Three Ways to Use Your Planner for Financial Self-Care
Are you good with organizing your financial self-care goals?
What does it even mean to organize your financial self-care? How can we use planners to help keep us organized?
Let’s talk about it! This month, we’re chatting about financial self-care. (If you missed the first part of the series, we talked about self-care reminders from The Psychology of Money. Check it out here!) In this post, we’ll talk about ways to use planners to keep us organized during our financial self-care journeys.
Financial Self-Care is Not Easy
Like I shared last week, financial self-care is not easy and it’s not my favorite area to talk about. Part of the struggle with financial self-care is organization. It’s not easy to keep our finances organized at times. I mean, if it was easy, no one would ever forget about a bill that’s due or applying for a loan, right?
That’s where planning comes in to save the day.
We use our planners to keep track of every other aspect of our lives, including our meals, schedules, meetings, jobs, appointments, and more. Why not strategically use our planners to help us along our financial self-care journeys?
Here are three ways to use your planner for financial self-care:
Affirmations for Financial Self-Care
For me, a big portion of my financial self-care journey focuses on shifting my mindset. I love shopping especially when I’m not feeling well emotionally or I had a rough work day. Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with shopping. But like most things, shopping (stress, etc.) can become a dangerous activity if you aren’t careful or mindful. So my financial self-care journey focuses on shifting my beliefs and thoughts around spending money. That’s why I like to use my planner to help me track affirmations for financial self-care.
(If you’re new to self-care and want to learn more about writing affirmations, check out this blog post for some tips!)
I often write affirmations that focus on cultivating good habits. For example, I like to affirm that “I am capable of making smart investing decisions” or “I release the need to shop when I am feeling sad or overwhelmed” to remind myself that I have the skills and knowledge to achieve my financial self-care goals.
Here’s an example of a financial self-care affirmation in my planner. This affirmation serves as a reminder that I am capable of making smart financial decisions and taking care of my finances.
What’s your go-to financial self-care affirmation? Add it to the comments below!
Grab your planner and write down a few finance-related affirmations to empower you during this stage of your journey. By using your planner, you can easily access the affirmations when you need a quick reminder of your goal or mindset shift.
Tracking
An intentional way to use your planner for financial self-care is for tracking. For example, try using your planner to track your investments, any stock you’re thinking about buying, or even your spending. You can also track your financial habits or any goals that you set for yourself. Want to cut down on frivolous spending? Track your “no spend” days using a habit tracker in your planner. Want to get in the habit of checking your checking account daily (which you absolutely should be doing anyway, trust me)? Track this habit in your planner as well.
There are so many inserts and planner accessories that can help you track different aspects of your finances. Here are a few examples:
Good Mondays 2023 Digital Planner (with Finance layouts included).
Cloth & Paper Routine Building inserts.
8Lotus Financial Overview inserts.
Reminders
Another idea is to use your planner to remind yourself about your finances. Whether you need a reminder about an upcoming bill or a reminder about your motivation for a particular goal, your planner is a great way to write down these reminders and keep them close to you. Sometimes we need to remember the “why” in the midst of the journey. So grab your planner and some sticky notes and write reminders for yourself.
If you find yourself struggling to stay motivated, use your planner to create a financial self-care mood board. How do you envision your best financial self? Maybe you’re debt free? Maybe you paid off your car? Maybe you are in the financial space to donate monthly to your favorite cause? Create a mood board in your planner to help keep you motivated during the journey.
Do what works for you!
As you think about the ways you can use your planner in your financial self-care journey, don’t forget to consider what planners or planning systems work best for you. Not everyone likes paper planning and that’s okay! If you want to use a digital planner and your phone, choose that option. If you’re like me, you might enjoy paper planning for everything BUT financial self-care. Recently, I’ve used a few lines on my weekly plans in my half-letter planner to write down bills that are due (and not on auto-payment). But I still use my digital planner to budget my paychecks and my Google calendar to track bills that are not on auto-pay. Regardless find what combination of systems works for you.
How do you use your planner for self-care? Comment below!