Real Goals: Being financially, mentally, academically, physically, spiritually, and emotionally stable.

Stability is everything.

Being it emotional or physical. You need a solid ground to build anything on. I tell my clients all the time that they need a solid foundation to build on and in financial terms that would be your budget. Your budget is that solid map that tells you what direction to go in. I fully believe that I am more stable in all areas of my life because I am so stable in my finances. Money connects to everything whether we like it or not. It is on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly into our own selves.

There are so many emotions around money that turn into blocks. Sometimes people don’t even realize that they are subconsciously blocking themselves from wealth. It is a mindset for sure. Diving into those blocks and negative feelings around money will only help you break through those barriers and into your new life. Stability in finances requires Balance, Consistency and Discipline which I say ALL THE TIME. When stability becomes a habit, maturity and clarity follow. Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle. The struggle is real when you are trying to stay disciplined and stick with your budget. I get it.

Stability is necessary for your future economic success. Finances are not stable by any means but you have the upper hand when you are in control of your finances. You want to make your money work for you. Investing is a great tool but way less stable than your average 9-5pm job. Investing is about trends and sadly politics/media but once you figure that out its so easy. I used to think there were major calculations that I had to do in order to figure out my best investing opportunity. WRONG. You just have to know the trends and current events plus be less attached to your money. Investing requires some gambling and you have to be OKAY with that.

Stability Within Your Finances 

It is almost year-end and you tend to reflect on how much you have been able to achieve in regards to your previously-set financial goals. Are you satisfied with the current state of your finances? 

Imagine a world where you don’t have to worry about money to live the kind of life you have always craved for. You have enough to enjoy that vacation, buy a new home, pay your bills consistently and on time, and live comfortably at retirement. Of course, these are possible, however, only with financial stability.

Financial stability is not only possible when you are stupendously rich. In fact, it is not measured by the amount of money you have. Rather, it is all about being confident that your everyday finances are enough to help you reach your financial goals involving zero-debt, savings, and insurance. Only individuals with stability within their finances can cover their basic needs as well as enjoy a comfortable lifestyle.

Achieving stability with your finances is, of course, possible, even in this ever-changing world. It isn’t rocket science. However, it is not as easy as being portrayed. You need to develop good financial habits including planning, organizing, commitment, discipline, and resilience. Financial stability leads to peace of mind, happiness, and long-term satisfaction.

How Do You Achieve Financial Stability?

On the path to financial stability, accepting the addictions that often cause financial instability is a good way to start. These addictions include overspending or impulse spending, gambling, materialism, and paying bills late. With these taken care of, you are on track to making a good headway with your finances. 

It is important to note that there are no shortcuts to achieving financial stability. The steps involved require time, effort, and consistency. The following actions will help you achieve stability within your finances.

1. Create a Financial Plan

Every decision, especially involving finances, should be hinged on a plan. Otherwise, you tend to make the wrong financial decisions. A financial plan helps you gain control over your spending. Usually, a financial plan considers your income, spending, savings, debt, and insurance. In other words, a financial plan gives you an idea about what you earn as against what you owe, thus serving as a blueprint to help you develop a financial budget. 

2. Create a Financial Budget

Once you have good knowledge about your self-worth, then you need a personal budget to help you have absolute control over your spending. The way you spend has a great impact on other financial decisions you make. A budget is organized based on cash inflow (income) and cash outflow (expenses). You may also want to break down your expenses into needs and wants. 

Definitely, there are some basic expenses or fixed expenses you cannot avoid every month. Some of them include food, rent, and water or electricity bills. Others, such as cable subscriptions, can come under not-too-important bills or variable expenses, especially if your income cannot conveniently cater for it.

A financial budget, when you stick to it, helps you to prioritize spending and saving, reduce or eliminate expenses, spend wisely, and make wise financial decisions that can help you achieve financial stability. Nevertheless, a budget must be flexible to allow for modifications in case of unforeseen circumstances.

3. Control Your Impulse Spending

This is apparently a major problem that is common with almost everyone. Money has a way of controlling us so much that we get easily carried away when we have some funds in our wallet. We always want to show we can afford certain things. Impulse spending, especially on such activities as eating out and extensive shopping, drains our finances, thus resulting in financial instability. To avoid this, it is important to control and monitor our impulse spending. Have a second thought before deciding to make any purchase.

4. Spend and Live Frugally

One wrong financial decision is to live above one’s income. The result is often disastrous. Before making the decision to make any purchase or initiate any spending, you may have to ask yourself this question: How easy can I get back each dollar I spend? If you are able to think deeply about this, then you will be careful with your spending.

Do you need a new home or car now? Is that vacation important now or you can still have it some other time? Living or spending frugally doesn’t imply that you don’t want to enjoy the comfort life has got to offer. However, it helps you to be disciplined as well as identify spending areas that are not necessary, at least, at the moment.

5. Pay Off Your Debt On Time

If you have some debts to settle, it might be necessary for you to develop a debt payment plan. List out your debts (personal loans, credit cards, etc.) and organize them in either ascending or descending order. In your budget, make allocations for debt settlement, even if you have to deny yourself of certain benefits. Remember, late payment of debts can lead to increased interests, and this means more debts.

Once this process continues, you will be surprised at how “easy” it is to get out of debt. If you have credit card debt, you may have to consider using cash to make purchases. This prevents you from spending more than you have. Debt elimination process often takes a long time. However, it is a rewarding process. When you are out of debt, you will be able to make other financial decisions.

6. Create an Emergency Fund

Who ever thought they would get sick at a time they are down financially? Or get involved in an accident that will necessitate treatment? The reality is that life comes with unexpected occurrences that will require your attention. How do you factor this in your budget when you barely have enough money after your expenses?

Your best bet is to create an emergency fund. Emergencies could involve a major car repair or having to take an unplanned trip. An emergency fund not only serves as a backup plan, but it also helps you to navigate through a tough time with little or no financial stress.

7. Make Plans for Retirement

You are 25 and you feel you still have a whopping 35 years before you attain retirement. You will be surprised at how fast time flies. Remember that your salary will stop someday, as a salary earner. There is no better time to start saving or investing for your retirement than now. Otherwise, you may be jeopardizing your future with uncontrolled spending in the present. Little money snowballs into a large amount in no time.

Check if your company has a 401(k) plan for its employees. The plan becomes more necessary if your employer will match some of or all your contributions to your company retirement plan. You can also consider a Roth IRA.

Key Takeaway

The actions discussed above are the right steps towards achieving stability within your finances. You should have started yesterday. However, another opportunity is NOW. Remember, you shouldn’t get too focused on saving and investing that you forget to enjoy life. Sure, it costs money too. However, it also contributes to a healthy and happy life. You may only have to consider cheap options, such as going for a show, having a massage once in a while, or inviting a few friends for a game night.

Free Gift

Check out the FREE video series on my 3 Keys to Unlocking Your Financial Freedom! This video series touches on Budgets, Tackling Debt, and Ways to Increase Income TODAY! I created this series for those of you who have been hit hard by COVID-19. I want you to know there is nothing you can’t accomplish and creating a plan of action is always a great starting point.

Consistency is the key to unlocking life-changing financial habits. Those of us who dream of saving more in our sleep can’t imagine not putting money aside for an emergency. For others, it’s a struggle for a number of reasons:

• They never learned from their parents how to manage money.
• They don’t have enough income to cover their major expenses.
• They are taking care of other members of their family and that doesn’t leave room for them to save.
• They care too much about what people think, so they overspend to impress.
• They don’t see the point of denying what they want in the present to save for the future since tomorrow isn’t promised.

Financial Literacy

The ability to understand and effectively use various financial skills, including personal finance management, budgeting, and investing. It is unfortunate that these skills weren’t taught to us in school. I just so happen to have grown up around my family’s business where they all do taxes. These things come naturally to me. If you never learned how to create a budget, learn. It is never too late to learn a new skill.

Here are some books I recommend reading:

• Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter
• The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
• Transforming Your Relationship With Money by Joseph R. Dominguez, Monique Tilford, and Vicki Robin

Income

It is crucial to review the previous month’s budget to stay consistent with it. You need a solid monthly/weekly routine so you can be the most consistent with your financial wellness. Every month brings new expenses and a different set of priorities on where to spend your money. Checking in with your budget allows you to project any new expenses for the coming month and reallocate your income if necessary.

If your income is too low to cover your expenses then I suggest digging deep and finding a new side hustle or turning a hobby into a job where you can earn some money off of doing something you love. You can really get creative when it comes to increasing income.

Here are a few examples:

• Sell Stuff Online
• Drive people around
• Become a virtual assistant
• Negotiate Salary

Change Your Money Habits

Consistency plays such a huge role when it comes to achieving any type of success. I’m sure you can imagine that consistency is a key factor in the area of your finances too. Your money habits are formed based on how you constantly handle your money from saving to spending. As simple as that sounds, you might not have considered how consistency affects different parts of your life.

With any habits, money habits can also be good or bad, so in order for you to achieve financial freedom you obviously need to be consistent with good money habits. Good money habits have to do with both saving money but also how you spend it. If you’re not consistently saving money then you are probably consistently spending it. It’s the consistency you have with both of those things that will determine your financial success.

Be Rich, Don’t Look Rich

Trying to impress people is pointless. Most people never become wealthy because they waste too much money on buying symbols of success. They are more focused on looking rich instead of becoming rich. Living below your means and investing your extra income is how you build wealth. No matter how much money you make, you must spend less than you earn. Don’t be in a rush to look successful. Don’t fall into the trap of pretending to be rich.

The longer you practice consistency, the more automatic it becomes. You need to build good money habits and ask yourself if you are consistently frugal or consistently careless.

Here are some ways to stay consistent with your finances:

• Automation- Auto payments for bills is a super easy way to achieve consistency in your personal finance life
• Calendar reminders- Setting a simple reminder on your phone’s calendar can help provide consistency in tasks as well
• Budget apps- Utilizing an app for your budget can help you stay consistent with checking your budget monthly

Free Gift

Check out the FREE video series on my 3 Keys to Unlocking Your Financial Freedom! This video series touches on Budgets, Tackling Debt, and Ways to Increase Income TODAY! I created this series for those of you who have been hit hard by COVID-19. I want you to know there is nothing you can’t accomplish and creating a plan of action is always a great starting point.

Not knowing where to start is OKAY. Trust me, you are not alone. So many people struggle with those scary wandering around in the dark feelings when it comes to their money.

I grew up around the financial world. Budgeting and saving is like second nature to me. I have done my budget since I was 18 years old. Once I got my first real job outside of my family’s business and I LOVED shopping at Target. I had to figure out a way I could save money but also have fun and buy myself something I wanted.

Start With Your Budget

Start with your budget. Your budget is the road map or blueprint to guide you where ever you want to go. Budgets are LIFE. Every month I customize my own budget along with my monthly clients so we can see our areas of OPPORTUNITY. These are the categories you overspend in. Monthly adjustments are something that keep you in check with your goals whether short term or long term. It’s all about Balance, Consistency, and Discipline.

Setting a Realistic Budget

Setting a realistic budget means diving into those sticky areas of your life and seeing what type of spending you have been doing. What type of categories do you have within your budget? Do you have long term goals? Do you have debt? By answering these questions you can track these and make sure every dollar has a purpose. I have a great blog post about the foundation of a budget that you should check out called Budgets: Foundation for a Solid Budget.

Balance

Balance is key in life in general but especially within your finances. You need a balance between spending money and saving it. You should be spending money on bills plus any irregular expenses that pop up throughout the month, but you should also have a “Savings” & a “Retirement” category to toss money in each month as well. These categories being in your budget will ensure you add money to it if you are also consistent and disciplined.

Here are some ways to bring balance to your financial life:

• Set some goals
• If you are a small business owner, pay yourself on a schedule
• Have an emergency fund
• Create a debt payoff plan
• Utilize tax-deferred investment plans
• Create a Will

Consistency

Consistency is so important when it comes to your budget. You have to keep up with your budget to see results. REMEMBER, it is just a blueprint for you to follow. It should not feel like a restriction, but more like a structured guideline that helps you figure out what your areas of OPPORTUNITY are. Consistently checking in with your spending is like going to the doctor for a check up. It keeps you healthy and aware.

Here are some ways to stay consistent with your finances:

• Increase your knowledge
• Increase your income
• Change your money habits
• Be rich, don’t look rich

Discipline

Discipline is hard. I feel you. We all have trouble telling ourselves no. I love buying gifts for my family and friends. Something I have to constantly check in with is WHY I want to spend money. I used to shop A LOT and I racked up a huge credit card bill which took me about a year to pay off. I use that as an example when talking to myself about why it’s probably not a good idea to buy that $400 purse.

Since having kids though, I have transitioned my way of thinking. I now appreciate experiences more than “things” or “stuff.” I want to provide my children with life experiences and teach them to be kind humans rather than purchasing things trying to look “cool.” It is definitely a priorities game. Whatever is a priority to you will end up on your budget. It’s all about Balance, Consistency & Discipline.

Here are a few ways to stay disciplined in the new year:

• Set some financial goals
• Use automation for your bills
• Give yourself a challenge
• Change your money habits
• Get an accountability partner or financial coach

Free Gift

Check out the FREE video series on my 3 Keys to Unlocking Your Financial Freedom! This video series touches on Budgets, Tackling Debt, and Ways to Increase Income TODAY! I created this series for those of you who have been hit hard by COVID-19. I want you to know there is nothing you can’t accomplish and creating a plan of action is always a great starting point.