Six hot mess hacks for managing money

Are you a hot f*ckin’ mess? Great, me too. I wish I could say I transitioned into this state of being after I screamed my kids into this world, but if we’re being honest, I’ve always sort of flown by the seat of my Joe’s Jeans. This is especially true when it comes to personal finances, an area of my life I find utterly irritating and, worse still, uninteresting.

So, I’ve pulled together a handful of tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way, in hoping I can help all you other hot messes manage your money as well as I do.

Let’s get that bread!

1. Ditch your account password. The less you know about the status of your bank and credit card accounts, the better. Life is stressful enough. Bonus points if you never actually knew the password even though you told your partner you wrote it down this time because you WILL NOT ABIDE HIM CALLING YOU IRRESPONSIBLE EVEN ONE MORE TIME.

2. Keep multiple cards on hand. I lose a debit or credit card... eh, let’s say once every three months. Does that sound like you? If so, you needn’t worry about calling the card company to cancel it — or even alerting them to its absence. Trust me: those cards always show back up. There’s no way of knowing if it’s going to be a day, a fortnight or a year, however, so it’s important to have back-ups to use in the interim. The kicker here is to forget to tell your partner that you switched, though, so he/she can perfunctorily check the account six weeks later to discover an unexpected $3,400 balance.

3. Stash cash. Who doesn’t love happening upon a sum of money you’d previously forgotten? Take the element of chance out of this specific delight and have your 3 a.m. Uber driver hit the ATM on your way home for some currency you can hide away in your house. The goal here is to really diversify your stashes, and don’t be afraid to get creative! A twenty tucked into the dog’s heartworm medicine box? Yes. A five-spot secured in the lid of your memaw’s cremation urn? Absolutely. A roll of quarters at the bottom of the diaper genie? Sky’s the limit here.

4. Always keep at least $20 in your Venmo account. This is vital for when you’ve lost your debit card, left your back-up Citi card in your North Face puffer, and your back-up back-up Discover card in the back pocket of your moto jeggings. The math here is simple: begging for money at the gas station = sad. Offering to Venmo Sharon in the Hyundai Elantra 12 bucks in exchange for a $10 bill = smart. (Side note: Why don’t we tip folks for being good people? Let’s start a movement.) And speaking of gas stations...

5. Push the limits of your gas tank. Gas prices, amirite? I see all these suckers pulling over to fill up as soon as the little lever hits the quarter-tank mark and I can’t help but snicker. They have no idea how much of their hard-earned dinero they’re wasting with unnecessary pit stops. Gas tank sensors are notoriously unreliable, and there is always, always more gas in there than you or your car thinks. “1 MILE TO EMPTY?” Please. I’m no sheep. Henry Ford knew what he was doing when he designed vehicular fuel tanks, and I personally guarantee you can make it to the next gas station, wherever that is.

6. When in doubt, contract it out. If you know you have a bit of a spending problem, the best thing you can do is spend the money to pay someone who can help you keep track of all your spending. This isn’t something you want to skimp on. Money should be no object when it’s your personal finances on the line. Red flags to look for when seeking this person out include judgmentalism — the last thing you need is some know-it-all trying to tell you your business from on high -- and weird eyebrows. Seriously, though… never trust a person who doesn’t tend to arguably the most prominent features on their most prominent feature. 

Well, there you have it – my personal recommendations for keeping it sloppy. What hot mess hack do you rely on to keep your finances in disorder? 

Editor’s note: this is all terrible advice. Don’t do any of these things.