The Key to Investing In Yourself with Laura Murray

by D'Arcy Benincosa

In this episode of the Play It Brave podcast, I’m talking all things investing with Laura Murray–and not the Wall Street kind.

Laura Murray is a sought-after photographer with the best of both worlds, brain-wise: she was trained in mathematics prior to photography with an insatiable desire to live a creative life. In her words? “There were always two sides to me – a technical and a creative – and I love how photography combines the two. It’s the perfect blend.”

What is an Annual Review?

Sit down each year get a clear picture of where you are today in terms of financials as well as personal and professional goals/ambitions (you can do this process with or without a significant other).
You can do this once a year, whenever you like. Try to do a mini version of a review at the end of each quarter.

Types of Investments:

Investing In You: Exercising, taking time to rest, self care, etc.
Investing In Relationships: Spending time with your partner, your kids, family, friends, and building relationships with fellow vendors or colleagues
Investing Financially: this includes stocks, properties, or any other monetary investments
Investing In Causes You Believe In: This is spending your time or money on causes you believe in. This could be anything from monthly donations to your local homeless shelter to a GoFundMe for someone close to you.

Tips for Investing Financially:

Diversify your investments! When one investment isn’t working out, then hopefully another one is successful.
If you have the right mindset and are open to possibilities, then investment opportunities will present themselves.
You have to know who you are and what you want in order to invest intentionally.
Find a Financial Advisor you can trust that can make the numbers and investments make sense. If you don’t understand it, then you’ll feel disempowered by it.

How to do an Annual Review:

REVIEW YOUR FINANCIALS:

Do a big number pull and calculate your overall net worth. This is important because it sets a financial baseline and we can set goals around changes we want to make to our net worth each year.

To calculate your net worth, you’ll need to add up your total assets, and subtract your total liabilities.
Assets are bank accounts, investment accounts, retirement accounts, the current market value of our home, the current market value of our cars, and anything else that would be considered an asset.
Liabilities are things like the balance remaining on our house/cars, school debt, credit card debt, any other loans, etc.
Our goal is to increase our net worth every year. You can do that by a combination of:
- Earning more money
- Wise investments
- Cutting back on spending
- Paying down debt

REVIEW YOUR GOALS:

Look back at the goals you set 1 year prior and go through each one and rank how you did. We recommend setting goals in a variety of areas (health/wellness, relationships, family, business, giving back).

Sometimes we hit these goals, sometimes there are things outside of our control that prevent us from reaching our goals, and sometimes there are goals we said were important but we got in our own way. Identify what happened and then set new goals for the next year.