United NWA Blog

Fix Your Spending Habits with a Simple Promise

Written by Casey @ UB | Jul 26, 2019 6:35:20 PM

Hi! I’m Casey. The Marketing Coordinator for United Bank. When I’m not at the bank or writing blog posts, you’ll typically find me in my car or at my home listening to a podcast or audiobook. Self-development and true crime are my topics of choice (I know that’s an oddcombination).

It was on one of these podcasts (self-development…not true crime), that I heard about making a “power promise” to yourself. Some of you may have heard of this term before... if you were a viewer of ABC’s hit show Extreme Weight Loss, because I heard it in an interview with the hosts of that show - Chris and Heidi Powell.

The premise behind the power promise is basically that you make one small promise to yourself each day and you stick to it…no. matter. what. It didn’t have to be big or audacious, just something small and actually achievable on a daily basis. Obviously, they meant it in a way related to a health and fitness journey (their examples were eating breakfast or going for a 5 minute walk every day), but I began to think about how that really translates well into the goals I’ve been trying to set for myself financially.

Some quick backstory… I have recently fallen off of the wagon on my financial goals. I spent several months being really hardcore about my budget. But then at some point, I got tired of being so restrictive… and…well, I went back to being pretty frivolous with my spending.

I realized pretty quickly, after my hard fall off the wagon, that I had been treating my financial goals more as a crash diet and less as a plan for long-lasting financial health. Was I able to save a bunch of money short-term? Absolutely. But, was that level of restrictiveness right for me long-term? No way. It wasn’t something I could maintain consistently. I was going to be in a constant yo-yo cycle of restrictive financial crash diets, then getting tired of being so strict with my budget and just giving up completely.

Even with this realization, getting back on the wagon has been the challenge for me lately. So, here’s where the idea of a power promise struck me… what if I could promise to do one small thing to benefit my financial health daily? Then, over time, that consistency would build into a habit that would propel me into other bigger financial promises I could make and maintain. It’s an easy way to get back into the habit of good financial decisions, without feeling deprived and overwhelmed.

What’s my power promise? Every day, I will not put a single purchase on my credit card. It’s a small choice that I can make consistently, which will get me towards my goal of being debt free!

What would yours be? Let me know in the comments on our Facebook post and use the tag #financialpowerpromise.