Have you ever been a part of a heated argument? The word “you” gets thrown around a lot and it is not to tell the person that you love them. I would say it is typically in this context, “YOU spent all the money,” or “YOU just don’t understand,” how about “YOU only ever think of yourself.” It’s easier to point the finger in arguments because we live in this dream world where we think that we are always correct and for anyone else to make a good point is absurd. In other words, it is easier to place the blame on someone else for our shortcomings than to face the music and realize that we should take ownership of our actions.
Our personal finance lives are much the same way, we tend to think that “we don’t make enough money and that’s why we are in debt or are living paycheck to paycheck.” What about this one, “Taxes are too high so I have not had the chance to save.” That argument makes sense, so you are telling me that since the government takes your money the way to get back at them is to blow all your money and be broke…seems logical. Too many people are not willing to realize that they put themselves in their current financial situations. When I started working after college I was much the same way, I would blame my entry level salary on not being able to build wealth while not realizing I was spending money on going out to eat and buying things that add up and deteriorate any savings momentum that I would generate. I was enabling myself to spend money without placing any emphasis on my financial life, which disabled my ability/awareness to build wealth. If you have never tried to save or are new to it, it’s a battle, you will have to deliberately attempt to save or it will never happen. There will be times when you don’t save as much as you want and you get discouraged, or you lose sight of the future and blow some of your money on a present want. That’s OK; you can bounce back and make it happen.
In order to take control of our financial future, we need to let the skeletons out of the closet. It’s time to realize the reason we are in our current financial situation, whether good or bad, is because we put ourselves here. No one is going to take the blame or credit for our financial situation, it’s time to stop being enablers of our spending and start being advocates of our wealth building! Ok, now that we realize we are in control of our financial destiny what’s next? It’s time to sit down and consider wants from needs and take a balanced approach to living today while building wealth for tomorrow. Until I get a page of budgets up, you can find a sample budget on the post labeled “This Balance Beam Looks More like a Sidewalk.”
* I use the word “save” a lot, for some reason it has a bad reputation and makes people cringe. If for some reason you hate the word save, please insert the term “build wealth” anytime you see save and it will surely change the way you think about saving
Happy Wealth Building,
Stevn