{MMYH Ep. 79} Managing Money Vs. Making Money

There seems to be a never-ending debate in the personal finance community about the topic we’re going to cover today. And that is, “What’s more important, managing money or making money?”

I feel like I’ve never really put my two cents in, at least not publicly, on this conversation. People who know me personally know pretty much where I stand on this. But I want to be very clear about the fact that it’s not a managing money vs. making money situation, it’s a both/and.

That’s right, I think you need both and that they are part of the same plan. Because at the end of the day, your finances are a journey. You need to be able to have both skills in order to really move the needle, in order to really amass things, in order to really amass wealth. And I’m going to explain what I mean by that. 

Managing Money Is The Baseline

In my opinion, managing money is the baseline. This is where you start. Honestly, if you have less to manage, it might be a little bit easier to learn. I know that’s a little bit controversial, but here’s what I mean by that.

Imagine you won the lottery. Suddenly, you have $50 million, and you need to learn how to manage your money because you just got $50 million. It’s going to be a lot harder to learn how to manage $50 million that you were not prepared for than it is to manage maybe $30,000 a year. This is a bit personal to me, and here’s why I feel the way I do. 

I’m now making more money than ever. If I had been making this money at 22, I would have had no idea what to do with it. Whereas now, I have a better idea of what to do with it. You need to know how to manage what you have now, and that’s going to help you later on when you start earning more.

If you don’t know how to manage what you have now, you’re not going to be able to manage more money. And it’s really irritating because most people think that the root of their problem is that they need to make more money. And in some cases, that’s true, and I will address that. But 9 times out of 10, the first place they need to start is learning how to manage money, and from an energetic perspective.

If you don’t know how to manage and be grateful for what you have now, if you don’t know how to handle what you have now, you really think the universe is going to give you any more? Nope. It’s not. So in that case, your problem really isn’t the fact that you’re not earning enough money. Your problem is that you haven’t learned how to manage what you are currently making.

Now, Add-In Earning More

And this is where we need to start talking about earning more. Managing money is only going to get you so far. I know this from personal experience, and I know because I have seen it in my line of work. So, for example, you know, from 22, I would say to, 26, my main focus was “Manage, manage, manage, manage, manage.”

I thought, “Don’t spend. Make sure you’re sticking to a strict budget. You have to manage what you have.”

And the thing that ended up happening as a result of that is, even though I was doing well managing my money, I was still stressed. And the reason I was stressed was that I wasn’t earning enough money. So that’s why I feel like managing money is only going to get you so far. 

So if you’re in the stage in your financial journey where you’re really good at managing it, but you’re still stressed, but you still can’t pay down your debt, but you’re still having a hard time paying your bills, then you don’t have a managing problem, you have an earning problem, and that’s what you need to go focus on.

That’s what’s going to really move the needle for you. But what I see happen so often in the personal finance space is that people just stay stuck in the managing. They stay stuck on the strict budgets and the managing, and the cash envelopes, and all that type of stuff.

And that’s great if it helps you, but you’re going to need to do more than that. You’re going to really need to do more than that if you want to experience wild success.

Both Require Different Mindsets

And the part that’s so ironic, and this is where you have to sort of hold more two opposing thoughts at the same time, is that the mindset that is required of you to make more money is not the same mindset that is required of you to manage money.

Because when you’re managing money, it’s a lot of mitigating risks. It’s a lot of security. When you start learning how to make more money, you have to inevitably take risks to make more money. So that’s where people sort of have this inner conflict often because they’re so good at managing and they’re so good at living frugally. I don’t know about you, I don’t want to be living frugally my whole life.

I’ve got one life to live. I want to enjoy it. I don’t want to be stressed about money and pinching pennies. It’s just not the way I want to live. Right? And if it’s not the way that you want to live either, then you’ve got to go find ways of making more money. 

Once you’ve learned how to manage it, go learn how to make more of it. And the fastest way to make more money in this day and age is to put value out there, and then get value in exchange in the form of currency. So, there are so many different opportunities for making more money whether online or off these days, it’s just a matter of you putting yourself out there, knowing how to sell and knowing how to solve people’s problems.

Managing Money vs. Making Money: Which One Is More Important?

To bring this whole point home between, what’s more important, managing money or making money, they’re both important. They’re just two different levels of your financial journey. That’s it. That’s all it is. You start with one, which is the managing money, and you layer in the other one in order to really experience wealth and abundance. You need both.

There’s no way around it. 

Resources that are mentioned or add value to this episode:

• Persuade To Profit 
• Make Money Your Honey Book