With the annual shopping extravaganza of Black Friday and Cyber Monday this month, it’s a good time to encourage your employees to exercise more mindful spending, to maintain their financial wellbeing. Here we suggest some money mindfulness tips you can offer, to help them keep control of their spending, avoid financial stress and be able to give their best in the workplace.
Each year, the potential big bargains that Black Friday and Cyber Monday promise can encourage overspending. So, to protect your employees from falling into debt, it’s important to help them be more mindful of their spending. By promoting greater financial awareness with some money mindfulness suggestions, you can help them avoid mindless spending and maintain their financial wellbeing. This is vital for their overall welfare and the welfare of your business, to ensure they are able to give their best in the workplace.
Financially stressed employees are not good for business, as recent Mintago research found that 32% of UK adults surveyed said they struggled with day-to-day tasks due to financial concerns, and another recent study revealed that financial stress is causing 27% of employees to experience brain fog and make mistakes.
So, this Black Friday and Cyber Monday month, try offering the following suggestions to help your employees make more mindful money decisions, maintain their financial wellbeing and be able to perform better in the workplace.
1. Work out a budget for Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Suggest working out a budget in advance of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, to prevent overspending. In this way, your employees can ensure they will avoid debt. Encouraging your employees to draw up a budget can be a powerful way to strengthen their financial wellbeing in general, but in this context, it will help them to see how much disposable income they have to spend in the sales. An effective way to do this is to get them to list their essential expenses, such as food bills, rent or mortgage, utility bills and council tax, to help them track their outgoings and stay within budget. You could also suggest that they make use of online budgeting tools, such as those available via the Mintago platform. In addition, another useful method they could explore is the Japanese budgeting method of Kakeibo, meaning ‘household financial ledger’, which promotes mindful, deliberate spending and saving.
2. Slow down
Money mindfulness is just about paying closer attention to what you’re doing, each moment, to keep track of your finances. This includes being more aware of how and why you are spending your money, to avoid making reckless decisions. Economic theory suggests that people commonly use what are called heuristics, which are mental shortcuts, to make financial decisions quickly and efficiently, without using much conscious thought or analysis, which can lead to poor financial decision-making. So, suggest that your employees slow down when making decisions, to give themselves time to avoid impulse buys. Financial decisions can often be driven by emotions, and taking a little more time can help to make a more rational, mindful spending decision.
3. Get the best deals for Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Although Black Friday and Cyber Monday might sound like the perfect opportunity to get a great deal, not all offers are necessarily going to save money. It’s therefore a good idea to suggest to your employees that they do some research before making purchases, to ensure they are getting the best deal. This will also give them time to consider whether they really need the item and make a more mindful spending decision. Depending on the product they want to buy, you could suggest that they consult comparison websites to discover if they can find it cheaper elsewhere. They could also look at competitor sites that might have a price match offer, to get the best possible deal.
4. Use cash
Another suggestion you could make to help your employees make more mindful money decisions this Black Friday and Cyber Monday is to ditch the credit cards and use cash instead. Going old school with cash could help them practise money mindfulness by making them more aware of what they are spending. Having hard, cold cash in your hand helps to make it more obvious just how much you are handing over than using a piece of plastic or a mobile payment app to pay. This strategy will also enable your employees to make more considered, mindful spending decisions, as they can decide in advance exactly how much money to take with them and will then only be able to spend the amount in their pocket and avoid overspending.
5. Put it into perspective
Finally, a useful tip to offer to your employees to help them make more considered, mindful money decisions this Black Friday and Cyber Monday is to try and put their purchase decision into perspective. Suggest that they think about whether they are letting short-term benefits outweigh their long-term goals, by buying something now that could derail their long-term financial goals. More mindful spending could help to ensure they stay on track to achieve their future financial security. It could also be helpful to suggest that they put their potential purchase into perspective by calculating how many hours it took them to earn enough to pay for the item. This could help them to make a more mindful decision regarding whether that shiny new item is in fact worth it.
Making money mindfulness easy
So, by suggesting these straightforward strategies, you can help your employees to make more mindful money decisions with ease. In this way, your team can enjoy spending their well-earned money this Black Friday and Cyber Monday, without risking their overall financial wellbeing and regretting it later.To help your employees be more mindful about their spending, maintain their financial wellbeing and be able to give their best in the workplace, contact Mintago today.