Friday with Heidi: Are you satisfied or full?

I’m writing to you in the here and now today.

I like to try and write my Friday with Heidi on a Thursday evening in case something crops up on a Friday and I am not able to send it out. But yesterday was a busy afternoon and I couldn’t. I am now at my desk, having just slipped my way around my local morning walk on the black ice, with a coffee to hand.

I walk with my daughter Sophie and some mornings we walk in silence merely contemplating our own thoughts and other days we’re all a chatter.

That was today.

We were talking about the happy feelings we both get from managing our finances each time we get paid or get some money.

It’s a practice I’ve done for some time both personally and professionally and it ensures that I am constantly, but minimally saving for the things I want and need so that I always have it available. Or realise that I can’t yet afford it.

There are many methods of doing this.

An American called T. Harv Eker calls his the ‘Jar Method‘. You have 6 imaginary or real jars and each time you get paid, you pay 10% into each of Long Term Savings, Fun, Financial Freedom, Self Development, 5% into Giving (Charity) and the remaining 55% for Necessities.

I’ve bastardised the various principles I’ve read about and allocate certain percentages for certain needs VAT, TAX, Business Costs, Pay, Venues and Profit. It’s been a source of such emotional security for me that I talk about it a lot and share the principals often.

I’ve also employed this principle with regards to non-finance too.

In my book ‘Why Weight?‘ I talk about the 9 buckets.

Imagine that the important things in your life are buckets. How full are they?

What do you need to do to put a little bit of something into each of those buckets each day?

What impact would it have if you did put a little bit of your time each day into spending time managing you money or your family life or you health or self development.

Small steps daily, make massive progress over time.

Read 10 pages of a self development book a day and you’ve read a book a month.

Exercise for 20 minutes each day and you’ve moved for 10 hours in a month.

Manage you money each month for a year and you’ve got a holiday fund, increased pension contributions or a paid off a loan.

It’s not a fitness related message today. But feeling happier in all these areas of our lives will mean that we will have the time, want to spend the time, realise that we do have time fitting all these things into our days; which can only make us healthier and fitter in the long run.

Let me know what you are going to work on first. I’d love to know how it works for you.

Have a fabulous weekend.

Kind regards

Talking of feeling full, this week’s Wednesday Q&A video is all about the caloric difference between eating a meal and feeling satisfied, full and stuffed!

It’s enough to scupper any good eating regime during the week if you do this at the weekend!