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Financial Self Care
When will I stop incurring debts? Larisa muttered after receiving a call from the bank on her credit card.
Some months back Larisa decided to get a new apartment for a bigger space as her designing business was growing.
Larisa is an amazing fashion designer and she also writes articles for the local newspaper. She is doing amazingly well but she just couldn’t find solutions to her debts, they seem to be increasing day in and day out. She had gone to the bank for assistance on how to overcome the problem but it didn’t take long for her to incur a new debt.
Her problem is that she doesn’t track her finances, can’t account for her expenses and she loves shopping a lot, especially antique objects. She has a lot of them at home. What broke the camel’s back, was when she received a call from the bank about her credit card. She knew if something is not done, she might end up on the street.
Debt and its Effect
Debt is a deferred payment, or series of deferred payments, in exchange for a good or service. It is the postponement of payment for a good or service while enjoying the benefits thereof.
Debt can lead to anxiety and depression, which can increase headaches, affect sleeping patterns, and impact a person’s ability to focus. This type of physical stress on the body can result in more frequent colds and infections and affect a person’s ability to go to work which further enhances financial struggles. This can make a person suffer from mental and emotional distress.
Financial Self-care
We have over time limited self-care to our physical, mental, and emotional well being neglecting our finances, and forgetting that financial trauma is a real thing (a lot of people are suffering from it) and it becomes an unavoidable cycle if you don’t understand what financial self-care is and how to deliberately apply it to your life.
Your financial well-being is an essential aspect of your life and profoundly affects your security and overall happiness.
Financial self-care means reevaluating your relationships with money, savings, and investing to pave the way for a brighter, and more secure future.
Practicing financial self-care means focusing your time and energy on your money situation, making concrete plans and goals to cultivate a better financial future, and finding ways to support a healthy money mindset.
How to get started on financial self-care:
- Get the right mindset about money: Develop a mindset of abundance and that everything you need will come at the time you need it. Do not hold on to cliches that are not true for instance, “money doesn’t grow on trees”. Money will come from any and every source as long as you believe it.
- Circulate vs Spend: The thoughts we hold about a thing, determine how it plays out in our lives. The concept of spending connotes loss while that of circulating tells me as I circulate, it will come back to me.
- Cultivate the habit of saving: Do not wait until you start earning six, seven, or eight figures before you save. Start from the little you have.
The truth is, you can’t have enough to start your savings journey. Having just a couple hundred or thousand in savings improves your financial decision-making ability.
- Spend in alignment with your identity and values: Recent research showed that people get more joy when they spend on things that align with their identity and value. For some people, it could be buying books, attending seminars, or supporting local businesses; whichever is yours, it still goes down to your values and identity.
- Take Advantage of Free Money: There is free money out there and if you haven’t taken advantage of it yet, there’s no better time than now. Start with your employer, do they have retirement plans? What about referral bonuses? If so, jump on those opportunities, people around the world are leaving thousands of dollars on the table every year by ignoring employer perks.
There are deals and bonuses available all around you; make sure that you know you’re entitled to them because that money certainly adds up over time.
In conclusion, don’t underestimate the impact that true financial peace can make on your overall mental health. It’s not enough to commit to rigorous self-care of your mind and body, you can’t feel true peace until you begin to invest in yourself.
That being said, know that you have what it takes to get started toward financial freedom and that the process of creating a brighter financial future isn’t as hard as it may seem. Follow the financial self-care tips above, use them as a guideline on your money journey, and reap the benefits of your efforts. Remember, money may not buy happiness, but it can give you the freedom to live a life you love – all it takes to get there is a few small steps in the right direction today.
