How often have you said the statement “I can’t afford it”?
It’s almost an automatic statement when we’re presented with something that we perceive to be expensive that we don’t typically buy or we’re not used to spending money on. But it’s often not true.
In this episode, we discuss why “I can’t afford it” is a harmful way of thinking and look at two alternative perspectives you can consider.
Lightly edited transcript appears after the show notes.
Topics Discussed
- why “I can’t afford it” is a harmful thought
- two alternative perspectives to consider when you think “I can’t afford it”
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Lightly Edited Transcript
Hey friend. How are you, welcome back to the show, I hope you are doing well and having an amazing day so far. So today I want to talk about a statement that we often make that seems innocent enough, but actually is pretty harmful, you already. I can’t afford it, you probably already knew that’s what I was gonna say, cuz that’s probably what I’m going to title the episode, but how often have you said, I can’t afford it. It’s almost an automatic statement when we come across something that we perceive to be expensive, that we don’t typically buy, or we’re not used to spending money on right. And for many of us, we grew up with parents saying some variation of I can’t afford it, you know we can’t afford that. We don’t have the money for that money doesn’t grow on trees. We ain’t got it right, whatever the statement is that your parents used. And I remember my mom told me one time when I was little, she said something like you know we don’t have the money for something. And I asked her, Well why can’t we go to that little machine at the bank and get more because I didn’t understand how ATMs worked at the time and wouldn’t it be great if that was how it worked. Like if I’m just out of money. Let me roll up to the magic money machine at the bank and get some more. It would be amazing, but that’s not how it works right. The thing though with the statement. I can’t afford it, is it’s so ingrained in us, like we’ve practiced it so often that often we don’t even see where it could be untrue. And it’s untrue. A lot of times, and that’s not to say that there aren’t times that we literally don’t have enough money to buy certain things. So for example, I recently heard that Jay Z, who is my favorite rapper and Beyonce who I think is just about perfect. They reportedly bought a $28 million car. I do not have $28 million to spend on a car, or anything else. Right. But there are other times when we will say we can’t afford something, but we actually could afford it like we literally have the dollars to afford it. So for example, a lot of people would say that they couldn’t afford to take up a new hobby that costs $10,000 Or to invest in a course or program or something like that that costs $10,000 But most of us are spending 10,000 20,000 $30,000 a year or more on rent or mortgage. And I’m not saying don’t pay your rent or your mortgage, right, but I’m just trying to show you that you literally can afford this hypothetical hobby or course, if you want it to, like you could choose not to pay your rent or your mortgage and buy this thing instead. And you might even have the means, aside from the money that you spend on your mortgage. So, you know, a lot of times we’ll have money in savings, or you know something like that but still say we can’t afford it. The point is, we can afford to buy things that we say we can afford sometimes, but we’re not used to spending that amount, that amount of money on those things, or they’re not a priority, or they’re not as important to us as something else that we’re using our money for already. So our automatic response is, well I can’t afford that. And instead of automatically going there. I want you to consider two different ways that you could look at. So first, if you are considering something that you actually want to buy. It doesn’t have to be something that costs $10,000 Right, that was just an example to make my point about technically having the money to spend, but spending it on your mortgage instead. But if there’s something that you want to buy, and you’ve been telling yourself I can’t afford it. Ask yourself instead. How can I afford this. You see change is uncomfortable, and often when we’re considering a change, our brains will like freak out and automatically offer up all the reasons why it won’t work, including, I can’t afford it. And so when you ask yourself how can I afford this. You open yourself up to figuring out how to pay for it. You’re in a more open space to come up with a solution, and you might think of things you never would have considered when you were thinking, I can’t afford it at the end. Maybe you have stuff that you’re not using that you could sell, maybe you could take on an extra job, maybe there’s, you know, something that you’re paying for now, that you don’t care about as much that you can temporarily cut to save up for the thing you want, but rather than shutting yourself down with, I can’t afford it. Put your brain to work on figuring out how you could afford. Second, if you decide you don’t want to buy the thing. Maybe you decide it’s not worth the money, or it’s not worth the effort to figure out how you could come up with the money, right, rather than saying, I can’t afford it, try I’m choosing not to spend my money on that. It’s a slight shift, but it feels so much better to say, right, Like, I have the money, but I’m choosing not to spend it on this thing versus oh I can’t afford that. I can’t afford it creates these feelings of deprivation, which sometimes lead to you falling off track with your money goals. So it’s kind of like when someone’s on a diet, and they just deprive themselves of the foods that they love and then after a while they just get tired of it and they throw the whole diet out the window and eat whatever they want and then they’re back right where they started, or worse. That’s why I encourage you to include entertainment in your budget by the way, like you don’t want to feel like you’re depriving yourself feel like you can’t have the things that you want. And so reframing, I can’t afford it. As I’m choosing to spend my money on something else feels better, you’re focused on what you want to spend on rather than what you’re telling yourself you can’t have. And so the actions that you take from that place will always be more productive. If there’s something that you’ve thought about buying, and your first thought was, well I can’t afford that. I want you to consider these two different ways of looking at it. And if you are interested in going deeper with the things we talked about here on the podcast, head on over to rho Thomas comm slash coaching, let’s set up a call and we can talk about your specific situation. Alright so that is it for this episode if you haven’t already please take a second, subscribe, leave a review for the show. That really helps other people find the show and get access to this information. Another way people find the show is when you share it with them. So please think of a friend or two who would benefit from this message, Go ahead and share this episode, and also come over and chat with me on social media. My favorite place to hang out is Instagram, but I also really love the community of lawyers, over on LinkedIn. So for both of those platforms if you go to like the website URL slash, I am rho Thomas, And you’ll find me, come say hello, love meeting new people. Okay friends, so as we close out, I pray that you will examine whether you’ve been lying to yourself about things you can afford, and think about how the words I can afford it make you feel. I pray that you will consider a slightly different perspective when you’re looking at things and thinking you can’t afford them. And as always, I pray that you continue to take steps to regain control of your time, build wealth and live the life of freedom and choice, you deserve. Talk to you later.
Hi, I’m Rho! I’m a wife, mom, and Biglaw associate who believes that true wealth is having control of your time. I help busy lawyers like you take back control of your time by teaching you how to achieve lifestyle freedom through mindset shifts and financial independence. Read a little more about me here.
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