Kickstart Your Financial Freedom
What’s a great first step we can take in 2024 to get in control of our finances? How about a Direct Debit Detox? Admittedly, even the word “detox” can conjure up images of green, lumpy, brussel sprout & broccoli laden drinks, perhaps even spur images as invasive as colonic irrigation (nice!), but it’s not as extreme as that I promise!
The Power of Language: Detox vs. Cleanse
What I like to do is switch the narrative here. Let’s replace the word “detox” with “cleanse”… Cleanse sounds more serene right? It’s a very calming word, peaceful, spiritual even (cue sitting in a forest, listening to the birds whilst having a calming massage!) It’s sounding more kind of now; I’m feeling Zen already!
Changing the narrative about these things, especially when it comes to our financials helps us to imagine ourselves there, imagine ourselves being in control and having that end goal. So I’m sticking with “cleanse”! With that being said, let’s look at giving our Direct Debits a “cleanse”:
Taking a Closer Peek at Your Direct Debits
Regularly looking at what you have going in and coming out of your account sounds simple enough, and most of us would like to think we know EXACTLY what we have going on. However….. let’s take the dreaded 2020 year as an example…. All of us at home (never had so much screen time before!!) desperate to watch The Tiger King, Marie Kondo tidying up and everything else that went berserk online at the time! We found ourselves with multiple streaming subscriptions: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Discovery Channel, Disney Channel, NowTv, you name it we were subscribed!
But as the restrictions started to lift, we were so excited to get back to some kind of normality, and almost dived so fast into the new normal I had forgotten that all these payments were flying out of the account still. It was a while before I noticed, and I was kicking myself that I hadn’t been more on top of things. I mean, seriously, how many channels can you ACTUALLY watch at once!!!! Madness!
The Necessities vs. The Extras: Sorting Through Your Payments
Have a scout around your bank account Direct Debits and be nosey! Really sift through and put them into piles of “Necessities” “Others”. How about this, when doing your “cleanse” think about how these categories make you feel, use a holistic approach! Obviously, there’s no way around the Necessities, these are things that have to be paid so they are set in stone. However, with the “Others” are there ways you could change the direction in which the payments are going?… So, for example, if you have a membership flying out of your account every month that you: a) have never used, b) makes you feel bad when you do use it, c) didn’t know was even there – CLEANSE IT!!!
Turning the Tide: Transforming Unused Funds into Future Dreams
Use those funds to start doing something for your future, make that money WORK for you! Maybe you could look at investing it instead? Especially if you didn’t know it was there and didn’t realise it was going out of your account, chances are you haven’t even been missing the money! Use this to your advantage! Or how about using that money to spend on things that bring more joy into your life?
Have you had a cleanse of your Direct Debits recently? Let me know!
