Episode 1255: Self-Care at Low or No Cost

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,255 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:06] Mark Aho: I'm Mark Aho, author of Building Wealth and Living in Faith. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others. Develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the right relationship between faith and money is key to doing that, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this The Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Mader.

[00:00:43] Scott Maderer: Now with all of that being said, don't get me wrong, I don't wanna say that it's never a good idea to spend some money on yourself for some pampering and some self care. Going to an Airbnb for a weekend, going away on a vacation, maybe [00:01:00] even just going and getting things like a Manny Petty or a massage can be things that help you recharge and reset.

[00:01:08] Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true. In the Inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:34] In today's episode about impacting the world through stewarding your treasures, I talk with you about why self care is important, but can often feel like it's too expensive. I also share some self care things that you can do for almost no money, and I also share why you may want to go ahead and actually spend some money on yourself at times as we talk about stewarding your treasures.

[00:01:57] Wouldn't it be great if you could support this [00:02:00] podcast and do it without costing yourself an extra. Turns out you can. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon when you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon, and a small commission will come back to support the show. If you enjoy the show, when you're ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon.

[00:02:24] Just like yesterday, I talked a little bit about how we have this mindset around self care that sometimes blocks us from actually. Getting done what we want to get done from taking care of ourself in a way that really works well. Oftentimes, one of those excuses is self care is too expensive. I can't go on vacation.

[00:02:48] I can't afford to take a day off of work. Whatever it is it feels, To be able to spend some time taking your care of yourself automatically in some way, shape, [00:03:00] or form costs money. It makes it something that we just can't afford to do. I talked Tuesday about not being able to schedule the time, and I talked yesterday about mindset.

[00:03:12] Today is about the money. Oftentimes, a lot of times people will do what they call self care through retail therapy. This is the idea that the best way to feel better is to go shopping. Go out and spend money on yourself, buy a new outfit, or spend some pampering time on yourself. And don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong.

[00:03:37] With buying a new outfit or spending some money on some pampering, if you can afford it and you've got a plan for it, and you've actually made a budget for it and it's reasonable and it's not holding you back from other goals that you've decided and it fits in your reality, but oftentimes people will do that whenever they don't really [00:04:00] need to.

[00:04:01] Instead of spending some time and some energy finding ways to have self care, that's quote on the cheap, especially whenever you need that, especially whenever you need the self-care at the same time that you've got other financial goals that maybe are limiting the amount of money that you can really spend.

[00:04:24] Yesterday I mentioned one of my self care things, taking a short afternoon nap. And if you think about it, people will say the naps are free. Maybe not. Maybe they cost you a little bit of money in terms of time because maybe that's time that you could be spending doing something else that would earn you money.

[00:04:44] But the truth is most of the time you can schedule a 10 or 15 or 20 minute nap, a power nap and not really cost you much. It can happen during your lunch hour, during other time that you are already using maybe the time that you're spending scrolling. [00:05:00] Facebook, another example, especially now that many of us are working remotely more and more often.

[00:05:07] If you can find a way to actually just work outside for a little while. Take your laptop outside, connect to wifi, and do work from out there. Or maybe it's a part of your work where you need to be offline for a little while so that you have some uninterrupted focus time. Taking that outside could be helpful.

[00:05:29] Another area, we've talked a lot on this show about gratitude journaling. Journaling in general is a cheap and easy way of putting some self. Into your life, Spending some time finding those things that you're thankful for and actually reflecting on them, spending some time saying thank you, helps you both recharge your batteries and helps you make sure that you're reducing stress [00:06:00] and having all of those other benefits that come along with g.

[00:06:05] Learning and spending some time in meditation or prayer, spending some time in spiritual reflection. All of these help us take care of our body and our mindset. We can also surround ourselves in our environment by cleaning it up, by making it neat, by making. Productive and by including in IT pictures and other things of those things that are connected to our deep personal, why the things that motivate us, the things that keep us moving forward, those things can help us with self care and energy, and none of these cost you a penny.

[00:06:47] Making sure that you're actually eating well and getting enough sleep. Again, you could think of eating well and sleep and somehow costing you money because maybe eating well costs a little bit [00:07:00] more, and prioritizing sleep means maybe working less hours. But the funny thing is you'll discover that you earn back more than enough in that.

[00:07:10] Making sure that you're actually focusing on your work and avoiding multitasking and other things that help make you more productive. Also turn out to help your psychology and make you feel better as well. Now with all of that being said, don't get me wrong, I don't wanna say that it's never a good idea to.

[00:07:30] Spend some money on yourself for some pampering and some self care. Going to an Airbnb for a weekend, going away on a vacation, maybe even just going and getting things like a Manny Petty or a massage can be things that help you recharge and reset. All I'm saying there is when you want to spend some money at times, make sure that it's money that you actually have.

[00:07:56] Don't go into debt and do other things that will add more [00:08:00] stress to your life with the excuse of I need to take care of myself. I need to make sure that I'm okay. Because at the end of the day, the problem is it builds up your stress level and you end up having bigger problems as. So instead, focus on making sure that if you are spending money on self care, you're spending the money that you've planned to spend on self care.

[00:08:23] It's the intentionality and it's the decision making that's important, not whether or not you're spending money. Thanks for listening.

[00:08:33] Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the Stewardship of Treasures, you can sign up for our treasures tips by going to.

[00:08:59] [00:09:00] Inspired stewardship.com/treasures or text in the US 44 2 22 treasures tips, and we'll send you five weeks of our best tips on stewarding your treasures. Until next time, invest your. Your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.