In this solo podcast episode, Laura Rotter leads her listeners through an exercise of developing their personal money mission statement. She encourages the audience to be present and reflect on their experiences and upbringing that shape their relationship with money. The exercise includes identifying personal values, setting financial goals, and making mindful financial decisions. Laura provides practical tips for improving financial well-being, such as having a weekly money date, paying oneself first, and implementing a waiting period before making impulsive purchases. At the end, she shares a template for creating a personal money mission statement. Listeners are invited to share their own missions with Laura. Tune in to gain insights and inspiration for aligning financial choices with core values.
In this solo podcast episode, your host and financial advisor Laura Rotter guides you through an exercise to develop your personal money mission statement. Take a moment to be present and reflect, as we dive in together!
Step 1: Reflect
Start by thinking about the first three words that pop into your mind when you hear the word "money." Reflect on your own experiences and upbringing that might be shaping these associations.
Step 2: Start With Why
Identify and list your 3 to 5 core values that guide your life decisions.
Step 3: Set Your Goals
What financial goals do you want to set for 2024? They could be anything from reducing debt to a career change. Jot them down and see how they align with your chosen values.
Step 4: Envision Your Ideal Future
What are some of the things you would like to accomplish or experience in the future? Feel free to dream.
Step 5: Craft Your Personal Money Mission Statement
Use the template Laura provides in the podcast, not just set goals but set the right goals - things that inspire and fulfill you.
To conclude the episode, Laura Rotter shares some insights from her journey, like having a weekly money date and paying herself first. Dive into this money exercise with Laura to find more abundance in 2024!
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Disclaimer: Please remember that the information shared on this podcast does not constitute accounting, legal, tax, investment or financial advice. It’s for informational purposes only. You should seek appropriate professional advice for your specific information.
Narrator
Welcome to making change with your money, a podcast that highlights the stories and strategies of women who experienced a big life transition and overcame challenges as they redefined financial success for themselves. Now here's your host, certified financial planner, Laura Rotter.
Laura Rotter
Hello dear ones. ─ How are you?
I hope 2024 is treating you well. This podcast episode is going to be a solo podcast episode. So I'd like to lead you through an exercise that I just led some workshop participants through. And the exercise is developing your personal money mission statement. First of all, I'd like to start off by encouraging you, whether you're out walking your dog, whether you're driving in your car, or whether you're sitting at home, to just take a deep breath and arrive.
I know I'm guilty. of multitasking, doing many things at once, and never being present to what is. So I invite you to take a deep breath, come into your body, and come into the present moment. And as I walk you through this exercise, start off by asking yourself, when you hear the word money, What are the first three words that come into your mind?
And as these words pop into your mind, if you can, can write them down. And just reflect what personal experiences have you had, either growing up, messages you've received from your parents. messages you've received from the culture that you think led you to come up with these words. What experiences, challenges, and successes have shaped your experiences around money so that perhaps when you think of money, less than desirable, less than positive words come into your mind.
So now as we start on the exercise, The first thing we are going to do is define your why. I've worked with many clients over the years and the clients that are most successful in achieving their financial goals are those that have a deep understanding of how those goals are tied to their values and to what is important to them.
So I'm going to run through an admittedly imperfect list of values. It doesn't include every value that one might think of. So I'm going to list a couple of values and see which resonate with you. I encourage you to pick, let's say, the top three to five values that you believe Motivate you and inform how you make your life decisions.
So, there are work values. You might value professional achievement or competence or stewardship. There are spiritual values. Perhaps your decisions are informed by your faith or by your religious commitments. There are personal values. Of modesty of loyalty, perhaps of faithfulness. Are you guided by educational values?
Perhaps, like me, you're a lifelong learner, and so you value academic achievement, or self improvement, or study. Do physical values, are they important to you? They certainly are to me. Health, relaxation, exercise. Quiet time alone. Are you motivated by financial values of independence, financial independence, preservation of wealth, or stewardship?
And as I said, as I started this list of values, they are incomplete. So please feel free if you feel like there are other values that inform your life and that motivate you, as you define your why. And as you think about this, I'm going to share a quote by Carol Hildebrand. Committed decisions show up in two places, your calendar and your bank account.
No matter what you say you value or even think your priorities are, you have only to look at last year's calendar To see the decisions you have made about what you truly value. ─ See how you have reserved your time. Look at your expenditures. Those are the trails to the decisions you have made. ─ So you can hit pause on this podcast if you have not yet written down your top three to five values.
And now we will move on to what your goals are. And in this podcast we're discussing specifically financial goals. Perhaps your goal is to reduce ─ Your debt, perhaps you have high interest rate credit card debt, perhaps you still have lingering student loan debt that you'd like to get rid of that has high interest rates and that doesn't make sense to continue to carry.
You can list that as a goal. Perhaps you'd like to purchase a home or downsize a home. Perhaps you feel like you'd be served by pursuing more education, or maybe you'd like to leave a job that's really choking you and holding you back. What are those? Financial goals that are particular to you as you start this new year of two thousand twenty twenty four.
Please write those down. And as you write those down, ─ keep your values that you've just defined in mind and. Look at how the goals you're choosing align with those values. Some of you might be having difficulty defining what these goals are that you'd like to achieve. And for you, for myself, and for all the listeners out there, I'd like to ask you some questions about how you invest your time and energy.
Because as you know, of course, money is a scarce resource. That we're aware of, but we trade off our money for two other ─ white, important and scarce resources. And those are time and energy. Those of you who know me well know that I spent close to 30 years of my life. Trading off my time to make a great deal of money. ──
And by the end of that 30 year period, my career on wall street, it was no longer serving me. My energy was spent and I had very little time to pursue the things that are important and were important to me. So as you think about this trade off for yourself. I'm going to ask you some questions. First question.
What activities, paid or unpaid, currently make you feel good? What activities currently give your life a sense of meaning and purpose? Second question. Thinking back over your lifetime, what accomplishments have given you the greatest intrinsic rewards? And why, what about those accomplishments? make you feel good.
And finally, as we talk about setting goals, what are some of the things you would like to accomplish or experience in the future? And I invite you and give you permission to dream. ─ So you've chosen your values, And you've chosen your goals and a great quote from Daniel Pink from his book drive the surprising truth about what motivates us that I'd like to share with you.
Satisfaction depends not merely on having goals, but on having the right goals. So we are about to conclude this exercise. Of defining your personal money mission, I'm going to share with you a template at the end of this podcast that you can use so that you can write your personal money mission and put it up somewhere where you can see it and have it continue to motivate you.
But before I get to that, I'm going to share another quote from Frederick Hudson. Mastering the art of self renewal when you have a dream and a plan working together in the construction of a life chapter, you have a mission, a circumscribed purpose that defines your use of time and space. For the duration of this particular life chapter, people with a mission know where they want to go.
So keeping this mission that you're defining for yourself in mind, I'd like you to choose three actions that will help you bring mindfulness An intentionality to your financial decisions. I'm going to share some ideas with you that have worked for me. First idea is to have a weekly money date with yourself or if you live with someone and share finances with someone with your partner.
Ideally, you choose the same day every week. I use Sunday. As my weekly money date, and if you find this a difficult ── topic to broach with your partner, if you don't generally talk about money and finances, I'd encourage you to make it fun, light a fire, have a bottle of wine, drink some beer, play some music, whatever it is.
That will make this feel like you're not going to the dentist, but you're actually sharing a date with your honey. The second idea I have is to pay yourself first. That is Every time income comes into your bank account, have a certain amount automatically put in your savings account. You might do this if you're a W 2 employee, you might set this up ─ with your paycheck provider, so that a certain percentage of each paycheck goes directly without you thinking about it into your savings account.
And if you hear yourself protesting, I can't, I live paycheck to paycheck. There's no way I can pay myself first. Take a dollar, take 5, take a nominal amount, something that you really won't feel and transfer it. Into a savings account rather than having a sit in your checking account and then you think you have more resources to spend than frankly, you'd like to.
And finally, I've listed the 7 day rule, but this can also be a 24 hour rule. You see something in Amazon that you'd like to purchase or you're in a store and there's something a sweater or something that you think you might like to own. Take a deep breath and wait. If it's online, put it in the cart, but leave it in the cart for the period of time that you've chosen.
Leave it in the cart for 24 hours. Leave it in the cart for seven days. ──── Give yourself time for that sort of reactive. This will change my life ── reaction to subside. And so that when you revisit it, you'll see whether You really, really want that thing. If you still want it the next day, you still want it the next week, then go ahead and purchase it. ──
But give that time for that quick emotional response to subside. And now, I'm going to share the template. So that you can define for yourself, your personal money mission. Here goes. If you have a pen or you're taking notes, ─ please be ready. ── First sentence, my money mission is to align my financial choices with my core values of, and list your values.
I will share with you my top values, which I have taped up on my wall, and they are spirituality, family, meaningful work, play, and health. So, I attempt as much as possible to align my financial choices with those core values and I will achieve this by listing your actions and my actions are every Sunday reviewing my spending.
And seeing if I've kept within the limits I've set for myself, I achieve this by transferring 50 percent of my income to a separate savings account. And then within that, since I work for myself, transferring a portion to a taxes. ── Account transferring a portion to ─ my owner savings account and transferring a portion to my owner spending account ─ and I do this in order to reach my goals.
financial freedom, but define for yourself what your goals are. And my goals also include taking a family vacation a couple of times a year. ─── You'll be amazed at how your adult children enjoy spending vacation with you. If you invite them and if you pay for them, ──────────────────────────
I would love to hear what you come up with as you define for yourself your personal money mission. So please feel free to write to me at Laura, L A U R A at trueabundanceadvisors. ────── com and share what you come up with. ─── Are you enjoying this podcast? Please leave a rating and a review and it will help others just like you find this. ─────────────────────────
Thanks for listening to making change with your money. Certified financial planner, Laura Rotter specializes in helping people just like you organized, clarify, and invest their money in order to support a life of purpose and meaning. Go to www. trueabundanceadvisors. com forward slash workbook for a free resource to help you on your journey. ─────────
Disclaimer, please remember that the information shared by this podcast does not constitute accounting, legal, tax, investment, or financial advice. It's for information purposes only. You should seek appropriate professional advice for your specific information.