Coaching practices for Values and Money Alignment

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Values and Money Alignment, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I assume my spending more or less reflects what I care about, but I’ve never actually tested it
• I assumed we wanted the same things, but lately our differences keep surfacing and I can’t tell which ones are real gaps in what we value and which are just us never having checked whether we’re actually aligned.
• My partner and I keep clashing over things we both supposedly want, and I’ve been assuming we’re aligned underneath
• I say I value certain things, but when I look honestly at how I actually spent my week, my real priorities were something else entirely
• We’ve got nice-sounding values up on the wall and the website, but they do nothing in the room when a real hiring or judgment call is on the table

Practices that may help

1. Elicit your actual values before looking at your budget
   Write your top five values without looking at your bank statement — then compare the two.
   Values-Based Spending, Made Practical
2. Values-Based Spending, Made Practical
   Values-based spending is the practice of deliberately allocating money toward what you have identified as genuinely important to you — and cutting spending that does not reflect those priorities. It is not minimalism or frugality; it is a decision framework that uses your stated values as the filter for every financial choice. The evidence base is primarily from financial psychology and hedonic wellbeing research, not clinical trials.
3. Align on core values — where they are shared and where they differ
   Map which values you genuinely share and which you each hold separately — without requiring convergence.
   The Shared Meaning System
4. Mapping shared and divergent values in a relationship
   Do the card sort alongside someone important to you and compare — do not assume your rankings match.
   Values Card Sort
5. Check action against stated values — the alignment review
   Once a week, compare your stated values to your actual choices and name the gap honestly.
   The Pythagorean Evening Review
6. Make core values operational, not decorative
   Use core values in hiring, recognition, and decision-making — not just on the website.
   The Rockefeller Habits: Scaling Up with Rhythm and Focus
7. The values–behavior gap check
   Audit the last week: which of your top values did your actual decisions honor?
   Values Card Sort
8. Audit your time against your values
   Compare where your hours actually go to the values you say you hold.
   Values Clarification, Made Practical
9. Align spending deliberately with stated values
   Review each discretionary category against what you say matters most — and cut what doesn’t match.
   The Latte Factor: Small Spending and the Cost of Habit
10. The forced-rank sort
    Write your top 20 candidate values on cards, then sort them ruthlessly until you have a ranked top five.
    Values Card Sort

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.