How to create a financial wellness routine

While many people associate wellness with spa trips, meditation and yoga classes, wellness can also apply to our financial lives. Prioritizing financial wellness is a great way to lower stress levels while working towards your financial goals.

Let’s take a closer look at what financial wellness is and how to create a financial wellness routine.

What is financial wellness?

Financial wellness is a concept that surrounds taking care of your financial health and wellbeing. Four signs of being financially well include having control over your day-to-day or month-to-month finances, having enough financial freedom to enjoy life, being on track to meet your financial goals and being able to absorb a financial shock.

Embracing financial wellness can be a great way to lower stress and anxiety, which can take a toll on both your physical and mental health. Taking steps to improve your financial wellness can also make it easier to reach your financial, professional and personal goals.

For example, if you have a lot of high interest credit card debt that grows month after month, it can bring a lot of stress into your life. Creating a plan to pay down that debt and making progress toward that goal can give you a solid sense of control and relief.

How to create a financial wellness routine

There’s never a bad time to prioritize financial wellness and having a routine in place that makes it a priority can help you incorporate it into your daily life. These are some steps you can take to create a financial wellness routine.

Step 1. Create a budget and check on it

The key to creating a budget that will aid your financial wellness efforts is to create one that keeps you on track to live within your means.

When you create a budget, you can better understand how much money you have coming in and how much you have going out on a weekly or monthly basis. That way, you can make sure you’re not overspending and adding more financial stress to your plate.

If you have debt, you’ll want to budget for your minimum required debt payments (and more, if possible) to pay it off faster. If you want to save for a home, you can add savings goals to your budget so you know to set that money aside every month before you make unnecessary purchases like dining out or going to the movies.

The key to making a budget a productive part of your financial wellness routine is to not set it and forget it. Put some time on your calendar — like every Sunday morning — to sit down and look at your spending for the week. You can ask yourself the following questions to gain more insight:

• Did you surpass your spending limits in any categories?
• Where can you scale back next week to make up for overspending?
• How much can you afford to spend the rest of the month in each of your main budgeting categories (food, transportation, self-care, etc.)?
• Did you underspend in any category?
• Can you increase a debt payment or set more money aside in savings as a result?

These are all important questions that you should ask yourself on a regular basis to make sure you’re staying on track with your budget.

Step 2. Pause and reflect before purchasing

One small and easy way to improve your financial wellness routine is to pay attention to why you’re making a purchase. This doesn’t apply to essentials like gas, groceries and toothpaste, but before you make an unnecessary purchase, it’s important to practice mindfulness. Let’s say you’re in a home decor shop, and you see a pretty vase. Before you check out, ask yourself the following questions:

• Why do I want to buy this?
• How will it impact my budget?
• How am I feeling right now and are those feelings impacting my purchasing decisions?
• Can I wait to buy this?
• Do I really need it?

If possible, walk away from the purchase for a while (this is especially easy to do with online shopping) and give yourself a chance to reflect on your answers to the questions above. Incorporating this small step into your financial wellness routine can help you avoid emotional spending and impulse purchases that can derail your budget and add to your financial stress.

Step 3. Plan goal reviews

A lot of people sit down the first week of January and set financial goals — and then, when life gets busy, they forget about those goals. That’s why it can be so helpful to add a monthly or quarterly goal check-in reminder to your calendar.

If you don’t currently have any financial goals mapped out, spend some time this week thinking about what goals you want to achieve, the steps you need to take to achieve them and when you want to reach this goal.

Then, set regular reminders on your calendar to review your progress. That way, you can see where you can make improvements or how you can get back on track if you’re off course. Regularly checking-in on goals is the best way to ensure you keep making progress toward them.

Step 4. Pursue financial education

Unfortunately, we don’t learn too much in school about money and how to manage it. That’s why carving out time once in a while to pursue financial education is so important.

It’s always a good idea to do your research before making a big financial decision (like taking out a loan), but consider adding financial education into your ongoing routine. Pick up a reliable personal finance book and make it a goal to read a chapter each week. Plan to learn about one new topic (credit scores, how debt works, how to invest, etc.) a quarter. Listen to a money podcast twice a week on the way to work.

There are many ways you can pursue financial education (you’re actually doing that right now), so find one that works for you and is easy to incorporate into your financial wellness routine.

Bottom line

Incorporating financial wellness into your routine can make it easier to cut down financial stress, reach goals and look after your well-being. While an expensive spa day may sound like more fun than creating a budget, cutting back spending, reviewing your financial goals or pursuing financial education, you’ll likely feel a lot less stressed once you get your financial life under control. Then you can go and enjoy that massage worry-free.