There are lots of good ways to practice self-care. Bubble baths, beauty masks and scented candles all have their place in a self-care routine — as does eating fresh, healthy food, drinking enough water and exercising regularly.
No matter how you like to practice self-care, intentionally caring for yourself mentally and physically can help you reduce stress, prevent illness and increase your energy. At Loqbox, we’re big proponents of self-care and implementing self-care routines that work for you specifically.
With that said, we have a suggestion for your next self-care regimen: saving money.
If saving money still sounds more like a chore than an act of self-care, keep reading my friend. Saving money is an act of self-care because it provides you with tons of benefits. Benefits like:
- Peace of mind
- Financial freedom
- More choice to spend money on what you really want
- Safety and security from unexpected emergencies
- Your ability to make progress toward your goals
By the end of this article, we guarantee you’ll be convinced that saving money is one of the best self-care routines you could implement into your life. And we hope that you’ll want to start saving money today so you can feel better and take care of yourself to the best of your ability.
Your money and your mind
Your daily habits, decisions and thoughts about money are all driven by your money mindset. Your money mindset, which is your overall attitude to money, is made up of the beliefs and philosophies about money you’ve personally developed over time.
The link between your money and your mind is strong. Your money mindset drives most of the financial decisions you make today and can impact your ability to reach your goals. The beliefs and attitudes that make up your money mindset almost always arise from your past experiences with finances.
As children, we may have seen our parents argue about finances or make financial decisions in harmony. We may have witnessed them make bad decision after bad decision with money. Or we may have seen them make good decisions and thrive. Or perhaps we have no idea how our parents dealt with money, because money was never a subject that was discussed at the dinner table.
Any one of these scenarios could have a substantial influence on your money mindset and may be the reason why you continue to make the same choices or experience the same struggles with your money today. Too many people are unknowing victims of unhealthy money mindsets simply because they don’t have the tools to address the underlying reasons for the financial decisions they make.
When we’re entrenched in an unhealthy money mindset, other areas of our lives can be deeply affected. Your relationship with your finances – and your existing money mindset – may ultimately affect your mental health and your ability to enjoy other aspects of your life.
One way to address your money mindset and start taking better care of yourself financially is to start saving money. Saving money can provide a myriad of benefits like the ones described above. And if saving money becomes a regular part of your self-care routine, you may experience a domino effect that allows wellness to naturally spill over into other areas of your life.
Financial self-care creates long-lasting wellness
No matter how much money you make or don’t make, decisions regarding your finances and your overall financial situation can feel overwhelming. And we understand that stressing about your finances can impact your mental and physical health as well. Your finances overflow into so many facets of your life and wellbeing, so taking care of yourself financially creates a solid foundation to care for yourself in other ways.
Taking actions to reduce your stress about money can help you sleep better at night, improve your physical wellbeing, and help you stay mentally and emotionally calmer. When you’re not worrying about money, you have more mental space to take care of other stresses in your life since you know your financial foundation is more solid.
Financial self-care puts you in control and insulates you against unexpected emergencies. We know that many emergencies are going to cause other kinds of stress that you’ll have to deal with at that particular moment. Good financial self-care habits will make that easier on you if an emergency does happen.
How to take care of yourself financially
The truth is, there are many ways to take care of yourself financially. We’ll go over lots of ideas for robust financial self-care in a future post. (For now, follow our blog to stay in the know.) When you’re just beginning, one of the best ways to establish a financial self-care routine is to start saving money regularly, even if you can only save a little bit every month.
For example, saving just $20 a month can help you weather a financial storm in the future, such as a car repair or unexpected medical bill. If you save $20 a month for a whole year, you’ll have saved $240! If you can save $50 a month for a year, you’ll have saved $600. That’s no small chunk of change.
It may feel tough to save for a rainy day in the moment, but the peace of mind you gain far outweighs the current sacrifices you have to make. And in fact, you can likely start saving more money today without making too many sacrifices! Check out some of our other blog posts for ideas on how to save more money without giving up the things you enjoy:
- 14 simple ways to save more money on groceries
- 15 easy ways to take control of your finances with courage and confidence
The most important thing when it comes to saving money is to just start. You don’t have to save hundreds of dollars a month to create a better future for yourself. You just have to start somewhere.
Start your financial self-care savings routine today with Loqbox
Fortunately, we have the perfect solution to help you start saving money and implement financial self-care seamlessly into your existing self-care routine. To start saving more money with the added benefit of improving your credit, get Loqbox.
Loqbox is a free tool that allows you to save money consistently while also building better credit. (That’s two financial birds with a single self-care stone!) Here’s how Loqbox works:
- Decide how much you want to save every month for a year.
- Loqbox then finances the full amount with a 0% APR loan.
- Each month as you make your payments, we report them to the credit bureaus.
- As long as you make your payment on time and in full, this helps build your credit.
- When you hit your savings goal, you receive every dollar you’ve saved back for free when you open a new account with one of our partner banks. (This helps us to keep Loqbox free.)
- Or you can transfer your savings into an existing savings account for a small fee.
If you want to level up your self-care routine by saving more money and improving your credit score, learn more about how we work today.
.png){kind=small}
