When it comes to your money, do you have a plan? Or are you just hoping for the best? Here’s how you CAN set yourself up for financial success...

In today’s episode are the five P’s of a Money Management System that make it doable. Getting a grip on your day-to-day money is the first step towards changing your financial future.

Tomorrow night (Thursday 26 August) I’m holding a LIVE workshop where you can join me and I’ll go through exactly what you need to implement to make it happen for YOU.

Sign up, and spend two hours getting your money sorted.

Show Notes

• [01.13] PLAN – your plan must set you up for success in the first place - it must have a chance of succeeding!

• [04.53] PREPARE – being organised is key to being able to stick to your plan

• [06.56] PROTECT yourself against debt and raiding the savings at all cost

• [08.53] PROVIDE for your future freedom

• [13.03] PERSIST

Related posts and episodes

• The often spoken about but very misunderstood fortress for financial freedom

• Why everyone needs an emergency fund

• The F*ck It Fund

• Five easy steps to hassle-free money management

• Aging Parents: dealing with the financial and emotional challenges
  

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Quotes

"You need a PLAN that you believe can work, that you can give yourself a fighting chance to stick to it." - Lisa Linfield

"Your Money Plan helps you find the route out of the stress, the strain, and the waste, and towards the route of your freedom." - Lisa Linfield

"You are GUARANTEED to spend more when you rely on the emotions of the moment." - Lisa Linfield

Script:

198 – Here’s how to set yourself up for financial success – The Five Ps

Hello everyone and welcome to today’s episode of Working Women’s Wealth.  I’m Lisa Linfield and I’m building a community of Women who are committed to the journey of living Financially Free lives – so that we can have the money that enables us to CHOOSE – IF we want to work, where we work, and when, so that we can follow our dreams.

As you know, I am launching my first live money course this week.  It’s the corner stone of managing your money, and the first step before you’d either pay off your debt OR begin to invest your money.  It’s how to have Stress-Free Day-to-Day Money management.

So, as I put the finishing touches to the course, I thought I’d share one of the sections with you on the 5 Ps of a Money Management System that makes it Doable.

1.      PLAN – Your plan must set you up for success in the first place… it must have a chance of succeeding!

As much as I may think I can live off juiced fruit and vegetables, I know I can’t.

1. I don’t have the time or budget to eat that way

2. I love my food to much

3. I work too hard.

You have to believe that this is doable.  We were made to have fun.  To enjoy life.  To live life now AND save for the future.

So you need a PLAN that you believe can work, that you give yourself a fighting chance to stick to it.

That Plan is usually called a budget… But I want you to throw away everything you think you know about budgets and let’s start with a new thing called Your Day-2-Day Money Plan.  As I mentioned in episode 171, it truly is THE most misunderstood fortress of freedom… it is the protector of your wealth.

Here’s the thing – you wouldn’t undertake a trip up mount Everest without a plan – without a route, without knowing where you’d stay, who’d go with you, and without making sure you had enough supplies to last you the journey, right?

And, just the exercise of planning it makes you visualise it more deeply… and makes you more mindful of your needs of food and water and shelter from the cold, and your wants of a fancier tent, better shoes, better socks and those super-amazing gloves.

Your research makes you way more aware of the signs and symptoms of altitude sickness, and makes you more mindful of your breathing and your body.  And it points out the dangers of going there unfit, unprepared, and without a guide.

And so you work with people who are experienced in the climb, and you build a plan that can get you to your goal realistically.  You can’t climb Everest with a week of training, nor can you spend all your time training when you have work and kids.  You need a realistic plan that’s doable, and you stick to.  But you need a plan.

That’s what financial education, a supportive community and a Day2Day Money Plan do.

And, you need a heart rate and mileage tracker.  So that as you do your training, you can see what’s REALLY going on with your body… and whether you’re really covering the mileage you need to.

The plan and the tracker help set you up with the biggest chance of success.

Your money tracker makes you mindful of where you are spending, points out the places that are a risk for you (like late night takeaways when you’re tired and haven’t got a dinner plan) so that you can make preparations to avoid it, and shows you where you are spending that’s not aligned with your values, your wants, your needs and your goals.

Your Money Plan helps you find the route out of the stress, the strain, and the waste, and towards the route to freedom.  It helps you with the battle in your brain – when Cruella the nasty wants to take you off track and justify it, you get to stand firm in your plan knowing that the attack will come, but knowing that you CAN do it.  That your plan is SMART – Specific, measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Timely.

2.      PREPARE – being organised is key to being able to stick to your plan

Goodness, this is my serious weak spot.

But, the science shows that those that are successful with money or weight loss are those that are prepared.

You will never make it up Everest without preparing your food, without booking the sherper, without booking your spot at base camp.  You have to physically do stuff to prepare.  You can’t just think about it.

And the same goes for money.

You are GUARANTEED to spend more when you rely on emotions in the moment.

A study asked people if they wanted fruit or yummy snacks at a conference, a week before.  Most opted for the fruit.  But, on the day at the conference, most went for the yummy stuff.

A plan is just that.  A plan.  But, if you physically make preparations earlier, you will reduce the stress and give yourself a better chance of success.

I know that when I go to the discount toy and goodies shop and do a big birthday present shop for my girls’ birthday, I will spend less money than when I wake up on the day and realise in a panic I don’t have the present, and scramble to the local gift shop and buy something less suitable at double the price.

I also know that if there’s food in the fridge at home, there’s less likiehood of takeaways… and if I look at my diary and pick out the easy meals for the hectic days, that will increase my chance of sticking to it.

If I book holidays in advance, if I’m organised with allowances and the kids school stuff.

You have to physically DO stuff, do the work in advance to help survive the storms of emotion – you can’t be on that mountain without a rain jacket and hope to stay dry.

And two of the most important pieces of preparation you can possibly DO is establishing an emergency fund and a cashflow fund.

3.      PROTECT yourself against debt and raiding the savings at all cost

So here’s the problem.  If you don’t do the work to be prepared, when trouble hits you’re going to use what’s available to you.  When you find yourself on the mountain and you’re starving, or the person with you hasn’t prepared and they’re starving, you’re going to dig into tomorrow’s food – hoping that you’d have sorted something out or done with less before tomorrow.

The same thing happens to your money.

The first is to KNOW that life does throw you major curve-balls, and in my experience, it never throws you one and then allows you time to gracefully recover.  It throws you 3,4,5 or a gazillion at a time. 

There are 3 things you need when it comes to protecting your everyday money

1.       You need a cashflow account to protect ourself from the month-to-month differences in spending

2.       You need an emergency account to protect against unplanned expenses that are guaranteed to come, or losing income briefly

3.       You need life insurance to protect against permanent loss of income through death or disability

There’s one other form of protection that’s becoming more and more important and that’s health insurance – both for you and for your family.

Here’s the thing I see happen all the time.  A parent runs out of money, and can’t afford health insurance… so they quietly stop paying it.  And then a health emergency hits.  And you end up needing to pay for it, cash, at private medical rates.  Trust me, when there’s a procedure that can save a parent, particularly in the height of an emergency, you haul out the card and you pay.

And that can have many long term consequences financially and emotionally.

4.      Provide for your future freedom

Your plan needs to provide for your future freedom.

So often, when I talk about retirement with people, they say “no Lisa, I’m going to work till I die”.  That’s a great sentiment, and only possible if you have your own business.

But even if you do have your own business, two things happen

1.       The people buying your services change – and as the younger generation step in, they tend to buy from similar people to them… their age.  They also don’t have the shared experiences the older generation has, so they don’t have the sentimental loyalty.

2.       As a species, we’re living longer.  And somewhere around 85 you lose your marbles, your energy, your strength and your desire.  It’s fact.  And you have NO idea how long you will live.  You could have 15 YEARS of living with no income… and needing your kids to pay for you.

So, like on your Everest trip you never just plan for the days it SHOULD take you to do it, you need to plan for the extra days, in case it does take longer.

This is another area where I wish everyone can ditch their view of retirement.  There are two myths that surround it that I’d like to change.

1.       The first is that you’re going to LOVE sitting around doing nothing, playing golf and chilling.  In my experience, if you have worked your whole life, you struggle with that.  We are creatures designed to use our talents in service to others.  It’s why I suggest everyone over the age of 50 starts their side hustle, so when they reach 60 and retire from a day job they have something to go TO, not something to go FROM.

2.       The second myth is around the fact that you are sacrificing now for a future that may or may not even happen.  That it is in total contradiction to Carpe Diem or sieze the day.  It makes it something you resent doing.  Something that is done TO you out of responsibility, rather than something you relish out of excitement.

I have absolutely been amazed to watch my investments suddenly grow exponentially.

You see, we all know that that compound growth curve is a hockey stick, but we get stuck for so long in that slow bottom part of it that we actually don’t believe it will ever shoot up.  I know that was me.  And I just KNEW for a fact I’d be working forever.

And then it started shooting up.

And I realised that each year it started to creep up towards my salary.  And then my investment growth matched my salary.  And then it started growing into John’s salary, and then it matched it.

And that’s when I started thinking differently about investing.  And I started cheering it on, and putting more and more money into investments.  And then making the decision to sell our holiday house, and invest that, and then downsize from a huge, city central house to a tiny cottage in the mountains.

Because it felt like freedom.  Like I was removing the huge burden on my shoulders I’d been carrying.  And John had been carrying.

You need to think about your future savings as paying an employee who you’re investing in now so that they can work for you until you die while you sit on the beach.  The more you invest, nurture and grow that employee, the more they will produce while you sit on the beach.

I don’t give up stuff to invest.  I just relish my ability to choose WAY more than I value stuff.  Freedom for me is priceless.

5.      Persist

There is SO much I don’t know about life.  But there is one thing I’m growing more and more convinced on.  This is an everyday struggle for most people – and for most of us we have to choose each morning to try again.

In my book I talk about The Journey Four of success that I believe you need to get anything hard done. 

1.       You need a MENTOR – someone who has walked the road, been successful, and can guide you on the way that will help YOU.  In my mind, you need to pay money that hurts to ensure you get it done.    When I wanted to write my book, I paid a huge amount of dollars to get a book coach.  From start to finish it was less than a year.

2.       The Mentorship Group.  One thing I know is that people who aren’t on your journey WON’T understand.  When I started my podcast, and wrote my book, people thought I was nuts.  So, when the going gets tough, they encourage you to give up… you don’t really need to do this NOW… it won’t matter if you leave it a month or two or do it next year.  So, with the course I paid for to learn how to podcast, and the mentor I paid to teach me how to write a book came groups of people who were on my journey.  They truly were my cheerleaders, my real empathisers, and the people who were gold to me on my journey

3.       The Friend.  You need someone in your day to day life whose got your back.  Who deeply supports your journey.  What I’ve found is that it’s not always the person The World Out There tells you it should be – your bestie – but God will always bring someone

4.        The accountability partner.  This is for the lifelong journey.  My example of this is my personal trainer.  I know I will never exercise consistently.  So I pay money that hurts to him and sure as nuts, I exercised twice a week for 8.5 years.  I moved cities, needed to give up my trainer… and I stopped exercising.  Those habit people would tell you after 8.5 years, it’s a habit.  Well….. I’d disagree.  I’ve always said I don’t pay my trainer for knowledge as I’m a trained physiotherapist.  I pay him to hold me accountable to rock up and do the work.

This is usually the point where people realise that they may now understand WHAT it takes, but they have no idea HOW to implement it.

Tomorrow night, Thursday 26 August, I’m holding a LIVE workshop where you can join me and I’ll go through what exactly you need to do to implement this.  To put it into place.  I’ll give you the spreadsheets and workbooks you need… and I’ll take you step by step through how to make it happen for YOU.

So sign up at teachyourselfwealth.com … no www… just teachyourselfwealth.com and you’ll spend just two hours to get your money sorted.

I so look forward to seeing you there.