, it is an identity that you possess at this point. And it has become your default response for how you make financial decisions in your life.
So I’ll figure it out becomes I don’t want to actually look at this right now. I’ll deal with it when I have to, or like I’ve always made it work. I’ll figure it out somehow. Like you are someone who is probably, I like to call some of these clients, I’m like I have some hustler clients and they truly, truly do. They always figure things out. But when you’re in a hustle mentality for year after year after year, that becomes exhausting. And it’s also to a point where, yes, it may have worked for you. You made it to the next paycheck. You’ve kept your lights on. Nothing has been taken from you, but at what cost?
Are you stressed? Do you have money in savings? Do you feel good about your finances? Are you and your partner able to actually have a money conversation without it turning into an argument? Or two people that just decide we’re going to avoid this because we don’t want to look at it. Figuring it out doesn’t show up as a bill for you. It’s not coming in the mail and saying like, hey, guess what? Here’s how much figuring it out costs you this year. And so there is money that you’re losing by figuring it out. And there’s also things happening to you when I think about your mental health, you’re stressed out.
It can show up in your relationship, like you don’t necessarily enjoy spending time with your partner because you are worried about them figuring out something about your finances. Or if you guys have shared finances, it’s something that you’re always arguing about. And it shows up also as opportunities that you’re not actually able to take advantage of. You just feel like, I’m always playing whack-a-mole with my finances. I’m always putting fires out. And so I can’t be the person that I can rely on. Or I can’t be the person that I want my partner to be able to rely on because I’m always figuring it out. And I want to be really clear.
I don’t think you are sitting in your house right now being like, oh, my goodness, I had this exact conversation with myself. But it comes in moments in which you feel like you can’t show up for yourself. Or when you feel like you can’t show up for your family or when you feel like you can’t show up for a partner. Or maybe you see someone that’s in your friend circle and you’re like, dang, they just bought a house, they just bought a new car. They don’t seem stressed. And so you start to be in this comparison mode. You start to experience what I know as shame.
And so what I want you to understand is that figuring it out is a reactive strategy. And when you’re always reacting, you are never going to be able to build for the future. You’re focused on what’s happening today. You may even be focused on like what past problems you need to fix. And so you’re not going to be able to get yourself to a place where you can get ahead because you’re just focused on the essential things that you need. And this has nothing to do with the fact that you make six figures or even multiple six figures. It really comes back to you have adopted a figure it out lifestyle and that status quo is costing you.
So actually, I want to go a little bit deeper because I think that there’s something underneath that I’ll figure it out that we don’t actually talk about enough. And I talked about it a little bit, but it’s the thing that I know is called shame. And a lot of my clients that I work with, they are high earners. We’re talking, I make $200,000 a year. I make $300,000. I could even make $500,000 a year and they have good jobs. I would say that they are very smart. They are capable. They do things that I’m like, how do you do that? My clients are amazing. Simply amazing. They’re very, very smart.
But when it comes to their finances, they feel really behind and they feel frustrated and they feel like they should be able to have more to show for their money. But there’s a gap in between what they earn and what they actually have. And so what happens is it creates this low level of guilt that runs in the background all the time for how they view like money in their life. And so when you feel guilt and you feel shame about your finances, your natural move there is to just avoid them. And when you don’t look at your bank account, when you don’t open your credit card, you’re not going to start a budget.
Because when you think about starting a budget, you’re thinking like, I’m going to have to look at the truth. And then if I look at the truth, that’s going to be further proof, that like there’s something wrong with me. And so instead you go to this default of I’ll just figure it out later, like now is not the time. I don’t have the time for this right now. And when you’re in that space of avoidance, it just continues to feed more of the same story and the story that you have about yourself and about whether or not you are a person who can change.
I had a client recently tell me since we’ve been working together, she’s like, Keina, there’s this little voice in my head that like basically calls me an idiot when it comes to my finances. And she’s like, it can be so, so loud. But she’s like, since working with you, I feel so much better. Like that voice is so much more quiet. And I can look at my bank account. She’s a business owner. She looks at her personal bank account. She looks at her business bank accounts. And she’s like, this is the most money that I’ve ever had in my accounts.
And so having money in my accounts definitely helps quiet that voice. But the work that we’re doing is we are diving into her figuring it out. And by figuring it out, we’re making a plan. And so she has a plan for her business finances. She now has a plan for her personal finances. But it’s really helped her be able to talk back to this internal, I want to say internal dialogue that she’s having with herself. I kind of think about like a little ugly Muppet, like old school Sesame Street that is internally living within you and calling you an idiot or basically solidifying the narrative that you have about whether or not you are someone who is good or not good at managing your money.
So when you actually can identify what’s going on for you, like this is a version of shame that’s happening. That’s making you want to hide. That’s making this experience painful. When you can name those things, it is liberating. Like I don’t know how else to say that. I listen to clients all the time tell me about like, I never thought I would get to this place where I could look at my numbers and not be this person that is just trying to figure things out. My purpose in recording this podcast episode is I want you to lose the I figure it out identity and I want you to actually figure it out. Because once you figure it out, you are going to see yourself in a much different way, whether you are single and it makes you more confident to date. Or if you are currently dating, it makes you more confident in terms of like the conversations you’re having with your partner.
If you are a single mother or you are divorced and for you to be able to know, like, I have a plan, I don’t have to figure it out. It is going to make you move differently. It’s going to help you be a better parent. It’s going to make you shift the generational narrative that you want to have about finances with your children. And like there are so many ways in which losing the I figure it out mentality is going to propel you forward and help you become somebody new. I would even argue that it’s going to help you make more money because you’re not going to be carrying this burden of shame that might quietly be telling you what’s going to happen if you make more money.
Will you even be able to manage it? Like, is that even something that is smart, for you to go and make more money. And maybe you haven’t thought about the fact that like that’s not why you’re making more money, but the I figure it out mentality could be keeping you from earning more money because you’re not sure. Like, if I can’t manage $180,000, how can I apply for that new director role that’s going to be paying me $240,000, right? Like, could I manage that extra amount of money? And that, once again, sometimes these stories aren’t as loud and clear, but hopefully by listening to this podcast, you can see like, oh, I didn’t realize that I’m actually limiting myself from earning more because I’m not sure if I’m someone I can trust.
And so that’s why I want you to get rid of this I’ll figure it out mentality because do you ever truly figure it out? Because figuring it out isn’t just taking care of what’s in front of you today. Figuring it out is being able to have a system that helps you pay off debt. Figuring it out is being able to have a system that allows you to go on the vacation for 10 days and come back and know exactly what’s on your credit card. Figuring it out allows you to travel this summer and know that in September, you’re not going to be regretful of what’s in your bank account or wishing that you had done something different.
So we want to get rid of the I’ll figure it out mentality that is keeping you stuck. That’s keeping you avoided because we want to turn that into the version of you that realizes that budgeting is actually a therapeutic process. That budgeting is something that is going to help you see thousands of dollars in your bank account. Whether that is, I see thousands of dollars in my regular checking account. I see thousands of dollars that turns to hundreds of thousands of dollars in my retirement account. I see a savings account that I could never even fathom me building in the past. But now I see like, oh, I have $5,000. Now I have $15,000. Oh, I have $30,000.
I didn’t see this version of me, but now I can see that version of me because I leaned into the therapeutic side of budgeting, but I have completely gone off script. But I feel so passionate about calling you out in a very loving way in trying to figure it out. The only difference in between like you and my clients is that they’ve asked for support. That’s the only difference. I work with very real people. I am seeing their Chipotle purchases, their Bloomingdale purchases. Keina, my car broke and last week something happened to my windshield. Keina, my washing machine broke down.
I want people to know, come as you are. You don’t need to get anything in order. We’re literally just going to package up your life and put it into a plan. I don’t need you to change. I need you to be willing to ask for help. That is the only difference in between you and my clients is that they’re willing to ask for help. And that’s how someone can go. If you listen to Lisa, she was on my podcast, I want to say two or three weeks ago, and she’s paid off $15,000 of debt in a year. She didn’t make more money. We literally got rid of her I’ll figure it out mentality. We found money that was stuck and now, she’s paid off debt. She took her son to Disney world. Like she’s been traveling. She has like $7,000 that she always expects to see in her bills, checking account. And she had another $7,000 across her savings. Like that’s what shifting this identity can create for you.
And that’s going to compound in the best way for her because I’m like, okay, you paid $15,000 worth of debt off this last year. She has like, I think she has another $20,000 she wants to pay off, but that’s going to be paid off I know in another year. So that’s going to be money coming back to her. She’s not adding to her debt. She’s adding to her savings account. She’s adding to her overall life, like learning how to budget and seeing budgeting as this therapeutic process has allowed her to live more freely and more abundantly. So one of the things I wanted to make sure I covered in this podcast was thinking about the cost of having an I’ll figure it out mentality.
And one of the examples I thought about was having overdraft fees in your account. And you might be someone who maybe your overdraft fees, they don’t hit you all the time. Like just you open your bank account, you notice like, it’s a couple of days after payday and somehow there’s an overdraft fee and it may not be something that happens month to month. But let’s just say that this month you got hit with three overdraft fees, they’re $35 and that cost you $105. And you just wait for your paycheck to fix it. Like it almost becomes one of the narratives to yourself.
You’re like, see, that’s why I don’t look at my bank account, because there’s always something bad that’s happening there. So you wait on your paycheck to fill your bank account back up. So the overdraft fees kind of go away. But while you’re not paying attention to your bank account and if you have overdraft fees that are happening at three times a month, maybe it’s happening four to five times a year. It’s not happening every single month, but you’re losing. You’re easily losing four to five hundred dollars in overdraft fees because you have this mentality of I’ll figure it out later.
And if you keep that mentality for five years, you’ve now lost twenty five hundred dollars towards fees and you’re losing that towards fees because you don’t want to sit down and make an actual plan. And when I say that you don’t want to sit down and make an actual plan, I want to be clear that I’m thinking about the fact that it takes courage to raise your hand and ask for help. And so this podcast is invitation to say, like, have the courage to ask for help. I always commend people that get on consults with me and I tell them, like, I am so appreciative that you would trust me with your life, like with your finances, because I know that this is a very vulnerable area for you. But being able to do that means like that twenty five hundred dollars in overdraft fees, we get to actually funnel that money towards something else.
It seems so small, but it’s costing you literal money, but it’s also costing you your mental health. It’s costing you anxiety. It’s costing you not feeling like you can go out with your friends because you’re not sure if your car will be declined or not, even though you make really good money. And so we want to be able to get rid of the financial identity of figuring it out because you’re going to recoup that money. But that’s just one thing that’s happening in your bank account. That’s not even the whole story. The other thing that could be happening in your bank account is that you have subscriptions that you haven’t actually been using.
You think they’re canceled, but they’re not canceled. And maybe you have a ninety nine dollar subscription that’s going for a dog training app that you don’t remember you signed up for. You have Sirius XM that you signed up for three years ago, but you haven’t canceled it. So they’re charging you sixty dollars a month. They’re top rated package. You have a class pass fee and they’re charging you one hundred and twenty dollars. Then you have iCloud, Dropbox, Google Storage. They’re charging you another thirty dollars a month for storage. Now we’re looking at you spending an extra three hundred dollars a month in subscriptions. That’s thirty six hundred dollars a year in stuck money because, you know, I know that I should cancel these subscriptions, but you haven’t been able to make the space to actually do that.
And so you have three hundred dollars a month of stuck money, that’s just you’re giving donations every single month. And I do not say that to shame you, but I say that because I want you to apply to work with me, honestly, because I want to help you close your execution gap. So there’s an intention that you have and then there’s the length of time that it takes you to execute. And so I call it the intention tax. I have another podcast on that, but it’s like as a six figure earner who is avoided of their finances, it’s costing you literal thousands of dollars a year that we could be putting towards something else in your life.
You want to be able to pay off debt. You want to be able to travel. You want to be able to know, like, I’m the person that I can depend on or that the person that my family can depend on, that my partner can depend on. We have to be able to get rid of the intention tax in your life or we got to find the stuck money so that you can do all of these things and you can become the person that feels responsible with their finances. So I have said a lot. Like I said, I have gone completely off script. But if you don’t hear anything else from me today, I want you to catch yourself this week telling yourself that you’ll figure it out. And I want you to know that every single time you say that, whether it’s like, oh, I’m just going to pay a little bit of this bill here. Or I’m going to call and ask if I can get an extension.
Or maybe you’re telling yourself you’re going to start saving money. Or maybe you’re even telling yourself, I’m going to apply to work with Keina in August after the summer travel. I want to let you know that identity that you have, that I’ll figure it out identity, it is costing you money. And I would invite you to apply to work with me in my five month coaching partnership because I am going to help you build a budget. And this budget is going to be a plan for you that really is just a matter of like, how do you live? What is your plan for how you want to spend money? What are the things that you want to be able to accomplish this year?
And we’re going to break down your salary and thinking about what do I have coming in and how does it need to go out, so that you can do the same thing with your money every single month? The same thing with your money, every single paycheck because my goal for you is that you get to spend more money without the guilt, without the shame, while also knowing that your financial goals are on autopilot. So thank you so much for tuning in. I’m sorry this episode is so long and I just kind of got in a flow. So I will talk to you later and I will chat with you next week. Have a good one.
Outro: Thank you so much for listening to Money Files. If you’re ready to take the next step to reach your financial goals, head to www.wealthovernow.com/appointment and let’s get started.
