Lesson 13 - Financial Sobriety Strategy

The final foundation of Financial Sobriety School is creating your Financial Sobriety Strategy. 

What is a Financial Sobriety Strategy?

• Understanding your expenses, when they come out and how much they are
• Sober Spending (aka mindful spending)
• Knowing what kind of accounts you have and what role they play in your strategy
• Creating a spending plan
• Creating a debt repayment plan
• Start to put money into a savings account and knowing how much and why you are putting the money in the account
• Using tools like tracking spending, auto transfers, bank account hierarchy 

The reason that this is the final foundation is because it is every foundation put together to make your Financial Sobriety Strategy. 

By the time you have gotten to lesson 13 you will have collected everything you need to create your strategy. If you haven’t done those lessons please go back to prepare for this lesson. 

Some great tools that you will use when making your strategy are debt repayment calculators, retirement calculators, savings calculators. When you have completed your financial inventory you know what you have for expenses, minimum payments etc. Putting this together by seeing how much you have left to start to save and pay off your debt. This will be your zero based spending plan. 

In saying this, there may not be a lot of extra funds to put towards debt and savings when you are starting your Financial Sobriety and this is normal. This is exactly why you are here and starting your Financial Sobriety. This isn’t your forever. If you are just starting this is exactly where you need to be. 

If you do have extra funds to be able to start paying off a little bit more debt or savings here are some tools that I love to use: 

Retirement Calculator: https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/tool/retirement-calculator

Savings Calculator (compound interest) - https://www.getsmarteraboutmoney.ca/calculators/compound-interest-calculator/

Savings Calculator - https://www.thecalculatorsite.com/finance/calculators/savings-calculators.php

Debt Repayment Calculator credit card - https://www.creditkarma.com/calculators/credit-cards/debt-repayment

Debt Repayment Calculator line of credit/loan - https://apps.royalbank.com/uaw0/personalloans/payment

These tools will help you get clear on the amount of time it will take to pay things off and also the dollar amount it will take to pay it off in that time. The savings calculators will let you know how long it will take to save a specific amount or how much you need to save in a certain amount of time. 

Some tracking apps I like to recommend to track your spending are: 

Mint - https://mint.intuit.com/

You Need A Budget: https://www.ynab.com/

Both these apps are available in Canada and the US. I am in Canada I don’t have access to a lot of the apps that are available so here is also a great article about what the best apps are: 

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/best-budget-apps

Implementing a financial sobriety strategy is necessary for a transformative shift in your mindset and behaviors pertaining to money. Cultivate healthy financial habits, exercise discipline, and remain focused on your commitment to your Financial Sobriety and your long-term financial goals in order to attain financial well-being and freedom.

I am so excited for you to put your Financial Sobriety Strategy into place. If you need extra support please feel free to book a free financial sobriety consultation here: 

https://calendly.com/lindaparmar/free-30-minute-consultation 

All the money love sent your way, 

Linda Parmar
Financial Sobriety Expert