Practical Tips for Healing Your Financial Regrets

You know that feeling.

The feeling that you didn't really need to spend as much money as you did on brunch last weekend. The feeling when you look at your bank balance at the end of the month and know you don't really have much to show for how much you spent. The feeling you get when you look at that dusting handbag, or that fancy Kitchen Aid mixer you used a good two times (….at best). You ruminate over and over and over, feeling guilty or, worse yet, trying to push those feelings away.

A new report – 'Click and Regret' - has revealed that British consumers are wasting £641m online every year buying goods they don’t want and failing to return them.

However financial regrets manifest themselves, most of us have experienced them at one point in our lives. The worst part about this guilty feeling is that even if we try to live by the 'no regrets’ philosophy, when we know deep down that our behaviour was wrong, wishing the shame away simply doesn't work. So how do we let go of our financial regrets, stop them from weighing us down, and truly free ourselves, creating space to deal with them and move on to a better and brighter financial future? Here are some suggestions to help you start your regret healing journey.

Step 1: Acknowledge your mistake and talk about it

Bottling up our emotions isn’t a natural or healthy state to be in. In fact, over time, failure to identify and acknowledge our emotions can become toxic. Repressed emotions don’t just disappear. If we struggle to recognise when we are feeling guilty or unhappy, this can then lead to a spiral of unhappy thoughts. Specifically identifying which emotion you're feeling—that is, acknowledging, "I feel regret" rather than just thinking, "I feel bad"—will help you feel more in control and make the regret more manageable. Speaking about your experience with the regret can also be extremely helpful. Whether it’s with a financial advisor, a friend, or even the Vestpod community — talking about your mistakes with someone else often offers great release.

Step 2: figure out what lesson you've learnt

There's always a lesson to be learnt, especially when it comes to our mistakes. Ask yourself: if you were to do it again, what would you do differently? If this financial blunder hadn't happened happened, might it have happened in the future in a more significant or different way? Was there a money spending trigger that you can recognise and curtail it the next time? Our money mindset and our money stories play a huge role in how we view and spend money, on a totally unconscious basis. It's worth taking the time to do the work to dismantle our negative money stories and to re-write them. Financial therapy is a thing, and it can be hugely helpful if you find yourself stuck in a money pattern you can't shake off. Shifts in your thinking can help prevent you from repeating the same mistakes.

Step 3: take action to avoid future regrets

Once you've understood your money triggers and the emotions involved in your regretful financial decisions, it's time to make a plan to help you avoid making the same mistakes again. The first step is to write down your goals. Next, know exactly how much money comes in, and where it goes (you can use apps to help do this). Set a budget and learn how to live below your means. Then, create an emergency fund — consider it your financial first aid kit. Once you've got your budgeting, spending, and emergency fund down, you can start thinking about growing your wealth further through investing, ISA's and pensions. If you feel overwhelmed and don't know where to start, you should lean into the myriad of free online financial resources, or see a financial advisor who can tailor advice specifically to your needs.

Step 4: forgive yourself and move on!

At this stage, you’ve done everything you can to help you learn from your mistakes and work towards a better financial future, so there’s no point hanging on to the past. You deserve to be free from the guilt. Remember, to make mistakes is to be human, so don't let your regrets tarnish the way you view yourself! It's not how we make mistakes, it's how we correct them that define us.