It’s hard to imagine saving €27,000 in outgoings from a family household in a single year. But that’s just what Kel Galavan managed to do in 2019 when she embarked on a ‘no spend year’ to allow her to take a break from work and stay at home with her children for 12 months. She had been the family’s main breadwinner for many years.
Now known as Mrs Smart Money, and author of Mindful Money, she documented her experience online opening up a new career pathway after 15 years working in the pharma sector.
For her, a ‘no spend year’ meant essential and planned spending only. Gone was colouring her hair, beauty treatments, buying clothes, drinking alcohol and getting takeaways, and in came a food budget, home cooking, meal plans and a family holiday with spending rules in place.
While she doesn’t recommend a ‘no spend year’ to everyone, what she learned is that many of her small wins can work for others. Now a Qualified Financial Advisor (QFA), Kel spends much of time helping others manage money better and and teaching masterclasses on how to invest in an Irish context. Here are some of Kel’s tips.
Quality counts
After the ‘no spend year’, I thought I’d be out shopping like mad, but I didn’t. I actually realised I don’t need many clothes. I just need some really nice high-quality clothes because my fast fashion fell apart, but my good-quality pieces lasted.
Some of the things I would have spent big money on, you know, the dress for a wedding, would cost a fortune, and I’d wear them once. Yet, I’d go to Penneys for a t-shirt and I’d live in that and it would fall apart.
Money expert and best-selling author Kel Galavan is known as Mrs Smart Money.
Small things matter
The small things done well – that’s where the power is. We have been trained to think €20 doesn’t matter and €50 doesn’t matter. Over time, it matters. One way or the other, it keeps you stuck, or if used properly, it pushes you forward.
Set a goal
For someone starting out [trying to manage their finances better], have a fun thing as your focus. It could be saving up for a family weekend away. Okay, we’ll do a ‘no spend month’, and we’ll have a family weekend at the end of it. If you can, put the carrot before the stick. Have your lovely weekend away, and then afterwards you can tackle the credit card [debt] because you realise this [managing money] works and there is a benefit to it.
Still room for spontaneity
If you have two or three ‘no spend’ days, it still leaves four days where you are spending. A ‘no spend’ day, when you do it deliberately and you get to the end of the day and you put a tick on the calendar – you actually feel really good, and you start rewiring your brain on a neurological level.
The other side of it is when it comes to tapping – why are you tapping the card? Is it because you’re tired? Is it because you’re fed up? Or because this advert is jumping out at you [on social media] and telling you it’s the last one in stock. Is that going to make you happy, or is that weekend away going to make you happy?
Mindset shift
Money is a relationship, and how you manage it is about mindset. It’s so little about the actual money and so much more about your relationship with money – that feeling you get when you manage it well or not. So many of us will say, ‘I’m so bad with money,’ and we get into this cycle of spending, then reinforcing that, and we feel bad. But if you end up managing to save or get rid of a debt, you’re going to feel really good.
First step
Take a big deep breath and be kind to yourself. We are where we are. Whatever the starting point is, that’s it; we are all on different parts of our journey. The first thing you do is sit down with a pen and paper, look at the money coming into your household every month and look at your outgoings. Understand what expenses you have and the gap between the two. That’s where your freedom lies. Even if it’s €1, it’s okay; that’s your starting point. Your goal is to widen that bit by bit.
Tackling the ‘head in the sand’
We’ve been trained in different ways to be petrified of our money and stick our head in the sand and hope it will work out. I would say to anyone who is like that [having trouble sitting down to look at their income], you don’t necessarily dive straight in, but do something, and that might be as simple as looking at your subscriptions. See what you have and are you using them? If you’re not, cancel them, because if it’s 10 quid a month that’s €120 a year. Multiply that by two or three and you have a weekend away.If you’re not ready to look at your bank account, try a ‘no spend day’ to start.
Embrace free stuff
The library and tourist information office are amazing. The number of free things people can do and the amount of outdoor stuff [is huge]. Ireland is an amazing country. I just didn’t realise it until I gave it the time and space [during my ‘no spend year’]. We were all healthier and slept better, we met more people and it changed everything I thought about money. I realised during that year it was less about what we earned and more about how we managed what we earned.
See mrssmartmoney.com
It’s hard to imagine saving €27,000 in outgoings from a family household in a single year. But that’s just what Kel Galavan managed to do in 2019 when she embarked on a ‘no spend year’ to allow her to take a break from work and stay at home with her children for 12 months. She had been the family’s main breadwinner for many years.
Now known as Mrs Smart Money, and author of Mindful Money, she documented her experience online opening up a new career pathway after 15 years working in the pharma sector.
For her, a ‘no spend year’ meant essential and planned spending only. Gone was colouring her hair, beauty treatments, buying clothes, drinking alcohol and getting takeaways, and in came a food budget, home cooking, meal plans and a family holiday with spending rules in place.
While she doesn’t recommend a ‘no spend year’ to everyone, what she learned is that many of her small wins can work for others. Now a Qualified Financial Advisor (QFA), Kel spends much of time helping others manage money better and and teaching masterclasses on how to invest in an Irish context. Here are some of Kel’s tips.
Quality counts
After the ‘no spend year’, I thought I’d be out shopping like mad, but I didn’t. I actually realised I don’t need many clothes. I just need some really nice high-quality clothes because my fast fashion fell apart, but my good-quality pieces lasted.
Some of the things I would have spent big money on, you know, the dress for a wedding, would cost a fortune, and I’d wear them once. Yet, I’d go to Penneys for a t-shirt and I’d live in that and it would fall apart.
Money expert and best-selling author Kel Galavan is known as Mrs Smart Money.
Small things matter
The small things done well – that’s where the power is. We have been trained to think €20 doesn’t matter and €50 doesn’t matter. Over time, it matters. One way or the other, it keeps you stuck, or if used properly, it pushes you forward.
Set a goal
For someone starting out [trying to manage their finances better], have a fun thing as your focus. It could be saving up for a family weekend away. Okay, we’ll do a ‘no spend month’, and we’ll have a family weekend at the end of it. If you can, put the carrot before the stick. Have your lovely weekend away, and then afterwards you can tackle the credit card [debt] because you realise this [managing money] works and there is a benefit to it.
Still room for spontaneity
If you have two or three ‘no spend’ days, it still leaves four days where you are spending. A ‘no spend’ day, when you do it deliberately and you get to the end of the day and you put a tick on the calendar – you actually feel really good, and you start rewiring your brain on a neurological level.
The other side of it is when it comes to tapping – why are you tapping the card? Is it because you’re tired? Is it because you’re fed up? Or because this advert is jumping out at you [on social media] and telling you it’s the last one in stock. Is that going to make you happy, or is that weekend away going to make you happy?
Mindset shift
Money is a relationship, and how you manage it is about mindset. It’s so little about the actual money and so much more about your relationship with money – that feeling you get when you manage it well or not. So many of us will say, ‘I’m so bad with money,’ and we get into this cycle of spending, then reinforcing that, and we feel bad. But if you end up managing to save or get rid of a debt, you’re going to feel really good.
First step
Take a big deep breath and be kind to yourself. We are where we are. Whatever the starting point is, that’s it; we are all on different parts of our journey. The first thing you do is sit down with a pen and paper, look at the money coming into your household every month and look at your outgoings. Understand what expenses you have and the gap between the two. That’s where your freedom lies. Even if it’s €1, it’s okay; that’s your starting point. Your goal is to widen that bit by bit.
Tackling the ‘head in the sand’
We’ve been trained in different ways to be petrified of our money and stick our head in the sand and hope it will work out. I would say to anyone who is like that [having trouble sitting down to look at their income], you don’t necessarily dive straight in, but do something, and that might be as simple as looking at your subscriptions. See what you have and are you using them? If you’re not, cancel them, because if it’s 10 quid a month that’s €120 a year. Multiply that by two or three and you have a weekend away.If you’re not ready to look at your bank account, try a ‘no spend day’ to start.
Embrace free stuff
The library and tourist information office are amazing. The number of free things people can do and the amount of outdoor stuff [is huge]. Ireland is an amazing country. I just didn’t realise it until I gave it the time and space [during my ‘no spend year’]. We were all healthier and slept better, we met more people and it changed everything I thought about money. I realised during that year it was less about what we earned and more about how we managed what we earned.
See mrssmartmoney.com
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