I’m a huge fan of small, consistent moves that keep me organized and moving forward. Given that we all have dozens of things vying for our limited attention at any given moment, it’s reallllly easy to let your finances glide along on their existing autopilot. For years. I know, we all do it to a certain extent with things that don’t have immediate consequences. Like hm, should I take 15 minutes to set up automatic bill pay on my utilities or should I walk the dog? Well your bills won’t crap on the carpet if you ignore them, so the dog always wins by default (plus, dogs are awesome). I think you get my point.
Create a Tiny Money Habit
But what if you gave your money the priority it deserves? Just once a week for maybe 10 minutes, give or take a little. And what if you made that happen on Monday and you linked it to something you really enjoy, like sitting down with that first or second cup of coffee? This is something I tend to do on Sunday nights over a hot cup of something (it was cider yesterday – I’ve had a craving), which means I’ll be feeling inspired for delivering your Monday Money Move. See how that works?
It’s not a novel idea. Anyone who has skimmed James Clear’s Atomic Habits or BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits recognizes this as “habit stacking”. Sidenote: my only complaint about Atomic Habits is that I wish it had come with a long-ass list of like 1000 little tweaks to choose from that might make your life 1% better. So think of your Monday Money Move as one of those habits – though I would argue that giving your finances 10-15 minutes of attention a week will bring you a greater-than-1% improvement.
Accountability Is A GREAT Thing
Every Monday morning, I will be posting the Monday Money Move in my private Facebook group, and I would love to see lots of people commenting “DONE!” Is that week’s tip something you’ve already got in place? Go you! Brag away! Let us know “Been there, done that”. Feel free to elaborate of course…was it a piece of cake, was it more involved than you thought, did it require something stronger than coffee to tackle? I want to take away the psychological roadblocks to optimizing your finances by giving you small, specific steps to take on a regular basis. The big one is often the “where do I start” part – and most of the bite-sized tips I’ll be dishing out are stand-alones, meaning you don’t have to go back and do everything that came before. Start any time – but the key is to JUST START.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be stumbling blocks. I’m actually pretty good at predicting where things could get dicey (got that skill from my mother – go Mom!), but I’m a Know-A-Lot, not a Know-It-All. So bring on the questions – preferably in the group, because chances are you’re not the only one with that problem.
Love the idea of small consistent moves. I think the majority of advice out there is too daunting for a lot of people and sets them up for failure before they’ve even begun.
Like the idea of small moves as well– and thinking what is one small thing I can do today- make coffee at home vs pay $4 for a Starbucks? –