Financial Alignment
03
A practical and reflective guide to improving your financial wellness through self-awareness, intentional budgeting, and mindful spending. By combining journal-style questions with helpful categorization methods, readers are encouraged to rethink their money habits, shift their mindset, and create a system that supports both their current lifestyle and future goals, without guilt or restriction.
Becoming aware and understanding the choices you make regarding the future of your finances can only save you in the long run. According to a report from Yahoo Finance, only about 57% of Americans can score above 50% on a financial literacy test. In recent years, more young adults have come forward, concerned about their inadequate preparedness for managing money. Ask yourself the following questions to learn more about managing your finances and the habits that surround your spending.
1. What do I want money to do for me?
2. What purchases have brought me the most joy, growth, or meaning?
3. What does financial freedom look like for me?
4. What emotions come up when I spend or save?
5. Am I making financial choices out of fear, guilt, or alignment?
6. What are the top 3 things I want to prioritize financially right now?
7. What habits have helped or hurt my financial wellness in the past year?
8. Who shaped my earliest beliefs about money? Do those beliefs still serve me?
Now that you’re starting to understand the reasons behind your financial choices, it’s time to see what the damage really is. Reviewing and tracking where your money is going is an eye-opening experience to how much we lack financial control in a world where it feels like you must pay to open your front door. Pull up your bank statements from your desired time period. I typically do around every 2 weeks to 1 month. I feel the shorter time frame makes this task much more manageable on a busier schedule. Categorize your expenses into the following:
1. Essentials:
- Rent
- Bills
- Groceries
2. Lifestyle:
- Self-care
- Takeout
- Entertainment
- Nights out
3. Growth:
- Courses
- Books
- Investment apps
- Savings
4. Impulses
- Regret buys
- Retail therapy
- Random Items
- Snacks/drinks
After a deep review of your purchases and spending, implement a budget that makes you feel relaxed, yet organized and confident. This is the step that sets aside what matters most and helps you prioritize the necessities. The mindset shift of creating a budget that coincides with your lifestyle to make more empowered decisions that contribute to the betterment of your future. The pressure of following a strict budget can lead to abandoning and burnout much faster than building one that is built through joy and stability. Categorize your money by more than just function. Organizing your known expenses in a way that emotionally aligns with how it contributed to your stability and happiness. Get as creative as you’d like, but here are some examples of what emotionally aligned categories can look like:
1. Security
- Rent
- Groceries
- Emergency savings
2. Growth
- Therapy
- Books
- Investments
3. Self-Care
- Skincare/makeup
- Outings
- Travel
- Treats
4. Creativity
- Inspirational items
- Art supplies/tools
- Journals/notebooks
- Art classes
With today’s availability to online services for banking, bills, and other financial needs, eliminating the stress of deadlines has never been easier. Managing different expenses and remembering when bills are due can get tricky without proper organization and utilization of modern resources. Simplifying finances through automation, not only reduces the stress of handling multiple due dates, but can even reduce overspending. Easing this process makes investing and saving money feel much more freeing than previous budgeting attempts. Many providers and payment processors even offer doscounts for using auto-pay, plus it’s a great way to avoid late fees. It is best to use these services for more of the non-negotiable items:
1. Rent
2. Utilities
3. Phone
4. Subscriptions
You can even apply automation to savings transfers. Automating your finances and setting up reoccuring transfers is a great way to mindlessly save money. Nowadays most banking apps off reoccuring or repeating transfers that can be set up in a only few clicks. Start small, think $5-$10, until you can eliminate other impulse buys that would interfere with your daily or weekly transfers.
Freeing yourself from the valdiation of others and pressure to make everything happen right now can only serve you well. The constant comparison of trying to be better or look better than someone else is only slowing you down because at that point, are you even living for yourself? Putting your own unique needs first before trying to fit into a lifestyle that isn’t true to you. Trust that choosing long-term peace and flexibility will outlive the need to impress your peers. Prioritzing making financial decisions for feeling good as compared to looking good. Saying no to a purchase or another night out to have more options or opportunities later in life. While we all want to live in the moment, our finances are constantly working and the earlier you can start saving, the earlier you’ll realize how draining it is to be living irresponsibly with your money. Choosing freedom over flex looks like:
- Taking a lower paying job with better hours
- Committing to a savings cushion
- Saying no to costly impulse buys
Budgeting doesn’t mean you have to restrict yourself and elimainate all spening that isn’t bills or rent. It just means that you need to re-center your focus. There are plenty of ways to enjoy a more firm budget. Money and managing finances often leaves people feeling guilty and out of control. Money should be something that enhances your life, not weighs it down. Shifting your perspective and using money in a way that reflects your values and aligns with your bigger goals.
