How to Overhaul Your Life to be Healthier, Wealthier and Have More Time
Everyone seems busy, overwhelmed, stressed and struggling with health, money and time.
All the adults we talked to seem worn out and exhausted and they don’t know where to start to make changes to ease the stress, increase their income, improve their health and have more time.
Here are the top habits and changes we made that increased our health, wealth and overall well-being.
Note: If you like freebies and discounts, check out how to get a $100 cash bonus from ING, $15 from Up Bank or have a look at the full list of freebies, offers and discounts for every state.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links.
1. Automate Finances
The less we have to think about money, the easier it is.
Most of our bills can be paid automatically, although we do check them when they come in to ensure they are correct e.g. electricity.
Paying insurance and other large bills annually makes life easier for us as it’s done once and we don’t have to think about it again.
Money is automatically transferred to specific accounts each time we get paid to account for all the bills so the money is always there.
Every year we do a full financial review to ensure we are getting the best deal on everything and are happy with our services.
Checking my accounts daily is still an important habit to us, automating our finances made this easy though and reduced stress in our lives.
We cover this in how to get rich being lazy with money and how to be a millionaire even as a single mother.
2. Utilise Meal Kits (Free and Discounted)
Meal planning can save a small fortune but sometimes it feels like too much effort.
Rotating meal kits means we use the discounts every week and the meals are planned out.
We pick the meals we want from the options while using different meal kits.
This saves me time since we are not doing the meal planning or shopping for 4 to 6 main meals and kids can easily select their meals.
They know what to cook, grab the recipe card and dinner is sorted.
Each night is assigned to someone else in the family and we all take turns cooking and cleaning.
How to Rotate Meal Kits
Get up to $200 off with HelloFresh, spread across your first 6 boxes for new and returning customers. Conditions apply.
Swap to EveryPlate and get easy meals from $2.19 per plate with this discount. again split across your first few boxes. Again, cancel so it doesn’t continue while you use the next offer.
Also, 45% off your first box with Marley Spoon and further discounts and up to $140 off Dinnerly, spread across your first few boxes.
By the time you have finished with these discounts, HelloFresh or whichever one you started with is likely to be emailing you discounts to get you back.
Use those discounts and continue the process.
3. Use a Digital Calendar with EVERYTHING
Have a family Google calendar with everything in there.
With extracurricular activities, medical appointments, birthdays, jobs etc. It is essential.
Our digital calendar includes everyone’s chores, what everyone is doing and when.
This dramatically reduces how much everyone is asking us.
By ensuring it is on the calendar, we set reminders and things get done.
Along with a digital calendar, we have a weekly one as a magnet on the fridge and a giant one in our hallway.
The numerous visuals help remind us and communication has been much better.
To save time, we schedule any appointment we can at once.
For example, the monthly beautician appointment can be scheduled at the same time every month.
Instead of rebooking for 4 weeks each time we go, we schedule all my appointments for the year.
This can be done for dental, vaccinations, check ups and numerous other things.
For more on organising your life and these habits, read Life Admin Hacks and apply it.
4. Maximise Reward Programs and Discounts
Another grocery habit that reduces stress and saves money but we do it in a way where we don’t have to think about it much is maximising rewards.
Apps on our phones and using them in our regular shopping is about the extent of it because we don’t want the stress of couponing.
If you do want to absolutely maximise them, we have 9 steps here on how to do it and get amazing discounts on everything.
We get free offers, money off our shop, bonuses on our birthdays and other benefits with various reward programs.
Here are some tips, especially for Flybuys and Everyday Rewards.
- Boost every offer. Even if you don’t think you’ll use it. Be sure to screenshot them when you use them though and check you get the extra points.
- Split your shop. Do not do all your shopping at one store. By splitting the shop, you get the sale prices and when they send offers to get you to spend, you don’t have to spend as much to get the bonuses.
- Shop the sales and buy enough until the next sale cycle. For so many things there is no reason to pay full price.
- Plan your shop. Do your online shop first to use the 10% off then do a shop later in the month in-store. Because I have 4 x 10% off offers, I can use this to get sales every week.
- Check credit cards and bank bonuses. ING offers $100 for new customers, Up Bank offers $15, CommonBank offers cash back sometimes in conjunction with different stores.
- Check all the other benefits and offers to see if they are the best option for you e.g. insurance sometimes comes with 10% off shopping etc.
- Do not spend just to get the discount unless it works for your budget and is on things you’d buy anyway.
Read how to combine discounts on everything for more tips.
5. Take Mini Breaks and Activities
Take day trips to places you want to see. Book in activities you have always wanted to try.
Be a tourist in your own city and explore it properly.
There are many ways to take mini breaks that won’t damage your budget but will improve your mental health.
How to get Mini Breaks or do Hobbies on a Budget
What day trips are close to you? Think about your hobbies and interests then look up relevant events on Meetup, Facebook and similar. Google free activities in your area.
Whatever hobby you have or want to develop, check clearance sections of stores, keep an eye on sales and look at Facebook Marketplace.
We love day trips when we are on a budget because with a little juggling, we can often find the money in the petrol budget to go see a new waterfall, snorkel somewhere, check out a hike or have a picnic within an hour or two of where we live.
Check out these 10 tips to save money on travel and these ideas to make money while travelling, even as a family.
6. Invest in Items to Improve Your Life
Rather than paying for Netflix or some other subscription that is just another way to waste time, what could you spend that money on to improve your life?
Instead of wasting my time or money on things that don’t bring meaning to my life or improve it, we are investing in ourselves and things that make our life better.
What you invest in to improve your life depends on the life you want.
Here are a few ideas based on our life.
Home gym. We already have this set up in half the garage. For a few hundred dollars on Facebook Marketplace, we got everything we wanted that was worth thousands.
Including weights and a bench, 3 machines, dumbells, a medicine ball, a boxing bag and more.
Mixer. For how much we cook, bake and enjoy trying new recipes, we really should have bought one before now.
Clothing. Bought new activewear, sneakers, lingerie and some dresses that fit and make me feel good.
Other. Books, courses, educating myself, self-care including massages, therapy, clothing that fits and makes us feel good e.g. lingerie, activewear and nice dresses. Shoes that are comfortable and stylish.
Often we talk ourselves out of things due to the perceived expense, yet those same things would save us time or money or bring joy.
Life is not meant to be all about sacrifice and if there is something you have wanted for a long time but have put off, review your budget to see how you might be able to make it work.
These 7 must-have kitchen items to make and save money plus these 11 eco-friendly buys.
7. Establish Routines
Specific routines help and if you truly want to achieve your goals, you need systems.
These aren’t all about having a full morning routine with meditation and working out/
Routines can be for every area of life from getting the kids ready to packing lunches to how you manage your budget.
8. Foster Independence In Your Kids
Too many parents do everything for their kids and now we have numerous adults who can’t cook basic meals, change a tyre or do other things that used to be taught from a young age.
Helping your kids can be good but you need to teach them how to do things.
Our aim as a parent is to raise confident, capable, intelligent and compassionate adults.
They will always be our kids but they won’t always be children.
11 life skills we want our kids to know outlines some of this. Also, read how to teach your kids about money and how to get your kids to help at home.
9. Take Control of Your Phone
How much of our lives is dictated by our phones now?
Go into your settings and check your screen time, it might horrify you.
We spend hours on our phones and watching TV/streaming, basically wasting our lives away.
How different would your life be if you dedicated that time to something worthwhile?
Delete unnecessary apps, remove notifications and limit your phone usage.
One of the best things wedid was remove social media from phones.
This way, we can only access it from a laptop when we choose and for the time we choose instead of mindlessly scrolling.
Put your phone in another room when you sleep so you aren’t tempted to look at it during the night and it doesn’t disturb you.
Use the do not disturb feature at certain times and take control of your phone instead of letting it control you.
You do not need to be accessible 24/7, it’s ok to switch off, remove notifications and live your life.
How to Stop Mindless Scrolling
In general, replacing habits is easier than simply stopping them, making habits hard to do and stacking good habits makes them easier too.
Since scrolling social media is the default action whenever we are bored, think about what else you could do during that time.
Learn a language with an app instead of scrolling social media.
Make money with an online survey.
List something for sale if you took photos earlier.
Read a book, preferably a physical book not a digital or audiobook. Check out 23 books that will change your life for some of my favourites.
Do some exercise, any movement you enjoy such as dancing, squats, skipping, anything.
Look for ways to replace the scroll with something productive.
10. Outsource What You Can/Want
Despite what media might push, we cannot do it all on our own and we do not all have the same 24 hours in the day.
What we are capable of doing, how much time different tasks take us, the needs of others in the family and so on dictate how much time we have and what we can do.
Don’t beat yourself up if you feel you can’t do everything.
Look at what you can outsource to free up your time and headspace.
To make it more budget friendly, sometimes people start with something that can be outsourced to free up time and costs less than they could make in that same time.
For example, it might take you 3 hours to mow the lawn and in 3 hours you can make $100.
The teen in your area might be mowing lawns for $50 which means they make money, you save yourself 3 hours and you could spend that 3 hours doing something more constructive to make you $100.
Cleaning, ironing, lawns and those larger home tasks are generally the first things to be outsourced as they take such a large part of our lives and time.
If we can save money and reduce our stress levels in the process, it is going to make a big difference in the long run.
Check out everything about insourcing (getting everyone at home to help) and outsourcing to see how to make or save money with each one.
11. Break Bad Habits
We mentioned our phones above but how many other habits do we have that detract from our lives?
Alcohol is a significant one that is normalised, as are energy drinks.
When you do the research on many of the things we use to ‘cope’ or get through the day, we can see how bad they are for us.
For example, alcohol is a poison which has been shown to have lasting impacts.
You might drink it at night to wind down or destress but it raises the cortisol in our body, leading to even more stress.
Often, when drinking, our sleep is not good and we rely on even more caffeine the next day, then alcohol at night.
It can be a vicious cycle, even if you are only having a few drinks.
Try a month without alcohol and see how different you feel. Everyone we know who has done this is amazed at how they feel after the first week or so.
They have more energy, skin is clearer, they sleep better and their mental health improves.
Think about your habits and which ones might be adding to the stress and expenses of life instead of making it better.
12. Regularly Review to Improve
What sort of life do you want and how do you want to be remembered?
Do your current habits, systems and lifestyle reflect that?
Take time to regularly review everything from your values and what you want in life, to your goals, habits and finances.
If you don’t review what you are doing to ensure you are on track, you can easily end up far away from where you want to be.
Check out the 30 days of money challenge for tips and things you can review in all areas of your life.
Being confident in your choices and decisions around your life makes it so much easier to live it your way.
What habits are you changing to make life healthier, wealthier and easier?
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