Top steps towards Financial Freedom in 2019
Financial peace of mind is PRICELESS
Attaining financial freedom does not happen in only one giant step. No, it happens over time and it takes a series of what we can call “baby steps“. Why is this important? Because it will change your life. Remember, every baby step counts, but it is up to you to commit to your goals and to make them happen.
Start by blocking off some time to set up your goals for financial freedom!. Once you have identified your goals in the key areas of your financial life, for example: spending, saving, debt management and passive income and then you can record them in your 2019 Abundance Money Diary. Follow the guidelines set out in the January monthly insert.
Set your Financial Goals
The first step that you need to take is to break each FINANCIAL FREEDOM GOAL down into several smaller steps, tasks and activities. These will form part of your purpose-fulfilling steps, with financial freedom as your GOAL. Diarise the actions that you need to take, this will ensure that nothing gets overlooked or forgotten, when life becomes busy or you are distracted from your GOALS
Make SAVING a regular Habit
Saving will never happen by accident and neither will your GOAL of financial freedom. Saving and financial freedom will only happen because you made it happen, on purpose and with intent!! Your financial freedom has to be planned because each day, each week and certainly each month, you want to ensure you are allocating your income flow towards savings/investments and not only towards spending. Are you ready to get your money working for you?
To Save or Spend?
This habit of spending or saving, lies in your day to day decisions. The power is in your hands, to action or not to action, to save or to spend, that is the question…! How committed are you to having financial peace of mind?
This is in your hands. So that is the good news, because with financial freedom being your end goal, your life will never be the same. Here are a couple tips that can help you make the change from only spending to saving and spending.
Your Focus
Instead of focusing on what you want, but don’t have, it is important that you focus on what you truly need and do “the test”, before you make a purchase. Ask: Is it a need or a want?Can I live without it? Each day, you can record on the day page of your Abundance Diary how much you have saved by making money-savvy choices. It’s very exciting and fulfilling to track your progress!
Small Change
Clear out your purse regularly and add the small change / coins to your savings jar. The sooner you start saving, even a small amount regularly, the closer you will be to realizing your financial dreams by having your money working for you. But before your money is going to go to work for you, you do need to build an Emergency Fund. Read more about that in the monthly insert of the Abundance Diary!
Build towards your goals and take those purpose-fulfilling steps daily
Use the year-planner in the front of your Abundance Money Diary, to indicate milestones or deadlines that you set for yourself. Schedule time to review them each month. Each day you can choose a small task that you can action and achieve, which will move you towards realizing your GOALS! Goals are achieved with consistent steps, every small steps counts.
2019 Abundance Money Diary
Create a Monthly Ideal Income and Spending Plan
At the start of each month, nestled in your Abundance Money Diary, you will find the Ideal Income & Spending Plan template. it is designed for you to do the estimate budget first and then later, to record your actual expenses. This way, you get to know where your money goes. This knowledge can be life changing, but is it up to YOU!
Tracking
This practice of tracking will help you to gain clarity of your various expenses and savings, allowing you to see the variables and how close the actual costs are to the estimated figures. The difference that you will see is what will help you to make small but important changes. These are the changes that will support you in your goal towards financial peace of mind.
Close the Leaks
By tracking your spending, you will be able to close the leaks in your money flow. Taking back your power with your money, feels really really good!! More details on how to get the full benefit from your Ideal Income & Spending Plan are to be found the the front section of your Abundance Money Diary.
Day to day Expenses
I have to tell you that recording your day to day expenses is the second MOST IMPORTANT step that to take, in re-claiming your power around money and literally reclaiming your MONEY. In my Financial Coaching sessions, time after time, the area where people spend the most money, without being aware of the amounts, is on their day to day expenses. This knowledge is a wake up call for most people. How about you?
Recording
What if you could take a couple minutes after a shopping trip to record how much you’ve spent? Or, at the end of the day, you can use the recording day to day spending spreadsheet in your Abundance Diary, to track how much you spent. Over the period of a week and then over a month, this information is valuable in understanding your financial habits. It is a personal journey which only you can do for yourself.
Compare
Next, you will add up the totals for the various categories at the end of the month and review how you spent your money. Compare the actual spend to the estimated amount. Is there a difference? How big is the difference? Review the figures to see if you can make changes with your day to day spending habits and find where you can allocate even more to savings? Saving needs to be your number one expense!
Emergency Fund First
Your first savings GOAL is your emergency fund, the next SAVING GOAL is to build savings equal to 3 to 6 months of your monthly expenses. Remember, consistent baby steps is what will get you there!
Ignite your Sense of Abundance with Gratitude
Each and every day, it’s important that we notice our thoughts, our feelings, our experiences and activities. Some are good and some are not so good. That’s okay! The challenge is to focus on and to notice the things that you can be grateful for! Even the challenges, 
because challenges allow you to grow.
The Good Stuff
We are all here to learn and evolve, so the more you notice the good stuff in your life, guess what happens? More good stuff comes your way. The more you focus on all the wonderful, exciting, positive and uplifting things in your life the more your will experience blessings, miracles and amazing synchronicity. It is the good life!
Abundance Money Diary
You may already have noticed these things, but now is the time to put pen to paper and record these special moments for eternity, on the daily pages of your Abundance Money Diary. It is a life changing practice that you will come to relish and love, especially when you page back and review moments you recorded months before!
Gratitude A Year later
The best part is that a year later, you can review and recall in minute detail your amazing moments that you might otherwise have forgotten. This is one of my favourite things in my Abundance Money Diary. it is through this exercise you will become the person who continuously attracts more and more blessings into your life.
Financial freedom is achieved, just take a step everyday!!
Just do one thing!
To your abundance!
