Welcome to Day 5 of the Daily 7! Yesterday, we talked all about focusing on our mission and pursuing our vision. Today, I’m talking about why investing my time and money wisely is apart of my daily focus.

Time…365 days, 12 months, 24 hours, 1,440 minutes. Money…something we all spend, and at the same time want to keep and increase. That said, one can't help but to focus on time and money. My focus as of late has been centered around investing my time and money wisely, and sowing seeds that in turn will reap a harvest.

Have you ever said “I don't have enough time” or “I don't have money for that”? If you answered yes, no need to feel bad, I've said it before, too. However, changing what I say and how I think are important to me. I love the saying I saw floating around IG that says something like, “I'm rich, my millions just haven't hit my account yet”. I'm totally with whoever came up with that. Until my wealth manifests, I remain extremely grateful for my current income, and I try to be a good steward over it.  

Now before I go any further, I'm not a financial advisor, real estate expert, stock broker or cryptocurrency expert, so none of what I'm saying is financial advice. What I am is a pretty good budgeter, and I have about 14 years experience managing my own money (sometimes well and sometimes not so well), so I'm just sharing my personal experience. My focus in this season is to be where the money resides, while making choices today that my near future self and long term future self will thank me for. So that means I do a few things that include, but aren't limited to:

1. Create and follow my weekly budget. This budget is for me and my household and businesses, and includes income amounts, expenses, savings goals and more. Again, I'm not a financial advisor, so if you are married and do your budgeting differently, do whatever works for you and your spouse. A joint weekly budget just works better for me and my husband in this season.

2. Donate + Sow. I give monetarily to projects/organizations that are important to me, such as JDRF, whose efforts support those with Type 1 Diabetes like my son. When your reasons for giving are pure and you don't boast about it, I've seen how blessings in turn find a way to you for being a blessing. This also applies to sowing seeds.

3. Support Others. I love to support others, especially other entrepreneurs. One of my friends says a statement that I love, “entrepreneurs need thoughts, prayers and COINS”! And that's nothing but facts. Now of course we aren't always in a position to buy, plus always buying and never saving and investing defeats the whole obtain wealth goal. However, whenever I can, I love to not only hype another sister up on her IG post, but also buy from her, too. How in the world could I expect or want people to support my businesses, if I never support anyone else?

4. Share and market my gifts. I started my businesses to share my gifts, and the reward I receive is not only fulfillment, but also money that supports me and my family. No one will hire me, buy my merch or support, if I don't ever market myself and what I have to offer. I'm not a good saleswoman though, so I struggle somewhat in this area, but I continue to work on and refine my marketing because the world needs what I've got, so getting my messaging, services and products out there is important.

5. Make and monitor investments. The old me used to be extremely intimidated by the stock market and by investments in general, but I've been committed to learning because wealth and legacy are important to me. So I committed to taking paid and free training, talked with friends who are good investors, and most importantly, just started. I'm still learning y'all, but I'm so glad I did start, and my future self will be, too. I also learned that you don't even have to start with a lot of money either. Sharing is caring, so here are some of the sites I love and use weekly, along with freebies:

   1. Get a free stock on me here

   2. Get $5 to invest here. I love this site because it rounds up my everyday purchases to the nearest dollar and invests the change for me. In a little over a year, I've saved over $3,000 by doing this and investing only $10 per week. It's like a piggy bank on steroids lol.

   3. Get $10 in free Bitcoin here (oh how I wish I was an early adopter with Bitcoin)

Aside from investing and sowing money, investing my time wisely is an even bigger focus. After all, this entire series is centered around where my time primarily goes. As I've shared before, I recently lost my dad, who was only 58 when he passed. That loss really put in perspective for me the importance of making the most of my time on Earth. While every moment in life doesn't haven't to be super serious or fully planned out or filled with sunshine and rainbows, however when I look back over each week, I want to feel good about what most of that time was spent on. I wrote a blog post that talks about sowing seeds outside of money, so I encourage you to take a few minutes to read that, and ask yourself the questions noted in the post.

TAKE ACTION

The goal each day is to cultivate your own daily focuses. With this in mind, throughout this series, there are accompanying daily prompts and action steps to help you minimize the less meaningful and prioritize the most meaningful. For exclusive access to the these action steps and the full Daily 7 resources and guide, subscribe below. Want more? Get some of my favorite resources below.

Have a glowing day!

Xo,

Shalyce