Last week I participated in the #finfit chat on . Near the end, one of the amazing hosts, Farnoosh () asked participants what their money mantra was. Some of my favorite responses included:
- J. Money’s sexy “It’s all about FREEDOM, baby! To use $ to power the life you REALLY want.”
- @Annwax’s “Money can help or hurt you, knowing how to live financially responsible is the key for a good life.”
- @Alphaconsumer’s “Stay focused on the big goals to make the smaller sacrifices easier.”
- And mine:
“If you know where your money goes, you know what to do with it–especially how to save it and use it well”
Now of course this is the nitty-gritty Twitter version, but loosely stated, my Money Mantra is built on the premise that one piece of a strong financial foundation is knowing where your money is going. If you don’t know where your money is going, how can you possibly decide how to budget, save, or invest it? If you have no idea what your monthly cash flow looks like, how can you make financial action plans or know how much you could be sending to your debt?!
In my opinion, the best way to know exactly where your money goes is to track your spending. Tracking your spending allows you to identify areas where you can cut back, gives you the ability to make changes to your spending habits that can result in extra money to throw at debt or save (or ideally both!), and provides you with a sense of financial well-being, control, and decision-making power. Sounds like a win-win to me!
So now I ask you,
What is your Money Mantra?
"With purposeful spending and saving I can make my dreams a reality."
"money in, money out"but being serious:"save a little today to play a lot tomorrow"
umm I don't have a mantra but I agree with your 'track what your spending' comment, we have a notepad in the kitchen and write everything we spend, each week a new page and it's helped us so much to see where we can cut back and it stops us spending if we can see we've already spent X amount this week. I'm proud to say we're now reaching our financial targets every month with this method
My money mantra is very cliche, but I always save a little something for a rainy day!
Love it, thanks for sharing!!@Astra–it really is amazing (and eye-opening) how your spending habits can change when you take a critical look at them.
"In life everything needs balance, yin and yang. Save some for the future and spend some today."Ironically I just made that up but I think it grasps what I firmly believe in.