Achieve Financial Success
Lisa shares her expertise on building financial success and spending guilt-free with seven proven steps. These steps have been tested and refined over the years through her coaching practice, resulting in more money and increased confidence for her clients. By implementing these seven steps, individuals can stop budgeting and achieve even greater financial success without needing to make more money or change their lifestyle.
Key Takeaways
- Understanding one’s financial situation involves breaking down expenses into fixed expenses and spending money.
- Auditing finances by tracking spending over the last 90 days can identify patterns and trends.
- Stop budgeting by allocating funds into a spending account to achieve greater financial success.
Understanding Your Financial Situation
Identifying Your Net Income
The first step to achieving financial success is to ask yourself, “What do I make, spend, and keep each month?” To do this you must understand your net income. This is the money that lands in your account after you’ve been paid, and it’s essential to know this number month after month. If you’re a W-2 employee, your net income is what lands in your account after taxes and 401K contributions have been taken out. For business owners, this may be different. It’s important to know your net income to get started on your journey towards financial success.
Understanding your spending habits
The second step is breaking down your spending into two categories: bills and discretionary spending. Fixed expenses, like rent or mortgage payments, are bills that must be paid every month. These expenses are non-negotiable and have consequences if not paid. The second category is discretionary spending, which is what you have left after your bills are paid. This is the money that you can choose how to spend or save.
It’s crucial to understand your spending habits to gain control of your finances. The third step is to back track your spending over the last 90 days. This can give you insights into your spending patterns and help you make better decisions about your money. She recommends using tools like Rocket money to help audit bank statements and understand fixed expenses.
Spend guilt free
Step four is to stop budgeting. Instead, Lisa suggests having clarity on how you will spend your money after bills are paid. This leads to step five, which is to tell your cash where to go. Instead of allocating money into various categories, Lisa recommends putting the amount of money you have after bills into a spending account. This way, you know how much money you have to spend and can make informed choices about how to use it. You can then go to step 6: spending guilt free. This money is allocated to spend, so spend it.
After completing these six steps, in this order, you can finally learn how to save. You’ve mastered your relationship with spending and money and now you can start saving without compromising your lifestyle.
By following these seven steps, you can achieve financial success and stop living paycheck to paycheck. You don’t have to change your lifestyle and more likely than not, you don’t have to make more money. By gaining clarity about your spending, you give yourself the opportunity to break out of the cycle so many of us have been trapped in.
About Lisa
In today’s video, Lisa gives a high level overview of the 7 Proven Steps to Achieving Financial Success. These steps have been tested by Lisa over the last 10 years with her clients. If you want to dig deeper into each of these steps and unlock financial freedom for yourself, check out Lisa’s Stop Budgeting System to get started.