Financial anxiety is NO JOKE! One minute you’re floating along doing great and the next, you’re little innertube of confidence catches a rip tide and takes you out to sea. Sometimes you feel it coming and sometimes you don’t. Either way, anxiety can cripple your financial goals and dreams.
What Do You Do? You break it down and create your monthly snapshot!
- Breathe for a few moments to clear your head.
- Write down ALL your sources of monthly income and total them.
- Do the same for your monthly bills and expenses.
- If you have yearly bills, divide that cost by 12 to see what you can put away monthly for them.
- Subtract your total monthly bills and expenses from your total monthly income.
- Do you have money leftover?
- If YES…YAY! It’s a start.
- If NO…celebrate that you can do something about it!
Before we start trimming your snapshot to free up some money, think of this next step like spring cleaning. It’s never something you want to do, but you feel SO MUCH better after it’s done. Why? Because you now have room to breathe! Having room to breathe makes you feel lighter, cleaner, and accomplished. Too much clutter in any area of your life just gets overwhelming. So, let’s get started…
The top 5 questions you need to ask yourself when trimming your snapshot:
- Do I still need this?
- Can I go without this for 6 months to 1 year?
- Can I limit my spending in one category to free up money for another?
- Am I getting value from this expense?
- Is there a way to get something I need cheaper?
Be ruthless! Toss a coin to your budget Witcher and get rid of anxiety once and for all! Go through each item and identify anything you can cut, trim, or postpone. If you freed up some money and want to start a “Travel” budget…there you go! If you freed up some money and you want to send that budget Witcher to attack your debt…go for it! Woo! Haven’t started an Emergency Fund yet for all those unexpected expenses? You can now!
Remember: money plans are completely customizable to where you are in life. Don’t let that voice tell you it’s overwhelming and you’re failing because…YOU’RE NOT. You’re digging deep and taking back control so you can live free from financial anxiety.
Cheers to you!
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