I’m not really sure what to write here and I’ve been perfectionisting over this too long already. Here are some of the big ideas behind Finance for Fuckups. I’m sure this will evolve over time, and I’ll update this page as it does.

My financial identity is nonbinary and my journey is nonlinear.

I am BOTH a spender AND a saver. Sometimes I lean more one way than another, other times I go back and forth in the span of a day. I have saved aggressively for retirement only to wake up with a spending hangover from those three pairs of mom jeans I bought at the outlet mall that are definitely in fashion now. I have paid off a student loan only to immediately incur a comparable amount of debt by impulsively buying a new truck. Both these orientations are impacted by my stress level and mental health.

When I’m fucking up the most by making impulsive or inattentive financial decisions, I also tend to be getting my ass kicked by stressful life events like divorce, single parenting, addiction, mental illness, coming out in midlife, you know, the kind of shit everyone deals with.

When I’m fucking shit up by disrupting self-defeating inner dialogues and dealing with my shit, I do a better job of kicking ass by practicing healthier financial choices to take better care of myself and work toward doing more of wtf I want, i.e., saving for retirement and other goals.

I’m not sure my story is that different from yours, but it is different from most personal finance stories I read online.

Many of my favorite personal finance bloggers’ stories go something like this:

Relatable younger person starts adult life by low key fucking up and getting their ass kicked until compelling insight and/or transformative life event propels them to fuck shit up and kick ass relentlessly until they reach financial independence and retire early, doing WTF they want happily ever after. 

Dude, I wish. My story goes more like this:

Queer, neurodivergent, creative person starts adult life by low key fucking up and getting their ass kicked until compelling insight and/or transformative life event propels them to fuck shit up and kick ass briefly until they get impatient and want to take on another challenge, resulting in slightly higher key fucking up and getting their ass kicked until shit hits the fan and they once again fuck shit up and kick ass for a little while until they get impatient and want to take on another challenge, leading to majorly fucking up and getting their ass kicked until it gets harder to fuck shit up and kick ass and … well, you get the picture.

Financial Psychology for Fuckups

Finance for Fuckups emphasizes vulnerable and, hopefully, relatable personal narratives of financial psychology – why we do what we do with money – through the lens of sobriety/recovery. Why this focus? Well, I’m a financial fuckup, not a personal finance expert (see disclaimer below). But I am becoming an expert on my own financial psychology as part of my recovery journey, including my spending triggers, the inner dialogues they set off, and the shame spirals that can sometimes ensue. I am also learning more about what helps me make better financial choices. Even in periods of higher financial functioning and better mental health my financial psychology regularly kicks my ass. It undermines my best efforts to fuck shit up and keeps me from kicking ass at my financial goals and doing more of wtf I want in healthy, life-affirming ways rather than impulsive, self-soothing, immediately gratifying ways. In my experience, healthy financial psychology is a prerequisite for healthy financial habits and decision-making.

Financial Independence and Retiring Ever, or FIRE for Fuckups

In the personal finance community, the acronym FIRE stands for “Financial Independence Retire Early.” I love audacious goals, and tend to go after them in impulsive binges with a lot of energy and hyper-focus and very little planning, which can leave me exhausted and defeated. Let’s get real. If you’re starting your personal finance journey at Finance for Fuckups, chances are you may be worried about retiring EVER. This is a perfectly acceptable and also very audacious goal. Personal finance is personal. Small wins count, and we get to big goals one day at a time, in our own time. Financial psychology, anyone?

Defusing Financial Shame

In my own messy financial journey, the collision of stressful life events and my fragile mental health has often led to impulsive, self-soothing over-spending. This can trigger an avalanche of financial shame. 

According to my hero Brené Brown, “Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” (Gifts of Imperfection, p. 39). Shame keeps us from connecting with others and cuts us off from the support systems that help us do hard things, you know, like getting our financial shit together after we’ve made a mess of things.

I started this blog to share my story, to normalize the experience of doing some things well, while fucking up other things royally, and mustering the courage to continue growing when things have gotten painful and messy. I know I’m not the only one out here with financial skeletons in the closet – or the driveway. If you’re feeling alone and embarrassed about your financial fuckups, let’s hang out. In my experience, isolation and shame make everything worse, especially my spending problem.

Disclaimer

I am neither a mental health professional nor a financial professional. I’m a queer, newly sober creative with depression and ADHD – in other words, a fuckup. This blog provides inspiration, entertainment, and camaraderie for folks who may feel ashamed of our financial fuckups and discouraged in our journey toward financial independence. It does not provide mental health services, or legal or financial advice of any kind.