Woo-hoo, you’ve made it to day seventeen!
You’re doing a great job! Take an internet high-five from me:
Your future self will thank you for doing this work now!
I’m so proud of you for sticking with your commitment to change your money mindset.
Today I wanna talk about one little tweak you can make to your daily money habits that can make all the difference in your money situation.
Especially when you could really use it.
Imagine if…
- …your phone breaks down and you urgently need to get a new one, and you have enough money to buy the phone you actually want, rather than the one you can barely afford!
- …you find your dream house and can put in an offer right away because you’ve got enough money saved to get a mortgage – or even buy it outright!
- …you’ve always dreamed of quitting your day job to have a food truck and you actually have the money to take the risk without ruining your life!
Wouldn’t that feel great? You bet it would!
Who doesn’t want to be able to say ‘yes, I have the money’ when it really matters?
But how’s that ever gonna happen if you’re always emptying your account as soon as you get paid, just so that you don’t have to deal with actually having money?
Yes, I know that you know that saving money for a rainy day is important.
I also know that you know you should be saving money before you spend it, or be doomed.
So, I’m not here to lecture you or make you feel bad for not doing it.
Habits are hard to change, and saving money isn’t about your ability to put that money aside for a rainy day – but keeping it there!
I’ve been there, and I know you can’t conjure money out of thin air, unless you’re David Blaine turning a homeless man’s coffee into coins. (Even that was most likely staged since you have to prep the cup for the trick in advance, but that’s a whole other conversation.)
But you can do a little optical illusion for yourself and set yourself a new zero.
Start small if it feels hard. Instead of zero being 0, set your zero at 20.
It’ll take a little practice, but you can train yourself to ignore that 20 as if it’s not really there.
Once you’re comfortable with 20 – and have managed to not spend it – raise it to 40.
And then ignore it. Treat it like it’s not there at all.
And then 50 and 100 and 500 and 2,000 and so on. You can move the money out of sigh to make it easier. Like putting it in a savings account and just forgetting about it.
You can also set an automatic transfer from your main account to your savings account every month to make it even more automatic and less reliant on you.
If you’re feeling really ambitious, carry it around in your wallet where you can see it every day.
The temptation to spend it is tenfold compared to it being squirrelled away somewhere.
And it’s harder to hang on to it, but the rewards are also greater because you’re pushing yourself harder.
At some point, you’ll want to put the money in an account anyway, as it isn’t advisable to walk around with wads of cash in your pockets.
Unless you’re Al Capone’s plus one!
And then just keep raising your zero. Every time you get comfortable, raise your zero.
This exercise is important because it trains you to be comfortable holding on to and having large amounts of money.
If you want to break that cycle of spending money as soon as it comes in, this is how you do it.
You know that you have money, but you learn to ignore it.
That way, when you really need it, it’s there for you to use.
TODAY’S HOMEWORK:
- Raise your zero and start putting money aside.
- Carry cash in your wallet and challenge yourself to not spend it.
- Set a big goal to set aside a certain amount of money and forget about it.
