Spending Guilt Free

Today's Newsletter:

• My Latest

• Spending Guilt Free

• How I Do It

• A Money Question

My Latest

I spent a good portion of my life (5+ years) wondering why every twist and turn life threw at me didn’t seem planned.

To be honest, that doesn’t do it justice. I spent those years thinking about why half the stuff was even happening and what I could do to “get back on track”.

Now that I am old (at least my kids tell me I am), I have a different view of those twists and turns.

Heck without those things, I wouldn’t be the person I am today, doing what I am doing, or even writing this newsletter.

In short, I learned a lot and put together a video on 10 of those lessons.

I think you will like it and don’t worry you don’t need to be a pro athlete to apply any of the lessons!

You can check out the video below

Spending Guilt Free

I have always been a good saver.

I have always been a terrible spender.

For most people, the same applies (or in reverse).

For me it has always been that way, it took years for me to spend and feel good about it.

I would track every expense, stress about it, and then fail to enjoy what I just spent money on.

Today, I still track most things, rarely stress about it, and only spend money on the things I find joy in.

So how did I do a total 180 from stressed spending to guilt-free spending?

Well, it was a process and in today’s newsletter, I want to talk about what I did and what you can do to feel good spending money.

Let’s dive in!

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How I Do It

Get Specific

This conversation has to start with you and you need to spend real time considering what matters.

I have found we go through life seeing what other people buy and thinking oh I “need” that.

It reminds me of that scene in The Italian Job (great movie) where Edward Norton’s character, Steve, takes all the gold bricks and buys what everyone else said they wanted.

Think about it, you see a commercial, ad, or Amazon popup for some product you have never even heard of and within 24 hours it can be on your front door.

So step one…don’t do that.

Instead, consider 1 or 2 areas where you are willing to go all out. These things give you tons of energy, bring about great memories, and maximum value for your money.

For me, they look like this:

• Vacations

• Time With Family

Then we need to take this a step further, what could I spend money on to achieve the highest ROI on vacations or time with family?

Well here are 5 things that come to mind for each:

Vacations

• Flying direct

• Hotels with a nice gym

• Outside airport check-in

• Paying for the best location

• Onsite rentals (think for activities)

Time With Family

• Good restaurants

• House with a pool

• Hiring home service providers

• Paying for experiences (think concerts)

• Delegating everything that doesn’t require me (think business)

Do you see how vacations and time with family go from generic things I like to specific things I can put my money towards to optimize them?

Sure I could find a cheaper hotel, flight, or rent off-site, and in certain other areas of my life I would look for the cheaper option but not in the areas I truly enjoy.

To me guilt free spending starts with being hyper specific about what matters to you and your family.

Action Item: Don’t be like Steve from the Italian Job and spend your money on what other people find valuable. Instead, sit down tonight and truly consider what you enjoy spending money on. 

Track Your Spending

The number one disconnect with money is how much you are spending. If you are not tracking your spending (at least generally) you are doing yourself a disservice.

You know that cliche quote, “What gets measured, gets managed”? Well call me cliche but it applies here.

If you don’t know what you are spending you will almost always have doubts and fears about spending money.

Let’s look at two examples to prove this:

Family 1 

They spend $15,000 per month. Of that, $2,500 goes towards discretionary spending (the fun stuff). Yet this family has no idea what they are spending so when the busy season hits (birthdays, holidays, etc..) they start to feel overwhelmed thinking “We are spending way too much”.

The truth is they might be or they might not be. No one knows because they haven’t been tracking anything. The only guarantee is that at some point during the year, they will be stressed.

Family 2 

They spend the same $15,000 per month with the same $2,500 going towards the fun stuff. The difference is they are tracking the spending and realize that in certain months they have only spent $1,500 on these items providing them more to spend during the busy season.

They can spend guilt-free over the $2,500 per month during that time knowing that they are still hitting their yearly goals for that spending category.

To recap:

One family is stressed out and one is spending guilt-free. The truth is they could both be spending the same amount but tracking expenses allows for stress-free spending as opposed to stressed-out spending.

Action Item: Track your expenses, it doesn’t take as long as you think. I use Monarch Money, you can check it out here. It takes me 10 minutes every other week to know what we are spending and what we can spend guilt-free.

Build a Plan

Imagine this, you are going to build your dream house.

You walk in meet with your builder, show him a picture on Google of a house you like, and tell him you will meet him again in 24 months when it is done.

That would be insane.

Yet, often we are doing that exact thing with our finances. We know where we want them to be. Yet we don’t spend any time building out the plans, reviewing the progress, and making adjustments.

The single most important meeting I would have with my financial advisor revolved around one thing ~ What I could spend…

It was my biggest stress point and it took us having conversations about my income, taxes, risk, and investments to determine a number that we both agreed on.

Then the next year would come and all those variables would change.

Well, the good news is I didn’t treat my relationship with my financial advisor like our home builder.

We met consistently, talked a lot, and built a plan that allowed me to have the confidence to spend guilt-free.

Now look, this isn’t a pitch to hire Moment or any other financial advisor, it is just the reality of what it took for me to spend guilt-free.

Action Item: Sit down with your spreadsheet (if you DIY) or your financial advisor and determine how much you can spend. Chances are it is probably a slightly different number than what you currently are (higher or lower).

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My friends no one gets an award for dying with the most money.

So you need to figure out how you can use your money.

I want you to do that guilt-free…trust me it makes spending money a lot more enjoyable.

So get specific, track what is happening, and build a plan...it works.

Until next time!

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A Money Question

What is the best thing you have spent money on this year?

I will go first. My wife and I bought a new house and we are excited to (Lord willing) raise our kids there for the next several decades.

I hope to create memories, host family, and spend lots of money doing it!

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3 Ways I Can Help You

💰 Schedule an introductory call with Moment. We help athletes, entrepreneurs, and key employees build and protect wealth.

📹 Check out my YouTube channel. A safe place to get smarter with your money.

📷 Interact with me on Instagram. Where I provide bite-sized daily content to level up your money game.

Moment Private Wealth, LLC is a Registered Investment Advisor, located in the State of Missouri. Moment Private Wealth provides investment advisory and related services for clients nationally. Moment Private Wealth will maintain all applicable registrations and licenses as required by the various states in which Moment Private Wealth conducts business, as applicable. Moment Private Wealth renders individualized responses to persons in a particular state only after complying with all regulatory requirements, or under an applicable state exemption or exclusion. Nothing in this content is intended to be, and you should not consider anything in this content to be, investment, accounting, tax, or legal advice.