Automate Your Finances
If you were a latch-key kid like me, you are intimately aware of 1990s infomercials (off topic?...maybe, stay with me). Who could forget the memorable products? Hair in a Can, Proper Suction (ooof, that name), Miracle Blade III or the Phone Relief headset. What a time to be ALIVE.
But there is one infomercial product that will live rent free in my brain forever. The Ronco Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ.
And the thunderous applause from the aging infomercial studio audience as Ron Popeil stabbed a whole raw chicken on stainless steel spits will not be the only auditory joy cemented in my brain from that infomercial. Nay nay. The product tagline will forever be tattooed on the walls of my brain - Set It And Forget It!
What wisdom. What pure intelligence. What a guidepost for us all!
I don’t say that in jest! Setting it and forgetting it is the hidden pebble of wisdom everyone needs to learn when it comes to saving and investing.
Yes, here is where infomercials and finances collide. Today, I’m talking about the true wisdom my crush left me with and how it can be applied to make all our financial lives easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy!
The Initial Joy of Manual Investing
You see, when I first kicked off this goal of saving half my income I was a tad anxious and nervous (as discussed). As a result, I wanted to have eyes on my sweaty meaty cash most of the time. This translated into a deep desire to control the money transferring and investing process.
Like clockwork, every payday I would get a notification that the money had hit my account, and, shortly thereafter, I’d sign-in and start moving the meaty cash into investment accounts. From there I would buy my sexy sexy stocks and call it a day.
At first, this was a real thrill! I was the overlord of the movement and investment of my money. And I ruled over my investments with an iron fist. Honestly, as a newb investor, I had a lot of fun searching and researching index funds and stocks on my investment app as I anticipated my pay hitting my account. And when it did, I got a little dopamine hit when I manually made the trades. It really didn’t feel like work. It was a ritual.
Missing the Mark
This manual approach was all fine and good until the past few weeks. At the end of June and into July my work took off like a shot. I started working on amazing new passion projects and I was pouring a lot of extra hours and energy into work. As a result, my manual approach was starting to become less fun and, frankly, another mental load I needed to factor into my week.
Because life has become super busy, I actually missed my self-imposed investing window a few paydays recently. Which I was not thrilled by. But this woke me up to the inefficiencies of my manual approach. The longer I tried to do everything myself, try to control all of the elements of investing, the greater the risk of life disrupting the process and ultimately my long-term goals.
Set It And Forget It!
And this is where my boyfriend Ron comes back into the picture. Yes, of course I read all of the financial gurus wax poetic about automating your finances. But all of their advice fell on deaf ears (I can be stubborn and I enjoy control - see above). But now, I thought, what could it hurt to automate the transfer and investment of my hard earned sweaty cash?
I logged into my account and set up a bunch of auto transfers, telling my money where to go and what to do. The best approach is to set the automated withdrawal and investments the day you get paid, that way you don’t even see the funds in your account. Which means present you can’t spend them (bummer), but you’re setting future you up for success.
So, I set it and frankly forgot about it.
Since I’ve automated my savings and investment, boy has the mental load lightened (which continues to boost my confidence). I still get the notifications of funds going into my account and the purchasing of stocks, but it’s a quick glance and a “oh right, niiiiiice” rather than a stop what I’m doing and do the extra work to make my future self wealthy.
No one likes extra work, even when it’s for the betterment of our future selves.
As life goes on, as work gets busy, as kids get running, and hobbies get hobby-ing, you forget about certain things, and there’s a risk that one of those things could be actions to support your savings goals. I cannot advocate more strongly for an automated - set it and forget it - approach.
The best thing you can do for your future self is to make saving and investing your money as easy as possible. If you haven’t already, as soon as you read this sentence, go and automate your savings!
And remember, you got this!
Over the past many weeks of creating content and templates, I realize that to help sustain this passion project I would be grateful for your support!
For those with a dollar to spare, I’ve set up a Buy Me A Coffee account for folks to contribute to here and there. For those frugally focused, I would be incredibly grateful if you were to share my work with your networks and folks you think would enjoy my journey (via email, social media, or homing pigeon).
A special thank you to those who contributed to my Buy Me A Coffee or shared a post! Your support means the world to me - truly.
Whether you're able to contribute or not, I’m so glad you’ve joined me on this journey!
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