Episode #32: Practicing Financial Self Care
Practicing Financial Self-Care
Today I wanted to talk about self care, specifically financial self care, and why I think the version of ‘self care’ that we’re commonly taught today is actually quite damaging to our long-term well being, and why many of us need to grow a little bit more backbone when it comes to setting ourselves up for success financially and actually creating a good financial self care routine. So, if you want to learn a few easy practices that will help you follow through with real financial self care instead of ‘treating yourself’ out of your hard earned dollars, then keep on reading.
What is financial self care?
When we think of self care these days, we often think of the phrase ‘treat yourself’ usually in bold font over a photo of a box of donuts, or some new purchases laid out nicely on the bed. And this has bothered me for a while because this pithy version of self care has taken off and is being peddled by Instagram influencers as a way to get you to spend more money under the guise of being good and kind and thoughtful to yourself after a hard week at work when you’re feeling kind of tired. And the issue that arises is that a lot of these version of ‘self care’ that we’re indulging in these days, are actually just indulgences. Sometimes they’re bandaid solutions to a bad day at work, which is fine, if you need to crack open a bottle of wine because your day sucked that’s okay, but when these actions are constantly being called ‘self care’ to remove the guilt of indulging, somehow we’ve lost touch with the real self care, which is everyday things you need to do to set yourself up for success that take diligence, energy, planning, and follow through. These things aren’t always fun, or a good photo op, but they are the things that actually help put you on more solid footing for a lifetime of well being. These are things like planning your meals in advance so you eat healthy food from home, or fitting in your workout at the end of the day even if you’re tired and just want to go for a beer, or sitting down to figure out a credit card debt repayment strategy instead of yolo-ing your dollars at a new purchase because you’re ironically feeling stressed about money.
Practicing real financial self care is something that we should all be working to cultivate in our lives, and I can promise you it doesn’t look like stress ordering a dozen donuts for the office, or booking a weekend away because money stress at home is just feeling like too much. It looks more like setting up systems so you remember to pay your bills on time, and diligently paying yourself first for your future even when there are other material things that you really really want right now.
5 financial self care practices you can add to your life
So griping about modern day culture aside, I want to get right to the helpful information and walk you through 5 financial self care practices you should be working on incorporating into your life, to make sure you’re taking good care of yourself and your future financially. These are things that aren’t necessarily fun, that won’t always provide the immediate reward or positive feedback you’re craving, but that in the long run will help make sure you’re financially comfortable, and maybe even financially free if that’s what you want. If this is something you’re serious about make sure you read the whole post because #5 is my favourite one, and will also leave you on a little note of feeling great about yourself today!
Financial self-care practice #1: Create An Emergency Savings Account
You have heard this from me before, and you will hear it again because this is so crazy important. And I put this as the first tip because it’s honestly the single easiest thing you can do to completely change your relationship with and your view of money. Putting aside money in an emergency savings account for yourself will immediately create this sense of calm, where before you may have felt fear and panic and worries about not having enough when you think about money in your life. Creating that safety net for yourself will immediately take you out of that place of fear, and lack, and making decisions based on fear and lack, and will immediately calm that terrible voice in the back of your head, and allow you to make decisions in a much more rational and calm way. If you don’t have an emergency fund yet, it’s honestly hard to describe the feeling of peace and financial wellbeing that comes from knowing you have that backup ready at hand if you need it. And honestly, everyone would benefit immensely from having their own emergency savings account. If you don’t have one yet and want to start one, I recommend checking out this video about how to start an emergency fund, as well as this video about 10 ways to find unexpected savings to build your fund up faster.
Financial Self Care Practice #2: Tracking Your Spending.
This is probably one of the least glamorous life chores, and I won’t pretend otherwise. I hate doing my monthly expense tracking, and I’ve been doing it diligently every single month for the past 6 years at least. And honestly, that’s what true self care is. I suffer through it for an hour a month, it takes diligence and commitment to sit down and do this chore consistently and to do it carefully and well, but in the long run it’s helped me immensely, created so much understanding around the flow of money in my life, and it’s given me the power to make good financial decisions that have served me well over time. Tracking your spending is self care, and this is a practice that we should all get into doing in some way. I recommend once a month, but do whatever works best for you. The idea is that you should be setting aside time to review your spending, pay your bills, and prep your finances every month. This makes sure things stay organized, no money is falling through the cracks, no mistakes are being made, and most helpfully it helps you gain a good grasp on what your spending patterns are and where you spend money. Even if you don’t follow a strict budget, like me, it’s really helpful to understand how and where you spend money, because it gives you the power to make informed rather than blind spending decisions in the future. So even though its boring, even through it’s sometimes painful, I want you to create a habit for yourself of tracking your spending. If you don’t know where to start I recommend checking out this video about how to manage your finances each month.
Financial care practice #3: Make Sure You’re Paying Your Bills on Time.
This is one of those really simple ones that is hard to do if you don’t have the right systems in place. I’ve been one of these people in the past, and I can tell you from experience this is a habit that’s really easy to instill in yourself, and it’s so worth the tiny bit of effort to change your ways and become someone who pays their bills on time. There are a few reasons why you want to do this, most importantly because it will save you money. When you pay your bills late out of pure laziness and not practicing good financial care, it costs you money in interest and late fees. You’re literally paying money to allow yourself to be disorganized and lazy, and that’s a really annoying and completely unnecessary tax to impose on yourself. I’m sorry for the tough love, but it’s true. Creating a good financial self care practice means you’re paying your bills on time, not paying late fees, keeping a good credit score, and setting yourself up for success in the future even if it’s painful to log in and pay that internet bill yet again. If you’re having trouble with this, I recommend going back to financial care practice #2 and setting aside a couple hours once a month to manage your finances. If you’re feeling a bit lost about this whole process of managing your finances, I recommend checking out this video all about how to mange your finances every month using my 7 step process.
Financial self care practice #4 : Pay Yourself First.
This is probably something you’ve heard before, and honestly once you’ve got your basic financial needs covered, this is the biggest and most important self care practice to incorporate into your life because it directly translates into taking the best possible care of your future self. Paying yourself first is the concept of deciding what savings rate you want to have, and every time you get paid making sure that you transfer that amount of money to your future retirement savings and investment accounts, no matter what else you want to spend money on that month. Tucking this money away consistently, diligently, and without fail is one of the best possible things you can do to take care of yourself financially. So many people allow themselves to have a ‘tomorrow I’ll start saving’ mentality, and years pass, life just seems to keep getting more expensive, it gets harder and harder to save, AND it makes you miss out on the ability for compound interest to increase your savings drastically over the course of your life. This is a direct example of what I was complaining about self care to start with, because today’s version of self care says ‘buy the dress’, instead of ‘save enough of your income first, then consider buying the dress if you still have enough leftover afterwards’. True self care in terms of your finances is actually much more of a delayed gratification game, and you have to diligently wrap your head around the fact that your current behaviors are going to come to fruition 20-30-40 years down the road and that is the way it should be. Practice patience, practice diligence, save money, don’t spend it all and you’ll take care of yourself well in the future. If saving instead of spending is something you struggle with, I recommend checking out this video next all about how to stop spending money on things you just don’t need.
Financial Self Care Practice #5 : Continue Learning About Your Finances Always. Always.
Personal finance is something that most of us never learned in school, we never learned it at home, and we have to take our own financial education and our own financial well being into our own hands. I’m a big believer in constantly learning, and stretching, and trying new things and new ideas, and keeping up to date on your financial knowledge is so important. I know it can be daunting to learn about managing your finances yourself, but just like learning everything there is a point when bit by bit the information that you’re intentionally consuming starts to fit together, and ideas and concepts start to drop into place in your mind and make sense, and just like learning division in school, all of a sudden one day you wake up and this idea that felt impossible for you to grasp the day before suddenly makes sense and is now the foundational building block for you to use to tackle the next idea. It doesn’t just work that way when we’re kids, I promise. Keep reading books about finance, sign up for newsletters like the one we offer to keep on top of more current finance topics and trends, read the finance and business section in the newsletter, and sign up for personal finance courses offered by professionals in their field. Start simple if you need to and learn about budgeting, or dive into the world of learning about real estate investing. The goal is to always be curious, to always be learning and improving your knowledge and not to shy away from finance because ‘you’re not good with numbers’. The most important parts of a financial education actually have nothing to do with numbers, so don’t use that as an excuse anymore. It is so important to start to know what you’re talking about when it comes to managing your finances, and every other single part of your financial self care practice will start to become easier when you understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, and what steps you should be taking next. If you’re not sure where to start your financial education, I recommend checking out this video here with the top 5 personal finance books I recommend everyone should read, in this order, to start to gain an understanding of how to manage the money in their lives. I always recommend books as a good starting place, or listen to the audio books if you’re not a big reader. Also, follow finance youtubers and educators. There are a lot of business and teachers who have seen the huge need for education in this area, and have dedicated their lives and businesses to teaching people just like you how to manage their money properly.
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