Your Advisor Doesn’t Care About Your DoorDash Habit

Your Advisor Doesn’t Care About Your DoorDash Habit

A client sat down with me recently and handed over a color-coded spreadsheet of every dollar they spent last month. Dining out. Amazon. Subscriptions. Travel. And yes, DoorDash has its own line item, practically a budget category unto itself.

I nodded along, genuinely impressed by the effort. And then I said something that surprised them: “Honestly? We don’t really care where your money goes.”

Cue the confused look.

We Don’t Judge

Here’s what I mean. Categorizing your spending is a useful exercise, and it can absolutely shine a light on habits worth examining. But unless you’re coming to us specifically because spending is a problem, your financial advisor isn’t sitting across from you judging your food delivery addiction. That’s a you problem. We have bigger fish to fry.

The truth is, we all have our passions and priorities, and it is not our job to judge them. Our job as financial guides is to clearly identify what the monthly and annual spend outlay is so we can build a detailed plan to support those wants and needs long after income stops.

At its core, financial planning isn’t about telling you what to do with your money. It’s about listening to your goals, needs, and priorities. It’s about modeling what your inflows and outflows look like today and projected into the future. Mostly it’s about crafting a strategy, one that stays malleable, built around your wildest dreams.

To do all that, we naturally need to know how much money comes in and out. Once we have that picture, it’s on you to decide what to do with it.

An Example

Here’s an example. A client comes in wanting to retire in 10 years. They share what they spend, make, save, and how they invest. We work through assumptions around when they want to retire and what that looks like, whether it means a beach house or more travel. We model it out and determine A) if the plan works as is, and B) what adjustments would give them the highest probability of success. Let’s say the analysis comes back: to retire in 10 years, you need to save $1,000 more per month or work three extra years. Now it’s on you to decide where your priorities lie. If you want to save the $1,000, great. That’s your call to make. And for the love of all things, make it DoorDash.

The point is don’t get lost in the minutiae. We care far more about the macro, whether you’re doing the fundamental things right, than whether you’re overspending on wine, gadgets, or same-day delivery. The discretion and the preferences are yours.

Hope that all makes sense, and know that I’m happy to talk toiletries anytime. But the fact of the matter is, you care much more about that than I do.  OK got to go DoorDash just arrived!

As always, stay wealthy, healthy, and happy.