3 Simple Tips to Infuse Financial Self Care Into Your Routine

When you first decide you want to put effort and intention into your finances, it can be hard to know where to start. Especially as a business owner, you already wear many hats. You have a lot to do, and whatever you add to your plate needs to be simple. I’ve got you covered. Here are three ideas for infusing some financial self care into your work routine.

Organize Your Passwords

If you want to look at your accounts regularly, organize your passwords for easier access! I am a huge advocate for looking at your numbers on a weekly basis. The more you’re checked in with where you and your business are at financially, the better. Taking some time to do this step will simplify the process of working on your finances, and take away some of the hesitation.

Find a Financial Education Resource You Love

…and then stick with it! Whether it’s a podcast, a book, or a YouTube channel, financial education comes in all formats these days. Find a person or resource who really resonates with you. Then, dive deep into what they have to say, and try to integrate that into your life. If you want some guidance around finding sound financial advice, read my guides on some things to look for and how to steer clear of the not-so-helpful stuff.  You can also check out my favorite educational resources. Here’s a list of some of my faves from other sites, and a list of my best educational blog posts.

List Some Action Items

You know your business and personal finances best. Chances are, there are probably already some to-do list items in the realm of your finances. Try jogging your memory for those and writing them down. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to try creating a money map for yourself. Maybe you want to automate all your bill payments. Identify those action items and write them down somewhere you can revisit them.

Next, strategize. How can you get these done? What resources or assistance do you need to do so? Can you divide the tasks into bite-size chunks and work on them piece by piece? Your financial wellbeing is something you can handle – sometimes it just takes some strategy and awareness.

9 Secrets to Financial Self Care Book Cover

I hope you’ve enjoyed these quick tips for financial self care. You might also be interested in downloading my free e-Book, 9 Secrets to Financial Self Care. In this e-Book, I go in-depth into 9 different steps you can take to build a solid financial self care routine for yourself. Try it out by clicking the link above!

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Angela

Image by Siora Photography

Why Your Finances are the Key to Self Care

We know that self care is important. We know it’s important to do things like unplug from electronic devices, get exercise, and treat ourselves. But oftentimes the conversation about self care can leave out one important aspect: financial self care.

Financial self care is the foundation of all other self care in your life, so it’s a shame that it gets forgotten! By financial self care, I mean doing the routine maintenance and occasional projects to keep your finances in good order. Things like reviewing your spending plan on a weekly basis and planning for irregular expenses are key to other aspects of your life. When your money is in order, it is so much easier to care for yourself. Your physical, spiritual, and mental health benefit when you are confident in your financial situation.

What are some areas of your life that need more care? Take a moment to really think about this. Perhaps you want to be able to purchase organic food or pay for a medical treatment. Maybe you want the ability to work less and turn down certain engagements. Or maybe you would benefit from seeing a therapist or spiritual worker.

Underlying all of these self care actions is a financial decision. When you engage in a regular financial self care routine, these decisions get easier. When you know whether you’ve met your spending limit for a category, deciding whether or not to spend the money to get that massage is much more simple. Regular financial self care takes that guesswork away and helps you get clear.

Financial self care involves engaging in a process of setting financial goals and working out what you actually want to spend your money on. When you’ve got this worked out, it makes it much easier to decide what to spend money on in order to take care of yourself. This process can illuminate what you really need and want. Therefore, it can deeply assist your overall journey of self care.

9 Secrets to Financial Self Care Book Cover

I created a full e-Book on the concept of financial self care, which you can download by clicking here. This e-Book goes into depth on many different strategies to infuse your days with financial self care and build a solid routine for yourself. If you are interested in exploring how financial self care can support your life, I recommend giving it a read!

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Angela

Roundup: At Peace With Money’s Best Educational Posts to Level Up Your Financial Learning

This week, please enjoy a roundup of some of my best educational posts yet. I’m getting close to my two-year blogging anniversary! In that time I’ve written up quite a few how-to’s, exercises, and perspective pieces on handling money. Below, I’ve pulled out some of my favorites, in the categories of business finance and personal finance.  I’m recommending these articles in particular because they contain foundational info that informs my practice as a profitability coach. The tips and perspectives that I blog about here are tried and true. I share them because they make a huge difference to my clients, just as I hope they’ll make a difference for you! If you’re looking to kick your financial learning into high-gear, let these resources be your guides:

Personal Finance Articles

Business Finance Articles

Suggested Readings – My Favorite Financial Books

I hope these posts are helpful for you! I find that the practice of writing a blog has been a great practice in building up an archive of knowledge – one that I hope is just as helpful for you as it is for my clients.

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Angela

The One Indispensable Spending Guideline: Needs Vs. Wants

One spending guideline that is indispensable is identifying your needs versus your wants. Difficulty understanding this can result in either over-spending or over-saving. Ultimately, it can reflect a lack of clarity around our values around money. If you feel stumped by this concept, or aren’t sure how your spending behavior measures up, don’t worry! We’re going to parse out the details right here:

Needs vs. Wants

Many of us are familiar with differentiating between needs and wants. It’s a skill we cultivate throughout our lifetimes. Although we sometimes run into pitfalls, we are ultimately making thousands of decisions a day – it’s important to have a little compassion for ourselves when we’re thinking about our financial decision making.

So, what makes a need, a need and a want, a want? Basic necessities you need to take care of yourself and live with a certain degree of comfort are needs. Nutritious food, sound housing, quality clothes and shoes, and things like electricity, car insurance, etc. definitely fall into the need category. We also have needs related to caring for ourselves. This is where things can get tricky – many people have difficulty differentiating between needs and wants here. When considering a purchase, it can be helpful to try and identify the underlying need. For example, if you want to spend money on a day-long spa retreat, but what you really want is some quiet time to yourself, there are likely other ways you could meet that need. Especially if it’s a matter of staying in your budget or not, sussing out the need underlying the want can be very helpful.

Over-spender, or Over-saver?

You may have some idea of whether you fit into either category. If you’re not sure what over-saving is, I recommend reading my article about it – it could be enlightening. When it comes to identifying needs vs. wants, over-spenders and over-savers tend to behave differently. Over-spenders frequently feel every purchase is filling a need, while over-savers tend to see every potential purchase as a want. In both cases, these spending habits can cause problems. Over-spenders can find themselves without important savings accounts or in debt, while over-savers can hold off on essential purchases like medical expenses. Both behaviors result in a deficit of self-care. To really take care of ourselves financially, we need to find a midpoint, where we have our needs met, and a few of our wants too. Someone who has really good thinking about this is Vicki Robin, who speaks poetically about finding your “enough” in Your Money or Your Life. You can read my book review here.

I hope these thoughts will help you examine your own spending behaviors. If you’re interested in a little more self care, check out my Facebook page for Financial Self Care Fridays, all month at 8am PST via FB Live. I’m providing prompts and accountability to help you develop a financial self care habit. I hope you’ll join me!

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Angela

Image by: Artem Beliaikin

Working on Your Finances is Self Care

Working on Your Finances Is Self Care: At Peace With Money

It’s that time of year: time to make New Year’s resolutions. Many of us are focused on doing better for ourselves. We often resolve to do things like “exercise more consistently,” or “learn new things.” One habit I’m adopting this year is stretching at the end of my daily walk.

These self care habits and regimens are all well and good, but one area that gets overlooked is your finances. This is an unfortunate oversight. Our money is so connected to our quality of life, so if we really want to treat ourselves well, looking after our finances is one of the best things we can do.

If you’re here reading this blog, then you’ve already begun to take the first steps towards working toward financial organization and freedom. Congratulations! This blog is a great resource, and I suggest clicking around on some things that interest you anytime you need a little financial education. One of my favorite posts, “Money Doesn’t Need to Be Scary,” contains a lot of great resources for financial self-education. Give it a whirl!

Working on Your Finances Is Self Care: At Peace With MoneyAs we go into 2019, I’m focusing on this idea of financial organization as self-care. To kick the new year off, I’m releasing a series detailing my top three money moves for financial success this year. These insights are geared towards solopreneurs and intended to help you get on top of your business finances. [Edit: you can read the full series here.]

In the meantime, reflect on your financial state of affairs. Perhaps you’d like to check out my exercise, “Three Steps to Financial Clarity.” This will give you a good snapshot of where you are in your finances and where you’d like to go. If you’d like to talk to someone more in-depth about your business finances, don’t hesitate to schedule a curiosity call. You can also check out my services packages to see if they might help you get on the right track this year.

Angela

Image Sources: Wolfgang Hasselmann,

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