5 Financial Self-Care Habits That Reduce Money Stress Fast

Let's talk about what self-care actually is and isn't, because this whole treat-yourself culture we are drowning in is really not helping anybody. You know what I'm talking about, the Instagram posts telling you to invest in your self-care by dropping $200 on that fancy face cream, or the TikTok influencers convincing you that your latte is essential for your mental health, or the friends who are saying, but you deserve it when you're considering a purchase that you really can't afford. Now, I don't want to sound all doom and gloom, because look, life is meant to be lived, and I am not at all against treating yourself. Like, not at all. But there is something kind of messed up about the way we've confused spending money with caring for ourselves, because the truth, the real truth, is that the most powerful form of self-care that I have ever seen isn't from buying stuff, it's from creating peace. And the number one stressor in most people's lives is money. So really, creating financial peace is one of the most powerful things you can do to truly take care of yourself. And when you create financial peace, here's the bonus, you're not just creating peace for yourself right now, you're creating peace for your future self as well. So it's an investment that you keep getting to enjoy the benefit of. I mean, think about it, when you're lying awake at 3am staring at the ceiling and calculating if you are going to be able to make rent this month or your car payment, that is not peace, right? That $60 candle that maybe you bought as self-care last week, it's not bringing you any comfort in that moment. In fact, it's probably part of what's keeping you up. That's because our culture has gotten it all backwards. And true financial self-care, it's not about a momentary high of buying something, it's about the lasting calm that comes from knowing you're secure, knowing you're safe. It's about checking your bank account without holding your breath. And it's about making choices today that your future self will thank you for. And this may feel weird to start because let's face it, we get a pretty nice dopamine hit when we go shopping, when we buy something, it's that instant gratification. But true financial peace feels far better than any impulse purchase ever could. So here are five financial self-care practices that create lasting peace. Number one, create a weekly money date with yourself. Just like you would schedule time for exercise or meal prep, if you don't schedule it, it doesn't get done. So set aside 30 to 60 minutes each week for your finances and make it feel good, right? Most people think taking care of their money or managing it is a chore. So we have to intentionally add pleasure to this ritual to help rewire our brain so that we can find pleasure in this experience because it doesn't have to be painful. And it's a really great habit to adopt to create lasting financial care. In fact, in our course Million Dollar Year, creating a weekly money ritual is the first thing we teach because we have seen thousands of women go through that course. And we know the number one factor in how successful they are is how often they do their weekly money ritual. That hour of tending to your finances, it is huge. It will help you make better decisions with your money just by becoming more conscious about your financial situation. So here's how to make it pleasurable. Maybe pick things you like and pair them with the activity. So if you have a favorite drink, drink it while you're doing your weekly money ritual. Or find a comfortable spot, pick a favorite coffee shop. Maybe get together with a friend who's also committed to making financial progress. Play your favorite playlist. Remember that this is not a punishment. This is an act of self-love. And you're taking care of not only yourself today, but you're building a better life for future you. Women who maintain this ritual, they report feeling significantly less financial anxiety and way more confidence in their decisions. And the best part about this is it's totally in your control. Like you are in charge of how you spend one hour a week. And if one hour a week sounds like a lot, I want you to think about how much time you spend actually earning that money. Is it 40 hours a week that you're working? Doesn't it make sense to dedicate just one hour to managing it so that you can actually put that money where you want it to go? And it can really serve you. All right, number two, practice mindful spending. Not mindless restriction, mindful spending. So I really don't like traditional budgeting. I found that very hard because it made me feel completely deprived. And I have a little bit of an inner rebellious tendency. As soon as there's a rule, I want to break it. So it really didn't work very well for me. Mindful spending is different. It's simply staying conscious when you're making spending decisions. So before purchases, pause and ask yourself, is this aligned with what truly matters to me? And this does require you to know what truly matters to you, which is just a really great thing to know pretty much all the time. What's actually important? Because if you're not clear on that, you are going to get pulled in directions and be fulfilling on other people's dreams instead of your own. So mindful spending isn't about never buying the latte. It's about making each purchase a conscious choice rather than just an autopilot habit. And when you do choose to spend money, let yourself enjoy it, right? Like if you're going to get the latte, savor it. Like be present while you drink it. That is how you get the best return on the money you're spending. The goal of mindful spending is not about restriction. It's about clear intention and alignment. And just taking this moment to pause and ask yourself, does this actually align? Gives just enough of a hesitation that it's easy for things we were kind of mindlessly doing to just fall away. And you would be surprised at how much money we often lose to things we're just mindlessly doing. Because the world of corporations and marketers are very good and very savvy at getting us in those moments where we're not really paying attention. So building this habit for yourself of like, every time I go to spend money, I ask myself, is this what I really want? Number three, celebrate financial victories no matter how small. Okay, many of us, myself included, are way too quick to beat ourselves up over mistakes and way too slow to celebrate ourselves for the good that we are doing. And when it comes to money, I see this play out tenfold. We beat ourselves up over money mistakes, over the missteps, even over things that were totally out of our control, like our car breaking down. But we rarely acknowledge our financial wins. And that is really, really worth doing. Because building wealth, it's a lifelong gain, right? You need to make decisions about your money every single day of your life. And the way that you make the best decisions and stay in the game of building wealth is to be motivated. And the number one motivator is seeing your own results. And I've seen a lot of women take action on their finances, be making great progress, but not actually realize it because they are so used to being perfectionists, and I can only recognize this because I am a recovering perfectionist myself, that it's still not good enough. It's never quite good enough. But you need to learn to celebrate your progress. So did you pay a bill on time? Sweet, celebrate it. Did you save 20 bucks this week? Fantastic. That's awesome. Did you resist an impulse purchase? That is amazing. These things all deserve recognition. Give yourself one of these attagirls on the back. Because research shows that celebrating small wins creates momentum and it builds the confidence needed for even bigger financial changes. Number four, clean up your financial environment. Our physical spaces affect our mental state and the same applies to our financial environment. Now, this is one that I actually kind of hate to acknowledge because I am a naturally messy person and my husband is a naturally clean person and it is always a source of tension. But over the years, the decade I've been blessed to be married to him, I have come to realize that he was right about this. That a clean space feels better, makes more room, and allows what you want to come into your life. So whether it's the physical space or the digital space, cleaning up your financial environment can really help. This might mean unsubscribing from tempting retail emails, right? If you know you have a weakness for Sephora online sales, unsubscribe from them. Or removing any store credit cards from shopping sites, right? If you have your credit card already saved on Amazon, it is a really swift and easy checkout process. But if you delete those details and now you have to go through the pain of finding your wallet and pulling it out and typing your credit card in online, that creates more friction that makes it just a little bit harder to spend and gives you a little more time to ask yourself the question, is this really aligned with what is truly important to me right now? And you can also clean up your financial space in your digital world by following financial educators who are influencing you on positive things to do with your money instead of following like beauty influencers who are encouraging you to spend on the latest product. And I don't have a hate on beauty products. I know that I've picked them as a weird example for a lot of the things in this video. It's fine. Spend your money on what you love. I'm just saying you can control the factors that are influencing you by controlling those inputs and creating an environment that supports your goals. That is powerful self-care. You are setting yourself up for success from the beginning because you are making it less and less required for you to have strong willpower to achieve your goals, right? We want to reduce the number of times we have to say no because it gets harder and harder with every single decision that we make. So clean up your digital environment around finances and you might want to also clean up your physical environment around finances. Like if your purse is a mess, maybe clean it out. If your wallet is full of old cards you don't use anymore, declutter, simplify. If you have a stack of bills hidden in a drawer that you haven't dealt with, open them up, organize them, see what's actually there and just create some financial clarity in your physical and digital space for yourself. It's going to have you feel less overwhelmed with your finances. All right, number five, practice financial forgiveness. The most important financial self-care practice might be forgiveness for past mistakes. That credit card debt you racked up, that impulse of purchase you made, the retirement savings you spent instead of saved. You can't change any of yesterday's decisions but compassion, not shame, is what creates the mental space to make better choices today. In fact, the more we beat ourselves up, the less likely we are to make progress because we're putting so much energy into what went wrong that we aren't focusing on what we can do differently and how we move forward. You know, financial wellness, it's not about perfection. It's about progress and it's about creating peace and you do not have to wait until you've achieved a particular outcome to feel the peace, right? You don't have to wait until you're debt-free to feel financial peace. What you need is a plan. What you need is clarity. What you need is to know what you should be doing and then do it but you don't need to get to the end result and it's much easier to create that plan once you've given up that anything that happened in the past shouldn't have happened because everything that's happened is what got you here to this moment and it's all about where you go from here, right? Where you're starting from, it doesn't determine where you end up. What matters is what you do now. Okay, so to recap, here are the five financial self-care practices you can start doing right now to create financial peace. Number one, create a weekly money date with yourself. Spend 30 to 60 minutes reviewing your financial situation and making financial decisions and checking things off your financial to-do list. Number two, practice mindful spending. Actually pause before making purchases and ask yourself, is this aligned with what truly matters to me? And as a bonus point, write down what truly matters to you so you're actually clear on this. Number three, celebrate financial victories. No matter how small, they all matter and we need to build the muscle of celebrating and recognizing our progress. Number four, clean up your financial environment. This can be your digital environment where you're removing temptations and things you don't need that aren't serving you and this can also be your physical spaces where you're getting clean or getting organized and just resetting the energy around your finances. And number five, practice financial forgiveness. If you are holding on to anything from the past, that is creating bad feelings or resentment or guilt, really and truly see if you can forgive yourself or whoever did something that caused that for you so that you can move forward with a clean slate because it's all about what you do from here.