Written by There is something about the first of the month that feels like a door.
Not the grand threshold of a new year, or the charged turning of a solstice. Just a quiet, reliable door that opens on the first of every month, without ceremony, without fanfare. Most of us walk through it without noticing. We flip the calendar page, check our bills, maybe make a mental note about something we mean to do differently this month, and move on.
But in folk magic and practical witchcraft, the first of the month has long been recognized as one of the most accessible and potent times for abundance work. It is a threshold. And thresholds, if you know how to use them, are where magic lives.
This post is a collection of practices, some ancient, some folk, some contemporary, for using the first of the month deliberately. Not as a one-time ritual, but as a recurring practice that compounds over time. Because abundance magic, more than almost any other kind, is built on repetition. On showing up at the door, month after month, and saying: I am here. I am ready. Let it come.
Before You Begin ~ The Mindset That Makes It Work
Abundance magic is not wishful thinking with candles. It is a practice of alignment . Bringing your attention, your actions, and your energy into agreement with what you say you want. The rituals in this post work not because they conjure money from thin air, but because they train you to notice, acknowledge, and actively receive what is already moving toward you.
The single biggest obstacle to abundance is not lack. It is the habit of not noticing what arrives. Many of us are so focused on what we don’t have that we walk past what we do have without registering it. Abundance magic begins with the discipline of noticing.
So before the first of any month, it is worth asking: What came in last month that I didn’t fully acknowledge? Not just money, time, help, opportunity, connection, a moment of ease when you expected struggle. These are all forms of abundance, and the practice of recognizing them is the foundation everything else is built on.
The Morning of the First ~ How You Begin the Day Matters
Speak It Before You Check Your Phone
Before you look at your messages, your emails, your notifications – before the world gets its hands on you – speak your intention for the month aloud. This doesn’t need to be elaborate. Something as simple as: This month, abundance flows to me in expected and unexpected ways. Or: This month, I am open to receiving.
The specificity of “before your phone” matters. The first thing you speak in the morning carries a particular weight in folk tradition. The first breath of the day, the first words, are considered to set the tone of what follows. Give those first words to your intention, not to someone else’s agenda.
The Coins at the Threshold
In numerous folk traditions, Eastern European, Latin American, West African, and British folk magic among them, coins placed at the threshold of the home on the first of the month are understood as an invitation to prosperity. The threshold is a liminal space, a place of exchange between inside and outside, and placing something of value there signals to the forces of abundance that this home is open to receiving.
A simple version: take three coins (the number three is traditionally associated with increase and growth across many magical systems) and place them just inside your front door on the morning of the first. Leave them there for the day, or for the full month if you prefer. Some practitioners anoint the coins lightly with a prosperity oil, basil, cinnamon, or patchouli are all traditional, before placing them. Others simply hold them in both hands for a moment and breathe their intention into them.
At the end of the month, these coins go into a jar. A growing collection of month-by-month abundance that accumulates over time. After a year, you’ll have thirty-six coins in that jar, each one placed with intention, each one a record of a month you showed up for the practice.
Open the Windows
Even in cold weather, even for just a few minutes, open a window on the morning of the first. In Chinese folk tradition, this practice is associated with letting fresh energy (qi) move through the home, clearing stagnation and making space for what is new. In British and Irish folk magic, airing the house on a significant morning was understood as an invitation. Fresh air in means fresh energy in, and stagnation is the enemy of abundance.
While the window is open, take a moment to stand near it and breathe. Outside air, outside light, outside world. Let it in.
Cleansing First ~ Making Space for What You’re Calling In
One of the most common mistakes in abundance magic is skipping the clearing work and going straight to the calling in. But a home (or a life, or a mind) that is full of stagnant energy has no room for what you’re inviting. The container needs to be prepared.
The Salt and Lemon Clear
On the morning of the first, mix a small amount of coarse salt into a bowl of warm water with the juice of half a lemon. Use this water to wipe down your front door. The handle, the frame, the threshold. In Hoodoo and folk magic traditions, this simple act is understood as clearing away the energetic residue of the previous month: old arguments, old worries, old energy that has been tracked in with the daily business of living.
The lemon brings brightness and cuts through stagnation. The salt preserves and clarifies. Together they reset the threshold – the door through which all abundance enters the home.
Sound Clearing
Sound is one of the most effective and underused clearing tools in everyday magic. On the first of the month, move through your home making sound . Clapping in corners (where stagnant energy accumulates), ringing a bell, playing a singing bowl, or simply singing or humming something with intention as you move through each room.
The principle is simple: stagnant energy is, energetically speaking, stuck. Sound moves. It physically vibrates the air, and as it does, it disrupts what has become fixed. Pay particular attention to corners, closets, and spaces that don’t get much light or movement.
The Abundance Altar ~ Building It on the First
If you don’t already have a small abundance altar in your home, the first of the month is the ideal time to begin one. If you do have one, the first is the time to refresh it . Clear away the old, clean the surface, and renew your offerings and intentions.
What Belongs on an Abundance Altar
Something green. In virtually every abundance tradition across cultures, green is the color of growth, fertility, and material increase. A green candle, a living plant, a piece of green cloth as the altar foundation, fresh herbs . Any of these anchors the altar in the energy of flourishing.
Coins or currency. Physical money on the altar signals that money is welcome in your life. Fold a bill toward you (not away from you. Fold toward yourself to draw in, fold away to release). Place coins flat. Some practitioners write their financial intentions on a piece of paper and fold it under the coins.
Herbs of abundance. Basil is perhaps the most universally recognized prosperity herb. In Italian folk magic, a pot of fresh basil in the kitchen is a prosperity charm in itself. Cinnamon draws in wealth and speeds manifestation. Bay leaf is used for wishes and goals. Mint is associated with fresh money and new financial beginnings. Any combination of these, dried or fresh, belongs on an abundance altar.
A vessel of honey. Honey on an abundance altar has roots in Yoruba spiritual tradition. Specifically in working with Oshun, the orisha of abundance, love, and sweet waters. But the use of honey as an offering to draw sweetness and prosperity is far more widespread than any single tradition. It says: sweet things are welcome here. If you work within a specific tradition, follow its guidance on offerings. If you work eclectically, a small dish of honey is a beautiful, cross-cultural abundance offering.
Something that represents your specific intention. A printed image of something you’re working toward. A word written on paper. A symbol that means abundance to you personally. The altar should connect to your actual life and your actual desires, not just to the abstract concept of prosperity.
🪄 The Green Candle Ritual
On the first of the month, light a green candle on your altar and sit with it for a few minutes. This doesn’t need to be long. As it burns, speak aloud, or write, what you are calling in this month. Be specific where you can. More than enough is a beautiful intention. So is a new client by the 15th or clarity about my next financial step. Candles can hold very specific intentions. Let this one hold yours.
If you can, let the candle burn for at least an hour on the first. Some practitioners burn a dedicated candle for the entire month, a little each day. Others light a fresh candle on the first of each month as the primary ritual. Both work. The consistency of return is what matters.
🪄 The Prosperity Bowl~ A Month-Long Practice
The prosperity bowl is one of the most enduring and adaptable folk magic tools for ongoing abundance work. Unlike a single ritual, it is a living practice. Something you add to throughout the month, something that grows.
Begin on the first with a clean bowl – ceramic, wood, or glass. Add to it throughout the month anything that represents abundance arriving in your life: a coin received, a receipt from a meal enjoyed, a note about an unexpected opportunity, a flower from your garden, a business card from a new connection. By the end of the month, the bowl is full. It is a physical record of everything that came in.
At the end of the month, sit with the full bowl and acknowledge it. Empty it with gratitude. Clean it. And on the first of the next month, begin again.
The practice works on two levels simultaneously. It trains your attention to notice abundance as it arrives . Which, as discussed above, is the foundation of all abundance work. And it creates a physical anchor for the energy of receiving in your home.
Money Practices for the First
🪄 The Wallet Ritual
On the first of the month, empty your wallet completely. Clean it – literally wipe it out if it’s leather, shake out the crumbs and receipts if it needs it. Then return your money and cards deliberately, organizing as you go. As you return each item, acknowledge it: this card represents my financial tools, these bills represent money that moves through my hands, this space is for receiving.
A wallet that is treated with intention and care is understood in folk magic as a vessel. And a well-tended vessel attracts what it’s meant to hold. A chaotic, neglected wallet suggests, energetically, that money is not particularly honored or welcomed. This is a very small practice that takes three minutes and costs nothing, but it realigns your relationship with your money in a tangible way.
Some practitioners add a small bay leaf to their wallet on the first of the month with a specific intention written on it in pencil. Bay leaves are traditional wish-carriers, and one tucked quietly behind your cards works as a month-long prosperity charm.
✍️ Journal Prompts: Write Your Financial Intention for the Month
In your journal on the first, write down what you are calling in financially this month. Not vaguely – specifically. A number, an opportunity, a change in how money flows to you. Write it in the present tense, as if it is already happening: Money comes to me easily and from multiple directions this month. I receive more than enough.
Then write why. Not why you need it – why you are ready for it. What you will do with it. How it fits into the life you are building. The why anchors the intention. It moves it from wish to commitment.
🪄 The Rabbit Ritual ~ First Words of the Month
There is an old folk charm, English in origin, spread widely through British and American folk tradition, of saying rabbit, rabbit (or rabbit, rabbit, rabbit) as your very first words on the first of every month, before speaking anything else. It is said to bring good luck for the month ahead.
The charm is old enough that its origins are genuinely uncertain. It appears in British records from at least the early twentieth century, but is almost certainly older. Several American presidents are reported to have practiced it. It requires nothing except remembering, and it costs exactly nothing.
There is something worth noting about this charm: it works through the discipline of first words. To say rabbit, rabbit on the first, you have to remember before you speak – before you say good morning, before you answer a question, before habit takes over. That moment of remembering is itself a magical act. It is a brief, daily-level practice of waking up with intention rather than reaction.
Say it this month. See what happens.
Giving as a Calling-In Practice
In most traditional abundance systems, across cultures and across centuries, the act of giving is understood as essential to the act of receiving. Not as a transaction (give this much, get this much back), but as a demonstration of trust in the flow of abundance. When you give from what you have, you are saying: I am not hoarding this. I trust that more will come.
On the first of the month, give something. It doesn’t need to be large. A few coins to a cause you care about. Flowers left on a neighbor’s doorstep. An hour of your time to someone who needs help. A meal shared. The form matters less than the spirit, which is deliberate, chosen generosity, offered with the awareness that abundance is not a fixed quantity to be guarded but a flow to be participated in.
Folk magic from virtually every tradition holds that a closed fist cannot receive. The act of opening the hand, of giving, even when you feel you don’t have quite enough, is the act of making yourself available to receive.
Close the First with Gratitude
End the first of the month as intentionally as you began it. Before sleep, take five minutes to write or speak three things that came in during the day, however small. A compliment. A parking space at the right moment. A problem that resolved itself. The fact that you ate today, slept last night, have shelter around you as you read this.
Gratitude in abundance magic is not a platitude. It is a practical tool. It directs your attention toward what is present rather than what is absent, and attention is where energy goes. Whatever you look at grows, in your awareness and eventually in your life.
Close the day by saying, aloud, to the room, to whatever forces you work with, or simply to yourself:
Thank you for what came in today. I am open to more.
Then sleep.
And on the second, and the third, and all the days between – keep going. Keep noticing. Keep acknowledging what arrives. The first of the month is the door, but it is how you walk through the month that determines what finds its way to you.
A Quick Reference ~ First-of-the-Month Checklist
For those who want a simple list to return to each month:
Morning: Speak your intention before your phone. Place three coins at the threshold. Open a window.
Clearing: Salt and lemon wipe-down of the front door. Sound clearing through the home.
Altar: Refresh or build your abundance altar. Light a green candle with your specific intention.
Money: Do the wallet ritual. Write your financial intention for the month in your journal.
First words: Say rabbit, rabbit before anything else (if you can remember – and soon you will).
Giving: Offer something to someone or something outside yourself.
Evening: Note three things that came in today. Close with gratitude.
—