Changing your Thinking

I heard someone say once that you won't change the way you act until you change the way you think. This is absolutely true. For example, if you want to lose weight, but you see doing so as depriving yourself of the foods you love, you just can't act in a manner that will help you lose weight. You are THINKING about it the wrong way.

The same can be said for money matters. If the idea of a "budget" equates with thoughts of deprivation, loss of fun money, clipping coupons, and so on...you will never want to sit down and write out a budget. BUT, if you start to think about your money as YOUR money that YOU CONTROL, and you want to see where it's going and make careful decisions about WHO you give your money to (i.e. Starbucks, Sonic, Department Stores, etc.), it puts you in control. It's not deprivation. It's mindful spending.

I think the ONLY way to begin to change your thinking, and therefore change the way you act (aka spend) is to READ books on money!!! How can you change your thinking if you don't know what other thoughts are out there?

I would recommend the following (I have read all of these and taken pieces of each to formulate a new way of thinking about my family's money):

The Total Money Makeover
The Automatic Millionaire
The Millionaire Next Door
America's Cheapest Family
The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom
The Budget Kit


Think you don't have time to read these books? Just take 30 minutes a day (that's ONE television show) and chip away at it. What you DON'T really have time for is to continue spending mindlessly.

:-)