Spending with Your Values
Syncing Your Spending with Your Personal Values
How Aligning Your Spending Habits with Your Values Commands a Huge Personal Payoff
With all that’s been going on over the past year and a half, we’ve all found it difficult to avoid practicing a mindset of immediate self-gratification. Since we’ve sacrificed greatly in many ways, it’s easy to feel like we’re owed the opportunity to squeeze enjoyment into our daily lives as often as possible.
There’s nothing wrong with this type of thinking. In fact, it’s very natural to feel this way. But when it comes to our finances, we have to be careful not to make long-term decisions based on short-term emotions and circumstances. Developing a correlated relationship between your finances and your everyday personal values is a much healthier, practical, and lasting solution for feeling more at ease in your life.
How can you feel more confident in your financial decisions?
Syncing up your spending with your personal values is a phrase you’ve probably heard before. But what does it mean? It simply means spending your money where it counts. Making sure that your daily financial behaviors and decisions are aimed at long-term personal satisfaction. This is done by avoiding impulse decisions that will likely have lingering consequences.
Remember, your personal values are the foundation of your identity. They’re what bring joy, fulfillment, and purpose to your life. So, it’s safe to assume that if your spending habits support your overall well-being, you’ll experience a greater overall financial balance. When you adopt this practice, you will feel more confident in your budgeting and trust yourself more when it comes to making everyday purchases. Most of all, you won’t have to worry about buyer’s remorse.
Tips for defining your personal values:
List your most important goals and desires
List the activities and experiences that make you the happiest
If you have a long list, great! But narrow the list down to your top 5 items that bring you the most joy for the sake of clarity.
Now that you’re clear on what you value most, you’re prepared to create a plan for guiding your spending in a way that reflects your value system. When you’re faced with the urge to splurge on material things, you’ll find it much easier to sacrifice making insignificant purchases now for the sentimental gain of the greater good. For example, those shoes may look good on your feet while you’re trying them on in the store, but they wouldn’t come close to the experience of watching a sunset beside your family on a trip to Paris.
Tips for creating a budget and purchasing behavior that reflects your personal values:
Evaluate your spending patterns from the past 90 days to determine:
Track your emotional/impulsive purchases versus practical purchases
Determine whether your purchases are truly congruent with your values
Where you can tweak your budget to reach your long-term goals
Create a vision board of your long-term goals and favorite things
If applicable, include your closest loved ones’ goals (spouse, children)
Devise a plan on what you all want to skip spending on now to enjoy memorable collective experiences later on
Agree on ways to hold one another accountable in reaching your goals
Create affirmation or mirror messages to recite when you’re feeling the urge to splurge in a non-aligned way. (Planned and aligned splurges are encouraged!)
Put a poster board up in your bedroom with your largest bill’s balance so you can watch the balance decrease with each payment.
Learn to say no now in order to say yes later.
So, I hope you’re ready to jump right into this new way of viewing your finances.
Although it may be a bit difficult to change your spending habits, doing so can help you develop a better financial situation immediately. At Beyond Money, we believe in securing financial wins to feel in control of your financial journey.
Hopefully, these attainable, quick, and simple tips have a real impact on your money mindset. Since everyone’s individual goals and needs are different, keep in mind: no quick list can ever replace customized money coaching. Please shoot us an email if you have any questions or hurdles as you work your way through these steps!
Our goal is to create personal money habits and value-driven spending to lead your best life now and plan for a better future — and we can help you get there.
For customized help figuring out your debt payoff strategy, schedule a call with Beyond Money to get started!
Next Steps
If you want customized help figuring out your debt payoff strategy, let’s chat! Schedule a call with Beyond Money, and let’s get started!