Hope for your financial life and beyond

This Is What Makes Dumping Girlfriends and Credit Cards Hard

January 19, 2015 by 26 Comments

Do you remember your first love? I don’t mean that boy or girl you kissed in kindergarten. I mean that first true love…the person with whom you were destined to spend the rest of your life.

breaking up with credit cardsI do and when I was with her she seemed perfect in every way. A match made in heaven.

However, it didn’t last. We broke up after a few years, the reasons for which won’t be mentioned here.

But then we got back together a few months later and it was just like old times. It was like we hadn’t missed a beat. And this time things would be different. We were committed to make our relationship last.

Except it didn’t. Again we split after less than a year.

But…

…you know what’s coming next.

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Filed Under: Debt, Inspiration, Relationships Tagged With: , ,

My Parents Were Frugal but Sometimes I’m Not

September 29, 2014 by 1 Comment

Today I’m guest posting and commenting at the personal finance site Club Thrifty. Click the link below to find out ways that my spending patterns differ from those of my parents.

thrift store signBy every inch of the definition my parents were thrifty. They shopped for clothes at second hand stores, always bought used cars and could sniff out a sale with the best of them.

They had to be. There wasn’t another option on a social worker’s and private school teacher’s salary. It was live that way so as not to go without…

I’m completely thankful for the example my parents set in regards to the wise use of money. I’ve carried many of those same principles of frugality and budgeting into adulthood, although some like budgeting took me longer to grasp. I haven’t completely followed in their path though and some of the differences sometimes bother me.

Click here to continue reading at Club Thrifty…

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Filed Under: Spending Tagged With: , ,

4 Sneaky Ways to Save More Money and a Giveaway!

September 6, 2014 by 10 Comments

Enjoy this guest post (and giveaway!) by Brent from VOSA. Brent’s a world record holder, inventor, engineer, entrepreneur, world traveler & eternal optimist. You can read more of his writing about personal finance, entrepreneurship and travel at VOSA.com.

shoes and tv

Do your personal finance habits have you lost?

Left sock, right sock. Left shoe, right shoe. Right shoelace, left shoelace.

That’s the routine I’ve followed when putting on my shoes for as long as I can remember.

It’s so engrained into my mental and muscle memory I literally have a hard time doing it any other way even when I try.

Now I’m sure there are some behavioral psychologist reading this saying “claaaasssiiic O.C.D.”.

O.C.D. or not, habits like this rule our lives more than we know it.

Just think about how you put on your shoes, or the first three things you do every morning when you wake up, or how you respond when someone ask you “how are you?”

Chances are, that you too, have some standard routines that you weren’t aware about until just now.

Don’t get me wrong, habits are a great thing. They allow us to save mental capacity for when we have to make bigger and more important decisions than which sock and shoe I should put on first or weather you should brush your teeth before or after your shower in the morning.

Studies have proven that willpower is a finite element that you can exhaust over the course of a day.

This is why you’re more likely to eat that piece of cheesecake at 11 PM after a long and stressful day compared to 9 AM when you’re putting out fires and savings lives at your day job.

How Habits Form

Knowing how habits can govern your actions can help you financially. In this post I’m going to focus on four different sneaky ways to use habits to save more money.

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Filed Under: Budgeting, Saving Tagged With: , , ,

4 Guiding Money Principles that Every Child (and Adult) Must Learn

August 14, 2014 by 18 Comments

Please welcome my good friend and Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) Shannon Ryan from The Heavy Purse as she guest posts today.

word learn engraved in stoneWhen I was 13 years old, my father began giving me “money lessons” while we ate dinner, and I had no idea how these simple lessons would change my life. He didn’t focus on how money worked, but instead he showed me how my emotions affected my spending habits and money beliefs. With his guidance, I changed how I viewed money – from lack and fear – to one of abundance. Most importantly, I learned how to make financially confident decisions that aligned how I used my money with my goals and values. It felt great.

It wasn’t until college that I realized what a special gift my father gave me. Many of my friends and classmates had not been taught how to handle money wisely. Money wasn’t discussed in their homes, so they learned by trial and mostly error. I wanted to help them and became a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®). For the past 22 years, it’s been my honor to help families and individuals reclaim their money happiness.

How Money Habits and Beliefs Are Formed

One trend I noticed repeatedly was that many of our money habits and beliefs formed when we were children, not adults. We observed how our parents handled money and mimicked them, inheriting their money hang-ups along the way. We then grew up to pass these same hang-ups to our children, continuing the vicious cycle.

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Filed Under: Kids and Money, Managing Money Tagged With: , , , ,

Bad Personal Finance Habits Only Change When the Pain Spikes

April 9, 2014 by 23 Comments
frustrated, pain

Are your bad money habits causing pain?

All of us are a mixture of logic and emotion. We think and we feel. The two interact continuously with one another – mind acting upon the emotions and emotions acting upon the mind.

One of the toughest emotions we deal with is pain. We know it’s going to come from various sources and in varying intensities throughout our life. So we prepare for it as best we can, hoping we don’t have to endure great amounts of it along the way.

The personal finance portion of our lives can’t escape the issue of pain. In fact, our habits often facilitate the onset of pain because we make poor decisions with money. We spend too much, fail to pay off debts and don’t plan for what the future holds.

The problem is that we seem to be OK with certain levels of pain. We may get frustrated about it, but most pain is not powerful enough to force us to drastically change our patterns of behavior. Instead, we endure all kinds of abusive relationships, deplorable job situations, poor physical fitness levels and sinful behaviors until the pain engulfs us.

I believe for real change to happen we need to experience pain levels so severe they lead us to scream “I’ve had it!” At that moment, our mind is ready to make changes that will alter behavior and subsequently move us forward.

The “I’ve Had It!” Moment Visualized

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Filed Under: Managing Money, Travel & Health Tagged With: , , ,