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30 Day Challenge Series, Day 17: Do a Small Financial Win (One Action)

Today’s habit might surprise you, but it’s one of the most important for overall well-being bring some attention to your finances by creating small win. Financial stress doesn’t just live in your bank account, it aksi shows up in your body and your mental health, too.

For a lot of people, the biggest stress isn’t even the numbers, it’s the avoidance of financial related tasks or thinking. So today, we’re keeping it simple: one small money action that helps you feel more in control, builds momentum, and makes bigger financial tasks feel less overwhelming.

Key takeaways:

Financial stress is closely tied to mental and physical health, this is wellness, too.

A tiny step helps break the avoidance cycle and builds confidence fast.

Keep it small and doable.

Ideas: cancel a subscription you don’t use anymore, move $10–$100 into savings, pay a bill you’ve been putting off, review your expenses for the week or month, look at your credit card statement and spending categories, use your card’s built-in tools to spot patterns.

Even a one-day change (like skipping a habitual purchase) can be a helpful reality check and can add up over time.

If you want extra support, I’ll include a tool I’ve been testing (Rocket Money) in the show notes (free trial link if available).

Disclaimer: Links may contain affiliate links, which means we may get paid a commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase through this page. Read our full disclosure here.

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Episode Transcript: Cheryl McColgan (00:00.43)
Cheryl McCogan founder of Heal Nourish Grow and today is day 17 of the 30 days of Healthy Habits Challenge. So today is an interesting one and I think it's one that people don't always think about when you're thinking about your health and wellness but it is actually so important especially for your mental health and just for overall well-being and that is today's habit which will be to do a small financial win. So this could be

anything really just a small money action that's going to lower your financial stress because financial stress is really linked strongly to mental and physical health and taking a small action can help build confidence and reduce the stress of avoidance because a lot of people don't do financial stuff because it's like they just don't want to think about it they don't want to take the time to deal with it they think if they ignore it it'll just go away something like that but you can have this tiny win today that will create some momentum and make

bigger challenges feel less overwhelming. Is it like anything else? Like all of these habits we've talked about, you got to start small and build on it. So to make it easy, here's some few options and examples of things you might do. One might be to cancel a subscription that you're no longer using. That'll save you maybe $10 a month, $20 a month, something like that. The streaming services have all got us crazy lately because everything you want to watch is on a totally different channel. So take a good look at that and maybe consider pairing that down.

You might move $10, $20, $100 to your savings account, a pay a bill that you've been putting off, review an account, maybe review your expenses for the whole month or review your expenses for the week. Review your credit card bill. Really just take time to actually look at it and see where your money is going. There's actually some good tools in most of the credit card things. If you log on to your account online, it'll kind of…

break it down into categories like, you know, bills and utilities. You might be looking at Amazon specifically, it'll give you the whole amount that that has. If you look at whatever card that you have, it tends to have some good tools along with that that can show you how you're managing your finances or where you're spending. And then noticing once you see where you're spending, that's how you have been able to like create one of these small wins, see if there's something that you can eliminate or something that you can change.

Cheryl McColgan (02:28.586)
Also an app that I've been testing out lately. I believe it's called Rocket Money, but I'll I think I have a link for now for a free trial period or something like that. But I'll find that and put that link in the show notes for you. But it's just a nice tool. can help you keep track of some of these things and give you some ideas on how to, you know, look, start looking at your finances a little bit more critically. You don't want to do a big overhaul here. Don't get into a whole thing about, you know,

doing a grand evaluation of everything that you're spending, everything you're doing, try to just identify something that's simple. Some of the things I mentioned, maybe it's like skipping your $7 Starbucks for the morning, something like that for a lot of people that can really add up. But we're just trying it for one day to day and just giving a little bit of attention to this. You can see if it's something that is alignment with your priorities that you set at the beginning of the challenge, those three focus areas, you know, depending on what those are.

your finances could be a really big part of that and part of the big key to keeping those moving in the direction that you want to move them. So as always the links for the studies will be in the email and in your tracker and so if you're interested in diving a little more deeply into this you can find those links there and like I said it's strongly related to mental and physical health a lot more people a lot more than people really realize.

So taking a look at your finances and having the small win today, where can you cut back a little or where can you save something for your future will be a nice little mental uplift. So that is the habit for today and I will see you again tomorrow.

Author

  • Cheryl McColgan

    Cheryl McColgan is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Heal Nourish Grow, where she has published evidence-based health and nutrition content since 2018.

    With over 30 years of experience in fitness, nutrition, and healthy living, and nearly 20 years of professional editorial and journalism experience, she brings both subject-matter depth and trained editorial judgment to everything on the site.

    Cheryl holds a degree in Psychology with a minor in Addictions Studies, completed graduate training in Clinical Psychology, and is a NASM Certified Personal Trainer and E-RYT Certified Yoga Instructor and trained in Yoga Therapy.

    She is the author of 21 Day Fat Loss Kickstart, Make Keto Easy, Take Diet Breaks and Still Lose Weight, The Grain Free Cookbook for Beginners, and Easy Weeknight Keto.

    Read more about Cheryl and the journey that created Heal Nourish Grow on the about page.

    Cheryl McColgan is the founder of Heal Nourish Grow, where she writes about protein, body composition, healthy aging, and evidence-based nutrition and wellness along with the everyday habits that actually make those things work in real life.

    With a background in psychology and graduate training in clinical psychology, plus nearly 20 years of experience in editorial and publishing, Cheryl approaches health from both a research and real-world perspective. She’s also been immersed in fitness and nutrition for more than 25 years, which gives her a practical lens most purely academic content tends to miss.

    Her work today focuses heavily on protein intake (especially for women), muscle retention, metabolic health, and sustainable fat loss, along with topics like sleep, wellness, recovery, and wearable health tech. You’ll also find a mix of high-protein, low-carb recipes designed to make hitting those goals easier without overcomplicating things.

    Cheryl’s interest in health and nutrition became more personal after navigating her own health challenges, which pushed her to dig deeper into how lifestyle, diet and daily habits impact long-term health. That experience continues to shape how she approaches everything on this site: practical, realistic, and focused on what actually works over time.
    What Cheryl Covers
    Most of the content here falls into a few core areas:

    Protein & Muscle Health: how much you actually need, especially for women and how to use protein to support strength, body composition, and aging
    Fat Loss & Metabolic Health: sustainable approaches that prioritize muscle retention and long-term results
    Healthy Habits & Lifestyle: sleep, movement, strength training, consistency, and the small things that compound over time
    Wearables & Recovery: real-world testing and comparisons of tools like Oura, Whoop and others
    High-Protein & Low-Carb Recipes: simple, realistic meals that support your goals without feeling restrictive
    Travel & Lifestyle: wellness-focused travel, outdoor experiences, and a slightly more elevated take on healthy living

    If you're new, here are a few good places to begin:

    30 Day Healthy Habits Challenge

    Protein Foundations

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