In today’s episode, Cheryl revisits one of the most important stress-related topics in the challenge: money. Since financial strain is a major source of anxiety for many people, today’s habit focuses on taking one small action that supports your future financial wellbeing.

Cheryl explains why progress on financial goals is linked to better overall health and stability, and she shares simple, realistic examples you can complete in 10 minutes or less. The goal is not to build a full budget or overhaul your finances. It is to make a quick “future you” move that reduces stress, creates more control, and supports your ability to stay consistent with other healthy habits.

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Episode Transcript

Cheryl McColgan (00:00)
Hey everyone, I’m Cheryl McColgan founder of Heal Nourish Grow, and welcome to day 26 of the 30 Days Healthy Habits Challenge. Today we’re back to money. We did this one habit earlier in the challenge and we’re coming back to it again because as we learned from the previous one, if you read any of the research or just listened to the podcast from before, that money is ⁓ quite a source of stress for a lot of people and this is no surprise, right?

But it does show in the literature that making progress, making financial goals and taking some of your financial stress away actually creates greater wellbeing. It just helps you feel more settled, less anxious, less stressed. So addressing money things now and again is a good idea.

Cheryl McColgan (00:45)
obviously I think we should be considering what we’re consuming, what we’re spending money on, that sort of thing every single day. But when you’re doing these future plans or kind of more extended timeframe things for savings, that’s maybe not something that you’re thinking every single day. So I didn’t mean to say that, obviously you shouldn’t be focusing on spending on a daily basis, but these kind of larger goals might be something that’s more a once a week, once a month sort of thing.

So back to today’s habit is to make one future you money move today. And so this is going to be something that lowers financial strain and just gives you stronger financial capability in the future. And that’s all associated with better health and wellbeing. It reduces stress, as I said before, creates stability and having stability and having control of your finances supports other healthy habits as well. It gives you the finances and the ability to invest.

in other areas of your health if you need to. And it also having less stress in your life makes all the behaviors easier to repeat when you don’t have stress cropping up. So to give you some examples to make this easier, do something like set up an auto-save program at your bank or on an app. So taking $10, $20, $1,000, whatever works in your particular financial situation to automatically save each month. Automated bill.

have a bill or two or all of them that are scheduled to pay every single month so that it takes the stress off of you remembering to send a check or to submit your payment online. Maybe increase your retirement contribution by 1%. This is an area that I’m really interested in because I have always been involved in some degree and both my partners have been in finance and I actually ended up doing a speech about it in college. But the compounding

Interest is such a huge thing the earlier you start saving even if it’s a small amount and then I say earlier I’m like the younger that you start saying your that money just has more time to double and double and double again over time With the you know compounding interest and if you start saving much later in life It doesn’t have as much time to grow now That’s not to say you still can’t start because like every all of this you can start any time But the younger that you start saving the better it’ll just set you up much more in the future for having some

again, gains without having to do anything else. The once in the money is in there and it’s growing with interest, it just keeps building on itself. If the automation seems too much, maybe it’s something like setting yourself a calendar reminder or writing a small financial plan, maybe for the next week or the next month. So we’re doing it in 10 minutes or less. We’re not making a spreadsheet here or creating an empire of things. Of course, if you want to do that at some point, I think that’s awesome.

But this is just meant to be, again, a small, doable habit that doesn’t turn you off from it. So setting up an automation, something quick like that, or setting aside more money to save is a good choice here. So if it’s triggering too much stress, just do a small step, something in relation to it, and then stop. And you can always come back to this at a later date or give it some further thought when it comes for the weekly reset and reflect. As always, the studies are linked.

in the email that you received and in your tracker. And if you haven’t joined yet, that link to join is heelnourishgrow.com slash habits, you can join anytime. It’s never too late. That’s probably the theme of this series so far. But hope you enjoyed this and I will see you again tomorrow.