Recovering Women Wealth

Sober Women Managing Money & Mental Wealth

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Facebook
  • Home
  • FKA Ms. Fiology
  • About Me
    • Testimony
    • Mission Statement
    • Contact Me
  • Operating Procedures
  • Resources
    • Recovery Resources
    • Books I Recommend
      • Recovery & Self Growth Favs
      • Money Favs
      • Christian Favs
      • Non-Fiction Favs
      • Fiction Favs
    • Financial Resources
  • Public Speaking
  • Investment Policy Statement
  • Debt Freedom
  • Series
    • Brain Health
    • Inspiring Women in Recovery Interview Series
    • People are Basically…

This post may contain affiliate links to products I’ve used and recommend. If you click on the link and purchase the product, I am compensated (at no additional cost to you). 

View my full disclosure here.

Having a Healthy Relationship with Money

October 31, 2019 By Deanna 4 Comments

I was blessed to be a guest on two different podcasts in the last couple of weeks. When I have the opportunity to do this I really take the time to think about what to talk about in hopes of helping others.

Maintaining a Long-Lasting Healthy Relationship with Money

Photo by Fabian Blank on Unsplash

In my humble opinion there are five main ingredients to having a healthy relationship with money:

  1. Debt-freedom
  2. Value-based spending
  3. Automation
  4. Savings goals
  5. Budgeting

Before I go into these five main ingredients, I want to disclose my initial mindset shift. During my recovery, I changed my mind about money. I saw it as God’s money and that I was entrusted with some of it. When I looked at it that way, I realized I wanted to manage it well. I started tithing in response to this mindset shift. Additionally, this is where the conviction to pay off my debt came in. Furthermore, it drove me to want to learn to be an investor.

Debt Freedom

Maintaining debt freedom is first and foremost. Once you are out of debt, don’t ever carry credit card debt again. Pay those babies off in full and on time each and every month. If you have a 6-month emergency fund, you’ll never need to carry a balance on credit cards again.

Home mortgages, in my opinion, are fine if taken out with the following principles: put 20% down, have as short as a mortgage as possible, and keep your monthly payment at no more than 25% of your take-home pay (hopefully less). 

Value-Based Spending

When I was paying off my debt, I made all kinds of sacrifices. Interestingly enough, I discovered I was no less happy. I intentionally thought about what I valued most in life which is relationships. Then I found ways to foster these relationships that didn’t center around spending money. I suggest identifying what you value and then separating it out from spending money. I mean, sure spend money on the things you value (I certainly do!). However, when you identify what you truly value you might be able to enjoy it without spending boatloads of money. 

Automation

Automation with bill pay is not only going to make your life easier but also assist you in being disciplined. This can be done in a couple of different ways. Firstly, with your bank bill pay system. And secondly, by setting up all credit cards to be paid off in full each and every month. This can be done via your personal login to your credit card companies’ web portal. My BIG advice to using credit cards in a healthy manner is to only charge what you can afford to & pay off in full every month. 

My disclaimer here is that I personally stopped using credit cards for a period of my life. I needed to change my habits, pay off debt, and gain a new mindset surrounding credit cards. By going the long, slow slog of paying down my debt, I realized I never again wanted to pay for things of the past.

Savings Goals

Don’t sacrifice your savings goals in favor of spending money!! I advise having pre-tax contributions taken out of your gross earnings automatically. This can be set up via your payroll through your employer.

Next, set up any other tax-advantaged savings, like IRAs or Roth IRAs, to automatically come out of your checking account and go into your investment accounts. Finally, set up automation for post-tax savings and investing. Both of these can be done by linking your investment accounts to your bank and choosing your investments ahead of time. Keep in mind when choosing your investments that mutual funds can be purchased through automation but Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), cannot. The latter requires a transaction on your behalf.  

I’m becoming more of a fan of hitting my savings goals first and budgeting the rest. If you do better with building the budget first and then saving that is fine too. The key here is to be strategic with whichever works best for you. I found that when I was paying off my debt, I budgeted first. I needed to learn discipline through a budget. Now that I’m out of debt, I prefer to set my savings goals first. I’ve narrowed in on what is a realistic savings goal for me through years of budgeting.   

Accountability

Lastly, I cannot say enough about accountability. Join a mastermind, investor forum, or form a group where you can share your goals and strategies. You don’t have to start a blog or do a podcast but it certainly is one way to get accountability.

Photo by Josh Appel on Unsplash

Podcast Interviews

2 Frugal Dudes Podcast

Maintaining a healthy relationship with money is exactly the theme I spoke on with Kevin and Sean of the 2 Frugal Dudes podcast. When a person recovers from something they gain a certain level of credibility to speak on it. That’s exactly the blessing that’s been bestowed on my life through overcoming addiction and poor money habits.

Today I find great joy in walking alongside and helping others who are gaining freedom from similar things as I.

My interview on the 2 Frugal Dudes podcast, where we unpack what it means to live debt-free and maintain a healthy relationship with money, can be listened to HERE.

The FI Show Podcast

Secondly, I was interviewed by Cody and Justin of the FI Show Podcast. In this podcast episode, we unpacked my story to give hope to many. One can always bounce back and learn to live a life of generosity.

God has saved me from a great many things and now uses my transformative story to bless others. Here is a little snippet of the episode:

If you want to listen to the entire episode you can go HERE.

Closing Thoughts

Money affects everything we do. If we don’t learn to control it, it’s going to control us. For me, I needed to overcome addiction and work on my recovery first and foremost. However, once I reconciled with my past I knew I wanted to gain financial peace. With the same grit it took to overcome addiction, I was able to overcome debt and you can too!!

Once you clear out the debt, you pave the way to begin a long-lasting, healthy relationship with money. Best of all you get to be generous with what you learn and grow ♥.

Peace 🙂

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Healthy Living, Personal Finance Tagged With: healthy money, mental weatlh, overcoming, Podcast Interview

Comments

  1. Naomi Veak says

    November 5, 2019 at 2:29 pm

    I’m so glad I came across your blog. Almost a year and a half ago I also ditched alcohol and drugs (mine was pot) and I shortly afterwards took an online personal finance class that changed my life. It added to the empowerment that sobriety brought me. I also believe that when people find sobriety, this is an amazing opportunity to reexamine your values and see how your time and money are aligned with those. I went from spending everything I earned, to my husband and I saving almost $50,000 in one year. And now I’m coaching a women’s cohort of the same online course. I love that you are bringing this message to folks in sobriety.

    Reply
    • Deanna says

      November 5, 2019 at 6:52 pm

      Hey Naomi! I am just curious how did you find my blog? Wow, on the changes you’ve made?? Isn’t it wild that one decision like sobriety can have such a huge overall impact in every other facet of life. You are correct that it puts a person in self examination mode for the better! I love that you are now coaching a women’s cohort.

      Yes, I am hoping to help spread financial literacy to sober women everywhere:-).

      Thanks for stopping by & taking the time to comment.

      Reply
      • Naomi Veak says

        December 11, 2019 at 6:25 pm

        I don’t remember how I found it! I might have been doing a search for “finance and sobriety”, because it is surprising to me that they aren’t already combined more often!

        Reply
        • Deanna says

          December 11, 2019 at 6:52 pm

          I agree! Thanks for sharing. 🙂

          Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

About Me

My name is Deanna and I am happy to be on this redemptive path. I got sober from drug addiction/alcoholism in 2010 and returned to a faith in Christ. Additionally, I finished digging my way out of debt in 2017. Today, I’m learning to be a wise steward/investor of my resources while helping other women find their victories too. More about me.

Join my email list!

Subscribe to be notified of my latest posts via email.

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!

Affiliate Link – Click Image

Affiliate Link – Click Image

As Featured On

Recent Posts

  • We Got Engaged During the Year to Forget!!!
  • My Biggest Lesson in 2020, We Need One Another!
  • Are you Ready for a Money Coach?

Categories

  • Blogging
  • Career Hacking
  • Financial Independence
  • Frugality
  • Healthy Living
  • Inspiration
  • Investing
  • Minimalism
  • Personal Finance
  • Stories of Recovery
  • Tax Efficiency
  • Travel Hacking
  • Tribute

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018

Copyright © 2021 Recovering Women Wealth

We use cookies to ensure a good experience. If you continue to use this site, I will assume that you are happy with it. :)Ok