#224 – Unlocking Financial Intimacy: A Guide to Money Dates

Anna Sergunina: 00:00:00

Hey Money Bosses, Anna is here and welcome back to the Money Boss Parent Podcast. Today we're talking about dating your money. I've loved this topic for lots of reasons. And I've been talking about it for many, many years. But I feel like it needs to be revisited on a continuing basis because life gets busy. We all get things to work on. And today, I wanted to share just a few ideas I have on this topic as it's ever evolving, ever changing. And if you haven't heard this concept of money, dates, welcome, I am hoping that I can incentivize, you get too excited not to run away. But rather look at this idea of how can you be more open to stay on top of what's going on in your financial life and introduce a little bit of fun and excitement, and have fun with it as well. So the money deed concept, a little bit of a background story, because I've, myself and my husband, Yuri have been practicing money dates for over a decade, probably close to 15 years now. But anyway, who's counting? It's been a long time. And it really came out of frustration and struggle we had with our own finances. And the idea was, how can we be more present with each other to have a conversation about what's going on with our finances, wherever you might be in your life, whether you're starting out, you have things to work on, such as pay off debts, get your emergency fund in order, reinvest your portfolio, whatever is or maybe you've done all of those things. Now you're sort of on the maintenance mode, it doesn't really matter, because what I'm getting at is, we want it to have a platform, a strategy, a structure, whatever you want to call it, a wonderful opportunity to have a conversation about what's going on in our finances. And where are we? And so it really simply started is that you want to have a money date. One day, I asked him that question. And he looked at me smiled, and said, sure. What does that entail? was one of the first questions he asked. And really, because I didn't know what we're supposed to discuss at that at that first money. Did you know the most intuitive thing that came to mind was, well, let's just check in and see how things are 15 years ago, our finances were real simple. We didn't have we didn't own properties. We did not own a house, we did not have kids. We did have our businesses, but that's about it. So finances were real simple. But that's not even the point. The point is, was is how can we look at what's going on, have a really simple idea. And, you know, allow that to be something that we do continuously and frequently. And so I said, All right, well, let's let's just start and check in with where everything's at. And the most common thing that comes to mind when you think about money date is especially for to business owners, right? And if you're not a business owner, that's okay, too. Because maybe you're getting a paycheck on a regular basis, check in on your income, how much money are you making? Is everything in line with that, and I'm not talking about doing anything drastic, it could be as simple as opening your bank account, and seeing what's going on there. Pulling up your credit card statement, if you have an app on your phone, take a look what's going on there. So how much money did you make? If you have a regular savings plan? Or maybe this is a conversation you bring up with your significant other is how do we have track and you know, stay on top of what are we saving? If your savings strategy isn't recurring? Or if you don't have savings that are gonna set up or going into your accounts automatically? This is particularly important question because you want to not to forget. So that was the second thing that came to mind. And then we decided that we wanted to also not just look at day to day stuff, which is great. And there are lots of tools that help you do that. And I'll link some podcasts episodes that I've recorded on this topic in the past to help you kind of navigate some of these tools because it's it's really deciding what system works for you. And so I've I've adopted a platform called monarch money. And if you go to Episode 217, I talk about my favorite platform of all time mint.com has transitioned out and a new venture that I am exploring. So it's a very similar management system tracking for you expenses, income, and there's lots of other layers, but monarch money has been, it's really been around for me just in the last couple of months. But that's the tool that I use. Now it does the same thing is meant to use to do, it allows me to really answer those simple questions. And so the third layer of what we wanted to talk about was, what are we thinking about? In the long run? What are long our long term goals? And it really, really took us a while to kind of get a, you know, a good hang of like, you know, what are we really thinking because you, you know, you have in frequent conversation with your partner or significant other about, okay, we're going on on a vacation, or we're saving for house down payment, or we're making sure that our emergency fund is in place. So those are like casual conversations, these money, date discussions are more strategic, more specific, I would also highly advocate for you to have real numbers attached to those goals, to what are you working toward? Because if we're doing savings, right, regular savings, savings, and I hope you're investing as well, then these tools, right, these mechanisms are supposed to help in supposed and help you get faster towards your goals, right? Because investing helps you grow your money saving allows you to grow your money. So what are your goals? So having that maybe mapped out would be a really nice conversation as well. And then, you know, over time, this agenda kind of carried over right at the beginning, we would have to like maybe be more thoughtful about and say, Okay, well, you know, what are we doing today, or it didn't, it didn't start out as smooth as I as I wanted it, but we got the hang of it. So money dates are really short conversations that you can have with yourself or your significant other, I suggest them to do frequent, as frequently as every week, we started doing those, like on a Sunday afternoon, a lot of them happened over like a glass of wine, or we were at a coffee shop Sunday morning, and just, you know, casually checking in with each other and what is, you know, what was the plan that we were working, and then over the years, that kind of it kind of stuck to be with us to do it over the weekend. Some of the clients I worked with in the past do these, you know, any other time of the week, I do like the weekly frequency because it's it breaks the bigger, like, if you think of your calendar, right, it breaks the 12 month calendar into like, not just monthly because I feel like if you only look into your finances on a monthly basis, it's just not frequent enough, maybe you could do this every two weeks, but every week sort of breaks that big, having us of one month's worth of everything into small chunks. So that that is manageable has been managing for us for so many years. Something else that over time we had adopted because it wasn't like having a conversation about your money. A lot of times has an angle of the past, it has already happened, right? Whatever it is, has occurred. And that's why I wanted to add the element of the goals because it helped reset this present moment when you do and to check in with yourself. realigning yourself, maybe you got off the track, and that's okay. This is not the place to beat yourself up for whatever it is that has happened, maybe life happened to you, maybe there's a job loss, maybe you move, maybe somebody passed away, it doesn't matter. It's really just like this resetting point. And the more frequent resetting points you do for yourself, the more wins you're going to achieve, the more the self, the more celebratory moments you're going to have. And so my last point on this is have this celebration progress, check in with yourself, you know, have you made achievements since the last money date? Did you pay off a credit card? Did you reach your savings goal,

Anna Sergunina: 00:09:00

did you you know, maybe your investment made a ton of money because the stock market was doing really well in this past week. It's it doesn't really matter, but it's just give yourself a reward. To celebrate every word doesn't have to be anything material, it could be just a moment of time for you to enjoy and recognize that. So that's kind of has been the agenda for years and I to talk about these money dates. I do have a money day checklist that I will include in the show notes. But if you go on Instagram and send me a DM that says many date, I will be able to send you a checklist that you can download and follow the steps. It's really simple. But at the beginning, I get it you may want to have some something that you can look at to have those conversations. Now one other hack that I found to be useful and maybe this is just how my brain works. But I'd love for you to Add these many days on your calendar. So if you like the Sunday afternoon idea for a quick 15 minute meeting, because I feel like sometimes if you have a busy schedule, lots of things going on, or if you use blocking, like I do on my calendar to get all kinds of appointments and work done, that 15 minute block may get lost, and you may not connect with your significant other on that. But Sunday is a blank calendar, I don't put any appointments on my Sundays or Saturdays. Just because those are, that's how I want to keep them I want to keep them blank. And so I see that 15 minute block on my calendar every week. So it's been there for years, I feel like it's a it's a psychological shift that you would have to make in order to make that a really successful, check in with yourself. So if you as you as you gearing up to consider this idea to have a money date, I really strongly, strongly advise for you to come to this approach with with an open mind, it's supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be exciting. Yes, I know, sometimes we have to work on changing things. But the idea why you here is to make a change. And so I am excited for you. Because if you've never heard of this concept, I think is going to change your relationship that you have with your money, how often you look at it, how you talk about it. And, you know, maybe frankly, it could be a different conversation. And if you are trying to have money dates with your significant other, and they're not going going as you know, as well as you think, try it again, keep on trying, because I'll tell you the truth, it didn't start out as a perfectly awesome conversation with my spouse, but we gave it a try. And so it just went from let's try it again. Let's try it again. Because at the end of the day, whether you haven't a money date, or you're not, you still want to know what's going on in your finances. And so I personally just found this to be a really fun way to make this topic of money. You know, exciting, focused, and really also feeling like we've made all the things when we've made all the right steps in the right direction. So remember, it's really the goal of this is to strengthen your financial relationship and how you work towards your financial future. So it's not about blaming and pointing fingers, but it's rather about how you together with whoever it is needs to be on your team helps you achieve your financial goals. I've had many dates for clients in the past. So if you want to have a money, date conversation, let me know I'm happy to jump on the call with you. Alright, my friends, I'm hoping that you're going to start this practice this year and going to have as much fun as I have been having. It's funny that if I look back at some of the tools we used to use when we have these conversations, we've come a long way Technologies has helped to shape a lot of ease of it, but don't get hung up. Just have a conversation. Just have a money date, and have fun. Until next time. Remember you are the bosses of your own money.