If you wanna go somewhere, you better wake up and pay attention” -Sister Act 2

This has been a recurring theme in my life in various seasons and stages. It’s an important one. We’ve stopped paying attention. I am super guilty of this. I’ll waste hours on Instagram reels. I’ll go down a Pinterest rabbit hole and save lots of adorable ideas that I’ll never actually get around to doing. Meanwhile there’s a whole day going on in my house that I’ve missed out on.

Boyfriend and I recently made a budget (hooray for adulting!). And when I actually sat back and looked at my bank account and all the auto-debits that come out in small increments, I realized I’m spending almost $100 a month on streaming services and audiobooks and music options that I don’t need. I am not listening to three different “unlimited” music services every month. I don’t need seven ways to watch the same Christmas movies I watch every year. There were a few I’d signed up for in the free trial and completely forgot to cancel (I’m looking at you Consumer Reports).

But they were on auto-pay and small enough increments that they didn’t raise a red flag. And that’s how we operate these days isn’t it? If it isn’t a big enough problem to impact my life then I just don’t bother. Because there are so many problems that do impact our lives, the five dollars a month from that time you signed up for STARZ just doesn’t really get or stay on the radar.

So after we actually sat down and had a money date night, we realized a few things. 1) We each had a lot of the same streaming services we were paying for separately. So we divvied them up and each got to cut some. 2) We each had a few things we were paying for and had absolutely forgotten about. We made it a week-long goal to get online or make the call and cut the ones we weren’t using. 3) We realized that I was paying the lion’s share of our utilities and living expenses. This was an intentional choice in the beginning – the divorce lawyer in me didn’t want to give him an argument for equity in my house if things went sideways. However, after almost two years of living together I was ready to let go of some of my independence and make things a bit more joint. Bonus – now that he pays the electric bill he’s way better about turning off lights! 4) We realized that we each actually do have enough. Even with the reallocation of some bills, we each have enough extra at the end of the month to save, invest, splurge, whatever.

It took us actually sitting down and spending some time on this to figure it out though. I ended up saving about $400 each month between the services I cancelled and the ones he took over. And that’s going straight in my retirement account because I’m 40 and have barely anything saved so I have to make up for lost time. And since I’ve been paying attention, there’s a lot more I can find and come up with to save for the future. I’ll do another post about all the financial tips and tricks I’ve been learning about lately (my 40th birthday meltdown manifested in a STRONG need to get my financial future squared away). Step one was paying attention.

This doesn’t only apply to finances. Anxious about weight gain or loss? When was the last time you actually sat down and journaled your food and the calories in it? To the point you’re weighing it instead of eye-balling? Solid possibility that cereal you think is 200 calories is actually two or three servings and it’s closer to 600 calories. I realized the other day my gummi vitamins have 150 calories between them all. That’s not a lot, but it adds up and it’s worth paying attention to. Add that to the banana I threw in my breakfast, the graham crackers I had after my short workout this morning, and all of a sudden I have a whole extra meal that I didn’t account for in my day. And then I find myself shocked that the scale is going in the wrong direction. It’s because I’m not paying attention.

I’ve struggled a lot in recent years to pay attention to the things that actually do impact my daily life. I’ve been learning to focus on the micro – neighborhood, household, and city issues, rather than the micro – national and international issues. I can’t impact what happens in Washington D.C. or Ukraine nearly as much as I can impact who is elected to the local school board or whether my county commissioners support funding for mental health outreach.

We only have so much time and attention to give. Give it to your household. Give it to your neighborhood. Give it to yourself, and your future.