Start & End Your Day By Counting Your Blessings

One really easy way to get started on a gratitude practice is to make a habit of counting your blessings both morning and night. You don’t even have to write them down, as in a gratitude journal, if that seems too overwhelming. Simply taking a few minutes when you wake up and before you go to bed is enough to begin cementing this new practice into your routine. Before long, you’ll be easily noticing that blessing abound. Here are some tips to help you begin. 

 

Start Small

 

Easing into any habit is usually the best approach. By making it easier on yourself, you’ll be more inclined to continue moving forward. So, try not to put too much pressure on yourself to come up with grand examples of gratitude when you’re just starting out. Just appreciating the bed where you’re starting and ending the day can be something to add to your initial list. Sometimes simply recognizing a tiny blessing can have a big impact.

 

Add It On 

 

A helpful method for remembering your new gratitude habit is to add it on to your existing routine. Whatever you normally do in the morning and night, be sure to include a few minutes to think of what makes you feel fortunate. For example, if you have tea every morning, this would be a good connection to make. Sitting down to tea will soon become a reminder to contemplate on your three things. 

 

Create Visual Reminders

 

If you find yourself forgetting to do it or skipping out on your new task, add some visual cues to your environment. Post-it notes are great for this. Stick one on your nightstand. Add another to your bathroom mirror. Technology comes in handy for reminders, as well. Set an alarm on your phone so that you don’t leave the house or fall asleep without taking time to consider what makes you feel thankful.

 

Turn It Around

 

You can also try the opposite. Turn complaints around into something positive. Maybe you wake up with a sore back and don’t want to get out of bed. It may seem obvious, but reminding yourself that you’re in overall good health and that you have a safe place to sleep can do wonders for your outlook. Try to find the silver lining. It really works. 

 

Take Notes

 

A good habit can be jotting things down during the day as they happen. It only takes a few seconds to make a note of what you feel grateful for in that moment. You can reflect on it later during your quiet bedtime routine. 

 

Hopefully, you now see how getting into the habit of recognizing the good thing in life really isn’t all that difficult. A few small changes to your routine and you’ll find it’s actually quite easy to implement this practice. 

What A Difference A Bit Of Gratitude Makes

Gratitude can be simply broken down to appreciating the good things in your life. It doesn’t always seem simple, though. When things are hectic or stressful, finding the silver lining can be challenging. However, learning how to embrace gratitude can significantly boost your happiness. Being grateful offers a host of other benefits you’re probably not aware of, too. Let’s take a closer look at the concept, ways it can improve your life and how to practice it. 

 

About Gratitude

 

There are many definitions of gratitude. Some people believe it’s a feeling or emotion. Others look at it as more of a mood. Still, some folks believe gratitude is a personality trait a person exhibits. These can all be correct. In essence, gratitude elicits satisfaction and appreciation in a person through feelings, actions or even inherent qualities. However, even those of us who may be more inclined to feel grateful on a regular basis through our glass-half-full-optimism likely need to work on evoking such an outlook. Gratitude can be viewed as a practice or something you perform regularly. Most people practice something because it benefits them. This is true of gratitude. As with other practices, you’ll get better at demonstrating gratitude the more you work at it. 

 

Benefits of Embracing Gratitude

 

There are many benefits of gratitude; many of them have been scientifically proven. Once you begin to understand these, chances are good that you’ll see why it’s so important to develop a grateful mindset. Gratitude can have a positive effect on both physical and mental health. Research has shown it to improve relaxation, sleep quality and energy levels. Being thankful for your blessings can enhance your emotional wellness. You’ll deal better in crisis situations and find you’re more resilient when you’re able to look on the bright side. This can contribute to better relationships, too. Appreciating the positives in life can simply make you feel happier. 

 

Ways to Practice Gratitude

 

Recognizing your blessings may not come easily at first, but there are some ways to help make it a habit and a regular part of your routine. One of the most convenient and impactful methods for cultivating appreciation is through keeping a gratitude journal. In this practice, you’ll write down three things each day that you’re grateful for, which makes it easier to notice and recognize those good things. Meditation has also been shown to help. Also, making an effort to thank someone each day, for even the smallest thing, opens your eyes and heart to abundance. Giving back and doing good for others can provide tremendous perspective, as well. 

 

Now you have a better idea of just what making a concerted effort to count your blessings can do for your life. Embracing and expressing gratitude are more important than many of us realize. 

Keep Your Grocery Spending Under Control

Aside from your mortgage, your biggest monthly expense is likely groceries. And unlike your mortgage, your car payment and most of the rest of your bills you actually have some control over how much you spend at the grocery store. 

 

Make A Grocery Budget 

 

Start by tracking how much you’re spending on groceries for a few weeks. From there, come up with a weekly or monthly budget. Allot that money for groceries and whatever you do don’t go over. 

 

Next, try cutting back your budget by $20 per month. Keep going and see how low you can go. The remaining tips will help you do that without feeling like you’re depriving yourself. 

 

Keep A Price Book 

 

Who doesn’t love a bargain or a good deal? They are all over the store, but do you know if what they advertise as a good deal is actually saving you money? 

 

Keep a little notebook in your purse or keep a text document on your phone with the regular prices of the items you buy most often. Not only can you see if that “deal” really is a deal, you can also determine what kitchen staple is cheapest where and adjust your shopping accordingly. Your price book will also come in handy when you browse through weekly grocery flyers. You can decide if a loss leader deal is worth driving to the store long before you ever set a foot out the door. 

 

Come Up With A Few Frugal Dishes 

 

You don’t have to make drastic changes and eat nothing but rice and beans all week. Instead think of a few inexpensive dishes your family enjoys. They may be rice and beans. Or how about a big pot of soup or chili. Often meatless dishes will be your best frugal bet, or use meat in small portions on frugal dish days. 

 

Enjoying frugal meals even just a handful of days during the month combined with using up any and all leftovers will make a big difference in your grocery budget. 

 

Cut Out The Extras 

 

Make a list before you head to the store and stick to it. All those little extras like the fancy bread from the bakery or the candy you grabbed at checkout start to add up. Get in the habit of skipping those extras unless there’s a good reason to buy them. Stick to your list and you’ll cut your grocery bill by quite a bit each week. It’s amazing how all those little extras add up.  

 

Give these tips a try and see if you don’t start to see big savings on a weekly basis. What you do with all the extra money each month is up to you. Save up for a fun summer vacation, pay off those credit cards or start building your financial safety net. 

Do You Have A Financial Safety Net? (And How To Build One)

Do you have a financial safety net? It’s something worth thinking about and setting up. What will happen to you and your loved ones if you lose your job for a few months? What if you get into an accident that may prevent you from earning a living? Or what if some unexpected expenses come up. Do you have anything in place to make sure the bills continue to get paid and your family is taken care of? 

 

If not, now is the time to get started. But where do you actually start? Having three to six months’ worth of living expenses tucked away in an interests-bearing account is a good beginning. Figure out what your family needs to comfortably live on if all income stops. Then start saving as much money as you can until you have built up this safety net. 

 

Put the money you usually spend on going out to eat, going to the movies, buying the newest TV and Tech gadget and the likes into your savings account until you’ve saved enough to have a comfortable cushion. Take make this step go even faster, add any bonuses, tax refunds etc. as well. 

 

Don’t just stop there. Make it a goal to add to your safety cushion as you can and come back and revise your numbers from time to time. Your living expenses may go up or down over time and you can adjust how much you need to set aside in quickly accessible money accordingly. 

 

Life and disability insurance are another important part of your financial safety net, as is your retirement money. Do you have a plan in place to continue to cover your living expenses (or those of your family) when you can no longer work? Call up your insurance agent and go over your current coverage. Make sure the insurance you’re paying for will pay out what you need and if not, make adjustments. 

 

Once you have those two parts of your safety net firmly in place, consider investing any additional savings into higher interest-bearing accounts. While you may not be able to access any money invested here right away, it will come in handy when you’re dealing with a long-term financial emergency or are ready to retire. The plus side is that there are plenty of investment vehicles out there that will get you a much better return than your plain savings account at the bank. Talk to your financial adviser and come up with a plan that’s right for you, your family and whatever the future may hold. 

How To Plan For Unexpected Expenses

It’s just a matter of time before it happens. The transmission blows on your car right around the time your daughter needs braces and your washing machine decides to call it quits. All of these are unexpected expenses and something we need to deal with throughout life. 

 

Being prepared as much as you can is your best bet when live throws you a financial curve ball. 

 

Do your best to anticipate upcoming expenses. If you’re driving an older car, or your dishwasher has seen its better days, start saving up to replace the item. You may also want to start keeping an eye out for good deals on the replacement. 

 

An even better strategy is to have an emergency savings fund. Set up a savings account and add to it monthly. Use it only for completely unexpected expenses. Make sure you know what’s in the account. And once you have to take money out of it replace it as quickly as possible. 

 

This brings us to a good point. Here’s how to recover quickly after that purchase. Go over your budget (you have one of those, right?) and look if you can temporarily cut back on some things. Stop ordering Pizza every Friday night and make your own at home. Skip a night out on the town and watch a couple of movies on Netflix instead of going to the theatre. 

 

Use the money you’re not spending for the next few months to refill your emergency fund. For an extra boost, work a few hours of overtime, do a few freelance projects or temporarily pick up a part time job to get back on track fast. 

 

But what do you do when the expense comes up before you had a chance to set up the emergency fund? Take a deep breath and assess the situation. Can you make do without the item for a little while? Just long enough to scrape together the funds to repair or replace it. If it’s the dishwasher, that’s easy. You can wash dishes by hand for a little while. If it’s the fridge or the car you rely on to get you to work each day, that’s a different story. 

 

If you need the item that broke, evaluate if it would be less expensive to repair than replace. Even if it isn’t the perfect solution, it may get you to work until you can safe up for a different car. Shuffle your money around and if there is no other option charge it to the credit card and get to work. Your one and only goal right now is to pay off that expense. If you stick every penny of discretional income in, it won’t take you long. 

 

One your bills and credit cards are paid off, do what you can to get that emergency fund set up. Because you know something else will break down the road. 

Put Your Savings On Autopilot

Putting a little money away for a rainy day isn’t always easy. You may have some good intentions, but at the end of the day, there just isn’t any money left. Somehow whatever you make is spend before you make it to the next paycheck. 

 

Start by making a personal budget. Take a look at what you bring in each month. Next, write down your fixed expenses. These are things like rent, car payments, utilities etc. Figure out how much you need each month for groceries and other essentials. This is your bare bones budget. It’s good to know what you need to get by each month. 

 

Next, it’s time for a little bit of math. Start with what you bring in each month and subtract all your core expenses. What you’re left with is your discretional income. This will pay for entertainment, clothes, getting your nails done etc. And from here on out, part of that discretional income will go into a savings account. 

 

Pick a number you’re comfortable with. Maybe that’s just $20 per month, maybe it’s $500. Put it in your budget and treat it like any other bill. It won’t take you long to get into the habit of setting aside that money for savings. 

 

To make it even more hands-off, talk to your bank about setting up a separate savings account. Then set up an auto-deposit to have the savings transferred to the new account as soon as your pay check comes in each month. If you don’t see it, you’ll never miss it and your savings will run on autopilot. 

 

Don’t forget to audit your savings from time to time. Take another look at your budget. Can you increase your savings a little more? Another great way to boost that savings account is to take any extra money – thinks like birthday cash, tax return, bonuses etc. – and put them straight into the savings account. Again, you won’t even miss the money, but it will help you build up your savings quickly. 

 

Make sure your savings are sitting in an interest-bearing account. Since you won’t be touching this money unless it’s a dire emergency, you should be able to earn at least a little interest. Talk to your banker about your best options and start putting your savings on autopilot. 

 

One last tip: Talk to your employer about matching 401K funds. You may be able to get a contribution from the company you work for towards your retirement savings account. 

Why You Need To Keep A Household Budget

 

We work hard to earn a living. We should make sure we spend the money we bring home wisely. That’s where a household budget comes in. It’s a good tool to see at a glance what we have coming in, what’s going out (and what that money is paying for) and if there’s anything left at the end of the month to put into savings. 

 

Before we dive into exactly what a budget can do for us, let’s consider for a minute what will happen if we’re not tracking income and expenses. We may end up spending more than we’re making in a given month (or two, or three). Over time that can put us into some pretty hot water financially. We may also spend a lot more than we’d like to believe on things like eating out, going to the movies or new clothes. 

 

Having a budget gives us more control over where we want to really spend our hard-earned cash. Maybe that’s dinner and a movie, but maybe it isn’t. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an actual choice? 

 

It Tracks Where Your Money Is Going 

 

A budget simply tracks your money. You record where the money comes from each month (your income) and then write out everything you spend it on, starting with your regular monthly bills like mortgage or rent, car payments, utility bills etc. What’s left after all the bills are paid is your discretional income. 

 

Helps You Identify Things You Waste Money On 

 

Having it all in front of you in black and white helps you identify things you’re wasting your money on. 

 

It makes you reconsider if you really want to spend well over $200 a month on Cable TV or $150 on your large cell phone plan. Or how about that yearly magazine subscription to something you no longer read? Go through your expenses and reevaluate if this is REALLY how you want to spend your pay check. 

 

Allows You To Be Proactive About Savings 

 

Saving money without a budget is hard. We go in with the best of intentions at the beginning of the month, but somehow there isn’t anything left at the end of the month. 

 

A budget gives you a chance to be a bit more proactive. Set aside some money for savings at the beginning of the month, even if it’s just $20. Put it in the budget as a regular expense, just like you do with your other urgent bills. If you need to, open a separate savings account so you’re not tempted to spend it. 

 

Ensures You’re Not Spending More Than You’re Making 

 

Most importantly, your budget will keep you on track and help you make sure you’re not spending more than you’re making. And I don’t have to tell you that that’s pretty important for your financial wellbeing. 

Confidence Is Your Secret Weapon To Building The Live Of Your Dreams

It’s time to wrap up this 7-article blog post series about getting what you want out of live. We’ve covered a lot of ground already this week and I’m sure you’ll surprise yourself with how much progress you make going forward. Before you know it, you’ll have the life of your dream and start to reach those big lofty goals, without the feelings of guilt holding you back. 

 

In this post, on this last post in the mini challenge, I want to leave you with some tips and advice that hopefully help you get there. The key to success in any area of your life is confidence. I like to think of it as a secret weapon that helps you keep doubt and guilt at bay. It’s your very own super power that you can (and should) develop and nourish over the coming weeks and months. 

 

Starting to make progress and taking these little baby steps that we discussed a few days ago can be a great confidence builder. That’s one of the reasons why I got you started on them right away. Don’t be afraid to go back to taking small baby steps whenever you feel like you’re losing confidence in yourself or stressing out about how monumental the task you’ve set yourself is.

 

Setting and reaching milestone goals are another great way to break it down and boost your confidence in yourself. If your goal is to lose a large amount of weight, break it down into 10-pound increments and focus all your energy on reaching that next 10-pound loss. Celebrate your successes. The same works when you’re paying of debt. Start with one credit card for example and get it paid off. Reaching those smaller goals are a great confidence booster. 

 

Tracking your overall progress is another great way to feel like you’re making progress. Sometimes it’s hard to see how far you’ve come in the day to day activates of regular life. Chart your progress on a calendar, a large graph hanging on your fridge, in a document on your computer, or even in an app on your phone. Look at how far you’ve come whenever you feel like giving up. It’s nice to have a visual reminder that what you’re doing is working and giving you the results you want and need. 

 

Last but not least, find some cheerleaders to cheer you on and tell you how well you’re doing. This could be a close friend or family member, or it could be a group of like-minded people that you connect with locally or online. The beautiful thing about the internet is that we can find people with the same or similar goals in lots of groups and forums. Our very own Facebook group is a great place to connect, compare tips, ideas, and results, and of course celebrate each other successes and serve as a source of encouragement.

 

The most important part is that you keep going and keep working towards crafting the life you’ve always wanted. Good luck and keep up the great work. 

Watch Out – Those Guilty Feelings Will Try To Sneak Back Into Your Life

The previous blog post was all about taking baby steps and making progress. The secret to reaching any goal is to just keep taking those baby steps and adjusting your course as needed. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, there’s always something that will throw a wrench into your plans, potentially halting your progress. Today I want to share one of those with you. It’s something you should watch out for and be prepared for. If you know it’s coming, it’s much easier to prevent it from stopping your progress. 

 

I’m talking about guilt. We’ve looked at the guilt that’s holding you back throughout this 7-day mini challenge. Not only does it prevent you from starting to go after your dreams in the first place, it also keeps trying to sneak back into your life. You’ll notice those little negative thoughts popping back in your head after the first excitement of making progress and going for it dies down. That’s when you have to be prepared so these feelings of guilt or self-doubt don’t derail you. 

 

I’ve mentioned how helpful a journal can be when it comes to self-reflection. It’s also a great tool to help you spot guilty feelings popping back up. If you get yourself to journal regularly about your feelings and your progress, you have something to look back on. You have a record of what you’re doing and how you’re feeling. You can then look through your daily entries and find those instances of guilt quickly. 

 

As we’ve discussed before, it’s easier to get over the guilt and in this case prevent it from taking hold when we know what it is and that it’s coming. When you know what you’re feeling bad about, you can find arguments and proof against it. Reminding yourself of the positive impact the changes you’re making will have on your life also helps you stay the course. 

 

For example, that piece of cake may be tempting you and you may feel guilty about not eating the confection that your aunt so lovingly prepared. Or you may feel guilty about letting perfectly good food go to waste. By reminding yourself that your health will be much better and that you’re able to run around the park with the kids, you can quickly overcome these feelings of guilt. The same holds true if you’re feeling guilty for not going out to lunch with your friends at work, or not buying your kid the latest pair of designer sneakers because you’re being financially responsible. Do you see how this works? 

 

Additionally, you have something to show you the progress you’ve been making and the positive changes you’re already experiencing. That can be a great confidence booster, which will be important as you continue your journey well past the end of this challenge. In fact, it’s something we’ll take a closer look at in the next blog post. Stay tuned.