Episode 459:  5 Money Moves to Reset, Realign, and Move Forward

Jamila Souffrant 0:02

The first thing you need to do is know where you're at. There's no way you can move forward on your journey without knowing how much you make, how much you spend, how much you have in assets, how much you owe. So your liabilities and debts, you cannot move forward unless you know those things now you can move forward, but you're moving forward blindly, and so now it's the perfect time to check those numbers.

Intro 0:29

Welcome to the journey. To launch podcast with your host Jamila Souffrant as a money expert who rocks her talk she helps brave journeyers like you get out of debt, save, invest and build real wealth. Join her on the journey to launch to financial freedom.

Jamila Souffrant 0:55

If you want the episode show notes for this episode, go to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this episode in the show notes, you'll get the transcribed version of the conversation, the links that we mentioned, and so much more also, whether you are an OG journeyer or brand new to the podcast, I've created a free jumpstart guide to help you on your financial Freedom journey. It includes the top episodes to listen to, stages to go through, to reach financial, freedom, resources and so much more you can go to journey to launch.com/jumpstart to get your guide right now. Okay, let's hop into the episode.

Jamila Souffrant 1:37

Hey, hey, hey, journeyers, welcome to the journey to launch podcast. I'm your host, Jamila Souffrant, and I'm so glad you are here with me today. Now I am recording this at the end of 2025 by the time you hear this, it will be New Year's Eve, but as I try with all my episodes, I want this to be something that is timeless, that can be helpful no matter when you listen. What I'm going to do with this episode is give a year and top of the year list of things and Checklist to help you finish the year strong, start the year strong, or just have a financial reset. So again, no matter when you listen to this, it should be helpful to you, because I truly feel that you don't necessarily need a full blown transformation or reset. You don't need, like a bunch of vision boards, if that's not your thing, you don't need a complete brand new plan, although, you know, I love a plan, hence my book, Your journey to financial freedom, and the podcast, you know, a lot of it starts from the emotional and mental work it takes for you to reach your financial goals and dreams, but ultimately, you do need a plan. So I'm going to be talking about the things you can do so that you are starting or finishing the year strong. Now, if you cannot do any of these things or they feel overwhelming to you, that's totally fine. I know that happens, especially for me, when the year is winding down and there's a start of the new year, everyone's talking about these goals they have, and I'm just like, ah, overwhelmed. I rather just not do anything. This is not meant to be that type of episode for you. I'm gonna walk you through money moves you can make before the year ends, or at the top of the year, or whenever you listen to this, that are not meant to be overwhelming, but just enough to create some clarity for yourself and momentum, clarity and momentum for you to ultimately get to where you want to be. And then I'll share some just personal items or things that I'll be working on as I'm going through the list. So thing number one, or move number one, to make for yourself, very important, is to name your current season, identify the season that you are currently in in life. So before we look at the numbers and goals and all the things, I want you to think about and really be honest with the season of life that you are in. So let me give some context or some words to what that season could look like for you. Are you in a building season, meaning you are building and accumulating and or are you in a maintaining season, where you're not necessarily trying to build or do the most or more you are just wanting to maintain? Are you in a recovering season? So not necessarily like building. When I think about a building season, I'm thinking about building on a strong foundation. And you're, you know, you're making moves slowly and surely, whether that is earning more income or saving, but it's you have a solid foundation. But a recovering season, for me, looks like building back from something where maybe you don't have the foundation yet, you are recovering. Suffering from something, and you need to build a foundation first. So you are starting that emergency fund, or starting the budget, or are you in a resting period where you've done all the things or the work, and there's no more to build, there's no more to do. You just want to not only maintain, but you want to rest. Because for some people, maintaining their current situation is stressful. It looks like a lot of work. But is your current season a season where you can rest and take your foot off the gas depending on where your goals are? There is no wrong answer, okay, because everyone is different. I think that's what's so important. As we talk about financial goals and comparison where you we want to be is that even if you and the person next to you from the outside looks like they have the same things, maybe they have a partner, maybe they have kids, the same amount of kids, you are in totally different spaces because of you, who you are, what makes you tick, and all the things that compile your life. And so the only person who can tell you the season you're in is yourself. Of course, you can have conversations with other people and kind of figure out, maybe what that looks like, or what other people see what you're going through, or maybe your support system, but ultimately, it's you. And I think the season and knowing your season is so important, because then it can help manage your expectations on what you want to accomplish, because you might set a grand plan. Maybe your ultimate plan is to reach financial independence, to quit that job, to do these certain things in your life sooner than they that are possible depending on the season you're in, and so you need to recognize your season so you can have expectations that match your season. Not to say that because you are in a rebuilding or a recovering season, that you can't dream big and want more you can, but to just give yourself grace, because it just may take longer, or there may be more, some more steps, versus someone who is in a building stage or someone further ahead. This is also a great time to identify the journey or stage you're in. I talk about the journey or stages in podcasts and in my book, Your journey to financial freedom, and the journey or stage you're in is important when it comes to your financial goals, because I have broken down your journey to financial independence into five stages. I call them the journeyer stages. And the first stage is the Explorer stage. That's the stage where you are wanting to get on solid ground. You want to just be able to reach stability, meaning not go into debt anymore, to be able to pay your bills and your living expenses. So it's not about necessarily accumulating and growing assets in this stage. That explorer stage is all about getting to stability. How do you have your income, meet your expenses and be able to live that way? Get on a stable ground? That's journey or stage one. Journey or stage two is the cadet stage. That is where you are working on debt freedom, consumer debt freedom, where you are paying off or focusing on paying off your credit cards and any high interest rate loans that you want to get rid of in the third stage. I call that the aviator stage. That is your growing stage. That is where you are wanting to accumulate assets, meaning you have paid off your consumer debt. You pass stability now, at this point, now, you want to put more money towards your investment and saving and growing your fu fund so that you can quit your job. And the fourth stage is the commander stage. So this is where you have accumulated. You may not have all you ever need, right, but you have enough to sustain yourself, to make big life changes. And then the commander stage you have reached, or are working, or at the cusp of work flexibility. So you can leave that job, you can leave that relationship without worrying about money, because you have flexibility. You have freedom. I always say this is the stage I'm currently in, and then you have the last stage, the captain stage. This is where you have reached financial independence, and you are maintaining where you currently are. You are reassessing as you are in this stage, because you want to make sure that you still have enough and that your expenses are being able to be covered by your income. But as you can see, I just went through those stages quickly. Again. If you want to learn more about the stages, how to go through the stages, that's all in my book, Your journey to financial freedom, but it's important, because, as you can see, with each stage, you're going to want to focus on different things, and your focus will need to be on different things to move forward through each stage properly, or in the way where you're you're not necessarily taking longer than you need to. So for example, if you are in the cadet stage, which is a debt. Freedom, working on debt. Freedom, stage, journey or stage unless you are really focusing on paying off debt, and so you're you're spreading yourself thin in a lot of other places, you're going to stay in that stage longer, and maybe that's okay with you, but depending on your goals, depending on your lifestyle, depending on the season that you're in. So going back to kind of talking about the season of life, and the journey or stage you're in is going to depend on how quickly you can move through these stages. And someone who is more in a rebuilding stage or recovering stage, and also working on getting out of consumer debt, you have to give yourself Grace there, because you're rebuilding there. Your money is not necessarily in abundance to where you can have the fully funded fu fund and quit your job right away. It may take some time. So just understand your season. Name your season. Understand that pushing for growth in certain seasons can make you feel like you're not doing well or failing. So give grace to yourself, and know that there is a journey ahead of you, but it can be something you can accomplish. Just give yourself Grace depending on the season number two, check your numbers without shame. This is going to be really important. Know you may have been avoiding it. Actually have not looked at my budget and numbers since, like, maybe the beginning of the month, especially what Christmas comes around, right? And so I know one of the things I'm going to do after I record this between now and when the kids go back to school, is to log into my account and check all my numbers. So this is what I'm encouraging you to do, also check your numbers, and, really importantly, check it without shame. Check it without shame. But you need to know where you are. When I start talking about action items and the financial plan, and creating your financial plan, apart from you working on the internal things, the first thing you need to do is know where you're at. There's no way you can move forward on your journey without knowing how much you make, how much you spend, how much you have in assets, how much you owe. So your liabilities and debts, you cannot move forward unless you know those things. Now you can move forward, but you're moving forward blindly, and so now it's perfect time to check those numbers. Log into your accounts, get those account logins together. Okay? And be clear that when you are looking at these numbers, they are not a reflection of your self worth. So your net worth is not a reflection of who you are, your self worth. They're just numbers, and they are things that can be changed and fixed. It's not about having everything correct. It's not about never missing a bill and having all the money in the world, because the people who sometimes have all the money in the world. They are still not content. It is not that so when you are looking at these numbers, I want you to use it as a learning tool of what you can do differently, or maybe you are proud of some of the things you see, and you're saying, Okay, I want to do some more of that, but use it as something that you can learn from to help you in the future. It's about awareness. Numbers are just information. They're not a reflection of who you are. They might be a reflection of some choices you have made, but the choices you've made do not reflect, ultimately, who you are inside. They are just choices. They're just actions, possibly learning, mistakes that have been made but can be corrected, but you have to see them to see what they are that's going to again look like for me. I'm going to log into my my budget app. I'm going to reconcile my budget, see all we spent for Christmas. I'm going to see where we are in terms of our net worth, and just do that check in at the end of the year, at the top of the year, just so we have just our understanding and clear idea of where we are. Number three, revisit your why. Your why is so important. Why are you doing this? I know it seems simple like why? I mean, because I want to live my life. I want to be out of debt, but to dig deeper for yourself on what that, why is why are you doing this in the first place? What is that? Why that's going to keep bringing you back to keeping you on the path, on the journey, because you will want to stop. There will be detours. The new chapter of my book. So my paperback, my hardcover, your journey to financial freedom, has been out a couple years. The paperback is coming out soon, next week, January, beginning of January, so you will be able to get it once it's out. But you can actually pre order now. But one of the one of the new chapters, or the new chapter that I have in is. All about handling setbacks and adjusting the plan as it changes. Because even since I wrote the book three, five years ago, things have changed. So even if you read it already, or you created that initial plan, you are going to most likely have to readjust and do a new plan or make adjustments to what you thought, because your why? Well, I do believe

Jamila Souffrant 15:26

your reason for doing things can change, especially as we get new information, as we live our lives and our points of view change, and we gather just more experiences in the world, just like I feel like when I first started my journey, my my why, ultimately, has stayed the same. I want autonomy. I want to control my time. I want to be the ruler of my steps. I don't want someone else telling me where what I need to do. I want to be able to do that for myself and and like my kids and my family, all that adds to my why. It makes it really strong, so those things don't change. But as I think about my plan and the adjustments that I've had to make, that I'm making, it all still goes back to this want and need for autonomy and freedom, and not necessarily doing it or having, you know, a business and out facing brand and book and podcast. So like, I don't necessarily think about my why, being I want to leave a huge legacy behind in terms of my name to be remembered forever. I think it's cool that I have a book that hopefully, you know, years from now, this book will still somehow be in the world, or at least my grandchildren will can read it. But that's not, ultimately my why, and as I have thought about that and changed my mind about certain things, I just always come back to that initial root feeling that gives me meaning on this journey. That doesn't that when I want to give up or want to say, you know, what is the point? I know that there is a point. This is what it's for. And so think about what that is for yourself. What is that anchor, that Guiding Light that when you see it, or when you hear it, whatever it is, you know that that is what I'm working towards. That's what it's for. So when all the other things come up, you can keep pushing forward. Financial Freedom isn't about just a number. It isn't and I think there's a lot of things that I do teach or talk about it's to know that it's not just about hitting a target number. Is about creating freedom in your life, no matter where you are. So no matter what journey or stage you're in, finding the freedom in those stages. And so how do you create that for yourself? How do you create the options, the piece, the alignment that you're looking for from today, right? So think about that. The why is important. Think about your why. Number four, this is more action oriented. For all my action people who are like, all right, I love all the mental and emotional work, but I need something to do. Okay? So the first thing for you to actually do. Do was to check your numbers, check your accounts. But this is another one. The Number four thing is simplify an account or a bill. So I need you to after you have looked at your numbers and you've gone through your expenses and or that credit card statement. Do one thing, cancel, one thing, automate one bill. Maybe that is automating a minimum payment on your credit card. I want you to do one action item that is going to help you today. So this is not also about cutting back. I am talking more about an expense related action right now, but it's just about reducing the mental load. There are so many things that we have to do and think about nowadays, especially if you are a parent like myself, I'm just like, I can't keep up. There are 1,000,001 things I need to do well, just for myself. Then you add my kids to the mix, and then having a partner, there's a lot. So what is that? One thing you can do to release the mental load and strain for yourself right now, solve small simplifications. Can create huge breathing room for you, so you can do other things for your life. What I have listed as number five is decide what not to prioritize or to prioritize next year. So you can look at it two ways. You can do both, if you like, but what are you not going to prioritize and or what are you going to prioritize? Decide what you're not going to focus on and do in the new year. Maybe it is a person. Maybe it is a. Obligation that just no longer suits you. Maybe it is a habit that you know is not working, but you're continuing to do. What are you going to not prioritize and eliminate from your life that you know you should and or what is something you know you should do that will be helpful for you, even if it's a goal that you previously set, and you look at it, you revisit you like you know what? This is not something I actually want. You can let that go, or it doesn't have to be higher in your list to prioritize if it's not in alignment with what you want to do. So focus, focus on something, eliminate the distractions and things that are pulling you away from, ultimately, what you want to do. Give yourself permission to do that. We have free will. We sometimes forget that. I love those posts where they sit, they show people exercising their free will and, like, you know, doing random things that it's like, wait, I can actually do that. I'm an adult, like, I can actually do the things I want to do in a reason without hurting other people. So what is it that you want to do? What can you take out of your life or add that will bring value, that will free up something for yourself? Think about it. Okay. So in closing, that was five things. One, name your current season. Two, check your numbers without shame. Three, revisit your why? Four, simplify one account or bill. Five, decide what to not prioritize or prioritize in the new year. I would try to do all those things, but if you can only pick one thing from that list, do that. But whether it's a fresh start, a mid year check in, or a little reset when you start listening to this episode. I want you to know that financial freedom is built through alignment, not pressure. It is built through trial and error, and you don't have to get everything right. So continue on your journey, continue to put one foot in front of the other and make the best choices with the information you have, continue to hopefully believe in yourself and to surround yourself with positive energy, people, things that will help you reach where you want to go. I'm so grateful this year, another year in the books, for my journey to launch family for my journeyers. I can't believe it's, you know, I started the podcast in 2017 it is now going on 2026, that's just, I don't know it's, wow. That's, that's a ride. And so I just want to say I am blessed and grateful and so happy to be here another year with you. Now we're entering a whole new year, I'm so excited about all the things to come. I, for one, still feel like I'm in a in a season of rest, in a bit and maintenance. So it feels really good to be here and to be able to do what I love, being able to share this content, these insights, with you, to also still be able to provide for my family, but to have so much time to be with my family, I am so blessed, and so I just want to say thank you. Now, if you want to pick up my paperback I don't know why you wouldn't the paperback book, meaning the soft cover of my book, Your journey to financial freedom comes out January 6, 2026 so if you're listening to this before, then you can actually still go pre order it. Order it. If you listen to this after, you can get it there. So there will be a hardcover book and the paperback book. The paperback book has bonus content. It has a additional chapter. It has a book club guide within it. You also can pick up some bonuses when you order the book. There is a course, my fire starter course, that walks through reaching financial freedom, all the terminology you need to know, and then also new bonus added, find your fire number worksheet, so where you can plug in just understand and get that quick calculation of what your fire number is, how much you need to never have to work again if you didn't want to. You can get all of that by getting a copy of the book your journey to financial freedom.com. Wishing you a very prosperous year and until next week, keep on journeying. Journeyers. Don't forget, you can get the episode show notes for this episode by going to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this and you can still grab your jumpstart guide for free to help you on your journey to financial freedom by going to journey to launch.com/jumpstart

Jamila Souffrant 24:40

if you want to support me and the podcast and love the free content and information that you get here, here are four ways that you can support me in the show. One, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast wherever you listen, whether that's Apple podcasts, that purple app on your phone, your Android device, YouTube, Spotify, wherever it is that you happen to listen, just subscribe. Subscribe so you are not missing an episode, and if you're happening to listen to this in Apple podcasts, rate review and subscribe there. I appreciate and read every single review. Number two, follow me on my social media accounts. I'm at journey to launch on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and I love, love, love interacting with journeyers. There three, support and check out the sponsors of this show. If you hear something that interests you, sponsors are the main ways we keep the podcast lights on here, so show them some love for supporting your girl four and last but not least, share this episode, this podcast, with a friend or family member or co worker so that we can spread the message of Journey to launch. All right, that's it until next week. Keep on journeying. Journeyers. You.

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