I want you to try an exercise with me. It might seem basic, it might seem hokey. Yet I all-but-guarantee it will be helpful.
First, if you haven’t before, spend some time thinking about what’s really important to you. There’s a host of ways to get clear on this, but one of my favorite questions to consider is “What do you want your spouse/kids/family/close-friends to remember about you?”
Don’t feel like you have to have a minimum or a maximum list here. Try and at least get 3 or 4 character traits identified though. Write them down somewhere. Next to each answer, abbreviate it with a letter or two.
Now I want you to pull up some record of your spending. Ideally, this will be your budget (I personally use and absolutely love YNAB). But if it’s not an actual budget, you can still use a bank statement, a credit card statement, or even your tax return (which you can hack your way into figuring out a de minimis cash-flow statement). Print it out, throw into a spreadsheet, do whatever you can so you can mark it up.
Slight pause: place on a No-Shame, No-Blame hat. We’re not judging here. Just exploring.
Now comb through the purchases and transactions in front of you. Line by line, mark next to them which ones align with – or move your forward towards – any of your previously recorded answers on what’s important to you.
Go as far, as deep, and as thorough as you want.
And then take a step back. What’s in alignment? What’s out of alignment? Are there any patterns emerging?
The old saying of how a calendar and checkbook never lie holds true here – auditing these two things (or their modern day equivalents) can tell us a lot about someone, or ourselves.
Not all of your values and what’s most important to you will show up here – and that’s fine. There will certainly be some transactions that don’t align at all – and that’s fine as well. Note these things, and maybe even say “Oh, that’s interesting. I wonder why I do that?” Maybe it’s short term necessity. Maybe it’s a long term bad or unneeded habit.
This can be a valuable exercise to see if we’re lying to ourselves (which we all do at certain points) on what’s most important to us.
Money, after all, is only a tool. And it’s a tool that we should periodically calibrate to ensure it’s best working FOR us to achieve what’s most important TO us. This simple audit can be one way of doing this.