5 Tips for How to Talk About Money with Yourself

Today I’m going to be talking about ways you can improve your relationship with money and how to talk about money with yourself. This has been an ongoing thread running throughout series 3, but I really wanted to summarise 5 key areas to focus on every single day.

When you begin to focus on your relationship with money, you’re focusing on your thoughts, beliefs, and your inner dialogue and critic. Doing this helps us to get more clarity, increase our self worth, and have a better relationship with money. All of this in turn can then help you to move closer to living the life that you desire and value.

By thinking differently, we behave differently, act differently, and do differently.

Here are my 5 tips for how to talk about money with yourself & improve your relationship with money

1.What 3 things have money helped you to do this year?

This is where we take the opportunity for some reflection, and to notice how you’re talking and thinking about money. Are you talking positively or negatively?

By focusing on, and being thankful and grateful for at least 3 things that money has enabled you to do do this year, you’re switching from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset. We’re not focusing here on what we don’t have or haven’t been able to do this year, but rather what we do have and have been able to do.

It could be as simple as “money has helped me to pay my bills this year, my rent or mortgage, and to drive my car”.

2. Write down how you feel about money.

Imagine money was a friend, a physical person; what you be saying to it right now?

“Money, I love you”
“Money, we’ve had a difficult relationship this year”
“Money, I want more of you in 2020”
“Money, I don’t trust you”
“Money, I feel motivated by you”

If you identify through this that you have a challenging relationship with money, then you now have the opportunity to think about how you can work on that relationship. Perhaps you’ve been quite spontaneous this year, or you’ve not been quite as committed to money as you’d have liked. Maybe you’ve ignored and avoided money. Think about how you can bring more presence and awareness to your relationship with money in 2020.

5 tips for how to talk about money with yourself & improve your relationship with money

3. Think about your debt, then thank it

Good debt vs Bad debt

Good debt is money that’s enabled you to grow in some way. It could be that you’ve invested in your business, your personal development, or something else that has enabled you to grow.

But it may be that this year there have been times you’ve crept into your overdraft, put money on credit cards, or had to take out a loan. And this can be for lots of different reasons.

I’ve seen a huge amount of debt increase in my community this year because of a change in health, and these are things that we can’t always control. We can take care of ourselves, eat well, and exercise, but lots of variables are out of our control.

It could be that the car tyre bursts, a pet gets poorly, or you need to unexpectedly take a trip.

What you can do for 2020 to manage the things that you don’t or can’t plan for are;

Having a stability fund (like an emergency fund)
Round up your spending – save into a stability pot using an app or your bank account
Don’t hold onto shame or guilt feelings about debt you already have.

Starling Bank has a great auto round up feature included in the banking app.

Debt is money already spent

If you think about yourself as past, present, and future, debt is money given to your past self because you needed it at that time.

Of course, some of this could be because of spending habits. If you have a spontaneous relationship with money it could mean that you are emotionally driven which is why you’ve put that money on a credit card.

But going back to tip 1, any debt that you have is money already spent for a need for your past self, so thank that money for helping you to achieve whatever it was that you needed to at the time. Be grateful for the help that it has provided you, whether it’s got you out of a sticky position or simply because you needed to spend on self care.

4. Write a letter to yourself about money

This is something that I am personally doing at the moment. If you haven’t read Jen Sincero’s book You Are a Badass at Making Money, Jen also discusses the idea of writing a letter to money. It’s a great read that I highly recommend.

So imagine money was a friend or a partner, and write that letter. Once you’ve written it, seal it. You can either put it away, give it to a friend to keep for you, or even post it to yourself! Use this letter as something to reflect upon again when you next come to setting your intentions and goals, and see how your relationship with money has grown.

You can grab my free Dear Money template here to use to write your letter.

5. Pick one new daily habit

Choose one new habit that you want to commit to in 2020. Habit forming is actually easier than we think, as long as it is driven by what you want rather than what you don’t want.

So think about the one thing you want to change about money in 2020, one new daily habit. It could be that you want to set up auto saving with a standing order, or it could be that you want to plan your purchases in advance, or enforce a 48 hour cooling off period for online shopping.

Maybe you want to learn about something to do with money, so you commit to reading 5 pages of an investing book every day, for example. Perhaps you might choose to focus on just one area of money like your food budget.

Whichever one habit you choose, think about it in terms of the positive return that it will give. For example; I commit to spending £25 per week less on food and redirecting that money to a stability fund or investing it.

I’d love to hear what your goals are and new habits for 2020, so please email me and let me know!