Establishing Financial Self-Care

Money and finances are one of the leading causes of stress for Canadians. Living with inflation and facing rising costs of living can be overwhelming and create a sense of being lost. Indulging in the common forms of self-care like exercising regularly, drinking enough water, and eating healthier are important to practice as often as you can, but prioritizing your self-care regarding finances is something that should not be ignored. When thinking of your financial self-care, it means reevaluating your relationships with money so you can invest in a brighter and more secure future.

What is Financial Self-Care?
Tips & Tricks for Practicing Financial Self-Care

What is Financial Self-Care?

Practicing financial self-care means focusing your time and energy on your personal finances to increase your financial prosperity and well-being. Instead of the common forms of self-care, financial self-care offers the best ways to manage and improve your finances in a healthy way. It allows your life to have balance so you can save for the important things but splurge on things that make you happy. You need a balance of regular self-care with financial self-care to elevate all areas and aspects of your life.

How To Get Started

It can feel overwhelming and confusing to know where to start, but the biggest advice to listen to is to be kind to yourself and to start small. Change doesn’t happen overnight and it’s important to understand that your choices need to fit within your lifestyle, so you don’t stretch yourself too thin.

Tips & Tricks for Practicing Financial Self-Care

Below are a few of our favourite ways you can incorporate financial self-care into your routine. Some of these may seem simple, but sometimes the simplest of changes can make the world of a difference.

Let Go of Past Mistakes

It’s easy to be hard on the financial decisions you made in the past but moving forward is the best way you can reach your financial goals. Learn from those mistakes and make a conscious effort to avoid making the same choices.

Create Realistic Financial Goals

By setting a goal for your financial future, you can determine the path and action you need to take to help get you there. These goals can be short, mid, or long-term. For example, a short-term goal could be saving for a new laptop, a mid-term goal could be paying off a credit card or funding a big trip, and a long-term goal could be paying off a mortgage or investing in a Registered Education Savings Plan for your child.

Establish Healthy Money Habits

Sitting down and reviewing your current habits is important for improvement. After you see where you spend most of your money or your monthly money commitments, you can establish new healthy habits. Creating a list of your monthly bills or investments can help you organize and visualize where your money is going each month so you can decide if your current habits are suitable for you. By doing this, you can build an emergency fund, cut out unnecessary spending, or find an investment that fits within your limits.

Understand That Things Can Change

Not everything is in our control, as much as we’d like it to be. Sometimes your financial goals and plans shift as your life does, and that’s okay. The most important part of your financial self-care is to be intentional with your finances and to do what works within your means.