What to do when you feel stuck - Part 2

Hello Financial Healers,

Last week I talked about a client who was facing $20,000 in debt. Amazingly, he got a call the next day about a job offer. Yay!

If you want to read that original post, you can find it here.

In today’s email, we’ll talk about one of the exercises I gave my client, the 4x4 Sweep. If you’ve followed me for some time, you may have heard about this tool.

As an entrepreneur, it’s common to go through dry periods. One of the ways I survived 2020 was by using this tool, and I hope you benefit from it as well.

So, what is the 4x4 Sweep?

The 4x4 Sweep is a tool that helps you find cash in 4 areas: spending, income, assets, and debt.

Every business (and home) is made up of these 4 quadrants, from massive engines like Google, to small mom-and-pop stores like Matrix Cards Games & Hobbies.

A simplified version of the 4x4 Sweep looks like this:

Notice how 4 quadrants are on the left: spending, income, assets, and debt. On the right, you have 2 columns: DOs and DONTs.

DOs are the tasks you implement. DONTs are the tasks you avoid.

For my client, I had him examine these 4 areas in his home finances in order to find retrievable cash.

For example, in the SPENDING quadrant under DOs, my client wrote: Do scour my bank account for subscriptions I no longer need.

My client investigated and discovered two unnecessary subscriptions: Zoom ($14.99/month) and Dropbox ($19.99/month). He canceled these and saved $34.98 each month. Or, for the year, $419.76.

A DONT in my client’s SPENDING quadrant was: Don’t spend money on coffee/tea at cafes. Make my own drinks at home. He now purchases inexpensive beans at Vons and saves $39.17/month. Or, again, for the year, $470.04.

Another DO for my client was: Do freeze credit card spending. It can be so tempting to reach for that credit card in times of emergency. But if you practice restraint, you can stop the endless cycle. The best way to get out of debt is to stop growing it!

If you want to see an example of a completed list, check out this old one from 2021. It gives some simple but effective ideas.

And that’s it!

Thanks for reading. I hope you find this investigative tool helpful. If you have questions, feel free to join this week’s My Money Time. We meet every Wednesday at 3:30 PM (CA time). You can find the link here.

God bless your Prosperous Soul,
Stephen K. De Silva