As a successful business owner, having a personalized cash flow plan allows you to spend money on things that bring you joy freely. There won’t be any guilt about spending money, especially on the big-ticket items, like a car or a weekend away with the kids.
In our first Blueprint meeting, we do a deep dive into your income, assets, debts, and expenses and build you a personalized cash flow plan so you can spend guilt-free knowing you are moving towards your goals.
Why a Cash Flow Plan Over a Budget
A traditional budget doesn’t work for most business owners because they enjoy spending however they want while still reaching their financial goals.
When you spend first and save what is left over, a budget often makes you feel more guilty when you spend. You’re not prioritizing your goals and ambitions if you manage your expenses this way.
A cash flow plan is a perfect set up to help maintain a healthy relationship with money. It empowers you to be intentional with your spending, taking into account emotions linked to saving and spending.
Our Approach to a Cash Flow Plan
Being financially free requires more than just having money invested and owning insurance. You need a proper financial plan that considers your goals and lifestyle so you can spend your money without feeling restricted or guilty.
We don’t look at your goals as something that is nice to have, instead we make your goals achievable by putting them first.
Your goals are what gets you excited, a 5* trip to Hawaii or buying a boat. When you link these feelings of excitement back to your spending, it motivates you to get further ahead.
When building your cash flow plan, we start by identifying your current income. From there, we distribute it amongst three spending pots so you can clearly see how to achieve your goals by following the guilt-free spending framework.
Introducing the guilt-free spending framework
The guilt-free spending framework involves putting your money into three different spending pots: your committed expenses, goals fund, and weekly spendable expenses.
Committed expenses such as debt repayment and utility bills are easy to predict. We usually know how much will be drawn from our account and when.
Where we often lose track is our weekly spendable expenses. It’s usually on emotional and sporadic things like food, gifts, or entertainment.
Without structure to our spending, there’s a danger we’ll spend money on things that don’t matter to us, and then we wonder why we are not further ahead in five to ten years.
The guilt-free spending framework allows you to enjoy your money and feel in control of your future. By intentionally allocating money towards your goals fund every month, you know you’re progressing towards what is important to you. And your weekly spendable is a separate pot for you to use without feeling like you’ve thrown your future away
Why the cash flow plan works
The cash flow plan works because of two reasons:
- It doesn’t require you to track all your spending — you can still feel like you have full autonomy to spend how your heart desires.
- It’s easier to stick to — the timeframe for your weekly spendable expenses is much shorter than a budget’s monthly spendable limit. It’s a lot easier to figure out how to not overspend for one or two extra days as opposed to twenty.
(Looking for tips to manage your cash flow plan? Here’s a list of our top tips)
Budgets are a lot like diets. They work well if you can fully commit to them. We recognize this style of financial planning doesn’t work with business owners because their income and lives are fluid. This is why a more impactful structure for business owners would be a cash flow plan with a guilt-free spending framework.
If you’re a business owner wanting to allocate your wealth to the things that matter most, book a call today, we’d love to help.
