5 Little Habits that increased my Wealth

About 12 months ago, I put in place 5 little habits to grow my net worth. I thought I would share with you this 5 habits and why I think they’ve been so successful.

Keeping track of my wealth

Some people like to use an app to automatically track their savings, spending and investments. I like to use a good ole fashioned spreadsheet. I update it every week with the balance of my various bank accounts and investments. I track week to week if my accounts have gone up or down.

This gives me a great overview of how much spending I’ve done without needing to track each purchase. It’s also fun to track my investments (Stake, Spaceship) and see how they have performed over the past 7 days.

I’m a big believer in mindfulness. Take 15 minutes out of my day once a week to really focus on my finances is such a powerful habit.

Increasing my Savings each month

I’ve automated my investing so that each week a small amount of money is transferred from my everyday account into my Spaceship investment and into my (higher interest) savings account.

I’ve set myself a monthly calendar reminder to increase this invesmtnet amount.

Some months I’m unable to increase it, but I still like having the prompt so that I don’t forget.

Waiting 24 Hours before I make a large ($100+ purchase)

I’ve been getting into the habit of waiting 24 hours before I make a large purchase of $100 or more.

One thing I found myself doing was online shopping for no particular reason. I would end up buying things I didn’t really need. So now I leave items in my cart until the following day. Most of the time I realise I don’t need to checkout.

Spending 20 minutes “Doing”

I’m in the fortunate position of earning a living from blogging. This means that I need to keep on top of myself and make sure I actually get work done.

I’ve been getting in the habit of spending 20 minutes first thing in the morning completing some work. It’s really easy to get caught up in reading endless articles (like this one 😉) without actually getting anything done.

By getting something done first thing in the morning I know that at the very least my day hasn’t been wasted and it usually puts me in a productive mood.

Build Habits

Probably my most powerful habit has actually been creating more habits! About 12 months ago I read Atomic Habits. I highly recommend it. Before reading the book, I thought the key to success was all about setting goals and somehow chasing them. But after reading the book, I realised its much more about creating the process. The goals sort of take care of themselves.

I’ve been creating habits and sticking to them over the past 12 months and I’ve noticed a bit increase in my net worth, even though we’re currently experiencing some pretty turbulent times.

p.s — I run a little blog called Student Savings. If you liked this article (and you’re an Aussie) you might like that blog too.