The 15-Minute Money Ritual: De-Stressing Your Monthly Check-In

Sponsored by Monarch Money

It's hardly a secret that money is a huge source of stress. For millennials especially, it feels like we've never been able to catch our breath — coming of age into one big recession, then a global pandemic that often felt like a recession, and then another looming literal recession just a few years later. I know we all long for precedented times, and we're right there with you.

The bleak reality is that, while we all continue fighting for a more equitable world and social safety net, the responsibility of your finances falls squarely on your own shoulders. And that can seem beyond overwhelming when the world is so unpredictable. Sometimes, the solution is to simply focus on what's within your control — and once you start taking the lead, the stress feels a lot more manageable.

For the next several weeks, in partnership with our friends at Monarch Money, we're bringing you The 15-Minute Money Ritual: a four-part series to teach you how to take charge of your money without letting it consume your entire life. Each week, we’ll share one segment to help you refresh your money routine, without ever costing you more than 15 minutes of your precious time.

This week: Curate a monthly financial check-in you can perform in 15 minutes or less. 

One way to take the stress out of your finances is to determine what’s worth checking in on frequently, and what really isn’t. For instance, if you’re still getting your financial footing, doing a more frequent spending review is likely more worth your time (don’t worry — we’ll dive more into that next week!). But for things like your long-term savings goals and investments? Checking in every day is simply not worth the blood pressure fluctuations. An occasional touch base is all you really need to see where you stand, especially when it comes to things like your net worth.

Your monthly check-in will depend on your specific circumstances, but it will likely include some of the following:

• Net worth tracking

• Investment and savings account growth

• Long-term savings goal positions

• Debt payoff updates

And with Monarch’s intuitive online dashboard, you can easily see a bird’s eye view of all of your accounts — no need to log onto your 401k, brokerage account, HYSA, and checking accounts separately in order to perform your monthly check-up. Monarch brings together your bank accounts, real estate, investments, credit cards, loans, and more, so you can easily see your net worth growth over time.

Monarch’s Dashboard also lets you filter and view assets, liabilities, and net worth reports in a way that’s most helpful to you; simply drag and drop widgets including net worth, recent transactions, and investment performance, so your dashboard is completely customized to fit your needs. And right now, our readers can get 50% off with code TFD50 — click here to get started!

The most important thing here is to make it as easy on yourself as possible to actually perform your monthly check-in so it never feels like a chore. Consolidating your data is a great way to achieve this, and once you’ve created a habit of taking stock of where you stand, you’ll build more momentum towards your long-term goals.

Next week, we’ll dive into our next 15-minute money ritual: getting an understanding of where your money is actually going.