As a mum, often the household finances fall, at least partly, on our shoulders. We have no end of stuff to organise and budgets to keep to. There is a multitude of things pay for to keep our kids fed and clothed, money saved for holidays and Christmas and the household simply running.
But how can we get more from our money?
Here are my 3 simple steps to financial freedom..
1) Know where we're spending
We don't have to go through your finances with a fine tooth comb, because who has the time? But a quick scout through our monthly outgoings over the past 2-3 months can quickly highlight areas where we didn't know we spent as much as we do.
Lunches at work, Costa Coffees, impulse Amazon purchases, quick trips to the supermarket - normally to buy something we've forgotten but which end up in £20-£30 bilss - you know what I mean - can add up to a significant amount of money.
We can also have a quick look at our bills; water, elec, gas, do they look about right? Are any of them coming up for review anytime soon? Can we schedule the time to make sure we get a good deal?
As soon as we start to look - and add up - what we're spending, sometimes this gives us enough of a shock to stop all of those impulse mini-spends and get organised!
2) Get excited about the dream
Sit down with your partner or significant other/s and build the dream. What does wealth mean to you? How 'rich' do you want to be? What does that look like?
We need to develop - and write down - our ideal vision of how we want to live. Is wealth a fast car, a big house, a certain lifestyle or simply enough money in the bank to put our kids through university?
How much do we ideally want to have to spend each month - put a figure on it? Are we happy with the same lifestyle - and monthly spend limit - if it means a nice pot of safety cash in the bank, or do we want to live 'the dream', spending and holidaying until we drop?
Be honest here, wanting to be our own version of wealthy is not a bad / selfish / evil thing. As with everything in life, we just need to know where we want to go to be able to start the journey to get there.
By developing a detailed plan of where we want to get to, it often gives us the desire to want to change and reach the goal. Without a dream, we have no willpower to change and our finances will stay the same, no matter how much our income increases or our spend decreases.
3) Get Organised
Start a plan, sit down and take the time to put numbers to your dream, set yourself mini-goals to get started and agree on rules around your spending.
Did you know that millionaires spend over 8 hours a month planning their finances? That's 2 hours a week - and they don't even have 'money worries'!
To make the plan become a routine, we need to be emotionally invested in the outcome (developing the dream) and we need to stick to the mini-goals to give us the feel-good factor as we progress. A new routine takes about a month to start to feel natural (and therefore good) so we need to make the first month achievable and then ramp up from there.
Once you're in a your own new routine and understand that these 3 simple steps can really make huge change happen, the sky really is the limit. Keep track of where you are on your journey toward your dream and see how the route to financial freedom not only becomes a possibility, but starts to become enjoyable along the way.
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