Do you ever feel like you are bleeding money? You earn money but then almost instantly, it’s gone! You don’t even get to enjoy seeing it in your bank account for a day before ::whoosh:: bye bye paycheck!
I feel like this at times too, and if I didn’t do one critical thing I’d always feel like that! Before we get into it, I want to dive into what the opposite feeling is. When you are on the hamster wheel of busy and broke, you feel like you can never get out. This feeling brings you into survival mode with your money. Once you’re in survival mode, it is hard to break because you are in scarcity: with your money, with your time, and with your options.
You think you don’t have any options, and you are always putting out fires. You are playing catch up and reacting all the time!
The opposite of this is freedom! Freedom with your money! Don’t you want to feel freedom with your money so you can do what you want with it? I do!
The first step to get off the hamster wheel of busy and broke is to take a good hard look at your money. I know it is scary and almost all the women I work with try to put it off. BUT it is the only way to get off that exhausting roller coaster of survival mode. So what does that good hard look at your money actually involve? You need to write down every dollar you earned and every dollar you spent. It’s like stepping on the scale, never fun, but you need to know what your money “weighs.”
Don’t worry, I’ll walk you through it!
Step 1: what is the net income you get paid each month. This is the amount that hits your bank account.
Step 2: where are you spending your money? This is important because there is almost always a bleeding spot in your expenses. This is a spot where you are spending way too much money and don’t even realize it. OR you realize it but want to change it.
Step 3: start prioritizing! Go through each expense and rate it on a scale of 1-5 for importance in your life. 5 being most important and 1 being not very important. Where can you stop spending money so you can save more, pay down debt, or stop adding to your debt?
Step 4: become accountable! You need to continue doing this every month to notice what the trend is. Every month is different because you may have to get new tires one month or new dresses for your daughters for the holidays another month. When you have at least 3 months tracked, you can better see exactly where you are spending your hard earned money!
Once you complete the first step, we can start working together to create your plan. You’ll need to know where to put the extra money to save, how to best pay down your debt, or both!
You are in your current situation NOW because of the choices you made in the past. I want to empower you to find out the choices you have NOW that will affect your future. What are your choices? What do those choices mean?
I have an entire network of advisors and money coaches who can help you, depending on where you stand with your money. So let’s get you started, then we can guide you to the next level for your life.
Any opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of RJFS or Raymond James.