5 Financial Lessons I've Learned in My 20s

[00:00:30] I know everybody says this, but your twenties genuinely are such a big and pivotal period of growth and learning, and you're really experiencing adulthood for the first time.

[00:00:41] You have independence and there are also all these big, really important decisions that you're making in your life, and it can feel very, very overwhelming. And I know that I felt over. majority of the time. I mean, I'm in my late twenties now. I'm still not out of the woods yet, but especially when I was in my early twenties, it felt really [00:01:00] overwhelming trying to get everything figured out.

[00:01:03] So, hopefully my lessons can help you avoid some mistakes and start figuring out what you want the role of money to look like.

[00:01:10] Number one. I wish I had learned what mindful spending was way earlier on when I first graduated college and was starting to learn more about personal finance, the only narrative around budgeting and spending money came from this very, very restrictive space. You should never spend any money on conveniences.

[00:01:30] You need to spend as little money as possible. You should live very, very frugally. In fact, when save, lift, thrive first started, I was very much. Still in this mentality, and I thought that this personal finance blog that I created was gonna be about super frugal living, but it's not because actually.

[00:01:47] Being very restrictive with how we think about our money and use our money is not sustainable. And one thing that I really struggled with was I would go through these periods of I was spending [00:02:00] almost no money. I was saving as much as possible. I wasn't spending money on anything. And then I would get to this breaking point where I could no longer keep that momentum going and

[00:02:10] I would just swing back to the other side of the pendulum and go on this giant spending spree and spend a bunch of money. That ended up being way out of my comfort zone. I really struggled with finding moderation, and that made it really challenging to make a plan to work towards my financial goals.

[00:02:27] And that pattern basically continued until I started learning about mindful spending. So basically what mindful spending is, is it's when you use your money in a way that reflects your values and the things that you care about and bring you. joy and happiness because when it comes to spending money, it's really not about being restricted with our spending, and it's not about never spending money on anything ever again.

[00:02:50] It's. Avoiding spending money on the things that you ultimately don't care about. At the end of the day, the types of purchases that are gonna leave you feeling guilty or stressed or [00:03:00] resentful, and regret making that purchase in the first place. So mindful spending is really checking in with yourself before you make a purchase and ask yourself, how am I feeling right now?

[00:03:10] Am I feeling sad, stressed, tired, hungry? overwhelmed, frustrated. When you know how you're feeling, you're then able to ask yourself the question, how do I want this purchase to make me feel in the first place? Is this a purchase that is actually gonna help me feel that way? Or is this an impulse or emotional type of purchase?

[00:03:28] That will probably make me feel better for a short amount of time. , but then I might end up feeling a little guilty about that purchase after the fact because it's not aligned with my values. It's not something that I actually want, and then I'm gonna end up feeling guilty.

[00:03:41] So that's really what mindful spending is, is it's spending in a way that lights you up, it aligns with your values so that you can release the guilt and shame that you have around spending and how you use your money. And once I started implementing Mindful, Spending more, I started identifying all of these different leaks in my [00:04:00] budget that were not aligned with my values.

[00:04:02] So back in like 2017, I was super obsessed with makeup. Like I used to spend so much money on makeup. I had this giant makeup collection, and whenever I was feeling down, stressed, tired, whatever, I would go to Ulta and I would spend a bunch of money buying whatever products had been released. But the thing was is that I would spend this money

[00:04:21] and then I would end up feeling guilty about the purchase. Pretty much as soon as I left the store and when I started practicing the spine spending, I was able to start assessing those purchases before I would make them and ask myself, is this going to make me feel the way that I wanted to, or am I gonna end up feeling guilty?

[00:04:40] Stress. or ashamed of this purchase later on. So I started spending way less money on makeup because I realized that it wasn't aligned with my values. I started cutting out subscriptions and things like that that I just wasn't using anymore because I was starting to become more intentional and aware of what my money was doing.

[00:04:56] And then I was able to also release guilt around things like. [00:05:00] Going and grabbing a cup of coffee with friends on the weekend or brunch because those purchases like restaurants and coffee expenses, I think those tend to get a pretty bad reputation in the personal finance space. A lot of financial.

[00:05:13] Creators and educators have built entire platforms saying you shouldn't spend money on a cup of coffee because it's frivolous for a waste of money. But through the lens of mindful spending or values based spending, I was able to see like, okay, me going out and grabbing a cup of coffee with my friends, it's not just about me spending money on the coffee for me.

[00:05:32] Going out to eat with my friends or buying that cup of coffee was social time. I was getting to spend time with my loved ones and catch up with the people that I care about, which is something that's aligned with my values. So I was able to assess my purchases from multiple different lenses and understand the why behind the decisions that I was making, and that was huge with helping me release any guilt or shame that I was experiencing around.

[00:05:56] The second lesson that I learned was the importance of [00:06:00] creating a budget, but not specifically a restrictive budget, which considering what point number one was restrictive budgeting. It's gonna be no surprise that I am not a fan of restrictive budgets, but it is important to have a plan for your money so that you can make sure that your money is doing what you want to do.

[00:06:16] So we were just talking about mindful spending and values-based spending. Now let's talk about values-based budgeting. Because values-based budgeting was another layer of personal finance that just helped me start feeling really good and empowered by my money and my financial decisions. So values-based budgeting, it's when you make a plan for your money that's aligned with your values and the things that you care about most in life.

[00:06:40] And you can see how mindful spending and. Budgeting, they really go hand in hand. So I started looking at my core values, the things that were most important to me and for me, my values are adventure, personal growth, family,

[00:06:54] comfort and security. So when I was first assessing my financial [00:07:00] situation, I started looking at my values and then creating a plan for my money that would reflect them. And the first thing that I did was make sure that I set up an emergency fund. We're gonna come back to emergency funds in just a couple of minutes, but I made sure that I had an emergency fund in place so that.

[00:07:15] Secure whenever any type of negative financial event came up. And then with the values of adventure and spending time with my loved ones, I started setting money aside in a travel sinking fund regularly, even if I didn't have a vacation that was planned, I started planning for vacations experiences I'm setting aside money in advance so that I could take the trips, go traveling, go on a hike without stressing about scrambling a bunch of money together in a really short period of time.

[00:07:43] I also started looking at ways that I could enjoy different experiences with my friends and family, and sometimes that was just as simple as like having people over potluck style. Sometimes it was going out to eat at restaurants, sometimes it was going on. excursions and things like that [00:08:00] together, but prioritizing that family time and spending time with the people that I cared about.

[00:08:04] So when you're creating a values-based budget, you really wanna look at the things that are most important to you and ask yourself, how can my money work in a way that it's aligning with my values and the things that I care about.

[00:08:16] And once you start understanding where you want your money to go, what you want it to do, , then you can start automating your finances so that it can work in the background for you and you no longer have to worry about the administrative upkeep of your financial life every single day.

[00:08:30] So when I was first getting started on my financial journey, money seemed really, really overwhelming because I had only learned from people that I had to track every single dollar. always for the rest of my life. And it felt like this big, giant task that I had to tackle that I didn't wanna take action on it at all.

[00:08:47] But in actuality, when you're first starting with tracking your spending, it's really gathering information so that you can understand what your habits currently are, what your current financial situation is, and then. automating it all [00:09:00] so that it's able to work for you in the background, and you can go live your life without needing to worry about the upkeep of your finances every single day.

[00:09:08] And then you can just do like monthly check-ins or something just to make sure that everything is operating exactly as you want it to.

[00:09:14] Lesson number three is visualize what you want your future to look like. When you're in your twenties. You can feel really young, really invincible and like you have so much time to figure everything out. And I don't wanna put like a false sense of pressure. on your twenties as a decade, because I do think that life is long and we have a lot of time to make changes and pivot and try new things at the same time. Our twenties are really important, decade to. Paving those steps to get us to where we want to be. Even if where we want to be changes at the end of the day,

[00:09:48] you can still start anticipating the needs of your future self and start taking care of future you.

[00:09:54] what I mean by that is start by identifying your values, the things that you care about, . The cool thing about values is that they [00:10:00] do tend to stay pretty consistent throughout our lives. So the values that you hold when you're younger, you will likely still hold them when you're older as well, even if there's different values that you have to prioritize during different seasons or chapters of your life, but know what your values are, and then you can start asking yourself the question, how can I use money as a tool to live in alignment with my values throughout?

[00:10:22] In other words, what can I do with my money now to help me do the things that I wanna be able to do later? And one lesson that ties along with this is the power of investing early. Because the earlier you get started with investing, the longer you have for your money to compound and have that.

[00:10:40] Exponential growth, and a lot of times 20 year olds, and I was guilty of this as well, when you're in your twenties, it can feel like your forties, fifties, sixties, or even your thirties are so far away. But the earlier you start investing, the more time your money has to spend and the more time compound interest has [00:11:00] to work.

[00:11:00] Its magic. Dip your toes in. Get started little by little and just take the time to learn about what investing is so that you can set your future self up to have the funds and reap the benefits of the compound interest later on in life, and have that little nest egg available to do the things that you want to do with your money and with your time.

[00:11:21] I started sharing my lessons a little bit outta order. I wrote them out of order on my list right here. But another lesson that I wanna share with you is the importance of having an emergency fund. I already mentioned this already, but when you're in your twenties, it can feel like you are very invincible and like nothing's gonna go wrong.

[00:11:37] But unfortunately, life happens. Shit comes up, and negative financial events occur. For me, I had probably. Solid year's worth of time where I just had crazy car trouble and I felt like there was this car maintenance expense that was not cheap. Like usually it was like six or $600 or so that was unexpected that I would have [00:12:00] to fork up some money for.

[00:12:01] And the cool thing about an emergency fund is it gives you the security freedom and flexibility to be able to tackle those events when they happen without needing to fall back on a credit card, because credit card debt due to a high interest rate, is very, very expensive to have.

[00:12:18] That was another lesson from my early twenties that didn't quite make it to this list because I feel like it's something that people talk about a lot, but whatever. I'm just gonna throw it in there anyways. Avoid high interest debt because the interest rates are so high and it makes it so expensive to pay off

[00:12:33] because that interest is just being added to the principle balance and credit card debt, high interest debt. It really keeps you stuck back to those previous financial decisions that you made until it's paid down. And I know that there were some purchases that I made, like my trips to Alta, that it took me a long, long time to pay off those purchases.

[00:12:53] That didn't take me very long to make in the moment, but I was still paying off those purchases for months in the [00:13:00] future because of those high interest rates. But when you have an emergency fund and an unexpected or negative financial event comes up, maybe it's job loss, maybe there's a car accident, maybe there's unexpected maintenance fees or costs that you have to pay for.

[00:13:15] Maybe you get sick and you have unexpected medical costs, or you have to take time off of work and maybe you don't get paid sick leave, something like that. Your emergency fund is in place and you're able to tackle those events or situations with the peace of mind knowing that you can do it in cash without needing to call back on credit cards.

[00:13:34] And there's a client that I worked with inside of the Wealth Bowl Bootcamp, which is my group financial coaching. and she said that when she had an emergency fund in place, these negative events that came up were no longer a crisis. They turned into a circumstance that her and her family were able to just address, take care of without the added stress of thinking.

[00:13:54] about how am I gonna come up with the money to pay for this? How am I gonna pay down the credit card debt if I have to [00:14:00] put this purchase on a credit card? And it really does bring you so much peace of mind when you have an emergency fund in place. So that was a huge lesson that I learned from my twenties.

[00:14:10] And lesson number five isn't money per se, but it does impact our finances, and it is listen to your intuition. So this could impact the career choices you're making,

[00:14:22] how you decide to spend your money, how much you wanna have saved. Trust your instincts, listen to your intuition, because I think our gut is a pretty strong and powerful thing like. Speaking with us and it's trying to communicate different things. And when I was graduating from my degrees in music education and vocal performance, probably around like my junior year in college, I started to question whether or not I wanted to pursue a career in music and music education.

[00:14:49] Professionally. I still do love to sing. I still sing professionally now, but it's not like with the goal of traveling all over the world and whatever. And I used to be a teacher, but I'm not a teacher anymore, [00:15:00] but. . I didn't listen to my intuition back when I was a junior in college and could still like change my major or something like that.

[00:15:08] I really played into this sunk cost fallacy where it was like, okay, well if I already put in so much time into this degree, there's only about a year and a half left, I might as well just finish it out and then I can figure out what I wanna do after the fact. because I was buying into that sun cost fallacy.

[00:15:24] I wasn't listening to my intuition. I ended up student teaching entering a really, really toxic teaching job right after student teaching, cuz I was like, all right, I need to make money as soon as possible and really, I ended up just feeling stuck in this career path that didn't align with.

[00:15:40] with what my inner voice was really pulling me towards. And if I was being honest with myself, I think I would've known that I was gonna create a business of my own much, much earlier on, and would've started experimenting with ways to do that on my own way earlier on in life, if I had trusted my intuition

[00:15:58] and really listened to the fact that like, [00:16:00] I didn't think that teaching was gonna be a good career fit for me, and said, I tried to force. because I felt like that was what I was supposed to do, and I had put so much time into working towards that already. So trust your intuition. It really impacts your career.

[00:16:14] But when it comes to your money with what you spend on how much you save, like we tend to know what feels good and comfortable for us. We tend to know when a purchase feels aligned with our values. The things that are important to us. an intuitive feeling about what amount of money feels comfortable to have saved and what different financial decisions feel good.

[00:16:34] So start listening to that inner voice more, because when we really lean into that intuition, it tends to align with our values and when we're taking actions that align with our values every single day, that's when we tend to feel happy, content, joyful, whatever. Like we feel good about what our life is doing, but if we ignore our values and we take actions that contradict them or fight against them, that's when we tend [00:17:00] to feel not so good.

[00:17:00] And we start to experience conflict within ourselves. And I think our intuition is really helpful for letting us know like, Hey, Choice that you're making right now, it is aligned with the things that are most important to you or it's not. So take the time, create the space to listen to what your inner self is telling you because it can save you a lot of time and headache.

[00:17:24] I can speak from personal experience and honestly like this is a skill that I am still trying to learn and get better at too. But anyways, that concludes my five, but it kind of became. Primary lessons from my twenties when it comes to managing my finances. That is practice mindful spending, values-based budgeting, visualize your financial future and start taking actions to make it a reality.

[00:17:50] Build an emergency fund, avoid high interest debt, and listen to your intuition. So that's all that I have for you today. And I will see you next week.

Shownotes

Your 20s are a big period of growth and learning as you experience adulthood for the first time and are faced with many important life decisions--it can all feel pretty overwhelming!

With so much to learn, do, and decide, it's hard to know where to start. In today's podcast episode, Charlotte is sharing 5 financial lessons she's learned in her 20s.

We talk about:

• Mindful spending

• Values-Based Budgeting

• Visualizing your future dreams and goals and how to use your money to get there

• The importance of building an emergency fund

• Automating your finances

• Trusting your intuition

Interested in working with Charlotte?

The Wealth Building Bootcamp is getting a MAJOR revamp this year! This 15-week group coaching experience designed to teach you how to heal your relationship with money, build wealth, pay off debt, and live the life of your dreams. 

APPLY TO THE WEALTH BUILDING BOOTCAMP!! 👉 Click here


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The 30 Day Financial Reset is designed to help you understand your values and beliefs about money and help you understand where your money is going so that you can make a value-based budget once the 30 Day Challenge is over!

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Music written by Chris Glassman

Disclaimer: The content and information provided on this podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute professional mental health, financial, legal, or tax advice. For recommendations on your specific financial situation, you must additionally seek the services of an appropriate licensed mental health, theraputic, legal, accounting, tax, or investment professional.