How to Manage Your Money Like a Pro with Automation

Have you heard of decision fatigue? The idea is pretty simple. According to this article from the AMA, decision fatigue refers to “the idea that after making many decisions, your ability to make more and more decisions over the course of a day becomes worse.” Thanks to this phenomenon, it pays to reduce the number of decisions you need to make in a day. That’s where automation comes in.

Automation = Better Financial Habits

Automation is your money’s best friend. By automating your finances, you reduce your opportunities for decision making and decision fatigue, thereby reducing your chances to change your mind about saving money or paying a bill in full. By reducing your decisions you set yourself up for success! Automation can build up your savings and pay off your bills, without any extra effort on your part. So, how can you use automation as a financial tool?

Automate Your Bill Payments

There are many different facets of your finances which can benefit from automation. Automating your bills is a good place to start. Many banks have online bill pay options available that help you pay your regular monthly bills on time. In particular, automation is a good way to ensure you always pay your credit card balance in full, so that you don’t accrue any interest fees. However, one important thing to be aware of when automating your bills is that you will need to stay aware of your bank balance, to avoid over-drafting your account. As long as you keep an eye on your balance, automating your bills is a good way to avoid late fees, build good credit, and stay on top of your finances.

Automate Your Savings

The other major arena of your finances that definitely deserves some automation-attention is your savings. I touched briefly on automating your savings in an earlier article, which you can read here. The most important thing about automating your savings is that if money automatically gets moved out of your spending account, you have no chance to spend it. That makes saving that much easier! We do this with our retirement savings, and it really helps us keep it up. A great resource for further information about automating your savings is The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach.

If you liked this article and want more tips on financial organization that will make your life a LOT easier, you’ll probably enjoy a free copy of my eBook, 9 Secrets of Financial Self Care. Click here or below to download it!

By |2023-04-27T08:04:53-07:00April 27th, 2023|Categories: Banking, Financial Clarity, Money Mindset, Personal Savings, Personal Spending|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
Read More

4 Simple Tips for Keeping Your Small Business Finances Organized

 

In the midst of tax season, a lot of us are looking to do better on our finances. Maybe you got a big tax bill and are now wondering where your earnings went. Perhaps you were a little less organized than you would have liked. Or maybe this time just makes you extra aware of where your business is financially.

Whatever the case, mid-points like this are great times to give your finances a makeover! Here are my 4 simple tips for keeping your small business finances organized and intentional.

Review Your Goals

After a big financial event like tax season, the financial goals you set earlier in the year deserve a revisit. Check in with them and ask yourself if they still fit. If not, give your goals a nice update! Make sure what you’re aiming towards is relevant to you. You can check out my article on doing a mid-year review of your finances right here.

If you don’t have any financial goals, now is the time to set them. Harness whatever financial fervor tax season (or whatever other financial situation brought you to this post) has instilled in you.

What are your ideal financial conditions? Dream them up, write them down, and come up with a plan. If you need some pointers, here’s my article “4 Strategies for Setting Doable Financial Goals.”

Set Up a Weekly Money Check-In

So much of creating the life you want is about habits. One of the best habits to adopt, in my opinion, is regular “money time”. Find time each week to check in with your finances. Start with a short chunk, to make it feel more manageable. Fifteen to thirty minutes should suffice.

Use this time to check in with your expenses, upcoming bills, IOU’s, and more as needed. Here are my suggestions on what to look for during your weekly money check-in.

Make a Plan to Stay on Top of Your Books

Especially if organization was an issue this tax round and you run a business, making a plan to stay organized until next tax time is a great thing to do right now. Ask yourself what you need to be able to do this.

Do you need to work with a bookkeeper? Do you need to get some training on how to do your bookkeeping yourself? Identify your needs and take some steps to set yourself on the right path.

Find a Money Buddy

It’s my personal belief that anything can go better when you have an accountability buddy. Find someone in your circle who has a financial goal they’re working on too, and join forces! This might be a fellow business owner, or someone from your church, or another mom from a play group.

“Why You Need a Money Buddy”

Once you’ve found your money buddy, establish the terms of your accountability partnership. How often do you want to meet? How do you want to do check ins? Do you want to learn about finances together, or just trade tips on goals?

These 4 tips will help set you on the right path. If you’re a small business owner looking for more ideas, you might like my free eBook, the Cash Flow Reboot Guide: A Guide to Thriving in Uncertain Times. Click below and get your free copy.

By |2023-04-11T13:53:14-07:00April 11th, 2023|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset, Personal Savings, Personal Spending, Small Business|Tags: , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
Read More

Is Your Money Affecting Your Relationships?: 3 Tips to Cultivate A Healthier Money Relationship

How we interact with our money can affect how we interact with others, and ourselves. So it’s important to tend to our relationship with money, in order to keep things clear in our other relationships! Today, I’m talking about three different ways that money may be affecting your relationships, and how you can begin to cultivate a healthier relationships with your money. I’ll be referencing The Soul of Money, an amazing book by Lynne Twist, throughout. Check out my book review if you’d like to learn more!

1. Dissolve the Competition

“Money has become a playing field where we measure our competence and worth as people. We worry that if we stop striving for more, we’ll… lose our advantage.” – Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money

As this quote highlights, money in our society is a high-stakes game. The competition and the need to always be getting more, buying more, earning more, and doing more can creep in and take over our lives. This can and does affect our social relationships. The phrase “keeping up with Joneses” is direct proof of how competition around money can affect how we interact with our neighbors, friends, and community members. At the same time, it’s also evidence of how we tend to measure ourselves and our efforts – against our earnings.

To cultivate a healthier relationship with money, and in turn, healthier social relationships, I suggest beginning by removing this element of competition. Work with affirmations or turn to mindset work or journal prompts to find ways to uproot this tendency. Talk openly with other people about your money. That’s a perfect segue into my next point!

2. Practice Transparency

“Our behavior around money has damaged relationships when money has been used as an instrument of control or punishment, emotional escape or manipulation, or as a replacement for love.” – Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money

Find some people who you can really trust to talk to about money. I call this process building a Money Team. In particular, it’s great to have a friend or two who you can open up to about finances.

 

Having a Money Buddy can give you a space to practice financial transparency, and get more comfortable bringing up money in your social relationships. This can be a great way to work on the feelings that come up around money in this arena. Eventually, you might find yourself feeling more comfortable sharing about your financial situation in general!

3. Create a Spiritual Connection to Your Money

“Your relationship with money can be a place where you bring your strengths and skills, your highest aspirations, and your deepest and most profound qualities.”  – Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money

The Soul of Money is definitely an excellent resource in this area. Lynne Twist writes about how money is like water, it’s a resource that’s meant to flow. She encourages us to recognize that money itself is not problematic, and that it is instead the interpretation of money that brings up so many issues.

Doing some personal work around our connections with money can be a great way to prevent it from interrupting our connections with ourselves and others. If you’d like some resources for this pursuit, I have a couple suggestions:

If you enjoyed this article, you’ll probably like being on my newsletter! Click here to subscribe and receive my monthly tailored newsletter full of important financial conversations, and my weekly blog updates.

This post was originally published in 2022. 

By |2023-02-08T15:40:28-08:00February 8th, 2023|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset, Personal Savings, Personal Spending|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
Read More

Retirement Planning for Solopreneurs: How to Find a Trusted Financial Adviser

It’s very helpful to have a trusted adviser take a look at your financial situation. Particularly when you don’t have the support or typical options offered by a corporate job, it can be helpful to get outside recommendations. But how do you find the resources you need from someone who is trustworthy?

What is Good Financial Advice? My Thoughts

One of my big goals with At Peace With Money is to help solopreneurs who don’t manage enormous accounts feel like they too can take steps down a helpful financial path. I strongly believe that no matter what amount of money you make, there are steps you can take to improve your situation and take care of yourself in the long term. I also believe you can do this without hugely sacrificing your quality of life. It doesn’t feel good to be chastised for your income level or your lifestyle, especially when class structure in the U.S. effects us in a way that means we are often not fully responsible for our financial standing. I don’t think that’s the role of financial advice anyway! Instead, good advice meets you where you’re at, and helps you get where you want to go.

 

Know What You Need

Once you’ve decided to find financial advice resources that are relevant to your lifestyle, it’s important to know where you’re at personally. So, be sure to check in with your own finances. If you need a simple process to get clear, check out my Three Steps to Financial Clarity exercise.

Once you’ve done that, you should have a clear idea of your current income level and your hopes for your financial future. Both of these things will help you determine what financial resources are best for you. At the beginning of your journey, you might not be interested in people who talk about managing large investments. That can always come later! Instead, you might be interested in resources that cater specifically to people who’ve just opened an IRA.

My Recommendations

  • Especially for younger people or people who don’t have big portfolios, I recommend working with XY Planning Network. They will work on a project-basis, which makes their advising services more accessible.
  • Many people also like working with Vanguard. They have a lower fee and have people on staff to help advise you.

If you enjoyed this article, you’ll probably appreciate a copy of my free e-Book, Reach Your Life Goals: A Business Owner’s Guide. Click here or below to get your free download!

By |2022-10-27T11:10:30-07:00October 27th, 2022|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset, Personal Savings, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , , , , |0 Comments
Read More

Why Retirement Planning is Important for Solpreneurs

Solopreneurs and small business owners alike face a particular challenge when it comes to retirement planning: nobody else is planning it for you. While an employer is likely to offer retirement benefits, small business owners must go the DIY route. This is why retirement planning is so key for financial success! Let’s talk more about why this is a crucial move for solopreneurs:

Get Informed

When you’re not offered a typical company retirement plan, it’s important to get informed about your options by doing your own research. This is the first step to building out any retirement plan, so take it seriously and set aside some time for yourself. I recommend my article “My Top Resources to Learn About Money Around the Internet” as a good place to get started.

Make a Plan

Once you’ve researched some options, it’s time to make a plan. What’s your next step towards creating your ideal financial future? This plan will change over time, just as your life does. Nevertheless, it’s good to have a scaffold in place.

Set Aside Some Money

Perhaps the most important part of this process! It might seem like a no-brainer, but it can be easy to do all the prep work and then forget to put money away. So, set aside some money for your future self. I am a proponent of IRAs for this purpose, but there are many other ways you can do this step too.

Find a Trusted Adviser

In my next blog post, I’ll recommend a couple different resources for finding helpful financial advice surrounding retirement. It’s very helpful to have a trusted adviser take a look at your financial situation. Particularly when you don’t have the support or typical options offered by a corporate job, it can be helpful to get outside recommendations.

If you enjoyed this article, you’ll probably like the At Peace With Money newsletter! This is a great resource for solopreneurs looking to level up their personal and business finances. Subscribers receive a monthly newsletter full of tips and insights, plus access to weekly blog posts!

Click here to join us, it’s a great place to be.

By |2022-10-20T11:22:23-07:00October 20th, 2022|Categories: Financial Clarity, Personal Savings, solopreneurs|Tags: , , , |0 Comments
Read More

Love Your Future Self With an IRA

One of the best forms of self love is this: put some money away for 65 year old you with an IRA! Beginning to put money away now so that you can take care of yourself in retirement will vastly improve your life as a whole. It’s important to remember your future self, and make sure you aren’t only treating yourself today. What better way to care for yourself?

Give Yourself a Gift

First, if you don’t have an IRA, open one. For more  specific info on types of IRAs here’s the IRS’s info page, plus a helpful article from NerdWallet. Do a little bit of research to decide which works best for you. 

Then, make contributing to your IRA a fun and regular occasion. Consider it a gift to both your present and future self! Perhaps you could give yourself the gift of a deposit to your IRA for Valentine’s Day. My sister does this for herself on her birthday every year, to celebrate her present and future self! 

Invest!

It’s very important that when you do contribute to your IRA, that you remember to invest it. Don’t simply let it sit in the account in cash.  If you let it sit, it’s not actually accruing any more value, and therefore will not expand beyond the amount you put in. The longer you let it sit, the more time that could be used to expand your investment goes by. 

Play the Long Game

Remember, this is long term money. You won’t touch it for years, so don’t worry about how much your investment increases or decreases in value today.  You are in it for the long haul!

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll love my free e-Book, 9 Secrets to Financial Self Care. Click to get yours!

By |2022-10-14T14:15:27-07:00October 14th, 2022|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset, Personal Savings|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
Read More

How to Create a Spending and Income Plan, Part Two

Welcome back to our series on creating a spending and income plan! This is part two, you can read part one right here. So far we have gotten clear on how much we’re spending and where the money is going, and we’ve also figured out about how much income we’re bringing in. Today, let’s get deeper into the process:

Create Your Plan

Now that you have a clear understanding of your income and expenses, it’s time to put together a plan. There are all kinds of ways to set up a spending plan. My mentor Karen McCall advocates for creating very specific categories.

In Financial Recovery, she lists categories like home, food, gifts, and business/project expenses, but she also lists categories like spiritual growth and self-care, to get you thinking about prioritizing these in both your spending and your life. With information from the previous step and some careful planning, you can create categories and estimate what your spending will be for each during the month ahead. 

Another approach that I sometimes use with people who are very focused on saving, is a set amount for flexible expenses. This method lumps all expenses that aren’t your fixed necessities (rent/mortgage, etc.) and gives you an amount of money to work with for all of them. I don’t necessarily recommend this as a long-term solution, but it can work when you’re getting started or have a savings goal to meet. 

Analyze Your Plan

With a basic plan in place, now is the time to take a look at your estimated income and make sure your plan will work for you. If there’s a shortfall, it’s time to make adjustments. 

Consider how you can alter your spending. How can you cull your spending and lower your expenses while still getting your needs met? At this step it can be valuable to reflect on your values and distinguish your needs from your wants. 

Similarly, at this stage you can ask yourself if it is possible to increase your income to cover the shortfall. This is something worth brainstorming about! 

Stick to Your Plan

Once you have created your and feel certain it will work for the month ahead, put it into action! The best way to do this is by staying in touch with your money and making sure you’re staying on track. 

I highly recommend beginning to do a weekly money check-in if you don’t already. Just 30 minutes out of your week can make a huge difference and help you stick to your carefully-crafted plan. Check out my article 3 Things to Look For During Your Weekly Money Check-In for ideas on how to stay on top of your money. 

Karen McCall also recommends doing a month-end review. During this step, you compare the spending plan you started with at the beginning of the month, to your actual spending during the entire month. Karen writes, “Comparing your planned to your actual spending and earning helps you gain clarity about how the spending-plan process works. This is an opportunity to get to know yourself better and to gain skills that will help you create your spending plans even more effectively.” 

The process outlined here is one that can be done solo or with an accountability partner. I love to work with clients through this process, and encourage you to reach out if you would like to work together! 

By |2022-08-23T14:55:08-07:00August 23rd, 2022|Categories: Financial Clarity, Personal Savings, Personal Spending|Tags: , , , , , , , |0 Comments
Read More

Why Planning Ahead is Key to Financial Success

How many times have you looked at your financial decisions only in hindsight? People often relate to their money that way – only examining their spending once the money’s been spent. While reflection is all well and good, planning ahead can make a big difference.

This month, we’re talking about creating a proactive plan for your spending and income. This plan is meant to orient you towards the future. Making decisions about where your money will go in the time ahead can be impactful for several reasons. Let’s talk about why this technique is so key to financial success!

Avoid Missteps Before They Happen

Sometimes we look over the money we spent in the past month, or check in with our income, and realize we made a couple missteps. We might have been living above our means, or spent a lot of money on something that didn’t really matter to us. These things might prevent us from having the finances and life that we want to have.

For example, unintentionally spending big in one place might result in us not being able to pay down a debt later in the month. Or, we might be unable to get a friend a birthday present. We might have overestimated our income for the month and find ourselves with less than we need.

Planning ahead and sticking to our spending and income plans can help us avoid these situations.

Anticipate Big Expenses

Rather than checking in on your money only when you fall short or have a big expense, planning ahead can help prevent this situation entirely. Here’s a great quote from my mentor Karen McCall, founder of MoneyGrit. (R):

While driving, no one would keep her eyes only on the rearview mirror, never looking through the windshield at the road ahead. To be fully mindful about your money, you have to look forward too.

When you have a spending plan in place, you’re able to relate to large upcoming expenses as things to plan for, rather than things to freak out about. This is a game changer and can help you think about the rest of your spending and income, and how it will be affected by the expense or situation.

Less Stress & More Intention

At the end of the day, creating a spending and income plan is really about is being good to yourself. The more you can make relaxed, proactive decisions about money, the more you can eliminate financial stress from your life. When you create a plan for your spending and income that’s based on creating a life you love, that money and how you spend it become more fulfilling for you.

Planning ahead can create financial stability, and it can also create greater life satisfaction. Isn’t that really what financial success looks like for most of us?

If you enjoyed this article, you’d probably enjoy my free e-Book, 9 Secrets to Financial Self Care. Click below to download your free copy!

By |2022-08-11T12:42:55-07:00August 11th, 2022|Categories: Financial Clarity, Personal Savings, Personal Spending|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments
Read More

Want a Meaningful Life? Check In With Your Values Regularly

You’ve done it – you’ve figured out what you value in life, you’ve culled your spending, and made a savings plan. You are well on your way to having your money bring real meaning to your life. Now what?

Obviously, first let’s celebrate all the amazing work you just put in! Congratulations!

Next, it’s important to know that the work doesn’t stop here. Let’s talk a little about why it’s important to check in with your values on a regular basis.

What You Value Changes Over Time

I’m going to venture a guess that you’re probably not the same person you were 15, 10, or even 5 years ago. Life is full of change, and our priorities shift with it. Although you’ve just done all this good work to set up a financial plan for yourself, don’t expect it to remain static. Give yourself room to change by resolving to check in with your values and update your money system regularly. This could be every 6 months, 3 months, or every year – find a frequency that works for you!

As Your Resources Change, So Might Your Desires

As we deepen our financial learning and grow our wealth, we may find that what we want, changes. Let me share a quote from my mentor Karen McCall that illustrates this point perfectly:

As people continue working through the Financial Recovery process, identifying areas of deprivation and discerning needs from wants, an amazing and intriguing thing begins to happen. They start to access deep desires that they may never have spoken about before or even known existed. Soon they discover buried dreams of buying a home, taking piano lessons, or learning about photography. Some talk of their fantasy of taking a sabbatical or learning about their family’s roots by visiting the homeland of their grandparents. People begin wondering aloud about their dreams of starting a philanthropic foundation or taking time away from work to volunteer for causes they hold dear.

I love this quote because it illustrates how the process of growing your financial literacy can unfold. Once you start to really become aware of the possibilities, you may find that you no longer want to deprive yourself of certain things you didn’t even know you wanted! The key here is intentionality. Checking in with your values on a regular basis, in an intentional way, gives you space for these changes to unfold and get incorporated into your spending and savings plans.

Stay Open to New Delights

Let me share a personal example with you for some encouragement. These days, I am relishing taking really good care of myself. I get facials from Me Time with Francoise, massages, chiropractic, and recently participated in Stasia’s Savasuk’s style school. I feel blessed to have the freedom to support other business owners while also taking great care of myself.

In the past, these things might not have seemed relevant or important to me. As I’ve continued to check in with myself about what’s important to my life, these values have evolved! 

If you liked this article, I have a free e-Book for you! I’m sure you will enjoy 9 Secrets to Financial Self Care. Click to get your free copy!

By |2022-07-28T13:56:34-07:00July 28th, 2022|Categories: Money Mindset, Personal Savings, Personal Spending|Tags: , , , , , , |0 Comments
Read More
Go to Top