Ritual.

It’s such a nice word. Just writing it makes me feel wiser and more in control of my life.

AND it’s not just for show.

No ma’am.

There’s a ton of research on how useful building rituals into your life are, whether it’s for self-reflection, time to create, or REGULAR MONEY CHECKINS.

Why rituals help so much:

I’m not a scientist, so I’m in danger of grossly oversimplifying this.

But basically your brain loves habits and routines because doing new things is exhausting. If you’ve ever traveled to another country you’ll know how this feels. All of a sudden just the act of finding coffee in the morning takes a ton of mental energy.

But when you get back home, your morning coffee just happens. Your body goes through the motions of making it while your mind is still mostly in bed … at least that’s how it works at my house.

Rituals help build healthy habits into the inner wirings of our brain.

And lots of people have incorporated a financial ritual into their day to great effect.

Every morning they’ll sit down with that coffee they barely thought about making and they’ll spend some time with their money.

How lovely.

Here’s why that shit doesn’t work for actors, stage managers, and lots of other money misfits….

I’m knee deep in shows at the moment, after 6 weeks of rehearsal.

Every evening at around 10PM (often later) I get the schedule for the next day. And now that we’re in shows my day is completely wonky - breakfast at noon and dinner at midnight.

My lovely coffee and money ritual has totally fallen apart, because the structure of my day is changing constantly.

And that’s something I’ve heard from lots of theatre people… it’s really hard to build rituals when your day never looks the same.

So how do you lock onto the power of rituals when everything is constantly changing?

Good freaking question.

How to start building fluid rituals

Whenever I have a problem I force myself to start from a place of strength.

I ask myself: have I found success solving a similar problem in a different part of my life?

In this case my lessons came from variable income.

My money comes in peaks and valleys, but the bills are pretty consistent. It’s the same as my daily routine problem - my time and energy are inconsistent, but the demands of daily ritual are the same.

I solve the variable income problem by:

1. Knowing what I need both monthly and annually to maintain my life
2. Knowing the difference between what ‘has to happen’ and what I’d ‘really like to happen’.
3. Making sure that I’m putting the money that’s coming in where it needs to be

So when I’m trying to make time for the important things - eating well, regular money checkins, and finding some time to write - I’m trying to follow the same pattern.

I look at my next week (‘week’ is loosely defined as the next period of work in-between days off) and ask myself these questions:

1. How much time do I need to accomplish these rituals every day?
2. What really needs to be done, and what would ‘just be nice’?
3. How can I make sure that my spare time is being used to feed these rituals?

The first two questions are essential, and that’s what I’ve really been working on over the last few months.

First, gathering information on how much time I need to feed these daily habits, then consciously making a list of which ones are the most important.

Then things get practical.

I throw up a whole bunch of blocks into my Google calendar, it doesn’t matter where. They just need to be sitting on the week. Often they’re all bunched up on Thursday and Friday for awhile.

Then the night before, once I have my schedule, if I’ve got any time (real time… not just space in my calendar)… I throw a few of those rituals into place.

Is it as good as something that happens at the same time and the same place every day?... probably not…

But it’s working.

So that’s something.

Want to start getting control of your money? How can I help?

How do Mimi and I co-manage our finances? We recorded a podcast about that very thing.

And here’s a spoiler: We talk about money… a lot.

It's really that simple (and that complicated). 

We have one joint account which we use to fund our LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP fund, but other than that, our finances aren’t combined with accounts or anything physical.

They are combined through a series of conversations about what we’re trying to do, both in the short term and over the long haul.

It didn’t always work that way…

Now if that sounds impossible for you, let me share a little story.

When Mimi and I started dating we didn’t talk about money AT ALL. I was incapable of it. Mention money around me and I would find an excuse to leave the room.

But slowly, as I got better with my money, we started working it into our regular conversation .

Of course it didn’t hurt when I started Rags to Reasonable that she edited everything I wrote, so that might not be possible to emulate for everyone.

Why talking things out has been so valuable:

It seems like such a small thing, but it’s helped us navigate through lots of potential minefields.

Talking about money has helped us figure out how to split costs when we both are often away for weeks or months at a time.

Talking about money has helped us balance the fact that Mimi makes a lot more money than I do. For those of you that live with a similar financial imbalance you know how tricky that can be (more on that in the video below).

And talking about money has helped us start to combine our financial goals for the future… even when our methods are still quite independent.

It’s always hard be articulate about this, but if you’re interested in learning more… check out the full podcast below.

What do you think? Any tricks that you have for managing your money couple style? We’re always looking for new things to try.

Want to start getting control of your money? How can I help?

It’s easy to ignore my body.

Sure, it’s there… I see it. But it rarely seems to be the crucial element in what I’m trying to do. I normally focus on just one or two elements.

When I’m singing most of those elements are around my head and throat area (with only the rarest of thoughts to the whole ‘breathing apparatus’).

When I’m wearing my financial planner hat… it’s my brain that I’m most gets my attention.

Those are the body parts right?

Except that it’s not nearly that simple, and because you’re smarter than me… you already know that.

The boring things that support the important ones

I’ve been thinking about this same issue a lot lately in the arena of time management.

It’s been a really busy, and so I’ve been forced to really think about the most important ways to use my time.

And I’m getting better at it (yay!!!)

In the beginning I was making lists of all the most important tasks that needed to be done:

• rehearsals
• finished this plan
• work on this project

But I was running out of steam, feeling stressed, and like I was stretching myself way too thin.

I was focusing on the most immediate tasks, but I was ignoring some really important fundamentals.

Things like:

• make food
• go grocery shopping
• rest

I wasn’t leaving time for ‘support’ items, and so they either weren’t getting done, or they were ‘stealing’ time from my other projects, and it was stressing me out.

I was thinking about everything all wrong.

The throat bones connected to the ….

It’s easy to remember all the important things.
What’s harder is to remember all the support (or maintenance) work that needs to be done too. The work needs to happen consistently to keep me a healthy and happy person.

The work that needs to happen in order for me to accomplish the other work… the ‘other work’ that I keep categorizing as ‘more important’.

That’s the thing that I’ve begun to realize this week.

It’s not more important.

In fact, the most essential jobs are those mundane ‘support’ tasks. Shopping for and preparing good food. Taking real chunks of time to rest and recharge. Nothing gets done without them.

And so I’ve moved them to the top of my list.

The financial takeaway:

It’s the same damn thing with money.

We all have big life goals that we want to work on:

• paying off debt
• vacation
• investing in your career

And they feel essential, so mentally we allot every available dollar to their completion.

Except that a lot of those dollars are already taken. You need them for the basics: rent, food, and car payments.

That mental trap can cause a ton of stress because it feels like you’re constantly falling short of where you ‘should be’.

But your money has to cover the ‘support’ tasks first. It just does.

We all need to have our priorities straight in our heads. First, make sure the mundane is taken care of, and then we can worry about the sexy extra bits.

It’s a small thing, but it’s kind of a game changer.

Try it this week and let me know how it feels.

Want to start getting control of your money? How can I help?

I tell all my clients that regular financial practise is the key to success.

… it sounds good right?

And I believe it too! But that didn’t stop me from barely opening my budgets or bank accounts this summer.

I paid my bills, but mostly I ignored things.

Does that make me a hypocrite? Probably… but I’m not too worried about it. I’ll be the first one to say to any client that this kind of thing happens. You go through periods of discipline, and then slip into parts of your life when you have other priorities.

That’s life.

The tricky thing is getting back on track.

Why are good habits so hard to form, but bad habits seem to entrench themselves in a matter of minutes?

Seriously.

I go the gym every day for a week, and it’s still hard to go the next week.

I eat a donut two days in a row… and all of a sudden my body is sending me signals that it can’t live without it’s daily boston creme.

UGH.

Heading into September, I knew I was out of shape (and not because of the donut thing).

I wasn’t used to setting aside regular time to budget, sort through financial priorities, or any of the other things that I knew would set me up for success.

But getting back in shape can seem like a bit of a nightmare.

The immense power of collective shame

I guess collective shame is a pretty glass half empty way to describe accountability.

But that’s what I turned to.

I asked a few clients, and some other R2R subscribers to join me in daily text checkins after we had done a daily financial practise.

There were no rules as to what had to be done, just that we take the time to sit and do something financial.

And it worked. We all had a few days where we forgot (well, at least I did), but mainly we spent at least 5 minutes every day.

Success right?

Yes. Success. But I learned a few interesting things a long the way.

A few thoughts and small lessons from a month of 5 financial minutes…

• In the beginning, it was easy, there were lots of things to do and it felt great to get them off my to-do list
• In week two I started to get bored. I’d sit and refresh my budget and then wonder what else I should be doing.
• In week three I started to realize my brain didn’t get as stressed when it found something financial that I really needed to do. As soon as the thought came up, I knew I would get to it in my next 5 minute session. The problem was that at first I forgot what those things were, but after I started jotting them down in my phone… the system worked quite well.
• I did my financial 5 over coffee, often in the morning. I noticed that if the papers/receipts/cheques weren’t actually right beside where I was sitting… I wouldn’t deal with them. So I moved my inbox close to where I have my coffee.
• The benefit of being really on top of my cashflow wasn’t just that it helped me plan my spending, but it planted longer term financial questions in my sub conscious. It feels as if I’m engaged with some of the big financial questions again, even if I haven’t come up with solutions yet.

It’s been a good month. I’ve learned some things, and the accountability from the group has been huge.

Will I continue to set aside 5 minutes a day?

It’s a good idea… but I know that it’s never that simple.

Only time will tell.

Want to start getting control of your money? How can I help?