Daily Journaling and How This Could Help Improve Your Financial Life

Daily journaling is taking a few minutes of your day writing down your thoughts on paper and giving yourself time to reflect on what’s currently happening in your work and life. This practice is an opportunity to work through the problems or issues that trouble you at present. It can also play a role in improving your financial health.

Here’s how journaling can make your financial life better.

Helps You Determine Your Financial Goals

Although many people have big visions for the future, they’re usually shrouded in nonspecific thinking. Journaling is great for working through this problem. It lets you break down this huge vision into progressively bite-sized pieces. Take freedom from debt as an example. Paying off a huge debt sounds like a huge goal, but it can become something actionable when you break it into smaller and manageable steps.

Assists You in Figuring out Your Worst Spending Decisions

You can use journaling to perform a post-action review to look into the details of a recent life situation. Doing this kind of review will help you find out:

  • What you wanted to accomplish in a particular situation
  • What you did to achieve it
  • What really happened
  • What you learned from what happened and how you can apply it in future situations

Doing a post-action review can assist you in evaluating your worst spending decisions.  Write down a recent spending misstep in your journal to figure out what happened and how you can avoid the same thing from happening going forward.

Helps You with Big Financial Decisions

We often face big financial decisions in life. A few of the questions we ask ourselves are:

  • Should I buy a car now or wait a couple more years?
  • Do I stay with my current job or explore other career opportunities (hopefully to earn more money in the process)?
  • Should I begin saving for retirement or do I need every peso I take home to fund my goals in life?

Journaling can answer these major financial questions. It also gives you an opportunity to come up with a list of pros and cons for each decision and determine whether those downsides and upsides make sense.

Daily Journaling Tips

Take note of these suggestions to help you make your daily journaling successful:

  • Write your entries in a small notebook that you can bring with you wherever you go.
  • Not a fan of pen and paper? That’s okay. There are journaling apps that you can download in your iPhone or Android smartphone.
  • If you’re starting to feel uncomfortable writing down how much you spend, push past it. Money journaling can help you make progress by confronting difficult truths or feelings about your finances.
  • Make it a habit. If you’re just starting out, set a reminder on your phone so that you don’t forget. Journaling will eventually become part of your everyday routine.

What are you waiting for? Get a notebook (or grab your mobile device and download a journaling app) and start writing. Your entries may hold the key to turning your financial life for the better.

Scroll to Top