Jill On Money: Kickstart your great money reset

Amid the scary, early days of the pandemic, I decided to increase the frequency of my Jill on Money podcast from a bi-weekly to a daily show.

The new schedule was a response to the thousands of emails pouring in, as people were anxious, confused and needed help making sense of their financial choices in a highly uncertain time.

Those early inquiries morphed into a different type of question than I had previously never received in the dozen years of hosting a personal finance show: Is this really how I want to live? To answer, I would walk listeners through a series of probing questions to help them understand the options that existed.

These conversations prompted me to write a book, The Great Money Reset, a “guide to getting real and building your best life,” which will be available on January 24. Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing snippets of the book to help you kick-start your personal transition, to break through whatever is holding you back and to help you thrive.

I open the book with a universal fact: To reset to a new place, you have to understand where you are today. In addition to tallying up what you have saved and any obligations that you have accumulated, you also need a detailed understanding of your spending habits.

I continue to be surprised at how many people discount the idea of focusing on consumption and/or are too ashamed about their spending habits to examine what’s really going on behind the behavior. Here’s an excerpt of one of my favorite chapters of The Great Money Reset:

“You might think you must blow your life savings to make a big change. Maybe not. People from all walks of life are rethinking their consumption habits. You can do the same, with an eye toward reducing expenses and directing those resources toward your dreams…

“There’s a powerful secret to achieving your dreams that I’ve been applying for some time, with considerable success. For the price of this book, I’m happy to let you in on it. It’s a behavioral strategy that’s simple, easy to apply, and guaranteed to work. Anyone can use it to feel more empowered financially, irrespective of where they live, how much they earn, or what they do for a living. So, are you ready? The secret to achieving your dreams is . . . spend less.

“Rather than arriving at ironclad judgments about any particular consumption choice, it’s most helpful simply to become more mindful of how we’re spending our hard-earned money and how it makes us feel.

“Uncovering our spending rules isn’t straightforward — it leads us into the complex netherworld that is our emotions. Here are some questions I recommend asking to help you understand your consumer behavior and the underlying psychology as completely as possible:

“Question #1: What do I really need in my life, and what do I only think I need?

“Many of us create rules premised on the idea that we require certain goods or services to be happy and healthy. We all must make purchases corresponding to the lower rungs of the psychologist Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs — food, water, a safe place to live, heat, healthcare, and so on. When it comes to higher-order needs such as our need to feel connected to others or our need to be creative and feel self-actualized, our required purchases become less obvious.”

Jill Schlesinger, CFP, is a CBS News business analyst. A former options trader and CIO of an investment advisory firm, she welcomes comments and questions at askjill@jillonmoney.com. Check her website at www.jillonmoney.com.