six steps to a better money mindset

makin' money moves?

maybe you've heard that "money won't solve the world's problems" but like... it might help? at the very minimum, financial stability to me means security, and security from not being in debt, not feeling behind the eight ball, not living paycheck to paycheck, and not viewing money as a doom and gloom scarcity subject, and rather a tool to an enriching, abundant life.

and no, I'm not talking about abundance in terms of "stuff." I'm talking an abundance of laughter, of memories, of joy. Financial insecurity doesn't spark joy, it fuels stress. It's such a disservice that there's so little financial literacy being taught today, and I don't want to give the impression that at just 24 years old I fully know everything about hard knocks and the secret to wealth. To be frank, it is intimidating to me to talk on this subject, because not only is money taboo, when talking about financial opportunity the element of privilege is inevitable. Sure, growing up money was modeled to me as a stressor but that doesn't discount the fact I always had a roof over my head and food on the table. I am aware of the enormous privilege that alone is. In the spirit of growth, though, I want to dive deep on the fact that we can always learn more and do better, and personally, my journey and relationship with money has been pivotal to where I am in my life today.

so here is my very humble advice, what I have found works in my own little world, the resources I have found valuable, and most importantly, the money beliefs I want to share with the world (or at least you, dear reader #bridgertonvibes).

I truly believe that no matter what your upbringing, what you are up against, YOU can grow, better your relationship with money, reach your own financial goals and achieve whatever your version of success is. I'm sure that "lift yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality is overly naive and I don't want to discount the immense privileges some have and the immeasuarble disparities others have. This is not one size fits all, plug and play, and if I'm being honest, none of it is ground-breaking, earth-shattering advice. Ok ok, here we go. Money mindsets from yours truly.

What is your definition of success?

The first and most important step to a healthy money mindset is determining what success looks like to you. Hopefully it's not your own private island or something your ten-year-old self wished up, and it has real, deep meaning to you. A home for hosting and gathering with loved ones. A hobby like traveling or motorcycling across the country. Maybe your version of success is not having a 9-5 or a boss, maybe it's the ability to simply work 40 hours a week and maximize every second of life outside of work. Whatever it is, you have to view money as a tool while recognizing that your TIME is your most valuable non-renewable resource and that your TIME will always be worth more than the amount in the bank (preach it @JennaKutcher!)

You won't get this year, this day, this moment back. When your life flashes before your eyes, I can guarantee you won’t be thinking about how many zeros in your net worth, and as cliche as it sounds, don’t forget that “you can’t take it when you go!”

For sure, financial security is an admirable goal. Leaving a financial legacy in which you can take care of future generations, if that is something you want to do, is attainable and good intentioned. But just stockpiling money for the sake of stockpiling money -- what's the point? Get specific about what brings you joy, about what career and financial goals feel right to you. Be honest about your relationship with money in the past.

• Have you made emotional purchases you later regretted?

• Do you have a rooted fear of scarcity, and therefore take frugality to the max?

• Are you the type that won't even look at their bank account, or worse, maybe don't even know your logins?

• Or are you the type that obsessively checks your bank account everyday?

Get real, get honest. What does success in life look like to you, and how can money HELP you get there?

What do you want to splurge on, what do you want to sacrifice?

If you've read some of my other blog posts, you know one of my favorite life sayings is "you can have it all, just not at the same time." You can have the nice, brand new car, highest model. But maybe that means your home or apartment is a bit smaller. You can have brand name clothes, shoes, bags, but maybe that means you don't grab as much takeout during the week.

There's only so much income to go around, but the great thing about personal finance is that it is personal, and YOU get to decide where that money goes. Unfortunately, a very simple, often overlooked "hack" to wealth is spending less than you earn. Cue the record scratch. No really, a ground-breaking concept to many who make very good incomes but are left wondering at the end of each month, where does all my money go? More on that to come, but for now, after getting real and honest about your goals, it is time to get real and honest about what it is in life that you value most, and what doesn't make all that much of a difference.

Ketchup, for example. If you're too proud for Aldi's you ain't my type of people. Remember, you can have it all, just not at the same time. I am more than willing to sacrifice the brand of ketchup that I ultimately end up drowning my french fries in anyway so that my family can build a back deck. But if we do things the way we always have, if we fall victim to the fears of "not keeping up with the Joneses" then you will ultimately end up spending more than you make, no matter how much you make. Seriously, most people who make more money or get a raise have no issues finding more things to spend money on. It's called lifestyle creep and it's cancerous to happiness.

So embrace the dreaded concept of humility and frugality. Ask yourself, do I really care if my car has a sunroof? Do I need a certain brand of makeup? You are living your life for YOU, no one else, and it is silly to invest your hard earned money in things that truly don't even matter to you. If you love to travel and are hardly ever home, why splurge on a top of your budget home with a lot of upkeep? If you have a short commute and hate driving, why splurge on a fancy fully loaded car you hardly ever spend time in the drivers seat of?

Don't think of it as a restriction. Think of it as a choice, your choice. Decide what you want to spend your money on instead of it "disappearing" on you.

Understanding Your Inflows and Outflows

Ah, yes. Another groundbreaking concept that makes incredible sense as the one of the foundations of financial success: a budget. For some, just reading the word makes you crawl in your skin. For others, maybe you think "I'm doing fine, I don't need a budget."

Hot tip on reaching goals, financial or otherwise -- write them out, manifest them, talk about them and track them. Track your spending, write it out on paper, every dollar that comes in and goes out, for an entire month. I guarantee you will be surprised. Wow, I went out to eat how many times? I spend how much a month on groceries? Look at all the subscription fees that came out of my account, yikes!

The number one way to solve the old as time "where does my money go?" adage is ehm, finding out where your money goes.

If you're savy and want to start looking at the data trends here, step number two would be to download the handy dandy Every Dollar Budget App and let them auto-calculate how much you spend in each category. I love this app because it's FREE-ninety-nine and you can totally customize categories to your lifestyle. Gym memberships, groceries, clothing alotments, even "fun money," categories, the idea is every single dollar that comes in gets assigned to a category, then you can copy last month's category targets for this upcoming month. This gives you the power real time to say okay, I alotted $100 to going out to eat and am already at $75, that means I only have $25 left to spend.

It sounds restricting, but I promise it's actually freeing to know every dollar has a home and YOU have the power to tell that dollar where to go. It doesn't dissappear on you, by budgeting you actually TAKE BACK the control and ultimately, hold yourself responsible. Seriously, it sounds basic but the tools and resources are out there for you to succeed, you just need to be willing to put in the work!

If you're married, budgeting has to be a team investment. Truly, both of you looking at the numbers month after month, "our money, our goals" mentality. I am a firm believer in joint accounts for joint lives, if you can't be teammates when it comes to finances chances are your partnership lacks trust and fundamentally, you are bound to have conflict. Big financial decisions are made together, but you have to have confidence in your partner that you are both in agreement on where your money goes and what you are working towards.

If you're single, I recommend marriage. Okay, slightly teasing, because while I absolutely do recommend marriage for many many reasons, one of them being that dual income households are a major wealth hack, I totally get that there are seasons and reasons and again, personal choices are personal. That being said, find a community, find a confidant, find someone farther ahead then you to act as a mentor. I looked up to so many mentors growing up, still do, and just as they can guide you in your career and life decisions, they can provide amazing advice on what they did right and did wrong financially.

Save Up & Pay For it Outright 95% of the Time

Say it with me, DELAYED. GRATIFICATION! Bout to get on a soap box for a minute but what is it with this generation and it's obsession with instant gratification? I love me some Amazon Prime as much as your next Zillenial (yes, that's half millennial / half Gen Z, claiming this overlap for the 95-00 babes) but WHY OH WHY does everything have to be so "living in the moment, taking me wherever the wind blows next."

Going on vacations on a whim, swiping cards or Apple paying or Venmo-ing without feeling the paper leave your hands, seeing an ad for a puppy one day and getting the puppy the next. It just doesn't seem like a lot of planning or forethought is going into these decisions that financially, add up.

Make those personal decisions that make sense to you, and when you decide what you want to spend your money on, have the money you intend to spend in the bank before you spend it.

No, I'm not 100% anti-credit card. But trips, Christmas shopping, a new phone -- all of these things have some level of predictability associated with them, and therefore you should withhold the purchase until you have the purse. Don't finance a new phone. Save up little by little and own that phone outright! I try to live by the rule that I will finance a house and a car, but beyond that, I don't want to live my life in debt to anyone. I feel as though if you can't afford to pay for it in cash, you can't really afford it. And if you're going to use a credit card, pay that bad boy off EVERY month, all of it, to build up that credit and maybe earn some rewards or cash back.

Your vacation should NOT be going on a credit card. If you really want those expensive boots, save up for a month, give yourself time to really make sure you want them, and then make the purchase. For bigger home purchases (i.e. a new TV), we try to wait until an anniversary or Christmas just to "justify" in our minds that it's worth it and also, worth waiting for. There's very little that we NEED in life, but for those wants, give yourself time to want them, give yourself permission to save up, and don't get stuck in the hamster wheel of buying things you can't afford to keep up with your peers. Again, your choices, your priorities, your life.

Prioritize Saving for a Rainy Day

It's so much easier said than done, but saving is critical. Again, hot but very very simple tip -- save your money first. A common pitfall is going through the whole month, paying bills, eating out, living life and then "saving" whatever is left over for next month. That's not saving at all, by the way.

Create that separate savings account at your bank and at the BEGINNING of the month, when that paycheck hits, you transfer your savings right off the bat. Hot tip: you can even have your employer split up your check for you, so you don't even have to physically do it yourself! Automate and if you're tempted to dip into that savings account nest egg, make the savings account at a different bank, making it harder for yourself to dip in when you shouldn't.

There's lots of mindset hacks like naming your savings account "New Car" or whatever it is you've got your heart set on saving for, but perhaps the most helpful tip I've heard came from the Money with Katie Show, where she says saving = “deferred spending” (seriously go listen to Episode 33 of the Money with Katie Show Podcast) because, YES, you are giving yourself permission to spend it later. It's not about accruing dollars for the sake of the savings number getting bigger, it's setting future you up to get to spend that money hopefully on something really meaningful to you.

On the topic of future you, saving for retirement actually needs to be done before you even save in that personal savings account. Your employer most likely has some sort of retirement plan for you to be a part of, and you are going to want to AT MINIMUM, contribute whatever the match amount is.

Slow your roll, I know! In addition to "offering" you the option to invest in a company sponsored plan (i.e. we will help you get a retirement account set up) most (good) companies will offer some kind of "match," as in, you put in 3% of your paycheck pre-tax, our company will put in 3% too. Sweet! Free money! Yes, sign me up! If you aren't at least putting in the minimum to get that match, you are totally leaving money on the table for future you. Now sometimes, that match is "vested" meaning guess what, you have to work here x years to get that full match amount, kind of a bummer only if you don't plan on sticking around long.

The great thing about setting up a retirement account if your company offers it, though, is you get to take it if you happen to leave that company for a new one. Unlike a pension, that money is always yours, every dollar you invest in that retirement account is yours, no need to work x years to y age and ask pretty please. So set up the retirement account, no questions asked, if your employer offers it. If you're 20 or 40 it doesn't matter, you need to set it up and at least invest the match amount. More later on that to come!

What do I do with my extra money?

Ok so you're saving first, you're budgeting the other dollars coming in, you're prioritizing and focusing on that delayed dopamine hit of gratification from saving for purchases instead of swiping all day, you're paying that credit card balance off every month... now what?

Well, you might have caught my drift that I don't like being in debt to anyone. So if it were me, I'd pay off (not the monthly payment, not the minimum amount, but seriously throw extra dollars) at student debt, car loans, the mortgage... whatever kind of debt you have!

The math is simple, debt is not sustainable and will cost you money. Lots of money. It doesn't make sense to go into debt, but if you had enough money to pay for a new car or a home outright, you wouldn't even question going into debt. The truth is most people don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars for big purchases so in real life, some level of debt is inevitable. There's seasons and reasons and I don't believe all debt is bad, and truthfully think being entirely debt free start to finish in life is completely unrealistic. Not all debt is the same though! Consumer debt, mortgages, interest rates, oh my! Talking about paying off debt is a rabbit hole and there's plenty of resources at the end of this article if you're interested in entering said rabbit hole. But for now, just know that paying off debt before the due date, making any extra payment you can, WILL save you money.

Remember future you? Future you will thank you for not having to pay a mortgage into retirement years (major financial goal if you're looking for one, buy and pay off home before retirement!) but also, for saving for those non-working years. How much should you save for retirement? The experts will say 15% and the earlier you start, the better.

This year I turn 25 years old, and my husband and mine's goal is by the end of the year to each be contributing 10% pre-tax income into our retirement funds. I'm boring vanilla target date index funds, he is a little more adventurous, and that 10% doesn't include our employer matches, so not the recommended 15% BUT we have a lot of life happening right now, we are working towards other financial goals, have other (taxable) investment accounts for both ourselves and our daughter, and to be honest, probably plan on working pretty close to retirement age.

If your goals are different, if you would love to retire early, maybe bumping that retirement up to 15% or even more is in the cards for you. Maybe exploring other investment options, such as a Roth account (using post-tax money) is an option you should consider. I'm not a financial expert and not going to offer you advice on what you should and shouldn't invest in, but in general our plan is to continue striving to minimize debt use, maximize savings (in different vehicles) and playing the conservative long-game on investments.

For specific recommendations for you, I'd recommend talking to a professional, or doing your own research!

Resources worth Sharing!

Marriage Kids and Money If you're interested in mildly cheesey but totally worthwile financial advice, check out Andy's podcast!

Rachel Cruze The millenial face of Ramsey Solutions, Rachel shares so much content that is just so dang applicable to real life. While I will say that Ramsey model is limiting for some people, in my own personal opinion, it is a base knowledge of habits that is really a good starting point for anyone!

Seven Baby Steps Those basic Ramsey principles I mention above, here are the guiding principles to financial success. The most important principle worth taking to heart (in my own humble opinion) is that it is YOUR money and YOU should be telling it where to go -- ultimately, less to debt collectors and more towards investments!

The Financial Confessions It's edgy, NYC vibes and I'm here for this feminist she-preneur financial moment! I truly feel like a smarter, better educated human for having Chelsie speaking in my ears.

Money with Katie ditto on the last comment about a smart, sophisticated FEMALE voice of guidance in your little ear holes. Love listening to Katie's podcasts that are witty, comical, and highly digestible forms of advaced financial concepts. Can't reccomend this podcast enough!

I'd love some feedback from you! What recent money challenges or triumphs are going on in your life? What financial questions do you wish you had guidance on? Thoughts on this blog post? Do we want more like it?