How To Save Money Using Intention Setting

How To Save Money Using Intention Setting

By

Marsha Walker Eastwood, B.S, MHSVC

When it comes to saving money, I am reminded of the words of author Ray who said, “How much you can learn when you fail determines how far you will go into achieving your goals.” When it comes to successfully saving money most of us have failed. Each false start is more frustrating than the last, due in large part to the fact that our savings strategy is terribly flawed. The decision to save money requires behavior modification. For some it is just a minor adjustment, but for most of us it requires a major reset. Change is hard, and saving money is even harder because of the trickle-down effect.

I can look back on my own failed plans and false starts. No matter how hard I tried, something always seemed to need my financial attention whether I could afford it or not. I am one of those selfless individuals who cannot stand to see people I care about filled with angst over financial issues so I would always feel the need to help in ways large and small to my own detriment. It only took a few years for that selflessness to nearly put me underwater. When my own resources ran low, I took out a loan. As I paid it down something came up and I added on to the original loan. When another issue came up, I got another loan, and another loan, until I had three loans each with staggering interest rates. These payments were in addition to my mortgage, utilities, cable, phone, and of course, food. Food was last because even if it came down to peanut butter and jelly, I would survive.

I created a cheap-to-make side hustle just to have money to put gas in the car and treat myself to an occasional ice cream sundae. I sold my crafts at a flea market with the lowest space rate. I would arrive at midnight to get one of the best spaces to set up, set my alarm clock and sleep in my van until the 5 am call. Although setting up a tent and table in the dark was hard, so was baking in the sun and feeling like a drowned rat in the rain. Bottom line….I made enough money to survive.

Then one day I took a long, hard, and honest look at my finances and it suddenly dawned on me that my entire financial situation was the result of two things – my overabundance of generosity and most importantly my failure to engage in intention setting. New York Times best-selling author Brenna Yovanoff offers the perfect description of the importance and impact of intention when mapping out a strategy to reach a goal. “Intention is one of the most powerful forces there is. What you mean when you do a thing will always determine the outcome.” This means you have to take a very individual approach to saving money and create the necessary steps that will allow you to reach your goal.

An important thing is the difference between a goal and an intention. When forming your intention setting strategy, begin by viewing it as your personal call to action and a commitment for the long haul. Think of it as a long-term financial plan with the goal being to create an ongoing and sustainable method of saving money.

When you think about creating a goal, the goal should not have an end date and make certain that your definition matches your intent. Think of it as concrete evidence of your intention setting coming to fruition. This process requires a few steps to be successful.

The first and perhaps most important step is to turn off the noise! You must learn to turn a deaf ear to all those quick fix infomercials and testimonials from people who swear by whatever information is being offered by the show host. The tips on how to do it are all over the map, and many may not be applicable to your financial situation. While many seem oh so practical, many are not very realistic. The televised fixes are a lot like weight loss fixes. The sudden and extreme deprivation paves the way for failure. Sure, while cutting out cable, cutting out entertainment and obsessive couponing seem like a commonsense approach, that form of instant and extreme deprivation can prove to be very unhealthy. Just as everyone’s weight goal is different, so is creating a plan to save money, and both are easier said than done.

The second step is to examine your current monthly budget and create a diet of sorts - separating the lean, the fat and the discretionary. Some items may fall into more than one category. The lean is the fixed payments where there is little to no wiggle room and includes shelter cost, medication cost, car payments, car, life and health insurance costs, and mandatory professional memberships that are required for your job. Shelter costs are included because no matter where you live there is a fixed cost whether it is rent or a mortgage.

The fat is the semi-controllable accounts. Examples include food, paper products, utility costs, internet access, cable TV, entertainment costs, car maintenance costs, gasoline, credit card debt, loan debt, clothing, personal care, pet care, cable add-on subscriptions, magazine subscriptions, car washes. Each one of these categories can have a goal attached to it.

Everyone must eat, and it costs more to eat unhealthily than it does to eat healthy. Meat is a staple of most meals and chicken, fish, or even pork tenderloin can replace more expensive cuts of meat and create a variety of meal options. A reasonable goal is to shave $50.00 a month off the food budget. Comparable store brand paper products can easily shave $10.00 a month off a budget. You do not have to give up entertainment cold-turkey. Opting out of cable TV and replacing it with either a Firestick or Roku stick can result in a savings of hundreds of dollars a month. You can always catch your favorite shows a day or week later. If you subscribe to cable TV, be wary of the add-ons and make sure you are only getting what you really want. If you only want HULU, check your account each month and make sure no add-on services have been added. Those few extra add-ons make a difference.

Taking a few extra steps can save a lot of extra dollars. Turning off TVS, radios and washing larger loads of clothes can save about $40.00 of fat a month. With gas prices estimated to reach $3 this summer, fewer trips to the grocery store saves enough fuel cost to pay for a Sunday picnic.

These monthly savings can go towards funding your savings account and allow you to reduce debt and become a part of your discretionary budget. Money that has been freed up, some to save and some to pay down debt.

About those high interest loans:  They should only be taken out in the direst of circumstances. Depending on your credit standing you may be forced to seek help from lending institutions who are all too willing to lend you a few hundred dollars at ridiculous rates of interest. The average repayment on an $1800 loan is a little over $350 a month. This means skipping or reducing credit card payments or short paying utility bills. The most important thing to remember is that these companies are all too willing to loan money and the one thing that will totally sabotage any savings goal is to refinance the loan. What originally was going to take 15 months to pay off is now extended to 24 months.

One year ago, I created an intention setting. I listed and prioritized all my budget items. Thanks to the pandemic and some nifty gardening, some of my goals were more attainable than others. Many loan balances were decreasing as were my credit card balances. I called my car insurance carrier and was given a $50.00 reduction on my premium payment. I began taking almost all the savings to pay down the high interest loans. I got a personal loan at 24% to pay off one of the triple-digit% loans. The $200 a month in savings was used to pay down another credit card loan. All the other monthly savings were used to pay off the remaining high-interest loan. Now all the extra savings go into a savings account which has a balance approaching four figures.

By creating an intention setting with the goal of severing the ties of my high interest loans and reducing overall credit, I was able to not only see daylight but to realize actual savings, something I had never been able to do.

©Marsha Walker Eastwood

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