WEBVTT
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At the end of every month, I sit down and ask myself one question.
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Am I actually happy with where my money went?
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Not did I stick to my budget?
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Not how much did I spend?
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And I'm definitely not asking, was I good with my money this month?
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Because your spending isn't a grade.
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It's just a data point.
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And if you know how to look at the data without judging yourself, it can tell you a lot about whether your money is actually helping you build the life you want or not.
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So today I'm walking you through my three question month-in close process.
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Where did my money go?
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Am I happy with where it went?
00:00:37.119 --> 00:00:39.280
And where do I want it to go next?
00:00:39.439 --> 00:00:43.679
Over the course of my life, my income has been all over the place.
00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:46.479
I have had years where I made 24.
00:00:46.640 --> 00:00:55.039
And this time last year, between my corporate job and my business, I was bringing home about$200,000 a year.
00:00:55.200 --> 00:01:01.359
Now, right now, I am full-time in my business and I took a huge pay cut to make that happen.
00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:07.760
That means that cash flow in my personal budget is a lot tighter than what it has been in the past.
00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:10.319
That means I'm paying more attention to my spending.
00:01:10.560 --> 00:01:16.719
But in those seasons where cash flow was more abundant, my spending was a lot looser.
00:01:16.959 --> 00:01:19.439
And I think that's the reality of life.
00:01:19.680 --> 00:01:24.879
When money is tight, when cash flow is smaller, we pay more attention.
00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:29.680
As our income grows, our lifestyle often grows to match it.
00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:35.280
And so there can be seasons where your spending is something that you're more disconnected from.
00:01:35.439 --> 00:01:37.280
You're not paying attention to it.
00:01:37.439 --> 00:01:47.120
It's not necessarily that you can't afford the purchases, it's that we can very easily get caught up in sort of automatic spending rather than intentional spending.
00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:54.799
And so the purpose of the month and close process is to reevaluate and sort of reset that every single month.
00:01:55.040 --> 00:02:00.079
When you go too long without resetting that, you can do more damage than good.
00:02:00.239 --> 00:02:04.640
So we check in every single month and we take that opportunity to reset.
00:02:04.879 --> 00:02:06.719
Okay, let's get into the process.
00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:12.159
I personally like to do no spend the last one or two days of the month.
00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:22.800
That helps make sure that my cards, my account, my books, if you will, are really clean when I sit down to do my month end clothes because there's not like random transactions coming in.
00:02:22.879 --> 00:02:30.159
So I sit down, usually the last one or two days of the month, and I ask myself, where did my money go?
00:02:30.400 --> 00:02:32.240
I reconcile my transactions.
00:02:32.319 --> 00:02:36.560
I use Monarch money to track all of my day-to-day spending.
00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:48.159
I have found, me personally, that when I am not manually tracking my transactions, I am a lot more disconnected from the numbers.
00:02:48.319 --> 00:02:58.960
So Monarch has some great reporting, but just looking at that reporting and not doing anything with it, my brain doesn't connect it in the same way.
00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:03.439
I use a combination of my spreadsheet and Monarch.
00:03:03.520 --> 00:03:10.639
So Monarch does all of the day-to-day heavy lifting and I just go in once a week and categorize my transactions.
00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:16.719
And then at the end of the month, I transfer those transactions to my spreadsheet.
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I'm not transferring singular transactions.
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I'm transferring budget totals.
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So I will transfer the full total of what I spent on each of my major categories onto my spreadsheet.
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That way I am really in the numbers.
00:03:33.759 --> 00:03:38.479
My brain just cannot, doesn't process the numbers the same way by just looking at them.
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Reconcile all of my transactions in Monarch, then I update my spreadsheet.
00:03:43.680 --> 00:03:49.280
Then I'm able to look at the choices where my money went and make decisions.
00:03:49.439 --> 00:03:52.240
I use four different bank accounts to manage my money.
00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:56.000
So I also take this time to make any transfers that need to be made.
00:03:56.159 --> 00:04:01.919
Maybe one of my bills was lower than usual, but I overspent a little bit in lifestyle.
00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:06.719
So I will take that opportunity to make any transfers that need to be made.
00:04:06.800 --> 00:04:12.240
Or if I have money left over in my lifestyle spending, I will usually move that money to savings.
00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:18.000
So I take that opportunity to make any transfers that need to be made and then I pay my credit card bills.
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I do all of my day-to-day spending on a credit card.
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I pay that credit card in full every single month.
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So at the end of the month, when I'm also doing my month and close, I make sure that the balance on my credit card is the same as the amount of money that is in my lifestyle account.
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Or my lifestyle account is higher.
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But under no circumstances do I want my credit card balance to be higher than what is in my lifestyle account.
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So I will pay my credit cards.
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Once I've paid my credit cards, then I will ask myself, what actually happened this month?
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Where did my money go?
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What categories were higher or lower than I expected them to be?
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Did I make progress towards my financial goals?
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And is there anything in my spending that is surprising me?
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These are the sort of things that I'm looking at when I am examining where my money went.
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Tracking tells you what happened, but it doesn't tell you if you're happy with what happened, if you're aligned with what happened, or if what happened is what you want to continue to happen.
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Tracking is looking backwards.
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The next question that I ask myself is am I happy with where my money went?
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I look at my goals.
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Is the spending moving me towards my goals or away from it?
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Particularly my financial goals.
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During the season of life when I was paying off debt, I'm looking at my balances.
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Am I, are they decreasing or are they increasing?
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Am I making progress towards the goals that I set out for myself?
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I also ask myself, where did my choices compete with my goals?
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If I'm saying that my goal is to save$100,000 in cash this year, but I went out and I blew$1,000 on a new bag, a new purse, did that purse compete with my goal to save$100K this year?
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Or do I feel really good about that purse decision?
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There's no right or wrong answer.
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I look at my values.
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Does my spending reflect what I say matters to me most?
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Did I genuinely choose to spend my money in this ways, or am I being influenced essentially?
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Did I get caught up in a trend?
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I have to tell you recently I got caught up in a trend.
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There is this tote bag that I have been seeing all over my social media.
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It's the curves bag.
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It's really cute.
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I got caught up in the trend.
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I got caught up in the scarcity of it because it is always sold out.
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It just so happened to be in stock one random day when it came up on my timeline and I got FOMO because it's never in stock.
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And I purchased the bag.
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It was$80.
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It came.
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It's huge.
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It doesn't really fit my lifestyle.
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Like I work from home.
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I'm home most of the time.
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When I do leave the house, I don't need a huge bag.
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I need a tiny little bag.
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I'm not going into the office where I need a big tote bag.
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I'm not going to the gym where I need a big tote bag.
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I don't know what I was thinking when I purchased this bag.
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Is it a beautiful bag?
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Yes.
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Is it a fun color?
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Absolutely.
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Do I need it or was I just influenced to make that purchase?
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Did I get caught up in a trend?
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Did I buy something that I particularly didn't care about?
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These are all things that I'm looking at when I'm looking at, am I happy with my spending?
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I then give my monthly spending a score on a scale of one to 10.
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How do I feel about my spending this month?
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Not did I get an A?
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Not did I get the gold star this month?
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Because you know, us eldest daughters, we love that gold star.
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This is not giving yourself a pass or fail.
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It's just an evaluation point.
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On a scale of one to 10, am I connected to where my money went?
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Very simple.
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10 meaning I did great.
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I feel super good about where my money went.
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Or one being threw the whole budget out the window.
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I don't know what was going on this month.
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And then just giving yourself a number there.
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It's just a data point.
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Now, really important thing that I need to point out because us high-achieving women who like to get it right, we tend to be a little bit of black and white thinkers.
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So I can already hear your brain.
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And misalignment doesn't automatically mean irresponsible.
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And I will give you an example.
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Last year, I had to buy a new car.
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I do not particularly care about cars.
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I work from home.
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I live in a very walkable neighborhood.
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I mostly walk.
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I do, however, live a lifestyle that I can't not have a car.
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I need a car, but I don't particularly care about it being the nicest, most fancy luxury vehicle.
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My Honda was paid off.
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I had been driving it.
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It was still fairly new, was involved in an accident.
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It was total out.
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I had to buy a new car.
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I spent$20,000 on a new car, not because I wanted it, but because I needed it.
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And so that particular purchase did not feel like it was aligned with my values, but it was a necessary purchase.
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So I don't want you to confuse I didn't want to spend this with I shouldn't have spent this.
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This is a separation that I want you to keep in mind because I think we can get really caught up with the black and white thinking, especially when it comes to our finances.
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And buying something that you need that you maybe didn't want to spend your money on does not mean that you were irresponsible or that you did something wrong.
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In life, we do have to spend our money sometimes in ways that are not particularly in alignment with our values.
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And this always reminds me a little bit of um, I have been reading Marie Kondo's Joy of Tidying Up as an in an effort to declutter our home a little bit.
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And there is um a part, one of her core philosophies and her framework is asking yourself, does the item spark joy?
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And it gives me a little bit of a giggle because there are so many things around our home that do not spark joy, but we absolutely need.
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And that's like a nuance that we have to be able to separate.
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I need the spatula, right?
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Does a spatula spark joy?
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It doesn't spark joy, but it is necessary for my life.
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I want you to think of your budget in the same way.
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Your spending is just data.
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It is not a verdict.
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The money has already been spent.
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Shame cannot put it back in your pocket.
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Beating yourself up doesn't make the purchase more aligned.
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And if you're looking at your spending and it feels like you're out of alignment, ask yourself what drove that decision?
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That is a much more useful piece of data that you can do something with.
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Was it necessary?
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Was it intentional?
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Was I influenced?
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Was I bored, emotional, distracting?
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Did my priorities change?
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Was my plan unrealistic?
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And do I actually want to change this behavior?
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And sometimes the answer might just be, I'm completely comfortable with why I spent this money.
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And that, my friend, is a data point too.
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All right, question number three is where do I want my money to go next?
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So our first two questions are all about reflection and what happened last month.
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Now it's time to look at what we're gonna do next month.
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We can't fix last month, but we can course correct.
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So, where do I want my money to be available next month?
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What do I want more of in my budget?
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And what do I want less of?
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Is there something coming up that I need to prioritize?
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And what financial goals need more attention?
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Really important one that I don't want you to skip is what did last month teach me about the plan I need for this month?
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Because your next decision matters way more than your last.
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Ultimately, your month end process should answer one question when you look at where your money went.
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Does it look like the life that you are trying to build?
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And we answer that with these three simple questions.
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Where did my money go?
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Am I happy with where it went?
00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:01.679
And where do I want it to go next?
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No gigantic financial overhaul, just those three questions.
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The purpose of looking backwards is not to judge the woman who made those decisions, it's to give the woman who's making the next decision better information.
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If you want the checklist for the month and close process, I'm going to put it down in the show notes for you.
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I hope this was helpful and I will see you on the next episode.
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At the end of every month, I sit down and ask myself one question.
00:00:03.520 --> 00:00:06.639
Am I actually happy with where my money went?
00:00:06.879 --> 00:00:08.720
Not did I stick to my budget?
00:00:08.960 --> 00:00:10.400
Not how much did I spend?
00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:13.839
And I'm definitely not asking, was I good with my money this month?
00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:16.399
Because your spending isn't a grade.
00:00:16.559 --> 00:00:18.320
It's just a data point.
00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:27.679
And if you know how to look at the data without judging yourself, it can tell you a lot about whether your money is actually helping you build the life you want or not.
00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:33.439
So today I'm walking you through my three question month-in close process.
00:00:33.759 --> 00:00:35.119
Where did my money go?
00:00:35.359 --> 00:00:36.960
Am I happy with where it went?
00:00:37.119 --> 00:00:39.280
And where do I want it to go next?
00:00:39.439 --> 00:00:43.679
Over the course of my life, my income has been all over the place.
00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:46.479
I have had years where I made 24.
00:00:46.640 --> 00:00:55.039
And this time last year, between my corporate job and my business, I was bringing home about$200,000 a year.
00:00:55.200 --> 00:01:01.359
Now, right now, I am full-time in my business and I took a huge pay cut to make that happen.
00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:07.760
That means that cash flow in my personal budget is a lot tighter than what it has been in the past.
00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:10.319
That means I'm paying more attention to my spending.
00:01:10.560 --> 00:01:16.719
But in those seasons where cash flow was more abundant, my spending was a lot looser.
00:01:16.959 --> 00:01:19.439
And I think that's the reality of life.
00:01:19.680 --> 00:01:24.879
When money is tight, when cash flow is smaller, we pay more attention.
00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:29.680
As our income grows, our lifestyle often grows to match it.
00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:35.280
And so there can be seasons where your spending is something that you're more disconnected from.
00:01:35.439 --> 00:01:37.280
You're not paying attention to it.
00:01:37.439 --> 00:01:47.120
It's not necessarily that you can't afford the purchases, it's that we can very easily get caught up in sort of automatic spending rather than intentional spending.
00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:54.799
And so the purpose of the month and close process is to reevaluate and sort of reset that every single month.
00:01:55.040 --> 00:02:00.079
When you go too long without resetting that, you can do more damage than good.
00:02:00.239 --> 00:02:04.640
So we check in every single month and we take that opportunity to reset.
00:02:04.879 --> 00:02:06.719
Okay, let's get into the process.
00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:12.159
I personally like to do no spend the last one or two days of the month.
00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:22.800
That helps make sure that my cards, my account, my books, if you will, are really clean when I sit down to do my month end clothes because there's not like random transactions coming in.
00:02:22.879 --> 00:02:30.159
So I sit down, usually the last one or two days of the month, and I ask myself, where did my money go?
00:02:30.400 --> 00:02:32.240
I reconcile my transactions.
00:02:32.319 --> 00:02:36.560
I use Monarch money to track all of my day-to-day spending.
00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:48.159
I have found, me personally, that when I am not manually tracking my transactions, I am a lot more disconnected from the numbers.
00:02:48.319 --> 00:02:58.960
So Monarch has some great reporting, but just looking at that reporting and not doing anything with it, my brain doesn't connect it in the same way.
00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:03.439
I use a combination of my spreadsheet and Monarch.
00:03:03.520 --> 00:03:10.639
So Monarch does all of the day-to-day heavy lifting and I just go in once a week and categorize my transactions.
00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:16.719
And then at the end of the month, I transfer those transactions to my spreadsheet.
00:03:16.879 --> 00:03:20.000
I'm not transferring singular transactions.
00:03:20.159 --> 00:03:22.960
I'm transferring budget totals.
00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:30.879
So I will transfer the full total of what I spent on each of my major categories onto my spreadsheet.
00:03:31.039 --> 00:03:33.520
That way I am really in the numbers.
00:03:33.759 --> 00:03:38.479
My brain just cannot, doesn't process the numbers the same way by just looking at them.
00:03:38.719 --> 00:03:43.439
Reconcile all of my transactions in Monarch, then I update my spreadsheet.
00:03:43.680 --> 00:03:49.280
Then I'm able to look at the choices where my money went and make decisions.
00:03:49.439 --> 00:03:52.240
I use four different bank accounts to manage my money.
00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:56.000
So I also take this time to make any transfers that need to be made.
00:03:56.159 --> 00:04:01.919
Maybe one of my bills was lower than usual, but I overspent a little bit in lifestyle.
00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:06.719
So I will take that opportunity to make any transfers that need to be made.
00:04:06.800 --> 00:04:12.240
Or if I have money left over in my lifestyle spending, I will usually move that money to savings.
00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:18.000
So I take that opportunity to make any transfers that need to be made and then I pay my credit card bills.
00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:21.600
I do all of my day-to-day spending on a credit card.
00:04:21.759 --> 00:04:25.759
I pay that credit card in full every single month.
00:04:25.920 --> 00:04:36.240
So at the end of the month, when I'm also doing my month and close, I make sure that the balance on my credit card is the same as the amount of money that is in my lifestyle account.
00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:38.639
Or my lifestyle account is higher.
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But under no circumstances do I want my credit card balance to be higher than what is in my lifestyle account.
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So I will pay my credit cards.
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Once I've paid my credit cards, then I will ask myself, what actually happened this month?
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Where did my money go?
00:04:54.160 --> 00:04:58.240
What categories were higher or lower than I expected them to be?
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Did I make progress towards my financial goals?
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And is there anything in my spending that is surprising me?
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These are the sort of things that I'm looking at when I am examining where my money went.
00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:21.680
Tracking tells you what happened, but it doesn't tell you if you're happy with what happened, if you're aligned with what happened, or if what happened is what you want to continue to happen.
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Tracking is looking backwards.
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The next question that I ask myself is am I happy with where my money went?
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I look at my goals.
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Is the spending moving me towards my goals or away from it?
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Particularly my financial goals.
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During the season of life when I was paying off debt, I'm looking at my balances.
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Am I, are they decreasing or are they increasing?
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Am I making progress towards the goals that I set out for myself?
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I also ask myself, where did my choices compete with my goals?
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If I'm saying that my goal is to save$100,000 in cash this year, but I went out and I blew$1,000 on a new bag, a new purse, did that purse compete with my goal to save$100K this year?
00:06:07.120 --> 00:06:09.759
Or do I feel really good about that purse decision?
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There's no right or wrong answer.
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I look at my values.
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Does my spending reflect what I say matters to me most?
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Did I genuinely choose to spend my money in this ways, or am I being influenced essentially?
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Did I get caught up in a trend?
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I have to tell you recently I got caught up in a trend.
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There is this tote bag that I have been seeing all over my social media.
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It's the curves bag.
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It's really cute.
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I got caught up in the trend.
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I got caught up in the scarcity of it because it is always sold out.
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It just so happened to be in stock one random day when it came up on my timeline and I got FOMO because it's never in stock.
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And I purchased the bag.
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It was$80.
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It came.
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It's huge.
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It doesn't really fit my lifestyle.
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Like I work from home.
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I'm home most of the time.
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When I do leave the house, I don't need a huge bag.
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I need a tiny little bag.
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I'm not going into the office where I need a big tote bag.
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I'm not going to the gym where I need a big tote bag.
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I don't know what I was thinking when I purchased this bag.
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Is it a beautiful bag?
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Yes.
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Is it a fun color?
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Absolutely.
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Do I need it or was I just influenced to make that purchase?
00:07:20.240 --> 00:07:21.680
Did I get caught up in a trend?
00:07:21.839 --> 00:07:25.279
Did I buy something that I particularly didn't care about?
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These are all things that I'm looking at when I'm looking at, am I happy with my spending?
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I then give my monthly spending a score on a scale of one to 10.
00:07:35.519 --> 00:07:37.839
How do I feel about my spending this month?
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Not did I get an A?
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Not did I get the gold star this month?
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Because you know, us eldest daughters, we love that gold star.
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This is not giving yourself a pass or fail.
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It's just an evaluation point.
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On a scale of one to 10, am I connected to where my money went?
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Very simple.
00:07:55.439 --> 00:07:57.199
10 meaning I did great.
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I feel super good about where my money went.
00:07:59.920 --> 00:08:03.199
Or one being threw the whole budget out the window.
00:08:03.279 --> 00:08:04.959
I don't know what was going on this month.
00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:07.199
And then just giving yourself a number there.
00:08:07.360 --> 00:08:09.279
It's just a data point.
00:08:09.519 --> 00:08:19.199
Now, really important thing that I need to point out because us high-achieving women who like to get it right, we tend to be a little bit of black and white thinkers.
00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:20.800
So I can already hear your brain.
00:08:20.879 --> 00:08:24.800
And misalignment doesn't automatically mean irresponsible.
00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:26.560
And I will give you an example.
00:08:26.800 --> 00:08:29.279
Last year, I had to buy a new car.
00:08:29.519 --> 00:08:31.759
I do not particularly care about cars.
00:08:31.920 --> 00:08:32.720
I work from home.
00:08:32.879 --> 00:08:34.639
I live in a very walkable neighborhood.
00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:35.919
I mostly walk.
00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:40.639
I do, however, live a lifestyle that I can't not have a car.
00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:47.440
I need a car, but I don't particularly care about it being the nicest, most fancy luxury vehicle.
00:08:47.759 --> 00:08:49.360
My Honda was paid off.
00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:50.480
I had been driving it.
00:08:50.639 --> 00:08:53.279
It was still fairly new, was involved in an accident.
00:08:53.360 --> 00:08:54.399
It was total out.
00:08:54.639 --> 00:08:56.799
I had to buy a new car.
00:08:56.960 --> 00:09:03.600
I spent$20,000 on a new car, not because I wanted it, but because I needed it.
00:09:03.759 --> 00:09:11.679
And so that particular purchase did not feel like it was aligned with my values, but it was a necessary purchase.
00:09:11.759 --> 00:09:16.879
So I don't want you to confuse I didn't want to spend this with I shouldn't have spent this.
00:09:17.039 --> 00:09:24.720
This is a separation that I want you to keep in mind because I think we can get really caught up with the black and white thinking, especially when it comes to our finances.
00:09:24.879 --> 00:09:32.159
And buying something that you need that you maybe didn't want to spend your money on does not mean that you were irresponsible or that you did something wrong.
00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:39.919
In life, we do have to spend our money sometimes in ways that are not particularly in alignment with our values.
00:09:40.080 --> 00:09:50.000
And this always reminds me a little bit of um, I have been reading Marie Kondo's Joy of Tidying Up as an in an effort to declutter our home a little bit.
00:09:50.240 --> 00:09:57.200
And there is um a part, one of her core philosophies and her framework is asking yourself, does the item spark joy?
00:09:57.360 --> 00:10:03.360
And it gives me a little bit of a giggle because there are so many things around our home that do not spark joy, but we absolutely need.
00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:07.039
And that's like a nuance that we have to be able to separate.
00:10:07.200 --> 00:10:08.639
I need the spatula, right?
00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:10.320
Does a spatula spark joy?
00:10:10.480 --> 00:10:13.840
It doesn't spark joy, but it is necessary for my life.
00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:16.240
I want you to think of your budget in the same way.
00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:18.720
Your spending is just data.
00:10:18.799 --> 00:10:20.000
It is not a verdict.
00:10:20.159 --> 00:10:21.759
The money has already been spent.
00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:24.000
Shame cannot put it back in your pocket.
00:10:24.159 --> 00:10:27.360
Beating yourself up doesn't make the purchase more aligned.
00:10:27.519 --> 00:10:34.320
And if you're looking at your spending and it feels like you're out of alignment, ask yourself what drove that decision?
00:10:34.480 --> 00:10:39.120
That is a much more useful piece of data that you can do something with.
00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:40.480
Was it necessary?
00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:41.919
Was it intentional?
00:10:42.159 --> 00:10:43.440
Was I influenced?
00:10:43.600 --> 00:10:46.720
Was I bored, emotional, distracting?
00:10:47.039 --> 00:10:48.799
Did my priorities change?
00:10:49.039 --> 00:10:51.039
Was my plan unrealistic?
00:10:51.279 --> 00:10:54.159
And do I actually want to change this behavior?
00:10:54.320 --> 00:10:59.919
And sometimes the answer might just be, I'm completely comfortable with why I spent this money.
00:11:00.159 --> 00:11:02.639
And that, my friend, is a data point too.
00:11:02.799 --> 00:11:07.279
All right, question number three is where do I want my money to go next?
00:11:07.440 --> 00:11:11.279
So our first two questions are all about reflection and what happened last month.
00:11:11.440 --> 00:11:14.720
Now it's time to look at what we're gonna do next month.
00:11:14.960 --> 00:11:18.559
We can't fix last month, but we can course correct.
00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:22.480
So, where do I want my money to be available next month?
00:11:22.639 --> 00:11:24.879
What do I want more of in my budget?
00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:26.879
And what do I want less of?
00:11:27.120 --> 00:11:30.240
Is there something coming up that I need to prioritize?
00:11:30.480 --> 00:11:32.879
And what financial goals need more attention?
00:11:33.120 --> 00:11:39.840
Really important one that I don't want you to skip is what did last month teach me about the plan I need for this month?
00:11:40.080 --> 00:11:44.399
Because your next decision matters way more than your last.
00:11:44.639 --> 00:11:49.759
Ultimately, your month end process should answer one question when you look at where your money went.
00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:52.799
Does it look like the life that you are trying to build?
00:11:52.960 --> 00:11:55.840
And we answer that with these three simple questions.
00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:57.120
Where did my money go?
00:11:57.360 --> 00:11:59.039
Am I happy with where it went?
00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:01.679
And where do I want it to go next?
00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:06.399
No gigantic financial overhaul, just those three questions.
00:12:06.639 --> 00:12:14.159
The purpose of looking backwards is not to judge the woman who made those decisions, it's to give the woman who's making the next decision better information.
00:12:14.320 --> 00:12:19.519
If you want the checklist for the month and close process, I'm going to put it down in the show notes for you.
00:12:19.759 --> 00:12:23.679
I hope this was helpful and I will see you on the next episode.
