Holidays Don’t Have to Equal Broke Intentional

Every year, I feel like the last 5 months of the year take me on a lightning speed trip closer to being broke. Starting in August, school clothes & supplies have to be purchased, a ridiculous amount of candy has to be bought since we live in what seems like Halloweentown, Christmas lists leave me cross-eyed, & we most likely plan an anniversary trip, which happens to fall on New Year’s Eve. Needless to say, we know where the money doesn’t reside!

As I’m getting older, my mindset has been evolving. I’ve been more intrigued with finding ways to grow & save money so I can be comfortable when retirement comes around. Between books, podcasts, & dope people on social media, I’ve been learning a good amount of info that can help me on my quest. However, I need to learn to consistently apply what I’ve learned though…& get the family on board!

Enter: financial self-care. Who would’ve known self-care involved finances? I never really looked at financial health as being a part of self-care, outside of the money spent towards maintaining your life balance. There’s a whole spectrum of topics surrounding it, & it’s obvious I’ve been neglecting that part of my routine.

So what is financial self-care? It’s taking a look at how you relate to money in terms of spending, saving, & investing so you can have a stable future. It also involves using your time & energy to focus on what you discover about those relationships & making a plan to maintain healthy finances. We all act & feel some type of way about money. I don’t know one soul without a love/hate relationship with finances, myself included. I think 2023 will be a little more serious for me. I do decent, but I know I can do better! Let’s jumpstart this thing…

First Things First: Discovery Quest

In order to form a plan, you have to know where you’re starting & where you want to get. To do that, you have to have some moments of reflection & a keep-it-real session about your spending, saving, & investing habits & feelings about money. Your past experiences determine your present mindset, so you have to get to the bottom of how you feel about money & why. We get our money habits a lot of time from how we were raised, so self-exploration has to occur to find out why you act & feel the way you do.

I didn’t learn much about credit & debt when I was younger, so I didn’t pay attention to how getting those school refund checks would put me in a bigger hole years down the line. I was caught up in living for the moment & not thinking about how much that Express outfit could cost me later. Paying all of that back is far from fun! At least I learned some lessons about money & know how to school my kids though. I’ll sacrifice for them any day!

Those feelings about the holidays also need to be examined. A lot of us go all out for the holidays, leaving our bank accounts looking real thin. But we have to look at the whys behind those behaviors too. I’ve found myself taking on my dad’s feelings of not wanting anything & enjoying buying for everyone else. My joy comes from giving, so I can rarely tell someone what I’d like as a gift. Receiving isn’t that important to me anymore. But that attitude also doesn’t help my bank account. Going all out for my loved ones isn’t helping my wish to decrease debt. I have to find a balance!

After checking out your feelings, you have to check out your bank accounts. Look for trends in spending so you can know where your money is going. Look at multiple months so you can get a real feel of how much you spend consistently. Before I started working from home, we spent a ridiculous amount of money on eating out. I ate out for breakfast & lunch almost daily, then we’d turn around & eat out on the weekends. Just the breakfast & lunch would easily run me $20 per day. Add what husbae was spending daily, & we were at face-palming amounts. Thank God for remote working now! Ain’t no shame in me eating leftovers or making a PB&J!

Next Up: Set Your Goals

What good is a plan if you don’t have a goal? You won’t know how well you’re progressing if you don’t have a target. Goal-setting is my thing! I’ll set a goal in a hot second, but once the motivation runs out, who knows where that goal disappears. I’ll go strong for months & the moment something distracts me, I fall off the wagon. The key is to have an accountability partner. I need to persuade mine to get on board so I can stay on top of these long-term goals.

For those of us with families, we have to take them into account when we set these goals too. My values & priorities may not be the same as my husbae’s or our kids’, so we all need to express how we feel so we can meet our goals individually & collectively. This part will be a task for me since we all love to spend money. The only thing I know we agree on is food 🤤.

When you set your goals, be realistic. You can’t save more than you make, but you can definitely save something. When you examine your trends, you’ll have a better image of how much you can potentially save by changing something small. Our Intentional Planners have monthly & yearly sections for goal-setting & budgeting. Snag one on our website at https://intentionallyevolve.com/product-category/planners/ so you can get organized next year.

And Then: Gather Your Tools for Battle

Now that you know where you are & where you want to be, map it out. There are so many influencers, books, podcasts, & websites that can steer you in the right direction to form a financial plan. Do your research on them though! Not everyone who talks a good game lives it. And planning for financial self-care doesn’t always have to cost you money. Most of the best tips I’ve come across have been free! I’ll add some goodies at the end.

Meet with your family & have a transparency session. Decide what you can & can’t do, especially during the holidays, so you can achieve your financial goals. You don’t have to completely stop, but we can all cut back on stuff. Developing the plan as a family gives everyone a chance for some input & to see how they can help. It’ll also drop some gems on your kids & plant some positive financial seeds for their future beliefs & habits.

Finally: Put Some Movement Behind Your Plan

Now that everything is in order, make moves! No need in doing all of that work towards figuring out your financial temperature if you’re not going to use it! Here are a couple of things you can do:

Take advantage of free money like employer 401K matching & referral bonuses. I definitely have maximized my employer matching so my money builds faster. Finally getting a nice lil amount in there too! I just need to continue to let it build though.
Cancel recurring charges for things you aren’t using. This is one of my issues. So many iTunes subscriptions it’s ridiculous! I canceled some earlier this year, but it seems like some never go away.
Return things if you don’t like or need them. Impulse buying strikes again! I have egg crates in my linen closet right now that are unused & still in the plastic. Total waste of $60! This is the exact reason I don’t go to the grocery store without a list every week.
Make extra payments. I’m working on this one as well. As we pay stuff off, I should be applying that extra to another debt. Lately, we’ve been BMF though.
Nix eating out. When I compare the money I spend weekly at the grocery store to what we spend eating one meal from a fast food restaurant, I cringe. We easily drop $30-40 per meal & still sometimes turn around to eat something later at the house. Not to mention, it’s not healthy…but it calls my name every weekend!
Use cash. I mindlessly swipe my cards; it’s so easy to do. We rarely think about how much we might be spending if we don’t see the money in our wallet we have to spend. Shoot, I forget I have cash on the rare occasions I do have some! Gotta have more accessible cash so I can stop overspending.
Do a family challenge. Get the family together to see who can save the most & offer a reward for it. The competition may keep everyone motivated to achieve something greater while also teaching some positive habits.

The execution phase is where things fall apart for me, so I need to find ways to stay motivated. Working as a team may be more effective than me flying solo. I might even propose a challenge to my siblings so we can all practice some financial self-care & save some money at the same time. Anything to have some accountability partners & gain some money!

Once I start this new plan & maintain it throughout the year, it’ll make August-December new financial months for me. Changing that mindset will decrease some stress, killing two self-care aspects with one stone! Here are a little more tidbits to check out. Let’s get our financial self-care together!

Resources

https://www.abtmarkets.com/abt-blog/practicing-financial-self-care?format=amp

https://www.ellevest.com/magazine/personal-finance/financial-self-care

https://blog.lendingclub.com/financial-self-care

Social Media

@successfully_lazy_ on Instagram

@wall_street_trapper on Instagram

@earnyourleisure on Instagram

Podcasts

Weed & Wealth Podcast

The Melanin Money Show