How To Save Like No One Is Watching | HMM 38

EPISODE 38

[INTRO MESSAGE]

[00:00:08] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the Her Money Matters Podcast, the podcast to help you take control of your finances. Join your host, motivational money coach, Jen Hemphill, as she shares with you practical, simple money insights and real life stories by women like you. Let’s get to it.

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:27] JH: Hey there, thank you so much for tuning in. This is Jen Hemphill and whether you’re tuning in from, if you’re driving in to work in a car or you’re on a commute in the metro or you’re taking your dog for a walk or maybe you’re doing some household chores, wherever you’re tuning in from, I really, really appreciate you.

There’s a lot of good podcasts that you could be listening to or you could be doing other things but you chose to take some time out of your busy schedule to listen to me so I really appreciate that and definitely don’t take it for granted. In today’s episode, I have some great stuff to share with you. Yes, I know it’s my opinion that it’s great stuff but the reason I say it is because it’s just some observations I’ve seen from you all as listeners.

Also, just some reoccurring themes that have come up in conversations with clients, with the members of the Fearless Money Sisterhood Program so I wanted to make sure that I bring that into this episode so you can gain some insight from it and if you have been listening for a while, you’ll probably notice me repeat some things.

Maybe you will notice some of the same themes over and over again and if you do, that is not a bad thing. That’s actually a really good thing because that means I’m getting in your head there but all in a good way because it’s all for your financial sanity. So I think that’s a good thing. In today’s episode, I am going to share with you three big reasons why you aren’t saving like you want to be saving.

I’m also going to give you different opportunities or share with you different opportunities that you can give yourself a pay raise and what I mean by that. I’m also going to share with you why the traditional way of saving doesn’t work and how the right tools and automation can make your savings sky rocket.

Now, I want to remind you real quick that my Fearless Money Sisterhood membership program is waiting for you to make your entrance. We want you to join us if you haven’t done so already because I know some of you have here and if you are needing that extra push, that extra motivation, the extra guidance on how to get your money under control and really be surrounded.

I’m telling you, the women that we have currently in there are phenomenal. If you want to be surrounded with them, check it out, give it a spin, give this program a spin for 30 days for just $1. All it takes is $1, US dollars by the way my Canadian friends. So I’m pretty confident that you won’t be disappointed and if for some crazy reason you are, it’s really super easy to cancel. You can check that out at Jenhemphill.com/podcastdollartrial. That’s Jenhemphill.com/podcastdollartrial and dollar is the word, spelled out.

I also want to share with you, speaking of the program, every month, once a month, we have a call in the Fearless Money Sisterhood program where a cover topic that’s really picked by the members, it’s really the member’s pick and then we basically have a Q&A style conversation. It’s very laid back, the members ask their questions, we have a conversation and others chime in. It’s not just me talking, which is just so beautiful and I was reminded about that this month how beautiful those conversations can be.

Yes, I’m there to guide you and support you and teach you but you don’t necessarily have to learn just for me. You can learn from those peers, those people around you, which was such a beautiful thing and we had that precisely thing in this most recent call. So I wanted to share that with you because it was just really heartwarming for me to experience that with them where it wasn’t just them listening to me but they were listening to each other.

They were having these “aha moments” and like I said, it wasn’t just me teaching. They were actually teaching me as well. So that was pretty, pretty cool. Now let’s go ahead and dig into today’s content. Why aren’t you saving like you want to, and what can you do about it?

So there are three big reasons you aren’t saving like you want to be saving. One, you don’t have a system in place and we’re going to talk about systems in a little bit. Two, you aren’t clear on what you have to save, that is a huge one. If you don’t know your flow of the money, what’s going in and what’s coming out, you don’t know what you can save or how much you can save. So that is a second big reason.

And number three, you are afraid that you don’t have the extra money to save, right? So that’s comes/stems from not getting and not being clear and also just some fears within you. So those are really the three big reasons that I wanted to share with you why you aren’t saving like you want to be saving. Now, what can you do about it? There’s several things that you can do about it.

One is, you want to shift your thinking where yes, saving is a great thing but if it helps you, why not think in terms of giving yourself a pay raise and I’m going to explain to you what I mean by that. Because sometimes savings, the word saving is so overused and I’ll talk to you a little bit about that in a little bit but if you shift instead of saving by giving yourself a pay raise, which is essentially saving because you are paying yourself money versus to the bills versus to other things.

You’re paying yourself money to do what you want to do with it. So you want to shift from thinking of saving to giving yourself a pay raise. So just shifting perspective and I’ll give you some examples of how you can do that. Let’s say you have a toddler that’s just got out of diapers, right? So you don’t have to buy diapers anymore and that’s a huge savings in itself so there you go. That’s a pay raise but here’s the key. You put that money to work, that extra money that you’re saving from the diapers which we know diapers are expensive.

You can’t just, “Oh great,” celebrate that your kid’s out of diapers especially if you know how much a month approximately you are spending on diapers, what are you going to do with that money now? That’s your pay raise. That’s something that you can be putting aside and put to good use or another one similar to that is, if you have children in your day care and they’re going to kindergarten and you’re like, “Yes!” Because day care is so expensive.

That is a pay raise but put it to good use. Maybe you’ve been getting some sort of degree and you’re done and you graduate, you get your degree, that’s a pay raise because that’s money that you’re no longer paying towards that, right? So remember, it’s not just about that “pay raise”, that extra money that you’re paying yourself but it’s about putting it to work for you. That’s where most people fall short, they don’t put it to work for them.

Think about your values, your needs, your desires okay? So just make sure you remember that. It’s a great thing to free up some money. It’s a great thing to find money to save but it’s another thing if you don’t put it to work. It’s not doing you any good. You got to put it to work because what happens is that money will sneak out that backdoor and it doesn’t leave much evidence of what happened, okay?

Another thing that you can do is getting clear on what you’re saving for, all right? So it’s one thing to be saving and it’s another thing, completely other thing to be saving to a trip to the Bahamas, right? You don’t want to just save to save. We know saving is a good thing right? All the money gurus out there tell you to save. “You’ve got to save, you’ve got to save,” that’s already engrained in our system but what is not engrained I believe in our system enough is that we have to get clear on what we’re saving for.

We don’t want to just save because that’s what we’re supposed to do and what we should do. We got to save with a purpose in mind and a specific one at that. So make sure that you are clear on what you’re saving for so don’t just save to save but be clear. Is this for an emergency fund? Because I did ask the question actually in our Facebook community.

Someone was proud that they were saving or they had a certain amount of money saved, right? And when I asked the question and this happens, this didn’t just happen on Facebook group but I asked others, “So what does that money saved up for?” Yes, emergency comes up but there’s no clarity as to what else they’re going to do with it. So it’s really, really important.

The money is here to serve you, it’s a tool for you to use, it’s not just to put it in a bank account, it’s not just to pay off that debt, it’s not just to pay the bills, eat and all that but it’s also to serve you to do things that you really enjoy doing. The other thing you would need to do that comes with that is figuring out what you have. So you’ve got to know how your money is flowing.

That money that’s coming in, the money that’s going out, I have that, jumpstart your mini-guide that you all can grab and it’s episode 14 I believe that takes you through that mini-guide that will help you gain clarity as to where that money is going so you know exactly what you have. The other thing you want to do is to decide on the type of system that you will use.

This is another part where people fall short. We have accounts, some people use cash only, the cash envelope for systems, some people put money in jars that works for them, all of those. So you want to really make sure you pick one that works for you and that you like. So is it going to be a virtual, meaning is it going to be your bank account, say some savings accounts? Are you setting money aside on an envelope or a jar or maybe it’s a combination of the two?

It doesn’t have to be just one or the other, maybe it’s a combination of the two and that’s completely fine. So really decide on the system of what you’re going to use. I know that seems very simplistic but people don’t necessarily choose, they just kind of go with the one but they don’t take a moment to think and figure out what is best for them.

The other thing that you would need to do is beyond that, beyond choosing the system is you want to make sure that you have specific accounts or accounts with these systems. These systems have to have a specific purpose. You’ve probably heard me use this word over and over again, if you’ve been listening to me for a while, these accounts have to have a specific purpose because I’ve already talked to you wanna get clear on what you’re saving for.

So you want to not just save to save, as I mentioned, but you want to save for that specific purpose. So whether you’re building up your emergency account or maybe you’re building up some money to travel or maybe there’s a hobby that costs money that you enjoy doing. Maybe you’re putting some money aside for that. I always recommend putting some money aside to blow off if you will because sometimes you’re going to splurge.

Sometimes if you put it aside, if you save that money aside every month when that moment comes, you’re not going into tap into the other money that’s specific for those bills. So that’s, I think, very, very important. And the last piece is automating, granted if you’re using the envelop system, you can’t automate that but if you use a combination and if you have an account, you can automate your savings. Especially if you’re clear on what exactly you have, you can completely automate.

I know you’ve heard me talk about automating before because automating is going to save you me time. Automating is a way that’s going to allow you to save without you even putting any thought to it. It’s just going to, “I’m automatically doing it.” Automating, if you think about it, it’s like giving yourself a bonus check just because, right?

Even though it’s going to have a specific purpose for it but it’s just because. Not because you did this grandiose task at work but just because you do deserve it, right? You work hard so you do deserve it. Automating will allow you to have that money already aside for vacation so you’re not stressed that it’s go on a credit card or you aren’t taking vacations yet another year. Oka?

It’s going to allow you to save for the next car purchase, right? Because cars a big thing that in my opinion, if at all possible, not to take the loan on just because it depreciates so quickly and sometimes we take on that loan and depending on how long it’s financed for just the car depreciates so much that if you look at let’s say a couple of years down the line of how much you owe versus what it’s worth, sometimes depending on your specific loan, what it’s worth is going to be less than what you owe.

So you tend to be get upside down really quickly there. So automating is also going alleviate so you can have money aside for the next time, speaking of cars, the next time your car needs tires, cars need maintenance all the time. Not all the time but they’re going to need maintenance eventually or maybe something in the house, right? Maybe you have to replace that washer and dryer.

Those bigger ticket items, the furnace, maybe you need new windows in the house? Those type of things that you could be saving for especially if you automate it versus when it happens, you’re trying to figure out how are you going to pay it and then you end up putting it on credit card. So if you automate, it’s going to help you do those things and accomplish those things.

So that is it for today’s show, kind of quick and dirty here. So I’m going to recap what we talked about. We talked about the three big reasons why you aren’t saving and those three reasons were not having a system in place, not being clear on what you have to save and just being afraid. Having that fear of not having that extra money aside, which stems back to not being clear on what you have to save.

We also talked about different opportunities to give yourself a pay raise and in addition to that making sure that you put that money to work. So it’s shifting our perspective of instead of saving, just giving ourselves a pay raise which depending on your personality can give you a little more boost and motivation to be saving.

The other thing that we talked about was why the traditional way of saving doesn’t work and why that is, is because and I actually didn’t clarify that within that, but what I was intending to do with that or clarify with that is that you want to get clear on what you’re saving for. That’s why the traditional system or traditional way of saving doesn’t work because we don’t save with a purpose.

We don’t save with a specific purpose in mind. We just save because we’re told that we need to be saving because that’s what we’re supposed to do and that’s why it’s not motivating. So that’s why it doesn’t always work. And finally, we also talked about how the right tools and automation can make your savings sky rocket.

So if you have a system, you choose a system which can be a combination of your accounts and maybe some envelopes or jars and with automation, it can help it sky rocket because — especially with the automation. Because you’re not thinking about it. It’s automated. It’s going to happen month after month or week after week depending on how you set it up without you doing anything to it.

So I hope you found that of value, and let me know. Come on over to the Facebook Group and I can put that link in the show notes. Let me know what you gained from this episode or any of the other episodes and what is it that you feel why you aren’t saving the way you want to be saving. Is it one of those three reasons that I talked about or maybe it’s another reason? So let me know, come over to the Facebook Group or leave a comment in the show notes.

So that is a wrap for today. I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule for tuning in. You can check out the show notes at Jenhemphill.com/38 if you want a quick recap and for that link for the Fearless Money Sisterhood membership trial. So thank you so much for listening and we’ll catch you next Thursday.

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