How much money should you spend this month?

A) More than you earn.

B) As much as you earn.

C) Less than you earn.

Why?

Learn from History

“The problem with the next generation is they haven’t read the minutes of the last meeting.” – Richard Weaver

We are all breaking new ground – especially in this time of rapid change.  But some things, important things, we don’t have to learn the hard way ourselves.  Look at others who have come before us and learn; whether they were a few months ahead of us going through the same class, or 500 years or more ahead of us. 

No sense having to learn it all the hard way; we just don’t have enough time for that.

People like authentic people

Learn from others.  Have role models. But stay true to you.

“I always sound best when I sing in the key of me”.

How to be average

Do what everyone else is doing.

On managing your money…

I read a quote from Bill Baldwin from Forbes that I just love –

“Four words summarize my view of personal finance – most wounds are self-inflicted“.

How about you?

Links in the chain of our life

Everything you do, each decision you make, and each interaction with others you have is another link in the chain of your life.  

Create a clear vision for yourself, break it down to a plan, and start putting the links together to go in the right direction.

Do you have a vision for who/what you want to be?  Do you have a plan to get there?  What do you have to do today and how do you have to do it?

A future you look forward to

Many people look to the future with uncertainty and trepidation and even fear.  The reason is because they don’t have it well designed for themselves.

Don’t be a passenger and drift around waiting to see what the world throws at you.  The fact is the world doesn’t have much planned for you at all.  

Create a clear vision of who you want to be, what you will contribute and how you want to live.  Then go out there every day and step by step and piece by piece – make it happen!

Don't pay interest, earn it

I see a lot of people who have 401K savings accounts, and then borrow money against them.  That’s nuts.

When it comes to money, debt, savings, and investment, you don’t want to be paying interest, you want to be earning it.

There’s more to say about this than I can write in one average post, but let’s look at credit card interest.  Let’s say the rate is 18% and you carry a balance each month that grows and grows. 

The Rule of 72 tells us that the amount of time it takes for the money to double is the interest rate divided into 72.  So 72/18 = 4 years.  So if you let that balance ride for 4 years you are paying double.

Let’s say you walk into a store and buy new shoes for $65 and put them on your credit card.  If you let the balance roll over and only pay the minimum, in four years you have paid $65 in interest on those shoes for a total of $130.  If you don’t pay the card off, they keep getting more expensive.

To be even more cruel, the shoes are probably worn out or out of date before you pay them off, and you have to buy another pair – on your credit card.

There’s the cost of the thing, and the cost of borrowing the money to buy the thing.

Financial ignorance is very expensive and keeps people doing dumb things and staying broke.

There is nothing wrong

Did you expect there would be no pain, no failure and no struggle in this life?  

There is nothing wrong.  It’s part of the journey.  Use it and move on with what you now know – stronger and smarter.

You make your own limits

There are limits of course, but they are WAY beyond the ones you have constructed and accepted for yourself.

Stop being your own limitation.  Take your foot off the brake.