Change your mind, change your money.
Your #1 Financial Tool
Today I want to share with you the #1 most powerful tool you can use as you work to pay off your debt. This tool is the next best thing to having your own money tree. 🙂 This a tool you may not have thought of, and the best part about it is that it’s totally free and accessible to you anytime.
I’m not even going to make you wait for it…
The tool I’m talking about is simply your mindset.
As I try to share with everything I post, your mind is your best weapon for or against you in everything you do in life.
This is one of the best financial lessons I learned early in married life.
For the first few years of our marriage we got into a decent amount of debt from school loans, cars, and credit cards.
Although I think differently about debt now, it really stressed me out back then. I especially hated the feeling of paying interest on credit cards. I remember one time when there was $75 in interest on our credit card payment. My thought was that for all that $75 bought me I should’ve just thrown $75 in the trash.
Now I know that that is not a helpful way to think, but that was how I thought about it back then and I was very motivated to change the situation. I was always looking for ideas of how to get out of debt and start getting ahead.
Thinking New Thoughts
One day while I was watching Oprah I got a very inspired idea from her guest, financial expert Suze Orman. Suze was teaching about creating what she called a “new truth” about your finances.
She said to think of what you want to be true about your money rather than what actually is happening in the present moment. From there, you create a “new truth,” stated in the present tense, that reflects what you want to be true about your money.
I really took that to heart and crafted the perfect new truth for us at the time. I put thought into every word until I came up with something that truly reflected what I wanted for our family. Our new truth was:
“We live well below our means and we have everything we want.”
I started repeating that new truth over and over in my head, and that was when we started to really get some leverage over our spending and our debt. That new thought was so much more empowering than thinking that we were throwing our money away on interest payments, and that we were so far behind that we’d never get ahead.
Up until then my main thought was, “As soon as we get paid, our money is already gone.”
Even now, thinking that thought feels so heavy and discouraging. I’m really sorry I let myself think that way, but it was just part of the process of learning we needed to experience… But thank goodness I found a better way when I did!
Once I started thinking and believing this new thought, my mind was more creative and open to seeing how much money was actually coming into our lives. It was so much more than I had realized when my focus was on the negative!
Focus on the Positive
Looking back I absolutely credit this new truth, or what I would now call a money mindset, with the beginning of the end of our days of debt.
Yes, we had to do the work to plan and budget, but it was easier to do with a positive mindset fueling our actions.
I was cleaning up recently and I found a paper from the time when we created our new truth. I had written across the top “Money is flowing into our lives!” Then I wrote all down all the money that came into our lives over the next couple weeks. It was amazing how much there was in addition to our regular income.
I wrote down things like…
Finding just-the-right-size ballet shoes for one of my daughters for 50 cents at a yard sale, and a calculator we needed for 10 cents at another one.
Receiving a bonus from work and a $100 check from my grandpa.
And my personal favorite… We refinanced our mortgage all the way down to 6.25% which saved us thousands of dollars in interest! ( I wonder what the rate was before we refinanced?! We are currently refinancing our mortgage to 2.5%!)
I share this with you in hopes that I can inspire you to create your own powerful money mindset.
How to Create a New Money Mindset Right Now
Here are three simple steps you can take right now to help you stop stressing about the debt and the bills, and start thinking in a way that will help you start crushing your debt and really get ahead:
1. Recognize your current thinking about your money.
Do you feel positive and hopeful, content and confident when you think about your money? If not, what do you feel and why?
Writing out all the thoughts that come up will help you get a big picture of where you are in terms of your money mindset.
2. Ask yourself what you want to be true about your money.
How do you want to think and feel about your money? What do you want your money to do for you? What kind of money thoughts inspire you?
Do you want to pay off your loans? Do you want big piles of money in the bank? Do you want to have money for a down payment on a home or money to travel?
Focusing on what you want is the best way to get clarity on the steps you need to take to get there.
3. Create a simple statement or affirmation that reflects your desires and intentions for your financial future.
Make this statement something that lifts your spirits and encourages you to stick to your goals. Don’t worry if it sounds crazy or impossible. It just needs to reflect what you really want for you and your family and that can be anything!
Keep repeating this statement, especially when you need a mental boost to keep you going in the right direction.
***Do yourself a favor and take five minutes to do this exercise right now. ***(Click link to open a Google doc.)
You can use the link above, copy and paste these questions into a note on your phone, or just write down your answers on a piece of paper or in a journal. If nothing else, just take a few minutes to think through the steps and questions and see what comes to you. If you’re anything like I was, you may be totally unaware of how you’re thinking and feeling about your money.
Give yourself a lot of grace in this process. This may be kind of hard, especially if you are used to avoiding thinking about your money, or if financial peace and security seems way out of reach for your right now. I promise it’s not!
The first steps towards reaching any goal are always taken in your mind.
Evolve Your Money Mindset
As I was writing this post I revisited the idea of a new truth or money mindset, and I decided that we needed a new money mindset for where we are at in our lives now.
I still love my old new truth, but it doesn’t really make sense for where we are financially right now. When I wrote that my husband was just starting his career and money was really tight. Now we are at the other end of things and starting to think more about what we want to do before retirement in the next 10-15 years. (My how the years have flown!!!)
For our current financial situation my husband and I decided to go with
”We are managing our money and making the most of our money.”
The reason we decided on this new money mindset is because we have just kind of been gliding along the last few years without a whole lot of direction or discipline in our financial lives. We’re doing well, but we know our money can do more if we are more intentional about it.
Can I just tell you guys that this has been so powerful?!
Shortly after coming up with that new money mindset we already did a few things we haven’t done in years. Things like setting up a contribution to our 401K, and setting up a new budget which we are actually following!
My hubby even made a cute little spreadsheet that makes it easy to track our spending, and its actually kind of fun! (Did I just say budget spreadsheet fun in the same sentence?) Literally this is huge you guys! It’s probably been 5 to 10 years since we were really diligent about sticking to a budget.
Until very recently tracking spending is not something I would have done or thought was fun, but my new mindset got me super motivated about managing our money better. Honestly I’m like a new woman! I love seeing the exact numbers and making conscious choices about my spending. This also makes my husband very happy because he thinks I am a crazy spending woman, (which may or may not be kind of true).
Anyway….wherever you’re at with your money today I really encourage you to come up with your own money mindset. Create a mindset that will help you do whatever it is you want to do and accomplish with your money right now. Put your focus on where you want to go and you will be amazed how quickly you will start to move in that direction. Soon you’ll be like the lady in this lovely stock photo…
Ok maybe not… in all seriousness it takes time and effort to change old thinking patterns, but the results are worth the effort!
Let me know how this goes and where you’re getting stuck. (And for sure let me know if this helps you get unstuck!)I’d love to hear your new money mindset statement when you create it. You can comment below or email me at mommindset@gmail.com.
XOXO
Rachel
