The Journey to Financial Resilience
Before starting my financial journey, I was a financially insecure 24-year-old who was anxious about the future. The topic of money put a bad feeling in my gut. I did not believe that I could save or budget. Not only that, but I felt like a fish out of water when discussing my future. Even now, I still am unsure about what I want to do with my life. But after my experience with Nav.it and all of their incredible resources, I know what I want.
I feel more secure and empowered than I ever have with my money. And that is thanks to Nav.it.
One of the pressing issues that I had was my spending habits. As a young adult, it’s hard not to think about what you don’t have. We see celebrities like Kylie Jenner living her best life in her 20s, not to mention our own classmates going on vacation every break they get. And with a lack of financial literacy at college, it’s no wonder we don’t know the impact of our spending. When we’re aware of what we spend, we take accountability.
There were days when I knew I could be saving, but instead, I opted to spend on something that would make me momentarily happy. I shopped on Amazon, searching for things I thought would make me happy. Makeup brushes, phone cases, DIY projects, anything I could find. I ended up with a room cluttered with Amazon boxes and no clear view of my future.
An Evolving Relationship with Money
My relationship with money has always been rocky. I didn’t keep track of my spending, not because I didn’t care about my finances, but because I was afraid to confront my spending habits and see how low my money was.
At the time, I was unaware that I was navigating my life with a scarcity mindset. I didn’t believe I had enough money to be happy. Whenever I thought about my future, I looked at it for fear of what I didn’t have financially. I also felt guilty that I wasn’t on the same money train as the rest of my peers on Instagram. I thought I could be doing more, that I should have more. These feelings combined made me stressed when thinking about money. In my mind, money equals happiness. Therefore, more money should equal more happiness (or so I thought).
Afterfinancial coachingand utilizing Nav.it’s app features, I changed thisscarcity mindset. With a mindset of abundance, I could change how I spent my money.
How I Changed My Spending Habits With Nav.it
Becoming Accountable
My first step in changing my spending habits was taking accountability for my spending. When I became accountable for my spending, I became aware of what I was spending and why. Accountability allows us to stop blaming other people or factors for our money situation. We take control.
Tracking It All
I began keeping track of what I was spending each month. My Money Coach gave me an activity to identify the top things/services I purchased monthly. After finding out what those three were, I had to reduce my spending in those areas. My top three were rideshare apps, food services like DoorDash, and minor products I found at work.
I started to become aware of myimpulsive spending. When I had the urge to buy something from work, I would ask myself this:
How will this benefit me in the long term? Can I find a better deal elsewhere? Is this something that I need? Will this only satisfy me momentarily?
I found myself putting back unnecessary items. Not only did I put thought into my spending, but I also began tracking purchases. An easy way to track expenses across multiple accounts is by utilizing the money tab within the Nav.it app. By adding my accounts, I could see when and where I made a purchase and how much I spent that day. Not only did it help me track my spending, but I became aware of minor purchases that I didn’t know about. This helped me get on track financially and take control.
Taking Control
Confidence has always been something I struggled with, but more so now with money. My previous financial mistakes were very difficult to get over. I had gotten my first credit card in college and managed to rack up over $1,000 in credit card debt, resulting in my score hitting its lowest point. I had attempted to start a savings account, which led to me pulling money out. After several attempts at saving and building, I gave up on trying. I began to believe that I could not achieve financial goals alone. I would always need help. There would never be enough money for me. I was incapable of becoming someone who was financially confident.
Coaching and Confidence
Nav.it money coaching aided me in finding ways to become financially resilient. One of the activities that my Money Coach gave me was practicing being confident. Though that goal seemed impossible at the time, it wasn’t. I took the first step to financial confidence: determining what I wanted to do with my money.
I didn’t want to feel like dealing with money was a burden. When I thought about my money, I wanted to feel secure. So I began to change what I did with it.
Saving
I started working on my confidence by opening a savings account. Initially, I was nervous but excited. After failing to save the first time, I questioned myself.What if I fail at saving again? Am I truly ready?
My path to financial confidence was providing some level of security for myself. A factor that led to my money anxiety was knowing that I didn’t have a backup plan. With a savings account, I now feel more secure in financial decisions. I know that if something comes up, I’ll have the funds to take care of it.
Knowing that I have a savings account has encouraged me to cut back on spending. When I get a paycheck or large sums of money, I put some in my savings. Seeing how much I can save has made me excited to earn more money!
Manifesting The Future
Financial coaching has helped me in so many ways. But the one thing that I feel money coaching has helped me the most is my future plans. Because I didn’t have a grip on my finances, I didn’t want to consider my future. Thinking about it made me anxious, and the fear of letting myself down kept me from planning.
To fight my anxiousness, my Money Coach helped me develop a blueprint of the life I wanted. We identified my main goals: I wanted my own apartment, car, and a pet. My coach considered all of these goals when helping me plan my financial future. Ultimately, we calculated that the lifestyle I wanted would cost around $3,100 a month. With this in mind, my coach helped me discover that my desired cost of living would require an annual income of about $55,000 or more.
With this information, I began looking for job opportunities that would support what I wanted. Not only that, that fear of imagining my future turned into excitement for once. I felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. The key to manifesting what I wanted was being clear about it. And when I knew what I wanted, I began to change how I did things, like how I spent money.
Now when I spend money, I do it with purpose. When I begin to feel as though I am spending for momentary happiness, I think back to what I want for my future!
The Journey Towards Financial Resilience Is Possible
A great way to start that journey is by changing your spending habits. You can create the life that you want financially by changing your mindset. With agrowth mindset, you can see your money work for you instead of working forit.
You can start small with saving a fixed amount based on your income. Creating abudgetcan also be a great way to keep track of your spending. And, of course, utilizing some of Nav.it’s amazing features can put you on the path toward attaining yourfinancial goals. If you’re in a place where you don’t know what your financial future holds, talking with a Money Coach could help. With Nav.it, the possibilities are endless.
Related Reads:
10 Money Habits to Implement Today
Getting Consistent with Money
Start Saving
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