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In today’s TPC Gold soundbite, Bryce and Ben unpack one of the most powerful—and underrated—tools in the MoneySMARTS money management system: the seven-day float.
Forget spreadsheets, complex budgeting, or tracking every dollar you spend.
The seven-day float is all about simplicity and control. It’s a weekly spending system that helps you stay on top of your cash, ditch the guilt, and spend with purpose.
As Bryce puts it:
“It’s a game changer. It might feel hard for the first couple of weeks, but once you find your rhythm, it can completely change your money habits.”
What is the Seven-Day Float?
It’s your weekly spending allowance—the money you’ve already set aside (based on your plan) to spend on things like food, petrol, and everyday expenses. You’re not budgeting in the traditional sense—you’re following a clear, rules-based system that helps you avoid tapping into savings or overspending.
And the best part? It works whether you’re a uni student, a parent managing a household, or the CEO of a big company.
Why It Works
✔️ It replaces guesswork with clarity
✔️ It breaks the “tap-and-go” overspending habit
✔️ It gives every dollar a job
✔️ It builds financial confidence and discipline
“The seven-day float makes you pause. It helps you ask: Do I really need this right now? Can it wait till next week? That’s the magic.” – Ben
The banks don’t love this approach… because it’s not built to get you to spend more. It’s built to help you trap surplus, build wealth, and live with less stress.
Want to Know How to Start with the Seven-Day Float?
Learn all about MoneySMARTS—including how the seven-day float fits into the broader plan—in our book, Make Money Simple Again.
It’s helped thousands of Australians take control of their money without giving up the things they love.
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If You Enjoyed TPC Gold | Why We Swear by the Seven-Day Float, You Might Also Like:
- Ep 191 | Seven Steps to Make Money Simple Again
- Ep 262 | Before & After: From “Scared and Sold Everything” To Financial Peace
- Ep 529 | Feeling Financially Secure for the First Time at 49: The Game-Changing Reset That Changed Everything
Transcript
Bryce Holdaway
So number three is get money smart. That’s a surprise from us.
Ben Kingsley
Yeah, well we’ve got to weave it in, don’t we? But the point here is…
Bryce Holdaway
…we believe in it.
Ben Kingsley
It’s a proven system, Bryce. So the reason why we believe in it is because a lot of people don’t like to have complex ways in which they’ve got to document every dollar they spend. So our top-down approach in terms of how we make money management easier is what it’s all about. And in terms of these top seven tips, the one we want to highlight the most is the seven-day float right, so the weekly allowance.
Bryce Holdaway
It’s a game changer.
Ben Kingsley
It’s a game changer because you take that mindset that we were talking about before about how much money have I got, so irrespective of whether it’s a cashless economy or you don’t care that it’s a tap and go then, because you will absolutely know that I have got $50 left so this is a decent purchasing decision. Whereas if you know that there’s $60,000 in your offset account…
Bryce Holdaway
Absolutely.
Ben Kingsley
So boom, boom, you’ll just keep doing it, right? So we’ve gotta change that habit. It’s like, no, no, I’ve gotta get to my next seven-day allowance, you know, that weekly flow.
Bryce Holdaway
So I’ve been doing the seven-day float for years now. Thanks to you and Popey introducing that. I can say to the people, and I don’t know if you can remember far back when you started it, I say to the people, when you implement it, you will probably stumble. Keep going. Because it’s usually week two, you’ve made less, week three, maybe even week four, Ben, but you’ll eventually get into the cadence, you’ll eventually get into that rhythm, and it’s really, really important. Because if you’re trying to undo a lot of habits of keeping up with the Joneses, tapping and going, not being accountable with your money, keep going back to the well. It’s actually a huge shift for you to go: Ooh, what do you mean I’ve got to reign in my spending? What do you mean I’ve got to actually identify how much is in my seven-day flow? What do you mean I’ve got to actually use Grade Five Maths just to keep up to date on how much money I’ve got left? It is an adjustment, it is a shift, but it’s one of those things if we go back (to) if you do what’s easy, your life will be hard. It’s actually gonna be hard in the very first couple of weeks as you’re trying to get two people on the same page if you’re sharing agenda with someone else, but once you’ve done it, it makes an enormous difference.
Ben Kingsley
It does. I mean we’re seeing some of these money apps from the banks and so forth. I mean they want you turning money over, right? It’s in their best interest, commerce, the whole thing works for them, right? So if their app tells you, I can’t go and buy a dress now because it’s not payday, but if you’ve just been paid, you can go out and buy a dress or you can go out and buy something material, that’s probably not still the best money management system. What you should have is a classification for clothing and footwear, and you should provision for that, and you should know basically how much you’re going to spend on that over the year. Whether you go and buy that dress tomorrow, that’s fine. Just don’t go and buy three or four more dresses or five pair of shoes or in the guy’s case, don’t go and overspend on business shirts or whatever it is you’re going to spend on. That’s the point in terms of once you’ve provisioned for it, you’re able to spend it, but just don’t spend any more than that. So there’s a combination of ideas that meshes together to build the money management system in terms of MoneySMARTS. That’s the way in which to use that.
Bryce Holdaway
So couple of things for MoneySMARTS… It’s not a budget; it’s a money management system.
Ben Kingsley
Correct.
Bryce Holdaway
It’s the money that you said you’d spend each week; we call it the seven-day float, and it just means that you don’t unconsciously overspend again, Ben. And the rest is just a simple rules-based system thereafter. So the fundamental principle behind it is that every dollar has a job to do, every dollar is allocated somewhere, and it’s just based on how our grandparents used to use money BC (before credit cards), and it’s evergreen, Ben. It works at every stage of your life.
Ben Kingsley
Every stage.
Bryce Holdaway
If you’re a university student on casual income, no problem. If you are CEO of a Fortune 500 company, it works. It doesn’t discriminate; works for everyone. So if you wanna check that out, clearly we’ve written a book on it, but it’s something that we think is imperative to trapping surplus cash.
