9 Symptoms of a Broke Bitch Mindset (& How To Fix Them)
If you’re reading this, I already know one thing to be true: you want to make more money, either in your career or your own business.
Yet even though we all want to make more money, many people struggle to actually do so. And even worse, you might run into some well-meaning but toxic financial advice along the way that tells you giving up avocado toast is the only way to make your dreams come true.
Times are definitely tough at the moment and it might even seem like your financial future is not up to you. Some people might be tempted to give up entirely because of big scary words like recession or inflation. Like, what power do I have to get around those things.
While budgeting can do wonders for your financial situation, it’s not the only solution. But your attitude is still key to making any change in life—including making more money.
However, your attitude to money is the one factor you can control. No matter what the current politics are in the world and no matter what financial background you might come from, you can overcome your old limiting beliefs around money and wealth to create a healthier financial future for yourself.
Many people sabotage their financial success due to deeply rooted emotional and psychological patterns. Let’s explore 10 traits that keep individuals trapped in a cycle of financial instability, regardless of their earnings:
9 Symptoms of a Broke Bitch Mindset
1. You Don’t Set Financial Goals
It’s not about where you are right now. It’s about where you’re going.
If you want to grow your wealth, you must set financial goals. Just as when you set out on a journey, you must have a destination in mind. Otherwise, how do you know when you’ve gotten there?
Setting a financial goal is a clear way to create progress. It puts things into a clear-to-understand binary: did you make your goal or not? (Remember, it’s fine if you didn’t as long as you make adjustments and keep going.)
Without setting goals, you don’t know if you’re making progress. You’re also a lot more likely to fritter away money (or time) frivolously. You will also be unlikely to recognize the mistakes you’re making so that you stop doing them in the future.
The Fix:
Start setting financial goals! Don’t be scared or tell yourself this is stupid or pointless. Making change can really this simple. Setting a goal is always better than not setting them at all, even if it’s a small goal. For example, you can start with something like save $5 a month. You might not get excited by that $5 but it starts the wheels moving inside of you and starts creating the habit for long-term planning and saving.
The trick here is to meet yourself where you’re at while challenging yourself to begin to grow your wealth.
2. You Have Unhealed Financial Trauma
If you struggle to manifest or make money, then I’m willing to bet you’re suffering from some form of financial trauma.
Money is hugely important in the Western world. From when you were a child, you were told you need to “earn a living”: ie. work to live. The dark subtext here is that if you don’t work or don’t make enough money, they you don’t deserve to live.
We are told that our financial situation is 100% up to us—even though that’s not the whole truth. While there’s a lot you can do to change your financial outlook, there are also a lot of things that were not your fault and were never in your control. However, we’re still taught to internalize that as a personal failure that we must feel badly about.
Coming from a financially poor background, not understanding how money works (or how to make it) and not currently having money are not your fault. And, in fact, believing that they are your fault might create a perpetual cycle of money avoidance, which in turn worsens your financial problems.
The Fix:
Start the healing work on your money trauma. This can be quite a long journey, but getting starting is simple. Forgive yourself for your money issues while you commit to healing your toxic internalized beliefs around money. Your past is over but your future is your responsibility. If you truly want the money you’ve been dreaming of, start noticing how you run away from money or let it make you feel low-worth. Tell yourself you are the money boss—not the victim—starting right now.
3. You’re Disorganized With Money
Uncomfortable but necessary truth incoming: disorganization isn’t just about being messy or chaotic. It’s a symptom of a disorganized mind.
Back when I was an interior designer, I would walk into a potential client’s home and immediately clock some hidden psychology just from looking at the space.
They struggle to track spending, leading to a sense of financial chaos. Disorganization breeds chaos. Unaware of their spending, they lose control of their finances.
The Fix:
Create some money systems for yourself and stick to them. Lucky for us, we live in an age where you can automate so much. Create some different accounts for your savings, and automate deposits. You can also automate investing through robo investors which make long-term savings easy breezy.
If you’re truly stuck, ask ChatGPT for some help with your specific needs. There’s really no excuses here. It’s time take a cold hard look at your finances and take some real action. Just remember, the only way out is through.
4. You Have Poor Financial Boundaries
Do you feel pressured to go for dinner, take weekend trips or do other things with your friends or family even if you can’t afford it?
You’re not the only one! If you struggle with boundaries or people-pleasing, then you probably have poor financial boundaries too.
We all want to keep up with the Joneses on some level. Maybe you’re afraid of not fitting in or maybe you’re in a bit of denial about your own financial reality.
But overspending to please others can lead to resentment and further financial burden, creating a toxic financial dynamic that might be hard to break away from.
The Fix:
Get clear about your financial boundaries and make a plan to stick to them. Yes, this will feel uncomfortable at first but so is staring at a large Visa bill. It’s important to make your own financial goals and mental health your biggest priority. Of course, it would be nice to do everything. But you have to prioritize yourself first.
Get creative and break away from old toxic behaviors. For example, maybe you’re used to going out for a big boozy brunch with the girls every weekend. You could cut it down to only once a month or exchange the brunches for a nice long walk. In any case, the people who care about you will still want to spend time with you, even if some of the circumstances change.
5. You Don’t Take Financial Responsibility
Do you avoid taking financial responsibility for yourself: avoiding bank accounts, opening mail, or long-term planning.
Perhaps you look at the current state of the world and throw up your hands in despair. Or maybe you don’t understand investing or saving at all and the thought of learning about it leaves you overwhelmed.
Many women secretly do this, as we’ve been programmed to think that we’ll get married someday and our partner will take care of everything for us.
It’s true that you don’t control everything in your financial situation or your past. But your attitude here can make all the difference.
If you continue to blame external factors and avoid personal responsibility, you will stay trapped in low earning potential or debt forever. As I always say, you can not be the Victim and the Hero at the same time. You have to make the choice.
The Fix:
You will only make progress when you take responsibility for where you’re at financially right now. No, not everything was your fault. But making changes is your responsibility.
We’ve all made financial mistakes and we’ve all had areas where we simply didn’t know any better. Taking responsibility doesn’t mean shaming yourself for these things. It’s simply about taking notes and learning the right lessons so you can take different action in the future.
Your financial journey is just like your inner healing journey and your physical health journey. The only person it’s up to is you.
6. You Avoid Learning About Money
When it comes to manifesting or earning more money, many people want it but also avoid it at the same time. One place where that becomes obvious is in your level of money knowledge.
Again, there’s a lot of shame around money. We feel bad about ourselves for not having it. Then we avoid financial topics altogether because we try to avoid that shame.
But again, this is one sure-fire way to keep yourself trapped at your current financial level forever.
The Fix:
Start learning about money. I know that topics like saving and investing can see confusing and complicated at first. But that’s by design! The capitalist system is rigged and it’s not in your favor. However, there are ways to fight back.
I can tell you right now that money isn’t nearly as complicated as you think it is. (I have a great post here about the basics of personal finance. ) But whether you start here or somewhere else, just start. These days there are plenty of books, podcasts and YouTube channels where you can learn the basics for free. Financial information is out there from a variety of sources and not all of them are old white men in suits! (Thank the heavens for that!)
And what’s even better? You can start, right here and right now, at home, 100% for free. Don’t make the mistake of waiting until you have money before you learn. Start learning now and watch how this simple step alone can change your financial outlook.
7. You Put Money On A Pedestal
Do you feel like rich people are somehow better than you? Western society reveres money and the most obvious place to see it is in how we look at rich people. (ie. think El*n before totally lost the plot)
Society might have taught you to think this way but it’s actually quite toxic and can lead to even more shame around money. After all, if rich people are “good” for having money, what does it mean when you don’t have any?
Money does not determine your worth. It’s a neutral external force that you might have or not have, but you are still the same person no matter what. Just imagine going from rich to poor or vice versa. You are always the same person, no matter what your financial situation might be.
You can also see this in how people behave with money. Some rich people seem to thirst for more, no matter what. (That’s because no matter how much they hoarde, they still don’t feel fulfilled on the inside.) But not all rich people are like this and many of them use money for good. (Example: Mark Cuban crusading for affordable medicine.) Money doesn’t make people better, but it does give them more power.
This line of thinking can also lead you to spend more as you try to keep up the appearance of having wealth (and therefore, worth).
The Fix:
Stop believing rich people are better than you. Every time you notice those thoughts coming up in your brain, take a moment to stop them. Stop revering people in designer clothes or cars. Again, remember that people often use these tools to give off the impression of wealth. It’s fine to pursue wealth and to make your financial future more secure. But make no mistake that you right now are worth less than “them” (the rich people) because that is a lie.
8. You Have Financial Comparison-itis
In this era of social media, we are bombarded with images of success from both celebrities and people we know IRL. Just open up Insta and scroll for a few minutes and you are almost guaranteed to see someone’s beautiful kitchen, trip to the Bahamas, new car and more.
It’s all too easy to compare our own financial lives to the picture perfect images we see.
But comparison is the thief of joy. It’s damn difficult to compare your reality to the fake “reality” being presented to you online and not feel jealousy or shame.
The pressure to fit in can be intense. But constantly comparing yourself to others will feed your insecurity and possibly lead to overspending.
The Fix:
Break up with social media for a bit, limit your usage, or at the very least, keep an eye on reality while you scroll. Remember that people rent cars and return expensive outfits after they take their perfect pictures. Some people are even going into heavy debt while trying to maintain their so-called wealthy outer image. (Have you ever noticed how many Real Housewives are struggling with money while trying to look rich?)
Try to remember that most of what you see is fake or at least a very small part of the overall picture. Your flawed reality will never compare to the heavily edited and altered images online and it was never meant to.
9. You’re An Emotional Spender
Is your default to go shopping whenever you feel down or need a treat or pick me up? You’re not the only one! We spend more than ever before on clothes, which I believe is due in part to online shopping. You don’t even need to get off of the sofa to go looking for that cute new pair of shoes. You can browse away and have it all delivered directly to your door.
For many of us, that temptation is hard to resist. Pair that with the comparison-itis we talked about above and the programmed capitalist desire to consume more and more at all costs.
Even worse, the shopping high can be all too real. It really feels like that new lipstick or pair of shoes will make us feel like a whole new person. Only problem is that the effect wears off surprisingly quickly. And it might even end up making us feel worse in the long run if we are going into debt in order to do it.
The Fix:
Of course, you want to feel better. You want to feel sexy or confident or cool. But ultimately, these things are never about what we’re wearing or what’s hanging in the closet. It’s about how we actually feel about oursevles—and annoyingly, there’s no real quick fix for that.
The key to changing this issue is two-fold.
First, you must stop the shopping as a bandaid approach entirely. Don’t head to the mall or scroll through Asos when you’re bored or sad. Make a list of some other activities you can focus on instead.
Second, figure out what you’re trying to achieve by buying that new outfit. Who do you think you’ll be when you wear it? Whatever it is, please know that you can achieve it without buying a single thing. If it’s confidence, you can start practicing talking to people, holding your posture differently or trusting yourself. If you have generally low self-esteem, start giving yourself props and compliments even for the little things you do during your day or week.
Self-work doesn’t usually cause a drastic change in how you feel instantly. But with time and practice you can fill the whole inside you that you were trying to fill with shopping.
Don’t Let Your Broke Mindset Hold You Back From Your Financial Goals
Your biggest takeaway for today: your money blocks can be solved! No, I can’t personally solve problems like recessions and the global banking industry. But I can take very real action of working with what I can control: my own beliefs and feelings.
I hope this message empowers you to take your financial future into your hands! You are so much more powerful than you think.
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