When it comes to your money, “fear” can often feel like the largest part of it. It can show up in resource fear such as: will I have enough to retire, will I have enough to pay the rent, when can I stop living paycheck to paycheck? Or personal fear like: I feel unsafe in my home/ job/ relationship but I don’t have enough money to leave. Or emotional fear sounding something like: I feel unworthy, shameful, pathetic, etc. because of the amount of money I don’t have. And all those feelings are valid and potentially real threats in our lives and in our pocketbooks.
But what I hate to see happen is when those fears eat someone alive so much that they can’t find their way out of them. Now that I have a well-established budget, I can genuinely tell you that it banishes the fear I used to feel about all the “unknowns” or the forces I felt like I couldn’t control when it came to my finances. There is nothing to fear when you have full transparency into your money, and you have a well-built plan to get you to your goals. So how do you become a fearless money warrior? Here are 3 ways I know how to kick fear to the curb.
- Know where every dollar is
I can not stress enough how knowing how much you have coming in and how much you have going out is crucial to banishing any fear you have about money. When you know, there is nothing to be afraid of. Once you know, you now have all the information you need to make a plan and move forward. I know what it feels like to live in fear. I used to be terrified to log into my bank account and my credit card and to see what the balances were. I used to simply cross my fingers and hope my paycheck (which I also didn’t know how much that was every month) would cover what I spent. It was a never-ending game of roulette. Which might be fun to play for a couple of nights in Vegas but with your life?! That is a sure-fire way to induce insomnia, daily nausea, and constant fear about your well-being. No thank you.
But I understand how knowing how much you have coming in and knowing how much you have going out can be absolutely terrifying. Maybe you are making less and spending more than you think. Maybe you are in debt that you can’t see how you’d ever get out of. Maybe the expenses in your life are so big and feel so permanent that you can’t imagine how you would ever make enough money to pay for them. I hear you. When I started down my financial freedom journey I was nearly $200,000 in debt (mic drop). Does that number scare you? It scared me! I thought to myself, “how the hell will I ever pay that off?” But once I knew that number I became empowered to do something about it.
Over the next 7 years, I doubled my income into a six-figure salary, paid off over half my debt, saved $100,000, and bought a home, by myself. I still owe a pretty penny on my student loan but once I got myself out of the financial game of Jenga I was playing, I could see a solution on how to tackle that debt once and for all. This year I was able to refinance my student loan saving myself over 3% in interest and the end is in sight.
I promise you that transparency is the key to financial freedom and wealth. So if you don’t know where every penny is going today, sit down asap and figure it out.
- Build a budget and stick to it
You can’t determine where you are going to end up if you don’t have a plan. Sometimes that can be exciting like heading out onto the open road with nowhere in mind except to just go somewhere else. But when it comes to your finances, having no plan is equivalent to opening up your front door and throwing all your money outside. Who knows where any of it will end up? A budget is your pathway out of debt and into wealth. A budget is a way you can tell your money where you want it to go and what you want it to do for you. A budget is how you pay off debt, save your first $10,000, and get yourself back in the money driver seat.
I have been budgeting every day since October 2015, or 2555 days to be exact. That means for 2555 days I have been in charge of my financial freedom. 2555 times I have been able to tell my money where to go. If you do anything 2555 times it’s going to add up whether you planned it or not. Imagine if you ran a mile every day; that would be 2555 miles by now. Or saved a dollar every day, which would equal $2555. Or if you read a chapter every day, you’d have read 2555 chapters (which is basically hundreds of books). The point is, a budget is the best tool you can have in your toolbox when you are trying to get out of debt and build a pathway to wealth.
- Save every month no matter the amount
This is my favorite secret weapon to becoming a fearless money warrior. When you have money saved, no matter the amount, it creates a sense of success and freedom that no amount of fear can fully banish. And the more you save, the more financial power you give yourself. It allows you to protect yourself from unexpected expenses, it allows you to breathe if a deal doesn’t come through one month, or you had to take more shifts off than you expected, and it allows you to make the right moves based on what you need for your life vs. for the money. Having money saved is the best way to banish fear because it tells you every time you do it and every time you see your balance, that YOU have control over your money instead of your money having control over you.
I’m not here to tell you that fear might not hitchhike along on your journey, but with a few key steps in place, like knowing where every dollar is going, building a budget, and saving money every month no matter the amount, you can kick that fear to the curb
As always, do what makes you happy and healthy!
Xoxo,
Amy
