An excerpt from ‘Mindful Finances: 31-day challenge' Alison Laycock
So we are up to date now with all of my self-published books so far, there are more to come. This is book 7 "Mindful Finances: 31-day challenge to help boost your earnings, understanding and financial attitude' with many more on the way, some are being written and others are in the concept stage.
So many of us are struggling with our finances currently due to higher prices, interest increases and/or debt spiralling just to name a few. This book offers some tips and strategies so we can take control of certain aspects of our finances and also ensuring we maintain self-compassion techniques to protect our mental, physical and emotional all-round health.
Day 1: Where are you starting from?
It is so important in every area of our life to know realistically where we are especially when this involves changes, we wish to make to our behaviour, attitudes and/or circumstance. In terms of our financial situation this is even more necessary as if we don’t know where we are right now, how can we know where we want to get to and what we need to do to get there.
Knowing our current situation is so helpful as finances are so often neglected along with other areas of our life and without regular reviews, we will be unable to make any progress or know if our finances are in a better position than we first thought.
If you are expecting this exercise to be more negative than positive, then please be gentle with yourself as you set about answering the following questions. Take time to work through them as they don’t need to be done all in one go, you may wish to have a treat/reward in mind for you to do or have after the exercise so you have something to look forward to and you may wish to do this with someone else either there for support or doing it with you at the same time. Remember to be compassionate with yourself in terms of what you find out and what your current situation ends up being as there will be reasons for it being so which may or may not have been or be in your control.
In the first instance, answer them without looking at any of your financial information and then collect all your information to go through them in more detail and answer clearly.
Do you know the current situation of your accounts, how much money you have in your bank account, savings or other? How much money you have on credit cards/loans?
Are you aware of what credits/debits your accounts and when?
Do you know your spending habits? What you spend the most on/the least on? When do you spend the most? What are you tempted by the most for unplanned spending?
Outside of your bills, do you know your biggest outgoings each week and month?
Do you have any money left at the end of the month or is there more month at the end of the money?
Are you more a saver or a spender? What makes you say this?
Why have you bought this book? Why are you doing this challenge?
Is there a commitment you wish to make to yourself for during or after the challenge? Write it down so you can check back in with this whenever you need a reminder to stick with it.
Looking forward to the end of the challenge, what do you hope to have achieved once you have completed it? Why is this important to you?
Have any of these answers surprised you?
If this appeals to you and you wish to follow the challlenge, here is the link to purchase it through Amazon for £4.99.
