Diane GardnerFounder, Adept Business Solutions · Profit First Professional

Money Answers Part 16 - Money priorities #money #financialfreedom #shorts #themoneyhabit

22 Apr 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:59

In this short video, the speaker explains how to manage personal money using the Profit First business cash‑allocation method. The core idea is to treat personal finances like a business by first ensuring a surplus (profit) that can be used for rewards, reserves, or distributions. This translates to personal sustainability by prioritizing essential needs first, then allocating to wants (mini‑luxuries), and finally to dreams (major luxuries). The framework mirrors Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, emphasizing that basic essentials must be secured before pursuing higher‑level goals such as community belonging and self‑actualization.

Chapters

If I wanted to start managing my personal money more like a business, what's the first thing you change? In Profit First, what most businesses aspire to have is a surplus of money, meaning they earn more than they spend, resulting in profitability. And that money is used to reward shareholders, to distribute sometimes to the team. Sometimes it's reserved as what they call cash equity to reserve and prepare for the future. And sometimes it's used for all those components. I think similar to running a business is we got to take care of the sustainability immediately. So profit translates to sustainability, and in our personal lives, it's needs that translate to sustainability. So we always start off with the essentials, the needs, then we move to the wants— these are the mini luxuries— and ultimately to the dreams, which is the maximum luxuries, if you will. This was designed to match directly up to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We have to have our essentials before we can move on to higher levels, like belonging to a community and ultimately self-actualization. So, um, that's how you do it.