Fitness is good for you. Of course it is, nobody is arguing with this fact. Eating a healthy and well-balanced diet is also good for you. Again, no arguments. We all inherently know that taking care of our bodies is the right thing to do – after all, we only get one. What about Financial Fitness?
Financial Health
What we don’t hear talked about nearly as often is our financial fitness. There are no selfies taken with your finance coach (we could change that though!), no hashtags dedicated to never missing a family budget meeting, or cool gifs for using cash envelopes. We’ve got to change the image out there, friend.
Money is still a secretive, sort of taboo topic. We all know that we need some of it in order to pay for our expenses, we traditionally perform work of some variety in order to get money, and we spend it very routinely. We tend to make quick judgements or even have ‘feelings’ when we see someone driving a new car, clutching a fancy new handbag, or vacationing in style across our social media feeds. Step away for a minute. Don’t let anyone else’s highlight reel dictate your actions. You don’t have time for that! Or for this ‘money stuff’ to be a burden of any kind for you any longer.
Financial Fitness is important!
How we spend our money, what we spend our money on, how we tackle things like debt, daily expenses, and savings is considered a very private matter. I’m not suggested that we all post our W-2’s, but I am going to suggest that we start considering that how “fit” our finances are plays into our overall wellness, much like a well-balanced diet and regular exercise routine. Beginning to own your part in that, wrap our heads around how important it is – and finding a safe place to get the support you need is what I want for you this coming year.
- Does the idea of how you’re going to pay your debt off give you a sinking feeling in your stomach?
- Does looking at your savings account give you anxiety?
- Do you know where all of your money is headed on a weekly basis? Have you been able to keep up with your Venmo, Facebook payment, Square, and Apple Pay transactions?
- Do you ever wonder where your paycheck went?
- Does your car payment ever make you feel like your car is more of a curse than a blessing?
- If the market crashed and your creditors called in their loans, would you be okay?
Looks a lot like stress?
IF you have ever felt those feelings you are not alone my friend. I think it’s pretty normal in our society, within our age group, economic status, etc. And I’m here to tell you it’s impacting your health. It looks a lot like stress – whatever form that takes on for you. For me it was over indulging in afternoon sweet snacks, or just feel periodically overwhelmed by the sheer volume of financial weight on our shoulders.
Coming out and through the other side to achieving financial fitness has given our family so much more freedom, our stress levels a boot to the backseat, and the flexibility to legitimately pursue our dreams. (Have I told you about that island in Mexico?)
As we sit right smack dab in the middle of the holiday season, and begin to consider what some of our new year’s resolutions or goals may be for 2020 – consider putting financial wellness on your list. Let 2020 be the year that you get that $%#^ together! And think of all of the other wellness benefits that will come with it…you might just lose 5 lbs. ?
Now go finish that glass of eggnog. Cheers!
Thank you for joining me on my journey to influence.