Your money is one of the best places to start when you are talking about who you want to be. In fact, your money might be the THE best place to start. Your financial behaviors reveal and reinforce your values.
The number one area that most of us miss about money is that that “being good with money” is about aligning our behaviors to what matters most to us, not just following good habits. Following financial principles of saving, investing, planning, and reducing debt are all important, but without your own personal values imbued into your actions, your finances will fail to support you in becoming the person you desire.
Oddly, instead of thinking about money as an important part of expressing who you are, most of us consider financials tedious and constraining. Yes, money management has its moments of tedium, but then, doesn’t everything? Many of the things that bring the greatest satisfaction in life contain an element of drudgery. Avoiding money management because it has boring moments, is like a little boy never watching a movie, because he doesn’t like the kissing scenes.
Here are a few ways to help your values shine through your finances:
1. Replace the word “spent” with “value”
Instead of saying, “I spent money on coffee,” try saying “I value coffee.” How about instead of, “I spent money on my car loan, I value my car loan.”
2. Put your values as the name of your budget line items
I recently completed some financial planning, and I chose to call out values that both my spouse and I share as our main budget line items. Instead of “trip,” I used the word “adventure.” Instead of “charity,” I used the word “generosity.” The hidden benefit of using your values as line items, is flexibility: you’ve decided how much you will spend on a value, and now you can choose how you want to spend that money.
3. Reduce the number of areas you spend money on
After you know your top driving values, and have the basics of finances covered, I always recommend you put 80%+ of your money on the things that are closely aligned to your values and make you feel great. Way too many women spend their money on things that bring them some happiness, rather than putting all their money on what makes them really happy. For me, I tend to purchase books and running shoes. My husband tends to purchase arborist gear and some electronics related to storing data and information. We get a really nice take-out meal every week and spend time with one another. Other than those areas, we don’t bother with much discretionary spending.
Please don’t fool yourself that spending money causes happiness. Only spending money on what reinforces your values and makes you feel incredible will bring happiness. And frankly, not that many things do. The remaining money can be put to other areas like saving, investing, and paying down debt.
4. Forgive yourself for past mistakes
Forgiving past mistakes you’ve made with money, particularly when those mistakes reveal deeper areas where you or someone else violated a core belief, such as trust, is one of the best ways to break a money behavior pattern that isn’t serving you. We often continue patterns of behavior with money, because we fail to deal with the deeper issues that that behavior is revealing. Being honest with yourself, and forgiving mistakes, can help you start the process of building money habits that match what your values.
Interested in more support in becoming the person you want to be by getting your money habits in line with what matters most to you? You can check out more information about my courses, like Beyond Financial Mistakes and coaching at The Value & Invest Academy. You can always send me a message directly here.
Photo by Jessica Sysengrath on Unsplash