Avoiding money worked until it didn't

Neva Bowers

Oct 4

2 min read

Avoiding money worked until it didn't.

🎙️ I was recently a guest on Teachers With Money! We talked about money avoidance, the 5 numbers everyone should know, building better systems, and more.

I used to avoid my money.

At 22, I was teaching high school French and mostly just trying to survive the school day. Retirement accounts, spending, the future—it all felt like one more thing I couldn't carry.

So I didn't.

And here's the thing about avoiding your money: you don't actually stop thinking about it.

The bill still shows up. The bewildering retirement presentation still happens at the staff meeting. You still wonder if you're doing enough.

You just trade the discomfort of looking at the numbers for the low-grade anxiety of not knowing.

There's no glory in doing it alone.

What finally changed things for me wasn't a budgeting app or a burst of willpower. It was a group of friends who started a money club.

We read personal finance books together, figured out what a Roth IRA actually was, had zero-dollar-day competitions, and slowly turned a scary topic into something manageable.

That experience eventually helped me take ownership of my finances, positively impacting my marriage, my career, and beyond.

My podcast debut!

I recently got to talk about all of this on Teachers With Money, a podcast hosted by Christa Jones.

The podcast is specifically for teachers, but I think a lot of what we discussed applies whether you're a teacher, an engineer, a lawyer, a parent, a freelancer, or just a person trying to figure out what the heck you're supposed to be doing with your money.

We talked about: