Every Thursday, I share one action, habit, or project you may want to undertake in order to improve your health, happiness, and sense of well-being.

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PROJECT OF THE WEEK

Make Reviewing Your Finances Routine

There’s nothing glamorous about reviewing your family’s finances, but it’s a necessity that sets us up for success in the future. A family budget and setting up your accounts to automatically save first is a true gift to your future self.

Having a family budget and savings are truly the plan and guidepost for your financial roadmap. The key is setting time aside to evaluate what's working, what's not, and what changes you need to make.

In life, there are busy seasons and slower seasons. While it's important to make the time to review your finances, it doesn't have to be all or nothing.

There are many different strategies for how to review your finances and how to make them a consistent part of your routine.

Getting Started

A few things to consider as you get started:

Do you prefer to spend small blocks of time on your finances or larger blocks of time?
Is it easier for you to evaluate your expenses for a few minutes a day, 20 minutes a week, or an hour a month?
What can you do to make this more fun? Can you pair it with a treat afterward? Can you do this with your partner or a friend on Zoom?

What to look at while doing your financial review:

On a monthly basis, you should know:

Your total income
Your total expense
Your Savings by Category & Your Savings Progress towards your goals

You can pretty quickly enter these numbers into Excel, in order to evaluate both how you did this month and how you are doing over time.

A few thoughts on income:

If you are paid weekly or bi-weekly, you will have a few extra paychecks a year. When reviewing your finances, look ahead to plan for this and decide where you want to allocate the “extra”.

It's important to account for gift money and decide how you want to spend it. This will make it more meaningful and memorable.

A few thoughts on expenses:

Depending on your financial situation, you can decide how carefully you need to track your expenses.

If you are earning more than you are spending, on average, you can do a quicker review.

If your monthly budget is tight, you are going to want to take a closer look and know where your hard-earned money is being allocated.

One option for separating out NEEDS verse WANTS is to have two credit cards. Use one credit card for all your NEEDS, such as food, gas, toiletries, car repairs, and home maintenance. Use the other credit card for WANTS. It's not going to be perfect, but it will give you an idea of how much of your expenses were WANTS verse NEEDS.

Pro tip: You should only use credit cards if you are paying them off monthly. If this is a struggle for you, I don't recommend this strategy.

Whether you put your expenses on a credit card and pay the balance each month or use the cash system, I do recommend taking the time to review your individual expenses each month. Pro tip: If you use cash, literally write down what you’ve spent and review it after a few days. You may learn having cash at hand is easier for you to spend, rather than using your card. $5 here and $10 there a week adds to hundreds of dollars quickly.

If you make your purchases on a credit card or debit card, you can simply sit down and review the statement.

For each expense, ask yourself:

Was this purchase worth it?
Would I buy this again?
If you regret your purchase decision, what strategies could I use to make a different decision next time?
Are there any reoccurring expenses that I can cancel?
Are there any purchases that I have not opened or used that can be returned? Even if it's over 30 days, you can likely get a store credit. You can always repurchase it when you are ready to use it.

As someone who is self-employed, it's important to see the big picture. By understanding your patterns of income and expenses, you can make better decisions. Your finances don't need to feel like such a roller coaster.

We would love to hear about your strategies for reviewing and understanding your finances, your financial habits, and how you make better decisions.

This is a journey, not a destination!

Happy Spaces Tips & Tricks

Keep in mind, the strategies above are all about looking backward. While there is great value in learning about yourself and your decision-making, this might not be enough to change your financial habits.

When creating a budget, you designated a specific amount for each category. You may need to determine your future spending based on how much money you have left in each budgeted category. For example, if you budgeted $600 per month for food, but have only spent $540 this month, what do you plan to do with the extra $60? You could use it towards next month’’s food budget because you know you’re hosting a party or put it into a different savings or expense category.

Take the time to look up all your Amazon purchases. If you find that you are purchasing items you regret, a great option is to add items you want to your cart, but not check out for at least 24 hours. If you are not sure you want something, you can always click to "save the product for later" and have easy future access.

For purchases where you are buying multiple items at one store, I recommend saving the receipt until you review the statement. When you see that $279 Target purchase, pull out the receipt and take a few seconds to evaluate each item.

You could also add your spending each day to a spreadsheet, so that you can see, by category, how much you have left for the week or month. This is a helpful short-term strategy, but is a lot to maintain over time.

An app that you may want to look into, that supports this forward-looking strategy is YNAB. You can link your bank accounts and credit cards so that your income and expenses flow in. Then you assign your earned income and your expense to each budgeted category. This allows you to evaluate, in real-time, your income and expense.

Ready to Get Started?

If you feel excited about implementing this strategy and want some additional accountability and support to get started, the It’s All in the Planning Starter Pak was designed for you!

get started

A Note from Happy Spaces

The goal is to add value to your life. If you think this project will add value:

Estimate how long you think it will take. I would recommend doubling the time you estimate.
Look at your calendar over the next week and pick a date and time to get started.
Make an appointment on your calendar for the estimated time.
If you estimate that completing this project will take longer than one hour, I recommend doing it over multiple days. This will support you in getting started!
Prior to starting this project, take a few minutes to make a step-by-step list of EVERY action you need to take to complete this project.
It's not all or nothing. You can choose to implement only the parts of this project that add value to your life.
An Accountability Partner can be a great support in following through on your goals and commitments.

We understand how challenging it can be to implement new habits and systems. For additional support please go to HappySpacesBySarah.com.

Creating a life you don't need a vacation from! ®

Sincerely,

Sarah Weingarten

Meet Sarah

Growing up as the oldest of nine siblings in Upstate New York, I learned to use organization to create sanity among the chaos. Today, I work together with individuals, families, and small businesses to create habits, systems, and spaces that support their needs, goals, and dreams. Clients often refer to our work together as "life-changing" and "better than decades of therapy". What I love most about my work is the lasting impact it has on real people's lives. Nothing makes me happier than hearing the many success stories of clients I have worked with.

It's Time to Review Your Finances!