Episode: 370 - Simple Gratitude Hack to Transform Your Spending Habits
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Developing a healthier financial mindset can drastically improve your spending habits, allowing you to save more money and reduce financial stress. The best part? The secret is already within you - it's the power of gratitude. By leveraging gratitude, you can shift from feeling like you're always behind to realizing you have enough to work with right now. This mindset shift has the potential to transform your financial life and future.
Embrace the Power of Gratitude
One of the common reasons for overspending is the belief that what we have isn't enough. We're often influenced by the lifestyles of others, driving us to want more just to feel adequate. Gratitude disrupts this cycle by refocusing your attention on what you already have. It reminds you that you're not starting from scratch; your life already holds many good things. Importantly, gratitude and feelings of deprivation can't coexist.
When you make gratitude a habit, the pressure to spend money to fill emotional voids diminishes. With the holiday season approaching, a time notorious for its spending pressures, learning to practice gratitude now can safeguard your budget rather than allowing it to be blown away by comparisons and societal pressures.
Practicing Gratitude in Your Financial Life
Gratitude is a skill that requires practice and patience, but over time, the benefits will become clear. Here are some practical steps to develop gratitude in your financial life:
Celebrate Small Wins: Start your week by naming one financial success, no matter the size. Whether you brought your lunch instead of eating out or paid cash for a small purchase, acknowledge these victories. Every win matters in reducing financial stress.
Affirmations of Abundance: Regularly affirm to yourself, "I have enough for today." This mindset grounds you and counters the constant messages from advertisements and social media that suggest otherwise.
Gratitude Walks: Take a walk around your home and acknowledge the functionality and value of the items you own. Whether it's your working couch or the capabilities of your mobile phone, appreciating what you have reinforces the idea that you're not starting from zero.
Appreciate Past Decisions: Instead of focusing on past mistakes, celebrate the good decisions you've made, like paying bills on time or contributing to your emergency fund. These decisions are crucial steps toward financial wellness.
By integrating these practices into your life, you'll cultivate a mindset of confidence that lessens the impulse to spend based on emotional whims. Building confidence comes from taking action and recognizing even the smallest of wins, which collectively boost your financial self-assurance over time.
Take Control of Your Financial Future
By shifting focus from lack to abundance, many have realized they can improve their financial situations significantly, appreciating what they have while still pursuing larger goals like buying a new car or planning a dream vacation. Just ensure these aspirations don't lead you into financial distress.
You don't have to wait for life circumstances to improve before feeling grateful. Start feeling thankful today, and watch how swiftly your life starts to feel better. When you're content, you make better money decisions. It's that straightforward.
Embrace gratitude and experience the transformation it brings to your financial life. Remember, you have enough for today and the potential for a brighter financial future is within reach.
Resources
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Transcript
Brad Nelson:
Hey guys, so today we're talking about a simple mindset hack that can drastically improve your spending habits. It can help you save more money. It can help you reduce a lot of financial stress. And the coolest part about this, you guys, it's completely free. It's already actually inside you. And most people sadly just overlook the power of this little hack. And this isn't just some other budgeting trick or spreadsheet or formula that we're going to give you. It's something that will actually change the way that you think about money before you ever even touch it. It shifts your mindset from feeling like you're always behind or you don't have enough to feeling like you actually have enough to work with. And that shift alone can completely change your entire financial life and your financial future.
Announcer:
You're listening to the Debt Free Dad podcast with Brad Nelson. Brad and his co-hosts experience the anxiety of living paycheck to paycheck before learning the fundamentals of financial success. They are now on a mission to empower regular people to pay off their debt for good and enjoy happier, less stressful lives. Keep listening for inspirational interviews, tips, tricks, and practical advice to gain financial freedom.
Brad Nelson:
Hey guys, welcome to today's show. I am Brad Nelson, founder of Debt Free Dad. I paid off about $45,000 in debt. I've been debt-free now for more than 12 years. I've also been fortunate to help thousands of other people save and pay off tens of millions of dollars with the work that we do here at Def Free Dad. Now, guys, after listening to this episode, if you're ready to take things to the next level, you're ready to break free from living paycheck to paycheck, you want to reduce financial stress, you want to build your savings and finally pay off your debt for good, but maybe you're just not sure where to get started. Hey, we've created some incredible free resources for you here at Defree Dad, and I'll be sharing some details about how you can get some of those later on in today's episode. Now, one of the biggest reasons that we overspend is because we start believing that what we have isn't enough. We might see what other people have, what they're doing, what they're driving, what they're posting. All of a sudden, we're convincing ourselves that we need more just to feel okay. But here's the thing gratitude interrupts that thought pattern completely. You see, gratitude brings your focus back to what you do have, it reminds you that you're not starting from zero. It reminds you that your life actually has really good things in it, even right now. And here's the powerful part about it you can't feel grateful and deprived at the same time. Those two emotions, they can't coexist. So the more you practice gratitude, the less pressure you feel to go spend money to fill emotional gaps that are in your life. And I think this is like the perfect time to actually bring this topic up because we're heading into the holiday season. Thanksgiving is right around the corner. And man, I love Thanksgiving. I cannot wait to start cooking up some great food. And this time of year comes with a lot of spending pressure, as we've been talking about with our roots members on social media and here ever, even here on this podcast, you know, things like Black Friday shopping, holiday sales, family expectations, the expectation that you have to, you know, give your kids and your family the perfect Christmas, the travel, the gifts, the events. It's a lot, right? And it stresses us out. But if we start practicing gratitude now, before all that hits, and even guys, if you could do this on a daily basis, we can actually start to protect our budget instead of blowing it out of emotion and this pressure to keep up with what everybody else is doing. You see, when you slow down and acknowledge what's already good in your life, it becomes that much easier just to say, you know what? I don't need that. I'm okay. I have enough for today. So let's talk about how you can practice some gratitude in your financial life. And again, this isn't gonna be a hack that's gonna work for you overnight. This is gonna take a little practice and some patience, but over time, guys, you'll see the benefits. So let's talk about how to actually do this. Because again, I'm not talking about journaling for 45 minutes a day and writing poetry about your emotions and all that fluffy nonsense, right? We want to keep this simple. That's what we're all about here. Keep it simple, real life things, real life practices that you can implement uh in your daily life. So the first thing is start your week by naming one money win. You guys know if you've been listening to this podcast, we're all about those money wins. In fact, the majority of our episodes, we are celebrate all of our members' wins because they're super important. And again, it doesn't have to be a massive win. It can be tiny. It could be, hey, I brought lunch this week instead of eating out. It could be saying, hey, we said no to something that we didn't need or something that we would normally bust our budget for. It could be I paid cash for a purchase that I wanted. You know, a win is a win. And uh, we're big on don't poo-poo any wins, even if they're as as small as you might think they are, they're still important in your journey in reducing financial stress. And also get in the habit of saying out loud, I have enough. I have enough for today. And this immediately will start to help you ground your mindset instantly because sadly, guys, in today's day and age with social media technology, especially just the phone alone, we are constantly hit with advertisements and posts and things that we see that say we're not good enough or we don't have enough, right? And we need more and more and more. So it's easy to get wrapped up in that mindset and that thinking. So get in the habit of switching it. Prepare yourself for that. I have enough for today. Another thing you can do is do a quick gratitude walk in your home. I know this sounds kind of silly, but seriously, look around and remind yourself the couch works, right? Uh, I I've got good shoes, my shoes work. I got a phone. Most people have a phone powerful enough to do a lot of cool and crazy things, right? It's amazing what the phone can do. Yes, it can be a distraction at times, but yes, you can use it as a tool, but your phone works. You're not starting from nothing. So walk around your house, see the things that you already have, see the things that you have purchased. And again, remind yourself that what we have is enough. Also, get in the habit of thanking yourself for good past decisions. You know, it's easy as humans to beat ourselves up for everything that we do wrong. Trust me, I do it too. All right. But if you paid a bill on time, celebrate that. If you manage to save $10, $15, $20 in your emergency fund, that counts. Like, don't discount any of those wins. Get in the habit of celebrating it and being grateful for making those decisions to better your overall financial life. You see, these tiny practices, they build a mindset of confidence, right? And that confidence reduces emotional, impulsive. I deserve this type of spending. And guys, the only ways to build confidence is to take action and actually practice this stuff on a daily basis. And the more you do it, the more small wins you build up, the better and overall your confidence gets over time. Now, guys, I can't tell you how many people I've worked with in the past or these last 10 years. And a lot of people say, Brett, I thought initially I just needed more money or what I was doing, I just sucked at all this stuff. But when we slowed down and we helped them start focusing on the good that they already had and showed them the opportunity by making small adjustments in their daily life that they could get the small wins, everything began to change as far as their mindset. They slowly stopped focusing on all of the things that they didn't have, and they began to realize, like, wow, I can really improve my financial life and the things that I have are fine, and I should be grateful for those things right now. Now, that's not to say that you can't chase after other things too and have goals of purchasing a better car or going on that, you know, dream vacation. All those things are great and well and good, but just don't let those things take over your mindset and cause you to spend money and blow your budget and go into debt. So here's the takeaway for today. As we start looking at the Thanksgiving holiday season, and really, if you get in the practice of just doing this every day, it's gonna benefit you a lot. But you don't have to wait for life to feel better. You can just start feeling grateful today. Gratitude is what's gonna make your life feel better instantly. And when you feel better about your life, you make better decisions with your money, and it really is that simple. All right, guys, as I mentioned, if you're ready to start breaking free from living paycheck to paycheck, you want to reduce financial stress, you want to build savings and finally pay off debt for good, but maybe you're not sure where to get started. Don't worry, we've got you covered. Simplify My Money is sent to you each and every Sunday to your email. It is your step-by-step roadmap to better financial control. You're also gonna learn some easy-to-follow strategies, just like you're learning here on this podcast, to help you manage your money more effectively. You're gonna get stress-free money decisions and tips that are gonna help you simplify your financial life with proven methods that actually work for normal everyday people, people just like you and people just like me. You're also gonna grain some incredible tools and confidence to tackle your financial goals head-on. Now you can sign up for Simplify My Money by clicking the link at the top of the show notes of this episode. Thanks for joining us on today's show, and we will see you guys on the next episode.
Announcer:
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