25 Financial Self-Care Practices To Help You Take Better Care of Your Mental Well-Being
Self-care and wellness go way beyond just taking care of your mental, physical and emotional health. In fact, one of the best ways to take care of your mental health and well-being is through financial self-care.
Here are 25 financial self-care ideas to help you take control of your money worries and relieve stress.
My financial wellness journey
Throughout my twenties, I didn’t care about money.
I mean, I cared about earning it but I didn’t care about spending or saving it.
I would spend as much as I earned and without fail, I would hit my overdraft every month.
Living in London throughout my twenties was very much an “all-in” event where if I wasn’t out partying nearly every night, I was wasting my young years.
My money would all go on expensive night-outs, drinks, new outfits, heels, and of course hangover brunches.
On the outside, I was living the dream.
On the inside, I was an anxious, crumbling mess with a money problem.
Fast forward to 2019 during my solo trip in Peru, I read Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.
It was life-changing.
I know I say this about books a lot but honestly, Rich Dad Poor Dad literally changed my entire perspective on money and what it means to be “rich.”
And since then I’ve been a lot more intentional with how I use and spend my money.
For starters, I don’t spend nearly much as I did. Even though I am currently travelling through Europe, my expenses are still less than they ever were in London. I even managed to save money while travelling through South America as I taught English online. I don’t shop nearly as much as I did and have gotten used to selling things I no longer need on eBay.
But one of the most important things I have done in the past 2 years and continue to do, is invest in myself.
Along with investing in stocks, I have put money towards mindset coaching, blogging courses and now a health coach course which will all give me back a return on investment.
And I am also currently working on my money mindset to help me feel less awkward about selling and more open to talking about money in general.
I have been on a financial wellness journey for the past 2 years and I still feel like I’m just getting started.
Yes, I feel less stressed about money as I now have the attitude that money can always be made, but like with any journey, there’s still a long way to go.
“I am concerned that too many people are focused too much on money and not on their greatest wealth, which is their education. If people are prepared to be flexible, keep an open mind and learn, they will grow richer and richer through the changes. If they think money will solve the problems, I am afraid those people will have a rough ride. Intelligence solves problems and produces money. Money without financial intelligence is money soon gone.”
Robert Kiyosaki | Rich Dad Poor Dad
What is financial self-care?
Before I do a deep dive into the 25 of ways you can practice financial self-care, let’s first recap financial self-care and what it means.
Similar to how environmental self-care allows you to take better care of your surroundings, financial self-care simply means taking better care of yourself financially.
Think about it, how stressed out do you get thinking about money, checking your bank account on a daily basis or saving for the future?
Money worries are one of the biggest causes of stress and anxiety. And like with anything, if it is not dealt with head-on, financial stress can lead to even bigger health problems.
So cultivating a healthy relationship with money is essential for your mental health as it helps eliminate stress and anxiety from your life.
Practising financial self-care is important if you want to be able to stay on top of your money and work towards financial goals such as saving for a trip abroad or paying off your credit card.
For me, financial self-care also means learning more about money and improving my financial intelligence. It’s improving my mindset around money so I can feel more open to talking about it and feel less negative towards people who have lots of it.
“… embrace the fact that your quest for riches is a quest to become more of who you truly are. We don’t all desire to live a huge, fancy life or solve world hunger, that’s not what this is about. It’s about you letting yourself be the biggest badass you can be whatever that happens to look like for you.”
Jen Sincero | You Are A Badass At Making Money
25 ways to practice financial self-care
The key to financial self-care is developing the right financial wellness habits that work for you. Your personal approach will vary depending on what goals are important in your life and how much time can be dedicated to practising them.
But there always needs to be some level of consistency.
I encourage you to build a weekly or monthly financial self-care routine where you actively check in with your money habits, mindset and goals.
And here is an extensive list of ideas to help you develop this routine so you can start to take better care of your financial wellness and relieve stress.
- Read Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
- Create a realistic monthly budget which you use to control where your money goes — I know it sounds boring but trust me, it will help you feel less stressed about your personal finances
- Use a budgeting app to help you organise and keep track of spending, income and expenses
- Realign with your core values to ensure you are spending money on a life you truly want and not what you think you want
- Set clear financial goals for the quarter or year — reflect and journal on how these goals went
- Deal with debt head-on by prioritising debt payments and paying them off as quickly as possible — don’t just ignore them hoping they will go away
- Save money each month for a treat purchase, holiday or investment fund
- Automate any bill payments so you don’t need to worry about missing due dates
- Educate yourself — there are plenty of free financial resources out there so figure out what you want to know and what you don’t know and improve your financial intelligence
- Listen to financial or money-related podcasts
- Unpack a lifetime of money myths and triggers through financial healing — be your own therapist or try financial therapy
- Forgive yourself for any previous bad money habits and expensive mistakes. Move on from the past and reinvent your future financial self
- Write down positive money affirmations daily and repeat them out loud
- Build a 30-minute weekly financial self-care routine
- Check your bank account at least once a week and track your spending
- Monitor any suspicious transactions on your statements
- Stop spending money on things you don’t need or won’t use
- Say no to expensive weekends, nights out or holidays with friends that you don’t really want to do. Remember your boundaries — it’s ok to say no
- Enrol on a money mindset course
- Read You Are A Badass At Making Money by Jen Sincero and DO the exercises
- Start discussing money with friends who are just as open as you about it
- Allocate money in your budget for the occasional treat as a reward for achieving your financial goals and habits
- Invest money into outsourcing non-important or urgent tasks so you can focus more time on doing what is important
- Start an emergency fund which you can pay into each month. This is separate from a savings fund as it will be used for emergencies only like unexpected expenses
- Work with a money coach so you can stay accountable
Save these financial self-care ideas on Pinterest!
Final thoughts
I am in no way an expert on financial wellness.
I share these self-care ideas in the hope that they will inspire you in some way. Even if that’s just to make you feel less alone as so many people also struggle when it comes to money worries.
These tips are also in no way meant to act as a solution.
They are here to encourage you to start taking better care of your finances so you can take better care of your mental health and well-being.
I encourage you to bookmark this page and refer back to it whenever you need to.
And if you ever need to chat, my inbox is always open.
Until next week,
Thalia xx
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