🤔Are you spending too much? Here’s how to know.

I’ve been doing quarterly reviews with clients for the last couple of weeks - checking in on goals and progress, what’s been working and what hasn’t. 

One of my clients (we’ll call him Brad) is focused on personal spending right now. 

I sent him a video report summarizing his spending vs. income in Q3.  

Brad’s response: OUCH! Do you think I’m spending too much?

To answer this question, I bring it back to the real north star: not your goals, but your values. 

Let’s say your top value is health. Spending $1 per day on hot dogs at Kwik Trip might seem like very little, but it could actually be too much, because it’s inconsistent with your value of health and makes you feel like crap. 

On the other hand, spending $20 per day on grain bowls at Crisp & Green makes you feel great, and helps you stay on the health wagon… even though it leaves you with less cash in the bank.

So how do you figure out the right balance?

Examine how your “bad” spending habits align (or don’t) with your values.

Here’s how to do that in 15 minutes:

First, write down the places you spend money that you feel guilty about, or describe as ridiculous, or feel like you can’t admit to people. Set that paper aside.

Next, brainstorm what’s important to you. (Not your mom, not your judge-y neighbor. You.)

To get the ideas flowing, you can click through this slide show of suggestions, jotting down any words that jump out as important to you. If a word doesn’t grab you, just move on to the next one. 

Look at your list and identify themes by grouping like-concepts together. Maybe you have three options that are similar, and you realize there’s a different word that nicely sums up all three. Write that down to replace the other three.

Once you have your revised list, rank them from most important to least important. Post-its are a great tool to help you physically move things around until you have your list ranked. 

(Hint: Try to be honest about what actually IS most important to you. Not what you wish was. Or what a better version of you would value.) 

Now focus on the top three. 

Grab the list of guilty pleasures and for each one, ask yourself “Does this fit in with my top three values?” 

If it does, can you give yourself permission to spend the money and enjoy it already?

If it doesn’t, what’s stopping you from letting it go?

If you do this and have an ah-ha moment, I’d love to hear about it. Hit reply and let me know!