Catherine Pope

Financial Coach & Workshop Facilitator

Finding your motivation to establish good habits

Stock image of tablet
Image courtesy of Alpha Stock Images

“But it’s soooo boring,” is a common response when I mention the importance of maintaining a budget. Often, we avoid a good habit because it’s not very enjoyable. But it’s not always about having fun. If I go to the gym with the intention of enjoying myself, I fail nearly every time. However, if my objective is to improve my strength and fitness, I succeed every time. Occasionally I enjoy myself – if, for example, a poseur walks into a mirror – but mostly it’s a slog. But, that (almost) daily effort will hopefully keep me vertical and mobile for another four or five decades.

Recording your expenses each day is much less fun than watching Orange is the New Black, but it’s completely unrivalled if your aim is to feel more in control of your finances and meet goals such as saving for retirement or a new house. So, being more mindful of your intentions can help when motivation is on the wane. Here are a couple of suggestions for keeping going.

Create a motivational password

You probably type your password a least a couple of times each day. Changing it to a motivational sentence is likely to be more secure, and it’ll also remind you of your priorities every few hours. You could try:

  • Save£25perW3ek!
  • Get0ffF@cebo0k
  • Pay0ffCr3ditC@ard

As you’ll see, you can replace letters with numbers or symbols to improve security. This might stop you buying stuff on Amazon or fiddling about on Facebook when you could be finding a new client.

Keep a note in your purse or wallet

In the excitement of discovering a bargain, we quickly reach for our credit cards. If, however, this involves first removing a message emblazoned with a financial goal, we’re likely to think twice. This is a firm reminder of those real priorities, such as “I want to retire at 60,” “I really need a new car,” “I don’t want to starve when I’m old,” etc.  Of course, this doesn’t generally work with online purchases, as we tend to store our details. Disable one-click ordering and remove your card information. You can still buy that item, but it forces you to confront the note in your wallet each time.

Conclusion

Perhaps you’ll never actually enjoy budgeting, but I reckon you’ll relish the results. Whatever you need to do, keep reminding yourself why.

Bracing Yourself for Stealth Expenses

Photo of bandaged cat
Poorly mog courtesy of simon_music

“I don’t know where my money goes,” is what I often hear from friends and clients. Direct debits make it very easy to set and track monthly expenses, but what about those stealth costs that appear out of nowhere? Car repairs, boiler repairs, cat repairs. An unanticipated bill for £200 wreaks havoc with our current account, and it can take months or even longer to recover.

Here’s how to identify and prepare for those unwelcome demands.

Stage One

Go through your statements for the last 3 years (they’re probably available online if you no longer have the paper copies). Remain alert for any major irregular expenses, such as new glasses, a replacement clutch, or a new carpet after the dog got caught short.

Hopefully, you won’t need a replacement clutch every three years, but there’ll almost certainly be another car part that demands a chunk of your pay packet. So, organise these expenses under headings, such as car repairs, household maintenance, or pets.  Work out how much each of these areas has cost you over three years and divide by 36. You now have an approximate monthly amount.

Stage Two

Now consider those big expenses that are predictable, yet we never prepare for, e.g. Christmas and holidays. Imagine how amazing it would feel to pay for festivities up front and not have to come back down to earth with a massive credit cardbill. How much would you need to set aside each month to stay in the black?

Stage Three

If you’re able to budget for these amounts, it’s worth stashing the money in a separate account. Otherwise, you might check your balance and think you’re rich. Automatically diverting the funds where you can’t see them helps avoid both confusion and temptation.

Conclusion

Of course, that new thermostat might end up costing more than anticipated, but at least you’ll have most of the money towards it. Conversely, you could find yourself with some surplus cash if your car/boiler/cat behaves itself.

The downside of this exercise is that you’ll initially feel as though you have less money to spend each month. But, you’ll be in control and you won’t get any stealth bills.

The Kindness Method by Shahroo Izadi

Cover of The Kindness Method by Shahroo IzadiWhen we want to quit a destructive habit, it’s common to be hard on ourselves. We don’t just start with a gentle 20-minute canter around the block, it has to be a 5k run before breakfast. Every day. There’s nobility in suffering and, of course, we crave fast results. This punishing schedule proves unsustainable and we’re confronted with yet more evidence of our flakiness. Nevertheless, many self-help books urge us to pursue dramatic change.

In The Kindness Method: Changing Habits for Good, Shahroo Izadi adopts a different approach. Instead of seeking an immediate overhaul, she encourages us to spend time creating the right conditions and mindset for change to occur. This involves:

  • Seeking clarity on what we want to change
  • Ensuring this change is for our own reasons and not just serving someone else’s agenda
  • Recognising that change is hard and establishing a structure to support the process
  • Understanding the excuses we make to ourselves and why
  • Developing self-awareness of the thoughts that dictate our actions

Izadi’s background is as a psychologist specialising in substance misuse. Although many of the examples are based on drug and alcohol addiction, The Kindness Method™ is effective in treating all forms of compulsive behaviour. Indeed, Izadi herself used it to lose 8 stone in weight and provides a frank account of the effort involved. As the subtitle indicates, this isn’t about transformation, the aim is to change habits for good. Izadi explains that first you need “tangible memory aids to remind you of what you’re capable of and how important it is for you to change”.

Most of these aids are mindmaps, visual representations of a single concept. We can quickly refer to them in moments of despond and get a compelling reminder of what’s involved in striving for this goal. The exercises include drawing mindmaps on themes such as: What I’m Proud Of, What Hasn’t Worked, What’s the Harm?, and What Will Test Me? For example, keeping a What’s the Harm? mindmap wrapped around your credit card might nudge you into spending less on gadgets. Note, though, that you’re not necessarily trying to stop buying gadgets altogether, as an abrupt withdrawal can make us feel punished and resentful.  After all, this current habit – even though it’s an unwelcome one – is serving a need that won’t just disappear. If you need a reward, perhaps you could buy a cheaper treat or identify another activity that creates the same emotional response.

The Kindness Method™ is completely bespoke. As Izadi observes, “presuming to know people better than they know themselves and telling them what to do is simply not effective”. Rather than pushing ourselves to the limit, it’s about “rewarding, accepting, forgiving and understanding ourselves”. This is a humane, honest, and generous book that can liberate anyone who feels trapped by unhelpful behaviours. Lasting change beats short-term success, and that means being kind to yourself.