Money Date: Use this simple practice to achieve your financial goals
/At Money & Mimosas, one of our favorite rituals is a money date. A money date is helpful at anytime, but especially during these financially uncertain times. Mass layoffs and high inflation are causing financial stress. A money date can help to alleviate these feelings of stress and anxiety.
The best part is celebrating at the end of the date with a mimosa. And if you don’t drink alcohol, you can have a mimosa flower tea. Keep reading to learn more about how our founder, Danetha Doe, used this simple ritual to achieve her dream of being financially independent.
What is a money date?
A money date is a weekly wellness ritual to attract prosperity. It is a simple five-step practice where you review your finances, assess your goals, and reflect on how to use your wealth to create a joyful life.
The ritual is designed to ground you in the present moment, nourish your abundance mindset, and energize you to take the necessary steps to intentionally design your lifestyle.
The science behind a money date
Developing a consistent practice of reviewing your finances is backed by copious research gathered and conducted by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
In 2015, they released the first comprehensive study on financial well-being. Financial well-being is defined as having financial security and financial freedom of choice, in the present and in the future. It’s a highly personal state and is not defined by income or the lack of it. In other words, high-income earners may not have a high level of financial well-being. Conversely, lower-income earners may experience high levels of financial well-being.
One of the ways to improve your financial well-being is through your behaviors. A consistent practice of reviewing your finances, setting financial goals, and finding ways to motivate yourself to reach those goals has a profoundly positive impact on your financial well-being.
A money date is one of those behaviors that you can incorporate into your weekly routine to help boost your financial security and financial freedom of choice.
My first money date
My first money date was by mistake. It was 2014. I was at a French café in San Francisco and had just quit my accounting job earlier that day. I had no plan and needed to quickly come up with a solution for living in one of the most expensive towns in the world without a job.
So, I did what felt like the most natural thing to do. I ordered a mimosa.
And then I reviewed my finances.
I don’t recommend quitting a job without a plan. In hindsight, it was wildly irresponsible. However, the number of microaggressions I experienced in the very short time I had been at the tech company was a sign that I needed to get out. There’s a wise saying that says you should listen to the pebbles thrown at you before they turn into boulders. The microaggressions I experienced on my first day at the job were pebbles. And I was not waiting around to see them turn into boulders.
As I sipped on my pineapple mimosa, I calculated how much time I had before my savings ran out. Not much time. Whew. Deep breath.
Instead of freaking out, I shifted my mind from fear to abundance. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the mindset shift relaxed my central nervous system and activated my imagination. With this surge of energy, I grabbed a napkin and penned my dreams on the back of it.
The thought going through my head as I wrote down my dreams was: I’m living in magical California - how I could create a life that matched the magic around me?
This was a much different thought than the, “how can I make enough money this month to cover rent?”. The latter question felt restrictive and created tension in my body. The former question felt energizing, joyful, and expansive.
The dreams I wrote down were:
Dream #1: I want to be able to take a yoga class at noon on Thursdays without asking for permission.
Dream #2: I want to own a successful business that generates enough passive income to cover my living expenses and gives me freedom over my schedule.
And that was it. That was the extent of my dreams. My first money date became a weekly ritual that helped me achieve both those dreams and much more.
Quitting my job without a plan may have been irresponsible. But, it taught me that betting on myself always pays off.
Shift from a scarcity to an abundance mindset
Rituals are a powerful practice that humans have conducted since antiquity. The definition of ritual is a ceremonial act or action: a series of acts regularly repeated in a set precise manner.
Queen Cleopatra and Queen Nefertiti, two of the most powerful leaders of the ancient world, used rituals to protect their worlds of opulence. In our modern world, rituals are less emphasized and in some cases replaced by the strive for productivity. While optimizing productivity has benefits, the process tends to strip away the mystery and magic of approaching an action as a ceremonial act.
Money dates are a ritual to help you shift from a scarcity to an abundance mindset. On a metaphysical level, rituals are a key to unlocking secret doors of abundance within the mind which will manifest into prosperity in the physical realm. The money date is one ritual to help you get in the flow of your abundance. It is a tool used to activate the law of attraction.
On a psychological level, the money date helps you be more mindful of your financial decisions and trains your brain to see opportunities. Without a weekly money date, it is easy to fall victim to the scarcity propaganda spewed from almost every direction.
Our collective wealth consciousness is steeped in fear and therefore believes that financial resources are scarce. The collective scarcity mindset is reflected in the mass layoffs we witnessed in 2022 and that continues into 2023. Collectively, our relationship with money is toxic. It takes intentionality and consistent practices, like a money date, to rid yourself of the scarcity mindset and live in the flow of abundance.
Retraining the brain to see opportunities versus obstacles, possibilities versus problems, and collaboration versus competition will have a profound impact on the way you approach your finances.
There is plenty of neuroscientific evidence to support the fact that rewiring your brain to be more positive is good for your health. Positive thinking, or abundance thinking when it relates to money, leads to happier and more fulfilled lives. An abundance mindset is key to creating financial freedom for yourself.
It also allows us to be more effective philanthropists. The scarcity mindset not only impacts folks when they are striving for personal financial success. It also impacts those of us who have donor-advised funds and foundations. Financial decisions rooted in scarcity lead to underresourced non-profits which suppresses the impact of the organization.
How to start your money date
Get started with your money date by choosing a day of the week and blocking it out on the calendar. Treat it like any other meeting and make sure it is a priority. Block out one hour, but some people are able to complete their dates within fifteen minutes. At the end of the date, celebrate a win from the week. At Money & Mimosas, we celebrate our wins over a mimosa.
If you are newer on your financial freedom journey, spend your date answering these five questions:
Did I pay myself first this week?
How much did I spend this week?
How are my investments doing?
Do I have debt or bills to pay this week?
What is one accomplishment I want to celebrate this week?
The above questions are a great foundation. As you progress on your financial freedom journey, you’ll want to expand your money date to include prompts that reinforce acts of self-love and generosity.
At Money & Mimosas, our money date checklist is designed to help you construct a leisure lifestyle, plan a mini-retirement, and reflect on your philanthropic efforts. Download our money date guide, here.
