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.

:-)

America's Cheapest Family

I found this book, America's Cheapest Family, at the library and read it in one day. I HIGHLY recommend it for anyone who thinks there is no way to cut costs and start getting out of debt. I found so much of this book to be helpful in getting my mind set to tackle more cost-cutting efforts. I've already gone through our 2006 spending to see what our pattern has been, and I've made a proposed budget for spending less the rest of this year!

$350 to credit card!!

I put $350 to the credit card, and it felt GREAT!! I start a new tutoring gig in June, and I'm looking forward to adding that amount to the debt snowball.

:-)

Being Honest with Yourself

Are you being honest with yourself about your financial situation? Money matters are like weight issues. We tell ourselves we don't know why we can't lose weight as we take a bite of a BigMac. We say we can't find a way to cut expenses to save money while driving a leased SUV that gets 12 mpg.

We can tell ourselves all the things we want to just to make ourselves feel better right now. But, the true question is this: If your family lost its primary source of income tomorrow, how secure would you be? Could you pay the mortgage? Phone bill? etc. Most of us are only one financial catastrophe away from real trouble. And, the only way to change that is to take control and do something to pay off and OWN our cars, home, etc.

Payment Plans

I was playing around on the internet recently, and I came across some online schools for getting trained in real estate. I'm a curious person, so I requested a free catalog (not that I'm going to dive into real estate school or anything, just curious).

I was contacted by someone who wanted to answer my questions and help me get started. (I figured I'd ask questions). She explained what I wanted to know, and she explained the course "packages" available. When I asked her if I could sign up for one course at a time (thinking I could pay for one course up front, then while working on it, save for the next course and so on) she asked me, "Why would you want to do that?" She explained that they had their own financing department that could allow me to pay around $50 per month until I paid off the debt.

I'm not saying this is a horrible idea, I'm just saying it says something about the status of the world we live in that paying up front for things one at a time would be considered the odd thing to do. We live in a time in which it is ingrained in our minds that we purchase things on a payment plan.

Something to think about.

:-)

$300 to CC

Yes, another $300 payment to the good old credit card!! I am so excited to be whittling away at that debt, then closing that account. I can feel the momentum building as I knock out bills one by one.

BTW, our electric bill went from $450 in March to $150 in April after I started checking the meter each day and determining just how much electricity we NEEDED to consume and what we didn't.

:-)