The Exact Steps You Need to Have Extra Money Saved In Time For Christmas

Enrollment is now open for the Golden Money Blueprint. Find out more or enroll here.

Summary
In this episode Louisa share's a simple to follow step-by-step guide that will not only ensure you can easily save an extra $2000 just in time for Christmas, but will also help you build your confidence to manage your money which will ensure long lasting financial success if you follow these steps. This holistic approach to dealing with your money will make you feel empowered and excited about your money goals.

Find out more about my next workshop Thriving Together: A 1/2 Retreat for Mums and Teen Daughters by clicking here

Want more? You can check out my website for more free resources or follow me on Instagram or Facebook.

Disclaimer: The information contained on today’s podcast has been provided as general advice only. The contents have been prepared without taking into account your objectives, financial situation or individual needs. Before making any decision regarding the information, strategies or products mentioned on today’s episode, please consult your own financial advisor or other professional first.

Transcript

Welcome to the Living My Life Like It's Golden podcast. I'm your host, Louisa Larado And on today's episode, I wanna give you the exact steps and break down the roadmap that you will need to reach a $2,000.

savings goal just in time for Christmas. Now I know this time of year, there's a lot of extra things happening. There's a lot more expenses than normal. So having that extra $2,000 buffer to get you through this time, it's just gonna make such a difference in your life and just approaching the holiday season with ease and not feeling so stressed and worried about your money.

This is from the call that we had this evening for our 2k cash boost challenge. I'm sharing some of the highlights and this is going to give you every single step you will need to take to make sure that you reach that goal. So make sure you've got a pen and paper handy, take down lots of notes and I really hope that you get a lot out of this episode and reach a $2,000 savings goal just in time for Christmas too.

Louisa Larado (01:18)

today we're actually going to be going and delving really deeply into the exact roadmap and the exact steps you need to take now to reach this 2k goal. So

Over the last couple of days, what we've been doing is we have been looking really deeply into like money mindset stuff. And that might be all the things that are currently blocking you or holding you back from really reaching the money goals and creating the money in your life that you probably desire. And there might be that resistance there. hopefully you've started to notice some blocks or some patterns or some things that were coming up.

for you, maybe some beliefs or ideas that you held about money that now if you've done the work you realize essentially are probably not actually true. They're actually, you know, just these ideas that we have been telling ourselves and it's not really the reality. So hopefully you can start to see that. Now, the other thing then that we looked at yesterday was going through all the different

tools and things techniques to actually better manage your money. And again, both these things are really crucial and they go together. Well, you can't really do one without the other. And when you, the whole point of managing your money, it's not to become like too attached to or too overcautious about your money or worried about it or feel like you're like, it's more to a point to empower you.

is just being aware of where your money's coming in, where it's actually going out and just spending, guess, a bit more mindfully. And when we actually went bankrupt, this was one of the biggest lessons that we learned because prior to our bankruptcy, we spent really freely. And at the time we had enough money to do that, but we weren't 100 % aware of where all our money was going. And we had a credit card and we'd always pay off our credit card or supposedly pay off our credit card at the end of month. But

What we found was happening all the time was that, you you would put things onto your credit card without even thinking. You would just tap it, the money was there, I'll worry about that at the end of the month. And that didn't always work. However, when we went bankrupt, one of the best things that happened was we weren't able to have a credit card during our bankruptcy, which meant we had to have the money there in our account. We couldn't just go and dip into extra money and think, that's right, I'll pay it back later.

which makes you actually stop and think and decide if you really need to purchase those things that you want to be purchasing. And it taught us that the act of delayed gratification, I guess. So we didn't have to always think, I need this item right now. I've gone to the shops. I really like it. I'm just going to get it. We actually had to think, okay, well, if that's something I want, I'm going to put that there maybe in a couple of pays time, then we'll purchase that item. And then sometimes more often than not, you realize actually, I probably don't need that. was just that impulse sort of.

buying things. So the whole idea and concept of money management, why it's so important is just to start reflecting on your, your spending habits, how much money you have coming in, how much money you have going out, where your money is going. Is there any money leaks or ways that you're spending your money that just isn't serving you anymore that you need to clear off. So if you missed out on that, go back and watch yesterday's because that's where I spoke in a lot of detail about that.

So now they're the two sort of most fundamental areas I think that you need with any sort of money change in your life. You need the mindset, but then you also need the skills and tools to manage your money or create that additional income. So tonight we're gonna go through step by step all the different actions that you need to take. So if you've got a pen and paper handy, you can definitely use that or...

Otherwise, I'll pop these in your dashboard, all the different steps that you need just as a checklist so you can go back and have a reflect on those. But with anything, any change that you want in your life, anything that's out of your comfort zone. So basically, generally we're in our comfort zone with our life. We are doing the same sort of things, going to the same places, seeing the same people, doing the same routines and habits. Anything that I've spoke about this.

in one of the other calls, but anything that sort of challenges that pushes us out of that comfort zone. And any change that you want to see, it's all about firstly deciding why you want to do it. And then it's making it a priority in your life. So I gave you the example of like my healthy eating. Once I decided that that was going to become my new priority, then it became a lot easier to stick to that new routine or habit. If you don't make something a priority, then it's

very likely going to just slip away and be forgotten. So when I go through each of these steps, I want you to think about how you can make sure these are a priority in your days. So some tips that I can give you before we go into all the steps just to prioritize things is to have a real clear action steps of what you need to accomplish each day to reach that goal. So for example, if mine was my healthy eating,

I know I've got my plan what I'm going to be eating for the whole week. Like I just write it down. And if I need to go to the shops, I've got that there. So I've made that a priority. I've done those action steps that I need in the morning. Do I need to defrost some meat or something? So I know it's really clear and I know the steps because it is now my priority. If it was to go to the gym in the morning, it might be the action steps or prioritizing it.

might be easier if you think, okay, well, I'm going to take out my gym clothes. I'm going to book into a class so I can't cancel it. And it's all going to be there ready to go and I'm going to make sure I go to bed earlier. So it's all about how you can take those actions. Now, where a lot of people go wrong and just with our society in general is we think everyone's busy. We're busy all the time. And we think we've got to be

constantly on the go taking action. So tonight, I really want to discuss the difference between taking action and taking inspired action, which are two completely different things. So I know I can just go through my day, just ticking off all these meaningless things on my to do list, things that aren't actually really important that aren't going to make any impact on my life. It might be things like doing cleaning or

just things around the garden or things that in my head, think are the most important things that when you stop and look at them, they're not. So I want you to imagine having like a container or a jar that you're gonna fill up and it's currently empty and you've got the choice of rocks or sand. And what most people do is they're filling their jar with sand and then you can only fit some of the rocks in and the sand is all the little minuscule unimportant things that we just.

fill our days with being so busy all the time. The rocks are the real things that can make that real difference. The real big actions that will make an impact that will improve our health, our wellbeing, our happiness may impact others. So that's the things I want you to focus on, not the sand. I want you to focus on the rocks. Cause obviously if you're filling up your cup firstly, just with sand, there's not much room left for the rocks to go. But if you're putting in the rocks first,

And then filtering in the sand, you'll be able to fit both in. when you make something a priority, it's like you were choosing, they are the things I'm going to do first. Those are the big actions that I need to take. And then everything else can sort of follow from there. So let's go, I want to break down now all the steps to reach this goal. So firstly,

I'm just going to overview of your mindset steps. So we touched on these on the first day. So the first one was to have clearly written down your goals. So for an example, for this one, it is to save up $2,000 in time for Christmas. That's our smart goal, but you can apply this with any other goal that you have. Then you need to know your why. So why do you want to achieve this goal? We've already done some of these steps already. Then again, you would list down all those limiting ideas and beliefs.

decide why they're not true, choose a new belief and choose evidence to support that. And then you're going to then also making sure that we unsubscribe from all those things in our life that just aren't serving us things that we're watching, that we're consuming, that are keeping us in that lack mindset and not an abundance mindset. And then also to make the most of this challenge, I really encourage you over the next

couple of months with this lead up to Christmas is just try and limit your screen time and instead use that time to do more of the things that you actually enjoy doing things that uplift you that inspire you that make you feel good that make you feel happy. It might be having more conversations with people it might be doing an activity with a loved one or on your own reading a book just feel a bit more with the things that you enjoy and you'll notice some shifts starting to happen.

And also starting this daily gratitude practice. that was try and write three things each day that you are grateful for. So that's all the mindset stuff that you want to be doing. And you want to keep this somewhere where you're going to be able to reference it and make sure you're checking back on these things all the time that you are doing those things. Cause you will have days where you feel stuck, where you feel in lack, where you're worried, where you're stressed, especially at this time of year where it is busy. There's always a lot happening. There's a lot to finish off to

fit in plus all the social events and things with the lead up to Christmas. So it's really important that you come back to this and you don't just do it over these three days and then forget about it. Because if you come back to this stuff regularly, this is what's going to set you up for success with this goal and with any other goal that you have. All right, so now let's get into the practical stuff. So that was just free capping all the mindset steps that we've worked on. So once you've got that,

under control and you're still doing the mindset steps along with your money management steps. So the first thing that you really need to do if you haven't done it yet that I spoke about last night was get really clear on all your incomeings and outgoing. So you really wanna know how much money do you have roughly coming in each month and how much money are you spending on different expenses and things roughly each month. And obviously that changes month to month. Let's start just having an overview.

And then once you've figured that out, you can start to decide from that. If you know you might, let's say you earn $2,000 and you spend $1,600 and then you'd have that $400 gap, then out of that money, the gap that you have, you want to decide how much of that do you want to put towards your Christmas savings goal? Because you need to start thinking about how you can set this up.

What I want you to do is set up a new bank account that is purely going to be for this savings goal. So I really advise you going with a different bank that is not your current bank to make it that bit harder to get your money out of and transfer it straight over if you go over in expenses or something like that. And make sure it's something that is an account that doesn't have any fees and

try and look for ones with high interests. UBank's a really good one if you're in Australia or ING, they've got some good high interest ones at the moment without any fees, but there's quite a few others. So do your own research and find a bank account that will work for you, preferably separate to your own account. It takes you literally five minutes, as long as you have like your driver's license or a passport or something handy, you will be able to set up an account if you're waiting in a line or something for something.

you'll be able to easily do it quickly. So that's a really important action step I want you to do. And then when you get your savings account, you can rename it any amazing thing that you want. So you might have a good name for your goal and it just makes it a bit more exciting and fun. So now that you've got your bank account set up and you've out your expenses and you've figured out if there's a gap between what you have incoming and what you have outgoing. Now, if you don't have a gap or if you're spending more, don't worry at this stage.

But if you do have that, I want you to decide what you want to allocate and have that set number written down. And then what's going to happen is when your pay comes in. let's say you decided I'm going to put a hundred dollars each week into my Christmas savings account from my excess. And if you get paid fortnightly, then you would make that obviously $200 that fortnight. And that would come out the day that your pay comes in. If usually if you get paid, it gets paid in the morning.

then have a direct debit setup that will transfer the money directly out into that account. And then you don't worry about it. You know, it's already working for you. And once the money is already allocated into that savings account, you don't even think about it. It makes it a lot less likely to touch. But if the money's just sitting there and you're hoping at the end, then you'll transfer it over. Then that's when it probably won't work for you. So you want to make sure you've done that. Then.

Next step I want you to do is go through those accounts that I said and find all those expenses that are not serving you anymore. So is there things you're subscribing to that you no longer use? Is there things that you're paying for that you think I really just need to cancel that I don't really like that service anymore. I don't have a use for it anymore. Or is there an alternative service that you can get for cheaper? Any sort of services that you're going to cancel between now and Christmas?

What I want you to do with that money that you would have spent on that. So let's say I cancelled my Netflix subscription and that's about $20 a month or something like that. Then that $20 instead of going to Netflix, I'm going to transfer and I'm going to set up that direct debit to go straight into my Christmas savings account instead. So whatever money you're freeing up, you'll start to notice going in. And if you're on the phone calling up your insurance providers, I can guarantee you

at least one of them, if not all of them will offer you some sorts of discounts and any money that you're saving from those phone calls. If you've got a home loan, pull up your bank. They will change. They will lower your rate for you. They have nothing to lose by giving them a call. Whatever you're going to save over the next couple of months on paying your home loan repayments that goes straight into your Christmas savings account. we're starting to accumulate a bit of money into that account straight away. Now.

After you've done that step, the next thing I want you to do is we went through yesterday some ways you could create additional income. So if that is something that sounds like you would like to do, or if you've noticed that you are earning, you're not earning more than you're spending more than you're earning, then that this might be an option for you. Or if you are finding that

you just would like to boost that you think that sounds really exciting and something that sounds good for you to do, then go through and just list down all those ideas that you could make alternative income. Now it doesn't have to be, you don't have to do everything you say on the list, but yeah. And if you did it yesterday, that was the task I set where we were just writing, just brainstorming anything that you could think of that could create an additional form of income for you. So I have a look and see if anything

aligns with you and then out of your list. I find a really good technique is just to write everything down that comes to mind. You don't actually have to do any of them, but it's just like getting it out of your brain. And sometimes the first few ideas aren't so good. And then the better ones start to flow after you get those bad ones out the way. So just like journal on it or write freely about some ideas. And then if there's anything on that list that thinks actually this is something I might do just to get that bit of extra income just for the lead up to Christmas, if that's something that feels good to me.

then do that. This step might not be for you. If you feel like you have enough income that you could divert into this savings already by just the techniques I've already told you about, then you don't have to do this, but this is just something that may open you up into two different opportunities. So just getting you thinking a bit more creatively. All right, so now you've done that. What I want you to do then,

And this is one that again is an option, but something I highly recommend, especially at this time of year is to go through your house and have a little bit of a declutter. And everyone's got stuff around their house that they don't use. So what I want you to do instead of, know, sometimes it's easy just to donate and I'm massive on donating. But if you're looking at ways to create additional income, maybe there's a few things you can just put on marketplace and sell.

and just see if you can create a bit of money through that. know every school holidays, I make my kids go through their stuff and they put all their stuff on and then they get their money and they get excited because they've got their own little spending money for the holidays. So it's such an easy thing to do and we all have stuff around our house that we probably don't use. So anything that you are deciding to go through and sell.

that money from those sales directly into that savings account. So we're growing a little bit more money again and again. And so they're like the real practical things that you can start doing that is already generating that extra money. Now, there's eight weeks, I think it is tomorrow until Christmas, eight weeks exactly until Christmas. So you've got eight weeks to reach this goal. And if you divide

2000 by eight is $250 each week. So that is basically your target. So sometimes when we break that big goal down into the smaller manageable chunks, think how could I put an extra $250 into my account? So if any of those ideas you think I'm still not there, then is there things for the next two, eight weeks, two months that you can maybe just

do a little switch. So for example, if you buy a coffee every single morning on your way to work, can you make a coffee at home or only get it once a week and then use that money to go into your savings goal? If you go somewhere or go get your nails done or your hair done regularly, can you skip it one time and then use that money instead? So is there something else that you find less of a priority right now?

Now I don't want you to think I've got to like cut everything and be really tight on my budget. Cause I don't want that work be that like that for you. I just want you to think of, is there anything another way that I can free up my money and allow that to go into that account? So that's something to think about as well. So there's some practical things. So hopefully now you're starting to see how we can reach this goal. It's all about breaking it down.

and looking through things. And it might seem a lot of work to do all this. But if this is something that you start doing regularly, like becoming aware of your money, it just becomes more of a habit. So you don't have to put this much time and effort in every single savings goal you have. If you've set up and managed your money well, where you know exactly incoming, outgoing, roughly what your monthly expenses are, then you're already going to start to...

it's going to feel a bit more freeing to you. And it's so worth it when you do all this, because you really start to feel good about your money when you start to see your savings starting to grow. So next thing I want you to do is you're going to be deciding, and I'm going to talk you through this, but you're going to be deciding on a daily action and an inspired action. I'm not talking about the sand in the cup. I'm talking about the rocks. Something you can do each day that's just going to move you that one step closer to your goal.

And these daily actions don't have to be anything ginormous. could be tonight, it might be just going through on your phone and having a look for different high interest savings accounts. Then the next day it might be opening that account. The next day it might be going through your money. And then the next day it might be setting up direct debits so that when you get paid, whatever you've decided on is gonna go straight into your Christmas savings account.

So that's the type of actions I'm talking about. It's not going out and having to sell and earn $2,000 on the street tonight. It's not that at all. So just getting clear on that. So.

The next thing I want you to do as well, just to keep your brain flowing and to keep you open into the ideas of how you could create this money. Without overthinking this, this is another really fun activity to do and you'll get a copy of this in your dashboard so you'll be able to go back and look at it. But a really fun exercise is just to write down all the possible ways that you could create $2,000 in your life. So,

It's a thing you're not going to overthink, but it's just going to open you up to possibilities. So you can include anything like you might win the lotto, you might win a prize, you might get a insurance refund, you might get a bonus at work. Like just don't overthink it. Just literally write down anything within your realm of possibility that would see you creating an additional $2,000 in your life. Now, again, you don't have to take any action on this list.

that exercises more just to open you up to possibilities and ways and a bit more creative thinking. And you can add to that list as well. It's quite a fun activity. But when you're opening yourself to different options, you start to see different opportunities that you may have been closed off to before. Cause right now, most of us are very close to all the endless possibilities. Like you just have to look around the same possibilities are available to me, to you, to

Oprah to like all the people in the whole entire world. We all are presented with these opportunities, but it's are we open to them? Or are we going to be closed off to ideas or things that come our way? So that's just a little fun activity to open you up. And you never know, you might get some really good ideas on there to help you with that savings goal too. Okay, so now let's get into breaking down the inspired

action. So these are the steps that you really need to be taking just to help you reach this goal and get you that bit closer. So the best way to do this is you're going to firstly have your goal. And again, this is something that you can apply to any goal in your life, but you're to have your goal written down really clearly. So what is the goal that you're focusing on? For us, it's to save $2,000 in time for Christmas. So in eight weeks.

Next, I want you to get clear on why must you achieve this goal. So we sort of did this already in our why activity. So have that clear, why must you achieve it? The next question I want you to think about is what has kept you from achieving this goal in the past? So for some of you, I know for me, the lead up to Christmas, I always think, I'll be fine. I'll just get through it. And then there's all these different expenses. We go out a lot more. So

I seem to spend a lot more money with the lead up to Christmas. So that might be something that's been stopping me. It might've been my ideas about money that I'm not gonna have enough money in time for Christmas. It's gonna be too expensive. I hate shopping. They might be the things that have stopped me from reaching this goal. So think about what it is for you. What has kept you from achieving the goal in the past? And next question I want you to think about is what needs to change right now?

so you can achieve this goal. What needs to be changed right now in your life so you can achieve the goal. So that's something to think about. Then next you're going to say, tell me two different action steps that you can take right now that are going to help you reach that goal. And it should be one big one and one small one. So these are ones you don't have to overthink just

straight up what's one big goal, what's one small goal. So for the $2,000 goal, your big action might be doing your whole audit of your finances, because that probably would take an hour or so to go through and look at everything coming in, going out, working out different bills and things like that. And a little action could be opening up your Christmas savings account. That will only take a few minutes.

So you're to get clear on at least one big action you can take and then one small action you can take. And this is just for you. it's, everyone's going to have their own actions and their own ways of getting to that goal. And then what you're going to do after you've got your one big action and one new small action, then you're going to just brainstorm any other actions that you need to take to, in order to reach this goal.

So for the $2,000 goal, if you've done like your finance order and you've done your opened up your bank account, then it might be setting up direct debits. It might be looking at ways you can cancel different subscriptions. It might be doing a daily gratitude practice. So you're staying in that abundant mindset and any other things that are actions that you need to take.

There's so much importance in creating daily actions and because what it does is it creates that momentum. So when you're working towards something, it's like when I go to the gym, I know the days if I go to the gym every day or most days, I feel really good. And then the days that I stop, it's really hard the next day then to go because you break that habit and you break that cycle and you lose that momentum.

So it's really, really important that you keep that momentum going and you stay in that head space where you know, and it makes you feel really accomplished and it builds up your confidence towards your financial confidence because what you're doing is you're like, yes, I'm getting that step closer and you feel like you're accomplishing something and you'll see it reflected in the growth of your savings account. You'll see that starting to grow already in time for Christmas.

So that daily action is so, so vital. And then I wanna talk about the idea of this thing called an implementation intention. Now I first heard this concept in the book, Atomic Habits by James Clear. And if you've not read it, highly, highly recommend reading that book if you wanna start any new habits in your life. But he's done a lot of research into different types of ways that we can get habits to stick. And honestly,

Creating money and taking these actions is a habit that you want to start creating in your life. So what he found was through his research and through researching other people that had looked into this as well, they found people are a lot more successful at creating any new habit or creating or reaching any goal. If they had these things called implementation intentions and what they are is they're basically just in a stating.

what you're going to do, where you're going to do it and when you're going to do it. So if I, when I joined the gym, I had to say, okay, well, I'm going to tomorrow, I'm going to go down. I'm going to join up the gym. So that's what I'm going to do where I'm going to do it. I knew the gym. was my local gym down the corner. So I'm going to go do it there. And when am I going to do it? And I had looked on their website. So when their staffed hours were, I rang them up and I made it time. So I've got that implementation intention now. I know.

what I'm gonna do, where I'm gonna do it, when I'm gonna do it. They did this, they've done a lot of research into it and they found a good example was they found when they were doing some experiments around people in the US who were voting. And they found that the people that they gave out these surveys to and one of the surveys had to ask people where they were voting, what time they were voting, not who they're voting for, just where they were gonna vote.

what time and the venue that they were going to go to. And the other people, just said, are you intending on voting? Yes, no. And the people that actually had stated what time they were going to go, what polling place they were going to go to, it was like a 90 % difference in success of those people actually following through and taking the action than the ones that just said, yes, I'm going to go vote.

So any new habit you have, it's such a good thing to do. And since I've heard about it, I've been using this all the time and it makes you so much more likely to follow through with anything that you're planning on doing. what I want you to do for your implementation intention is out of all the actions you just brainstormed up, choose one of them. So it might be, let's say opening up your bank account, for example. So I want you

you're going to commit to that action, you're going to write down, okay, well, this is the action I'm going to do, I am going to open a bank account. That's the what I'm going to do. When are you going to do it? So you might say, I'm going to open a new bank account at tomorrow morning before I go to work. So at 7am, when I'm normally scrolling through social media, I'm going to use that time instead, to write down to start researching and then finding a bank account to open.

And so you've told me the time and you also need to tell me where you're to do it. So it might be while you're laying in bed on your phone. It might be when you get to work. It might be at your office. location is really important too. And it just, cause it just helps lock in these new actions that you're going to be taking. So you definitely want to make sure.

that you are writing in these implementation intentions just to help it. And you can do that with any of the action tasks you have, especially the harder ones, the ones that are a little bit more difficult to change. And that's why the whole implementation intention thing, that's why things, people that are part of like a, like a challenge like this, or that are part of a, like they go to gym classes or that,

join like a healthy meeting, eating group. They're a lot more likely to follow through on things because you've got that accountability of other people as well. But you also have like, okay, well, this is the day that we're to go. This is the time we're going to do it. And this is where we're going to do it. I know for me, my gym habit only started because I could go to gym classes and I can book here night. And that's amazing. But I love that my gym has this service where

You have to pre book in any gym classes you want to do, but you can't cancel them within an hour of the class. So if you wake up in the morning, you're like, no, I'm not going. You can't actually physically cancel it. So then you've got you feel like you've got to do it. So it's almost like you're setting your own implementation intentions because you're saying, OK, well, I know tomorrow at 530, I booked into my boot camp class at the gym.

So I know what I'm gonna do, where I'm gonna do it and when I'm gonna do it. And it's already set for me and I do it regardless. It doesn't matter how tired I am. It doesn't matter if I only got a few hours sleep. I know that I'm gonna show up for those classes 99 % of the time. There's definitely times where I don't but majority of the time I will. And it's so clever that they do that. I know it's obviously just a book but it makes people follow through. It makes them show up. It's that accountability side of things too.

which is why I always speak about having people to keep you accountable. And that's another thing. So when you're doing this, share your goal with somebody else so they can help keep you accountable. So it might be your partner, it might be your kids, it might be your best friend, it might be your parents. Anyone you feel comfortable telling them about your savings goal, I want you to share it with them because...

what this does is it helps them keep you accountable. So they can say to you, so how's it going? And you don't want to say, actually, I did all the work and then I actually didn't take any action. You want to actually say, yeah, now I'm already halfway there. So that's a really important thing to have those people that you can bounce off and keep you accountable. And the second thing is you need to be able to celebrate your wins. And this is the step that

99 % of people miss as well is that you do all this great goal setting and you reach your goals and you're feeling so great, but then you just don't even ignore it. You're just like, yes, I did it to yourself, but then you don't actually do anything further. I think it is so important to celebrate any wins or successes you have when you have any goals set. So what I always suggest is that you write down now how you're going to celebrate when you reach your $2,000 goal.

So maybe some of that money you'll use to treat yourself to something really special. Maybe it will just be having a glass of wine with your partner. Maybe it will be just going and enjoying a cup of tea out in the sunshine, something really simple. It doesn't have to cost anything, but it's something that you can do just to celebrate yourself and your success and achieving this goal, because that is just so important. So make sure you decide how you want to celebrate. And if you've got an accountability partner, they'll

be able to join in the celebrations with you too. So don't do all this hard work and not celebrate yourself. And also the other advantage of celebrating your successes, it's also that mindset thing too, because it builds up your confidence. You know, you've achieved it. It will also help you, you know, keep strengthening that money mindset, keeping you in that abundance state and not that lack.

because you were focused on what you've done and not what you haven't done or then what's next. Because quite often we'll reach goal and we're like, okay, well now what's the next one? The other one just is forgotten about a week or so later and we don't spend enough time celebrating it. So please make sure you figure out how you're gonna celebrate it and then when you do, we are gonna celebrate it. So make sure that that is something that you definitely do. And so it's really, really important to

have all of these things coming together. So if you follow each of those steps that I've just outlined for you and you've done all the things, there is no reason that you should not be able to save up $2,000 in time for Christmas. Like I said, it's all about making it a priority. And it's so vital that you keep this going. Don't just trial this and see if it works and if it works.

then don't do anything again about it. The things I've shared with you, the habits and the techniques that I've gone through, these literally took me many years to try and figure out for myself. And it took me making a lot of mistakes and being in a really bad financial place for a while to know what doesn't work and then learn the quickest way to get through that. And this is, I've given all to you over the last few days is

how we can actually go about and make a real change in our money. So these things that I've talked about tonight, you can apply in any area of your life. It doesn't just apply to money. But it's also something you can take with your finances into 2025 too, because I don't want you to do all this hard work and then not be in a better financial position this time next year. This time next year, your Christmas goal might be to save $10,000.

you've put all these actions into place over the course of the next 12 months, which can allow you to free up bigger goals. It might even just be $3,000. Like it doesn't have to be vastly different, but it's opening you up to different ideas and different ways of dealing with your money and managing your money. And if this is an area that you feel like you still need a bit of support with, you still need a bit of guidance and you're

still want someone to show you and break these steps down even further because I know that financial literacy is such a, there's such a big gap in people's financial literacy. And lots of people rely on others just to fill in the blanks for them. They might entrust like a financial advisor or their parents or their mom's friend's accountant or whoever it is that you are trusting your finances with.

rather than taking the time and just building that knowledge within themselves. So if this is an area that you think you're still struggling with, that you think you still need a bit of extra support and some guidance on, I'm really excited because today I am launching my first online course, which is called the Golden Money Blueprint. And what this course is going to do is it's going to help break down all the things that I spoke about into even easier

more easier to comprehend modules that will really slowly break down all the steps and you'll get a lot more guidance, more workbooks, more interaction and chances to ask me question. And the whole program, it's called the Golden and Money Blueprint. And it's all about just helping you empower you to take charge of your finances, to have this great understanding about money, to transform your money mindset.

And just to go into that place of abundance and expansion, because what I've found is that I don't serve anyone and you probably don't serve anyone if you are not feeling empowered by your money. Like I spoke about yesterday, so many of us think that when these conversations about money, these open dialogues about money and earnings and spending, it's got...

so many negative connotations and it's something that a lot of people don't think they can speak about openly. And I think that really needs to change because that's what is stopping that connection between our own knowledge and what we think we should be doing. And so I want to help you bridge that gap. And when you have the information and you're empowered by exactly how you can manage your money to really reach, you know, financial goals that you had only dreamed of.

then that's when you become a lot more beneficial to everyone else. So I know a big belief for a lot of people is if I have money, then they can't, then other people have to go without, but that is not true at all. Money is just this energy and it is something that we all can access if we choose to. So what I want you to know is that when we are stuck in struggle mode,

And I'm talking about from my own personal experience when I was bankrupt or even post bankruptcy, when I was in that really negative money mindset, what I found was happening was I was stressed about money. I was worried about money. was always telling my kids, no, we can't afford that. It's too expensive. Like maybe next time, maybe.

It was just all this negativity about money and every bill would come, would be that dread every time I'd get a notification that there was insufficient funds in my account. Every time I'd go and tap my card and like cross my fingers and hope there would still be enough money in my account to pay for like the groceries or whatever. I didn't serve anyone when I was in that mind space. I was stressed, I was worried, I was not sleeping well and...

I was a terrible role model for my kids and I know that because then they'd repeat these things back to me saying, no, but we can't afford that. It's too much money. No, we shouldn't do that. And I realized I was putting all of my own money beliefs onto them and I knew that that had to change. And that was really what was the catalyst to deciding this is not working for our family. It's only setting us all up to fail.

When I made the changes and started taking action and started doing all of these habits that I've spoken to you about tonight, that's when I noticed that I was becoming a better person for everyone in my life. I not always stressed and worried. You know if you're stressed and worried, you're not nice to be around. And everyone knows this about themselves. And it's the same, you look at your partner and you know they've had a bad day, you're like, well, I'm gonna stay away.

But if that's how you are all the time, you don't want people thinking that about you by empowering you to take charge of your money and to really have a grasp on all these concepts that I've been speaking about. Not only is it going to make your bank account look good, but that's not ultimately what it's about. It's about making you have that confidence within yourself and feeling that the pressure has taken off and having just

the skills and the tools that you know are available to you to be a better person in all areas of your life, not just around your money. So if this is something that you think maybe, maybe I do need a little bit of help, maybe I do need a little bit of guidance, then I would love to have you in the course. So how the course is actually going to work, it's going to be so much fun. I'm really, really excited for it. It's going to be broken down into seven weeks. So if you enroll and it's

It's a very small enrollment window. It's only until Monday, this Monday coming up. the module one is going to drop on that Monday afternoon. And what we're going to do is there's already pre-course work in there that you would have immediate access to as well as a couple of bonuses. But each week we're going to record a live module and this will give you a chance to hear all the content similar to what we've been doing in the challenge. But it's going to break it down

even further. I'll explain all the different steps of whatever the concept is we're covering that week. There'll be a chance for some one-on-one coaching and the question and answers during that time as well, just to clear up any questions you have about anything that has come up for you in the course. And then there'll be workbooks and resources to support you complete each of the modules. So it's self-paced. You can definitely complete it at your own pace.

but each module will be released each week. So every Monday there'll be a new module. It will be recorded live in the evening and in Western Australia time. So it will depend on your time. So what time it will be for you. And if you can't make it live, it doesn't matter because it will all go up into your dashboard and then you'll have access to the replays and you'll have them for life that you can go back and watch as many times as you want, listen to it in the car, whatever it takes to.

help you with that information. Plus then you'll have all your workbooks and exercises to complete for each module. So what we'll be covering, say in the first week, we're gonna be really getting clear on any money blocks. So you would have definitely had a few that have come up over the course of the last couple of days, but I'm gonna break this down even further and in a lot more detail. So we'll be identifying and just dismantling any limiting beliefs about money that are holding you back. This can be a really tricky one.

of us. And things like blame, and all those different areas that also come into blocking you that are really important to look at when you're looking at having a good relationship with money. In week two, we're to be delving a bit more into your mindset. So I've touched on that again, but we'll be going through a lot more detail of how to really overhaul your mindset when it comes to money. Then we'll be going into money management.

in a bit more detail and I'll give you the exact spreadsheets and things that I personally have created that make managing my money really easy. So you'll have access to those exact tools to take all the work out of it for you just to make it easy. So I want money to be easy for you. In week four, we're to be looking at wealth creation. So ways that you could start creating additional income sources and things like investing and a bit more advanced.

money creation and wealth building concepts there. Then we're going to go into financial resilience. And this is such an important skill that so many people miss out on. And this is what to do when things don't always go well, because we know life doesn't always just go up. There's always going to be ups and downs. So I really want to break down how you get through those times. How can you build up your financial resistance to make sure if something does go bad, that you can definitely get through it.

In week six, we're to be looking at lifelong money habits. So how can you create these things that I'm telling you about? So after the course is finished, it's not something you just forget about that you've created as new habits that you have for the rest of your life. And it makes it easy and simple for you. And then the final week, we're to be looking at abundance expansion. So this is going into a bit more of a holistic approach to wealth and abundance that can encompass like every aspect of your life.

So it's a pretty holistic money course because a lot of the courses out there either give you like all the practical strategies or all the mindset strategies. But I wanted to combine both because I feel like you can't have one without the other. Now this course is suitable for you no matter how much money you currently have. It caters for everyone who just wants to see a change in their finances, that wants to feel good about their money, that wants to

feel empowered and inspired to better manage their money and just have that the freedom and the knowledge that comes with that you can create more money in your life and feel really good about it. And I'm hoping by helping people create more money that more people can do more good with the money that they're creating. it's not something that's gonna make you greedy or a bad person, but imagine like

How can you help more people if you had more money? Is there something you're currently doing that you just want to step aside from? And if you have more money, you maybe be able to take that leap. So if this sounds like something that you really want to do, or that might be that next step that you want to set yourself up, remember we're getting to the end of 2024 now. So I've scheduled this course specifically at that time. So you will have every single tool

under your belt ready. I think the last module is just about a week or so before Christmas. And then you will be ready for 2025 with this whole new skill set that you didn't have before to really make the most of everything. Now there's also a whole lot of bonuses that I've included in the course too, because a lot of people say, I don't have time to do a course like that. So I've created a time mastery blueprint that's just going to break down.

how you can create some more time in your day and how you can free up some space to actually fit this in and make it a priority. there's a video in the prequels work that will talk you through this and a little workbook for you to complete on that. There's also my money magnet meditation series that I've popped in there as a bonus as well, which is going to be so much fun. There's really great meditations in there to help you shifting limiting beliefs.

with forgiveness, with creating money desires. And there's also one on tapping for your money goals, which is a really fun activity to try if you've not heard of it or done it before.

Louisa Larado (51:28)

So if this money course sounds like something that you know is going to help take you to that next level, is that missing piece of the puzzle that you might just need? Or it might just be you need that person to be able to guide you through and show you the steps so you feel that confidence and you don't have to go it alone. If this is something that sounds good to you, you can find out more or you can enroll at louisalorado.com slash golden money.

or just find the link in the show notes below. Now the enrollment period closes on Monday so you make sure you get straight in there and find out about the Golden Money Blueprint.

Louisa Larado (52:09)

So if this sounds like a fit for you, then I'd love to have you there. If not, you can still get so much great content from me. You can be following me on Instagram at Louisa Larado My Facebook page is Louisa Larado. And you can subscribe or follow along to the Living My Life Like It's Golden and podcast where I've been sharing.

a lot of different tips on money management and different ideas like that. So you can definitely head over there because I want to keep sharing all of this stuff with you. And I'm also hoping that just before Christmas or maybe in the new year, we'll have another challenge to help set you up with a bit more financial success for the new year. So you can stay tuned for that one.

Now, thank you so much for listening. Now, with the 2K goal, if you reach your goal, please make sure you let me know. I love to hear and see any successes and help you celebrate them as well. And if you have any questions, you can send me an email or send me a DM on Instagram and I will get back to you and hopefully help guide you towards your 2K goal.

and I might even see you in the money course.