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Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Set a reminder quarterly in your calendar to check in with your goals. Have an accountability buddy that you phone once a week and talk about money. Have a monthly “money date” with your partner. If you want that check-in but spreadsheets don’t do it for you, find another way of checking in. Personally, I keep a spreadsheet with all my expenses so I can see trends over time and continually evaluate which costs are worth it to me.įor me, putting things into a spreadsheet is a good time to reconnect with my long-term financial goals and confirm that I’m still making progress. If you have an interest and really want to optimise your finances, you can off course do so. Use a banking app on your phone and open that instead of Instagram every now and then. You can do as much or as little as you want to! The only really important thing is that you regularly log into your account to see if anything unusual is happening – anything that wasn’t part of the plan.Īs long as all your bills, savings and investment are automated, the money left in your account is what you have to spend. Implementing a new habit like this will take some practice, but if you stick with it, it can truly change your life. It went to something that was truly worth it. Think about it, if you know that what you buy is worth it to you, you will never have byers remorse again! You will never be surprised at the end of the month when the money is gone, because you know exactly where it went. This is not about being cheap, or even frugal or minimalistic. Look at your values and long-term financial goals.Ĭonsider how many hours or days you would have to work to pay for it. Is this thing I’m about to spend money on worth it – to me? Every time you are about to purchase something, think: This will take a bit of practise to implement but I strongly suggest you put in the effort. Is your spending in line with your values and goals? Take a look at the exercise you did earlier, looking at your spending. Having our structural expenses supporting our long-term goals is a key step, but to be fully in control of our finances we also need to be mindful about our other spending. Read More: How Much Should You have Saved for Retirement at Your Age? Sounds a lot? It doesn’t have to be if you save over time. This means that if you want to live off £40 000 per year, you need to have one million pounds invested. This is known as the 4% rule (of thumb) as we can safely withdraw 4% of our investments every year to live off, without running out of money. As well as any other investment such as property.Īs a general rule, we need 25 times our expenses in order to be able to live off our investments. We do this with the money we have in our retirement accounts and other savings. Then, we need to fund our own retirement. If we don’t take state pension or social security into account, and I recommend you don’t, unless you feel very sure it will still be around in it’s current form when you retire. And that the state pension will support the life you want to live. Even if you live in a country with a state pension, you need to feel confident that you are happy to work until you qualify for it.