Creating a better relationship with money doesn’t always happen overnight. Ask yourself. What is your current relationship with your finances? How do you feel towards money? Does it make you anxious, stressed, happy, or maybe at ease? Each individual can have a very different relationship with money. And that’s totally ok! Whatever relationship you want to have to money, think about that.
Are you wanting to feel more content with your financial situation? Do you want to manifest more money into your life? Maybe you’ve never even thought about it! Creating a better relationship with money can look many ways. In today’s blog, we’re going to share how we’ve realigned our goals with money, and give you some effective ways to take control of your money. So that it doesn’t have control over you! Keep on reading to learn more.
How to further strengthen your relationship with money.
- Understand your current relationship with money
- Set financial goals
- Cultivate healthy money habits [That’s where this blog comes in]
- Develop a positive mindset
Let’s breakdown 3 effective ways to strengthen your relationship with money:
1. Track Every Dollar In & Every Dollar Out
First things first. You can’t develop a proper budget or keep yourself accountable if you don’t know where your money is going. There are many ways you can go about tracking your finances. I’ve done it many ways in my life, starting with just a pen and paper when I was in high school, then moving digitally to my notes app in my 20s and now I use a full blown tracker with graphs, lists and charts! But we’ll get to that part. So sit tight.
If you’re just looking to decide if budgeting is right for you, maybe start with the notes app or some form of medium where you can write your spending down. I like to break it down into categories.
Example Categories:
- Rent / Mortgage
- Utilities (Water, Hydro, etc)
- Phone Bill
- Groceries
- Dining Out
- Fun & Entertainment
- Shopping
- Etc…
Tailor the categories to your lifestyle. You can have as many or as little as you want. Once you’ve done a month of tracking, evaluate where your money is going. Side note, add up each transaction into one of these categories and watch your spending unfold!
2. Create a Monthly Budget
Once you’ve tracked your income and expenses for a month, then we can move onto the next step. Creating a monthly budget. What is incoming every month? Perhaps it’s the same every month as you have a salary. Or maybe you work in service and it can fluctuate week to week. Do your best at estimating what you anticipate to make every month.
Then take a look at your expenses. Did your month of writing everything down show you that you were in, or out of line with your income? What are some areas you could scale back? Are you living within your means? Or perhaps you make a lot more than you spend, that’s awesome! Then you could potentially look at saving more of your money in investments or a high interest savings account. I personally love using Wealth Simple for my savings accounts. It’s a super user friendly platform with some amazing options for saving and investing.
Creating a monthly budget is an incredible step to plan ahead and take control of your monthly earnings and spendings. We’d love to release a budget template one day, so stay tuned. In the meantime, there are TONS to choose from on Etsy!
If you’re on a journey to levelling up your life, whether you’re a solopreneur, or someone who is interested in living their best life; check out Cornelia’s YouTube channel to see more content like this!
3. Check-in with your Finances on a Weekly or Bi-Weekly Basis.
However often you’d like to check-in on your finances, is up to you. But having done this both ways, once a week vs. once a month. I highly recommend setting out 30 minutes every week to go through your transactions from the last month. I personally carve out 30 minutes every monday to go through my bank account. It reminds me where my money is going, and it allows me to update my tracker consistently, so I can keep a better eye on my spending. If you only add up your totals at the end of the month, it takes longer, but it also is too late to reign things in, if you’re spending too much. I’d suggest making it a weekly habit, which honestly you’ll probably come to enjoy doing!
Once you’ve been budgeting for a few months, you’ll really get to learn how your financial health looks. Whether you need to make adjustments or if you’re on the right track, either way, you’re on track to a better relationship with money.
Creating a better relationship with money is a journey. There are many great ways to take control of your finances. If you have any other ways that you’d like to share, please comment below. If you’re wanting to learn more about finances and levelling up your financial health, take a look at our financial health section of the blog!
XO
Meg & Cornelia
