Are you worried about falling back into bad financial habits? Once you start making progress in your financial goals, it is normal for self-doubt or fear to creep in and stop you from making good choices with your money.
In today’s episode, I share a concept I use with my clients to help them navigate unexpected challenges during their financial journeys. The financial self-care plan is a tool to fall back on when things go off track. It’s not about perfection but knowing how to bounce back when you make a mistake or face financial stress. The goal of this exercise is to build financial resilience and trust in yourself so you can overcome hurdles that get in the way of your goals.
Listen to learn my framework for building a financial self-care plan, and check out for these key moments…
- [03:20] When you need a financial self-care plan
- [05:25] Framework for building a financial self-care plan
- [06:30] Identifying triggers
- [08:05] Working through worst case scenarios
- [12:55] Celebrating wins
- [14:10] Establishing a support person
Tune into this episode of Money Files to discover the benefits of implementing a financial self-care plan and how to create one.
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 my framework for building a financial self-care plan, check out my episode, Stop, Think, Spend: Implementing a Money Pause for Better Financial Decisions!
Transcript for “What Is a Financial Self-Care Plan and Why You Need One”
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. Thank you so much for tuning in this week and if this is your first time listening to my podcast, hello, my name is Keina and I am excited to chat with you. So today I actually want to talk to you about a concept I developed after working with a client this year who has a lot of fear around messing up with their money, very scared of going back to old habits, very scared of overspending. And she came to work with me. She and her husband are in and out of the debt cycle and she actually, she was the one that did the coaching work because she’s the one that manages the finances for their household. But she’s been married for over 30 years and year after year, like they were paying off debt with his bonus and then she would get right back into debt.
So she started working with me in January and she was able to make a lot of progress really, really quickly. She started saving like a thousand dollars within the first month of us working together. She was able to pay off the debt and then she also was able to set money aside. She had kids that are getting engaged this year. She wanted to be able to contribute to their wedding. So just a lot of really great things that she was able to do with her money. But one of the things, one of the sticking points that came up while we were working together was that her and her husband got a tax refund. I mean the dopamine hit of getting a large sum of money is just that, it’s a dopamine hit. And when she gets large sums of money, she starts thinking about all the things that she can do with them.
And so she found herself overspending and buying things, which felt very familiar to her in terms of like old patterns that she had last year. And it started to scare her, especially when you’re thinking about the umbrella of what happens if I mess up everything? She now also understood I could be using this money to supply and support my financial needs and my financial goals. I could be using this in a different way, but I also feel like all of these old habits and behaviors are taking over. I think that all of us have that fear and we have that shame, especially when you are looking to do anything different in your life. And when you are shifting behaviors and you are shifting habits. When I think about finances, I also think about fitness and nutrition. And if you’ve ever tried to, like, if you’ve done really, really well with a workout regimen or eating, like a meal planning or prepping for yourself and then you find yourself slipping.
It can feel really, really scary. So one of the tools that I helped her put into place for herself was actually helping her develop a financial self-care plan. The reason that you want to have that financial self-care plan is because it’s not a matter of if you will have issues with your finances, but it’s really a matter of when. And so the reason that we want to be able to create this financial self-care plan is it’s going to basically be your oxygen mask and your life support. When you feel like you are slipping and you’ve lost control, it’s going to be the thing that allows you to center and ground yourself and get back on track. That’s why if you’ve heard me talk with my clients and they tell you they’re still using the same things that they learned with me, two years ago, three years ago, whatever that may be, they’ve learned to take care of themself financially.
They have not learned to be perfect. They have learned to take care of themselves financially and they’ve really learned to budget for the last time because they’ve learned how to shift how they think about their money. They’ve learned how to manage financial triggers that they may have. And so this is a tool that you want to have for yourself so that you can be able to take care of yourself financially because your finances aren’t just about you making more money. Your finances aren’t just about all the math adding up. It’s also being able to take care of yourself emotionally and mentally so that way you can reach whatever financial goals you have and your financial goals are always going to be shifting. Your financial problems are always going to be shifting.
So we want to make sure that you have a plan in place so that if you feel paralyzed, you feel like old things are creeping back up or you feel like you’re being impulsive, that you know how to actually take care of yourself and get yourself to a place where you feel clear, you can feel grounded, you can feel calm, and you can make the next best decision for yourself. So I want to get into how to build this financial self-care plan. And I always suggest, I think this is like an ongoing resource for yourself. And you could do it in a journaling format. You could just be able to build this into your weekly practice. You could make a Google Doc, you could build it however you desire to build, but it’s really, exercising the practice of this is really about you sitting down to reflect on your finances and you sitting down to reflect on your finances when you haven’t done anything wrong is actually the thing that’s going to help you build a more positive relationship with your money. I’m going to say that again. You sitting down to reflect on your finances when you haven’t done anything wrong is going to help you build a more positive relationship with your finances. And that’s what we want.
That’s what you want, is to build a positive relationship with your money. So to start building your financial self-care plan, I want you to actually think about like what are some of your financial triggers when you think about like the things that scare you or make you feel out of control or make you feel anxious, I think a lot of people think about, I’m scared that if something happens to my car, how will I pay for it? That might be something that feels like a trigger for you, or maybe you have a favorite designer and you don’t know how you could possibly, possibly, possibly go an entire year without buying something from a designer that you love. Or maybe one of your other triggers is when someone asks you for money, someone in your family asks you for money and maybe you’re someone who you feel like you’re overly generous.
So the first thing we want to do is get all of those things out. What are the things that can cause you to feel off track? What are the things that you are fearing in your life financially? Maybe you’re fearing going back into debt. Maybe you are fearing dipping into your savings and your savings being wiped clean. Now that you have finally saved a thousand dollars, whatever that looks like for you, be able to write down all of your triggers. After you write down your triggers, you can take it a step further and really think about what does your brain say is like the worst case scenario there that can happen. And we’re just going to start answering the questions for your brain. Like what happens, worst case scenario? If the worst case scenario is that you deplete your thousand dollars savings, what if that happens?
What is your plan to bounce back? How will you take care of yourself? I just want you to simply answer how you’ll take care of yourself. And if I was working with a client, and especially if we learned the habit of savings, I would say, okay, answer the question for your brain. You could tell yourself, I’m actually going to be okay. Yes, I spent the thousand dollars, but I spent the thousand dollars. I would name how I spent the thousand dollars. And then I would remind myself that I’m consistently saving $300 a month towards my savings and that I’ll be able to rebuild that thousand dollars in less than four months. So I’ve identified the trigger, I’ve identified what my brain says is like the worst case scenario. And then I’ve also told my brain how I’m going to support myself in letting myself know that that’s okay, that we don’t have to fear draining our savings because we actually have the skill of saving.
Something else that might be true is you find yourself, like the trigger is that you’re overspending and you find that you’re swiping your credit card. Like that’s something that you’re fearing, that you’re swiping your credit card more than you desire to be swiping your credit card. So maybe the worst case scenario there for yourself is that you find yourself back in debt. So I might answer the question of like, how would I take care of myself during that situation? Well, the way that I’m going to take care of myself during that situation is I’m actually going to make sure that I put a time on my calendar within the next 24 to 48 hours to do a money date and I’m going to schedule a money date because I want to actually assess where my numbers are.
Then I’m going to go through the things that I bought, and I’m going to see like what are the things that I actually want to keep and what do I want to return? I’m going to reset any categories in my budget that need to be reset so that I have space to spend money in the future if I want to spend money. But also I want to make sure that I’m able to pay down any debt that I’ve occurred. So it’s like you are identifying the triggers that you have, but you are also answering the worst case scenario for yourself. And then you’re answering what if that happens? Like how would I take care of myself? And in your plan of taking care of yourself, you are going to be relying on the tools that you do have in your toolkit, especially if you’ve worked with me. So I know my clients listen to my podcast in addition to people honestly all over the world.
But we are just identifying the tools that we have. And if you feel like you’re going through this exercise and you’re like, Keina, I actually don’t have any tools. I don’t know what those tools are, I just want to let you know that now is the time to book your call to work with me. Let’s work together for five months because I want you to be able to answer the what ifs and we’re going to work together and we are going to actually build this self-care plan for you. And you’re going to be able to answer all of these questions. Like someone asked me the other day, why is your program five months? And I said, my program is five months because we get to do life together. And in doing life together, I get to teach you how to have your own back financially. Not only are you going to get a budget, but all of the things that trigger you and that you’re worried about financially, we’re going to encounter a lot of those things working together and you are going to build that financial resilience and that financial trust and that’s going to be a gift that you have to continue to give to yourself year after year after year, which is going to build your financial confidence.
But while you’re building your financial confidence, you’re also going to be building your accounts. So I want you to make sure that you feel equipped in building your financial self-care plan. I’ll add, the third thing that I want you to do in building your financial self-care plan is I want you to be writing down your wins. The reason that I want you to have a place where you are writing down your wins is because in those moments where you feel really low or you feel out of control, your wins are the first thing that I want you to reflect on. Because your wins are going to combat the doubt that you have that says like, you don’t know what you’re doing with your money, all you’re doing is making a mess. You’re making a whole mess of everything that you ever tried. Here you are, you’re right back in debt again.
See, I told you you couldn’t save. Whatever that narrative is, whatever that record is, that’s on repeat. And so your wins are going to help you change the narrative. Your wins are going to help you turn down that record that’s on repeat in your brain and in your head. So your financial self-care plan, you can invest someone in your financial self-care plan as well. When you’re going through a moment where you feel like, oh my goodness, I’m just having a lot of doubts about where I am financially. I want you to also in your plan, identify who are you going to reach out to, to support you. Do you have a friend who’s on a similar financial journey as you that you want to confide in? Is there a family member? Do you have Keina as your financial coach that you want to confide in so that that person can also reflect with you, that you actually like, it’s okay that you feel stressed, but you are also going to get out of whatever that trigger is that you’re experiencing in that moment.
So I want you, like I said, I want you to sit down, do this financial self-care plan, do it in a moment when you feel like things are going really well. And the reason that I want you to do it when you feel like things are going well is so that you can use it when you feel like things aren’t going well. The reason we were focusing on this financial self-care is because your money is more than just about the numbers. I really want you focused on creating a relationship that helps you feel supported and empowered. Like that’s the relationship that I want you to have with your money. So thank you so much for taking the time to hang out with me this week. And if you found that this podcast was helpful, I would ask that you share it with a friend, leave a review, tag me on Instagram and if you are ready to take this work deeper, go to my show notes and apply to work with me. And until next time, 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.
