About a month or so I had the pleasure of heading to FinCon in New Orleans where I connected with fellow personal finance bloggers and professionals. It was at this conference I also had the opportunity to meet Amanda Abella. Ms. Abella is a writer, speaker, and career coach. She specializes in helping entrepreneurs light their fire and conquer their fears.

Amanda gifted her book, Make Your Money Honey to me just before I left the conference and it has been one of my favorite reads thus far. I appreciate her approach, the exercises, and the book really got me thinking.

One of the most helpful exercises as it pertains to finances is the values exercise and I want to challenge you to do it as 2014 comes to an end.

Let’s Get Started

Step 1: Locate (or print out)  your last bank statement and review your expenses.
Step 2: Take a red pen a strike through the expenses that you regret (ed) purchasing. Or better yet, strike through the purchases which you think your money would have been better spent elsewhere.
Step 3: Now take out a highlighter and mark the expenses that you enjoyed spending money on or contributed to you goals.

Now, answer the following questions:

What expenses make you feel crappy?
What did you genuinely enjoy doing?
What do you enjoy spending money on?

This exercise helps you get a grip on your spending and re-assess any bad habits that you might notice.

After you do this exercise lets keep the mindful spending going and ask yourself the three questions above prior to a purchase.

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What did you discover about your spending? Share below.