Healthy Empiring Habits

Good habits are tricky, and they take a while to stick - ask anyone who has ever started a diet, exercise program or journal. The more we automate good habits and make them fun, the easier they align with your daily regimen. This week, we are sharing our top 10 healthy habits – and the best part is, although some may be uncomfortable at first, technology now enables many of these tasks to be automated to better serve you the information and create healthy habits.

8 Healthy Habits

1. ORGANIZE 
   This first task will seem the most Herculean—we suggest that you carve out three hours, light candles, bring in beautiful soothing music and promise yourself a treat right afterwards (wine? Soaking bath?) Organization is the foundation for our healthy habits ahead.

• Organize your financial information and records (you should have gathered items from action item in week 2 – “The Cleanup”).

• Devise a plan on what to keep and what to toss – Don’t just pile, FILE.

• Keep birth certificates, marriage license, death certificate, wills, and adoption papers forever. 

• Keep paycheck stubs, cancelled checks, credit card receipts, bank statements and investment statements for 1 year.

• Keep the most up to date copy of your insurance policies, property records, and contracts while active.

• This is also a great time to go through mail and email! 

• Review your bills and statements and check for any errors. Banks and creditors make mistakes. Check your medical bills, check your credit card and bank statements, and look for unusual activity.  Setting up alerts is the easiest way to stay in the know. 

• Consider going electronic and only print statements only when needed.  You can also scan documents  to a secure cloud provider, this way you save a tree and save space.

  2. PAY YOURSELF FIRST 

• Automate savings and investing to make it seamless. 

• Contact your bank and setup automatic transfer from your checking to your savings every pay period, alternatively you may be able to ask your employer to have a portion of your pay direct deposited into your savings account. Set your online bank account to automatically send an amount of money to your investment account each month. Bypasses you altogether!

  3. CONTROL YOURSELF 

• Only purchase with cash. Budget a certain amount and once it’s gone, that’s it!

• Remove your credit card information from your online shopping profiles; make it harder to “1 click purchase”.

• Remove your cards from your wallet. 

• If you still have a hard time being disciplined, freeze your credit cards – LITERALLY put them in the freezer. In order to retrieve the cards you will have to smash the ice or melt it and either way it gives you time to think about why you are trying to remove them from ice.

• Remove yourself from the “daily deal” distribution lists/emails.

• Limit your exposure to malls or other sources of temptation.

  4. CREATE A BUDGET AND TRACK IT 

• We will get into budgeting in Module 5, but a few important points are as follows: Create a budget, set goals, and track spending.

  5.THE BIG PICTURE 

• What are your goals for the quarter, the year, or the next five years? Break down that goal into bite sized pieces and make sure you are tracking your progress. For example, if your goal is to buy a house, how much do you need for a down payment? If you need $50K, where is that coming from— can you save $2000 a month for the next 25 months? $1000/month  for the next 4.2 years?

  6. ELIMINATE DEBT

• Pay down debt on time – avoid needless late fees, pay more than the minimums. We suggest you DO NOT forego savings while paying down debt. We will cover debt in Module #6.

  7. ANALYZE IT 

• Analyze savings and debt on a regular basis – Always be in the know. Things constantly change so be sure that your savings and debt paydown are aligned.  Did you get a raise? Up your savings rate. Did you reach your 3-6 month’s worth of savings goal? Should you now be paying more on cc #2 since you have paid off cc #1? Shoot for analyzing once a quarter. 

  8. REVIEW WHAT "THEY" ARE SAYING ABOUT YOU 

• Check your credit report at least twice a year – it’s free:  www.creditkarma.com or  www.annualcreditreport.com

• Many of us get nervous and don’t want to even see what their credit report says—don’t buy into that shame and fear! Remember, keeping yourself ignorant helps no one.

• Your credit score can affect your mortgage rates, credit card approvals, apartment requests and even job applications. You can also stop identity theft early! Federal law requires that all three of the credit bureaus provide a free report annually. Annualcreditreport.com gives you access to all 3 (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax) of your reports. Credit Karma is a free credit monitoring service that shows your score and offers recommendations based on your credit profile and more. We suggest you check your score at least quarterly.

ACTION:

Let’s start on healthy habits today!

1. Now is when you can really start organizing those documents you gathered in week 2.

2. Let’s work on #1, #2, and #3 on this list above. It may not happen overnight, but we want PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION. Grab your journal and jot down what you’re working on and how you feel!

Amazon has some great deals on shredders, filing cabinets and file folders! Here are a couple of links to get you started.  (Please note these are just suggestions and in NO way are we vouching for or are we compensated for sharing these!).

Shredder - AmazonBasics 8-Sheet Cross-Cut Paper and Credit Card Home Office Shredder

File Boxes - File Organizer Box Set of 2 - Collapsible Linen Filing Boxes for Easy File Folder Storage

Filing Folders: Pendaflex Two-Tone Color File Folders

Dani Hughes & Valerie Sanchez
Co-Creators of the Divine Empire Transformation System

Divine Asset Management LLC is a Registered Investment Adviser