In this episode, I explore the power of building micro habits with your finances. Big financial goals like paying off debt, saving for a down payment on a house, or even setting aside $10,000 can feel overwhelming and out of reach when your goal seems so far away. The key to sustainable progress is building micro habits—small, intentional actions that will get you closer to your goal and generate sustainable results.
I share personal examples, like my 5 AM gym routine and strategies for controlling impulsive spending, so you can see the significant impact a micro habit can make on your life. I also walk you through some money habits I encourage my clients to adopt, such as the 24-hour rule, pre-planning your spending, and using a disposable income account. If you’re ready to take control of your finances in the new year, this episode is for you! Learn how to set financial boundaries and set yourself up for long-term success by building micro-money habits in 2025.
Tune in for examples of micro money habits you can start building in 2025. Listen out for key moments in the episode…
- [00:25] How my fitness journey inspired this episode
- [03:20] Why you should build micro money habits in 2025
- [07:50] Micro habit examples to curb impulse and urge spending
- [18:17] Impact of building micro money habits on your financial goals
Tune into this episode of Money Files to learn how to start building micro money habits and how these habits can lead to sustainable success in reaching your financial goals.
Are you ready to start asking for help with your finances? Apply to work with me, and let’s start working towards your financial goals.
If you loved the discussion about micro money habits, check out my episode on Skip the No Spend Challenge – Learn How to Save & Spend Money Drama-Free!
Transcript for “The Power of Micro Habits for Financial Success”
Intro: Hi and welcome to Money Files. I’m Keina Newell from Wealth Over Now. I work every day with professional women and solopreneurs to help them get out of financial overwhelm and shame so they can experience more flexibility and ease with their finances. Are you ready to gain confidence and learn to manage your finances intentionally? Tune in and grab financial tips that will help you master the way you think about and manage your finances.
Keina: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Money Files and Happy New Year. I want to start the new year with helping you rethink your habits that you have. What I actually want to talk about today is about micro money habits. And the way that I got here and wanting to tell you guys about this, actually has to do with my fitness journey. For the last two years I have just tried to focus on a small thing that I want to change. It’s allowed me to be able to feel successful without needing to check off all the boxes. I think that can be one of the things when it comes to any goal that we have in life. Sometimes we want to get to the end result so quickly that we can get really frustrated when we don’t see progress.
I have found that having a micro habit or a micro goal that I want to focus on has helped me really stay focused on the big picture, but also helped me be able to say like, here’s how I’ve been successful today and it’s very tangible. So the year before last, I focused on going to the gym at 5:00 AM. I created an accountability system for myself. I enlisted my neighbor, enrolled her in going to the gym with me. So for the past two years, I have just become the person that works out in the morning. Sometimes it might be 5:15 AM, sometimes it might be 6:00 AM. But I don’t even think about going to the gym anymore. So just being able to focus on that one thing, instead of like, I want to change all my nutrition, I want to lose 20 pounds, 30 pounds, like those other things come when you’re just focused on that small micro habit.
This last year I focused on incorporating more vegetables and looking at what vegetables are in season and how can I cook more with veggies. I’m focusing on my fiber, like all of those things that are important for your health. So I was thinking about this and how it actually applies to my clients. I have clients that want to pay off 30, 40, even a hundred thousand dollars worth of debt, or they want to buy a home, they want to be able to save $10,000. There’s some goal that they have and your starting point for where you are right now, your goal might just feel really, really overwhelming and like I’m not going to get there. I totally understand when you’re in this place where you feel like I am not going to reach my goal because I have so far to go.
I also want to tell you, and this is one of the things I reflect on, is like time is going to pass us by regardless, so in that time, how can I develop a habit that gets me closer to my goal because it’s the habits that are also going to make the process and the results sustainable. So we want to build in 2025, I want you to focus on building, like what are these micro money habits that I can build that are going to help me get to my goal? So the reason you would want to have a micro money habit is because it’s going to allow you to build, which I’ve already told you, it’s going to help you create sustainability in your life When you decide that you want to be more intentional with how your money comes in, how it goes out, like in the beginning it could be a pain point that you have. Like you wake up one day and you’re like, oh my goodness, I’m turning 30. How am I here? Or you heard someone talking about retirement and I have no idea if I’m going to be able to retire.
In actuality, we want to keep whatever result you create for yourself, whatever the reason it is that you decided to start focusing on your money, there’s going to be goals that you have after that, like the clients that work with me, their goal coming to me might be to pay off $30,000 of debt, but then after they pay off $30,000 of debt, it’s like, okay, but now what? So I want you to be able to focus on the thing that is uncomfortable for you right now, but I also want you to know that this is a lifestyle and we want it to be something that feels sustainable. And the thing that makes it feel sustainable is when you can actually build sustainable habits. And so these are these micro money habits that I’m telling you about because they also support the way that you think about money. You also want to have micro habits because it’s going to increase your likelihood for success because your success marker won’t just be, I have to pay off a hundred thousand dollars of debt, or I have to save $10,000.
You’re going to be able to have something where you reflect like, okay, in this last week, how have I honored that micro habit that I’ve set for myself. When I’m talking about the gym, I can look at like a seven day period and say like how many times have I gone to workout at 5:00 AM. Or if I’m thinking about vegetables, like how did I make sure that I incorporated vegetables into my meals today? I don’t even have to wait a week in order to reflect on that micro habit. I know that micro habit is also supporting me in the bigger picture as well. So when I’m thinking about your micro habits and you don’t have to take just the suggestions that I talk about on this podcast episode, it could be something that you just create for yourself. Like, no one told me to start the 5:00 AM gym routine, but I knew that I wanted to create the 5:00 AM gym routine because one of the things that I struggled with was that if I don’t go to the gym in the morning, what happens is that later on in the day, I’m less likely to go to the gym.
It’s me going to the gym then becomes negotiable. So it’s like how can I make me doing my workouts non-negotiable? The way that I made them non-negotiable was to say that I’m going to do them at 5:00 AM, like the problem was, like I’m missing gym, like gym dates with myself because of the fact that I don’t have a consistent place where they fit in my life. So I need them schedule. So I just identified like what’s the breakdown for myself and then how can I support myself. When it came to vegetables, that was more of a matter of like making sure that I’m eating things that are nutrient dense. They’re like really filling. I notice that like if I’m eating things that are a little bit more fried or whatever it is, like if you prepare a potato in any form, I love it mainly in french fry form. But I know that I wanted to eat more vegetables and have them on hand because it just makes me focus on veggies first.
So I knew that the breakdown for myself is that if I’m not actually thinking about what vegetables I want to be eating, then I’m just going to grab something that’s really quick. And so that’s why vegetables became something last year that I was focusing on. They also make me feel really good. I actually like vegetables, but I do have to focus on them to make sure that I eat them. So that’s my example on the side of thinking about my nutrition and how I kind of came up with micro habits for myself. But when we’re talking about money, one of the things that I would notice for myself actually, I noticed like last year it happened several times where I would order things at night. I’m noticing that my brain is, like you’re running on really low energy at night and if you’re scrolling, like I was scrolling on social media and you see things, you’re like, oh, it could be anywhere from clothes, it could be a pin, it could be anything but if it’s presented to me, especially when I’m tired, etcetera, I can start going down a rabbit hole of being on Amazon or Target.com and click buy and all of a sudden I have a package at my house.
And then by the time it gets to my house, you’re kind of like, eh, I’m not really sure why I ordered this. So as I was thinking about a micro habit for myself to really just stop impulsive spending and what I would just call urge spending as well because I realized in that moment you just have an urge. I didn’t actually want the thing. It’s just an urge. So one of the things that I thought about in terms of micro habits, that I can implement for myself, is like not buying things on my phone could be one thing that I implement. Another micro habit that I could implement is to unlink my credit cards on my phone because if I actually have to get up and go get my credit card, I don’t want to get up and go get my credit card or if I unlink PayPal or any of those things, it’s going to stop me from actually shopping on my phone or I could implement a micro habit of not purchasing things, like I can’t purchase things on my phone, I actually need to purchase them on the computer.
And the reason that those three micro habits came to mind is because they’re going to help me be more aware of what I’m doing. If I have to actually go get my credit card to buy something, that’s an extra step and creating that extra step makes me think about what I’m actually buying. I’m probably going to be less likely to buy it and forget about it because I don’t want to go get my wallet, get the credit card, enter in the 16 numbers on the front, turn it over, do the expiration date, find the CVC, all that stuff. So those micro habits, if I was thinking about helping myself be more intentional about my frivolous spending or spending that feels like urge related or impulsive, those are three different micro habits that I could implement. I will say like in terms of me buying things at night, I really do try to just be really mindful of like, Hey Keina, you need to like put your phone down.
But you could pick something that small to be able to work on and you might be listening right now and be like, Keina, what is that really going to do? Well, I mean it’s going to help you make sure that you don’t have money going out of your account that you just aren’t even thinking about. Because half the time when we see Amazon come on our credit card or we see it come out of our bank account, we don’t really remember what we paid for. You’ve just ordered something, you get two day shipping, overnight delivery, and you’ve met an immediate urge that you have, an immediate what you think is a need. And when you’re doing that, like we’re literally spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year just mindlessly. And so if you are able to focus on that micro habit, it’s going to help you pay down some debt, it’s going to help you stay out of debt, it’s going to help you save more money because of the fact that you’re not going to have a leak in the way that you spend money.
And so as you progress throughout the year, and if you’re focused on unlinking your credit cards or you’re focused on making sure that you are going to sit down at your computer to buy things, you are going to have these wins because you’re going to end up having more money in your account and you’re going to be able to pick up another micro habit for yourself to be able to focus on that’s going to accelerate some other financial goal or something else that you’re focusing on this year. So that’s one example. The other micro habits that I came up with that you can play around with for yourself is, you could create a want list. So when you are in a space where you see something that you want and you have that strong urge, maybe it’s something you saw on social media, maybe you were in the store and you feel like you want it, you could have a note in your phone that you could add whatever item it is that you want. You could create that and put it on your want list.
Creating that want list is also going to help you with that impulsive shopping and overspending that sometimes we just do because we’re in the moment and we have an urge. You can go back to your want list at a later point in time and see like, are there things on my want list that I actually want? Especially like you might be in a space where, I have a bonus now let me go look at my want list. Is there something on here that I actually have sat on and I’ve thought about and I actually have decided that I want? So that could be one of the things that you do. Another micro habit you could institute is to give yourself a 24 hour rule before you buy anything. You could always make sure I’m going to wait at least 24 hours. Maybe you even want to wait 48 hours before you buy something that’s going to give you a moment to just pause and also stop that impulsive spending that you might do.
Another micro habit that you could institute is to pre-plan your spending. So just sitting down on a Sunday, walking through your week, asking yourself, what are the things that I know that I need to spend money on outside of bills? What’s coming up? What events do I have this week? But just physically walking yourself through how you’re spending money from Sunday to the next Saturday. Being able to walk yourself through how you’re going to spend money is going to once again help you build awareness about how money is coming in and how money is going out. It’s also creating a moment, a weekly habit where you stop and you just pause to think about what’s actually going on. There are a lot of times where we can be in seasons of life where you’re like, dang, how did I spend so much money? And it’s because we also haven’t taken stock of what’s actually going on. And so maybe you start with pre-planning a week and then eventually you get to pre-planning a month or even pre-planning a quarter.
As you build that habit throughout the year, it’s going to help you feel like you have less things that catch you off guard or what I call with one of my client less hills and valleys with how your spending looks. Because there are some weeks where it’s going to be like, oh, I just had a lot of friends in town. I actually had some work outings and my spending was just higher this week. But when you have a habit where you preplan your spending or you’re thinking through your month, it’s not going to be something that catches you by surprise. You’re going to be able to speak very eloquently with yourself about what happened. And you’re going to know, okay, I know in this month I’m going to have two weeks that are going to look a little peakish for me and they’re going to be a little bit higher. So I know that in these other two weeks of the month, I actually want to adjust some of my normal routines so that way at the end of the month I’m going to feel really like balanced with where my spending is.
So you’re going to be able to be intentional and thoughtful and once again, that’s a micro habit that’s going to have an incredible return for you because it’s going to help you still honor the financial boundaries that you have for yourself. And when you’re honoring your financial boundaries or even developing those financial boundaries as you try on some micro habits, it’s going to result in you being able to save more money, you being able to pay down debt, you feeling really good about the money that’s coming in and the money that’s going out of your account. Two more micro habits I’m going to give you are, you could also focus on only spending from a spending account. A lot of my clients, after we start working together for a little bit, I give them the option to say, do you want to do a checking account that’s just your disposable money, like your disposable income? So those are what I think about, is the money that you can use that doesn’t impact your bills.
So you can use gas money, grocery money, eating out money. We can put it all into one account and I call it Chuck e Cheese tokens. You spend your Chuck e Cheese tokens every two weeks or every other week, however, often you get paid, you refill your Chuck e Cheese tokens, but if you’re only focused on spending from that account, it’s going to make sure that your other financial goals are protected, your bills being paid on time would be protected. Any savings goals you have would be protected because you’re only spending money out of one account. So that could be another micro habit that you focus on this year, is like spending from your spending account only.
And lastly, another micro habit I would give you is you could also focus on paying off your credit card weekly. So if you are team Keina, I must use my credit card. I feel safe using my credit card. You could build a routine around using the money that you have allocated in your budget to pay off the expenses that you put on your credit card. So this does not mean you just pay the balance on your credit card. That’s very different. But if you are paying off your credit card weekly and you’re seeing, I’ve been putting groceries on here, my groceries are $300 this week, I spent $200 on eating out and I’m paying $500 to my credit card. Looking at your credit card on a weekly basis and actually making a payment on a weekly basis is going to help you have awareness with how money is coming in and how money is going out. Why is that important? It’s important because it’s going to help you once again, be able to honor your financial boundaries, set some financial boundaries, which are going to in turn make sure that you are paying off debt, you’re saving money, whatever those goals are.
So when you think about your larger financial goals, it really comes down to what are the micro habits that you’re building that are going to help you reach their goals? Paying off debt is not a situation where we’re like doing a lump sum payment. The way that you pay off debt and stay out of debt is to make sure that you have the micro habits that help you sustain the result of having your credit card paid off. And these are things that I do with my clients. My clients are building micro habits throughout the five month coaching partnership as we’re working together. And they’re just things that they start to do. New ways that they start to interact with their money. And as you’re interacting with your money in this different way, you also start to get rid of the shame that you feel. You start to get rid of those heart palpitations that you have when you open up your bank account because we’re also changing what the marker of success looks like.
We don’t all have to have the same marker of success when it comes to how we manage our money. There are many different ways that we can get there and still get to the result that we desire. So if you want to take this work deeper and I encourage you to, the beginning of the year is a really great time, especially everybody has that energy, they’re excited. I would invite you to apply to work with me. If you start working with me in January, we will work through preparing for tax season. We’re going to prepare for spring break, we’re going to prepare for summer trips, we’re going to make sure your holidays are all covered. So it’s really a great time of the year to get started, so the rest of the year can just feel easy when it comes to your finances. So thank you so much for tuning in. If you want to work with me, you can go to the show notes and click the link there or you can go to my website@wealthovernow.com and book a call. It was so great talking to you. Have a great week.
Outro: Thank you so much for listening to Money Files. If you’re ready to take the next step to reach your financial goals, head to www.wealthovernow.com/appointment and let’s get started.
