Financial Freedom (simple things)

I know very few ex-smokers who were able to quit cold turkey. They say it takes 2 weeks to form a habit and 2 weeks to break one. I am pretty sure it takes longer to kick a habit the longer you have had it but that is my own belief. I would love to do the whole make you feel good sunshine thing but I like to be realistic. We as humans like our habits and most of the time really don't have a strong desire to change them, but given the right set of motivators we can reluctantly alter ourselves. Let's take me as an example, I am an accountant with all the penny pinching, money hoarding that goes along with it but I was not always so miserly...

I am the son of a doctor, so as embarrassing as it is, I was spoiled. When I got to college my parents continued to give me money through my first year. It was great, the ATM was like a magic money tree, I put in my card and out came money. I did and bought what I wanted so long as it was not excessive (relatively). After the first year I got a job at Jiffy Lube and started to support myself (sort of). I would work full time, go to school and if I ever ran low, money would appear in my magic bank account.

About this time I met my wife and we started dating. She wasn't spoiled like I was. Despite this small difference we got engaged. After a month she started watching my spending. One day we hit the ATM and I pulled out $20 for dinner. When my balance came up 0.00 I didn't even blink an eye. I turned to find her staring at me in disbelief.

"What?" I asked, confused at this look I had never seen before.
"Didn't you get paid just this week?" she inquired.
"Well yea, so what?" I replied stupidly.
"What did you spend all that money on?" she pressed.
I answered as intelligently as before "I dunno."

Needless to say the evening was ruined from here. I couldn't figure out why she was so upset and she couldn't figure out why I was such an idiot.



After dropping her off I decided to figure out where exactly I had spent all that money (mostly so I could show that I spent it on her). I didn't have to pay rent or utilities or anything like that. My tuition was all paid up and books all purchased. So, given that I did not have any big ticket items I had to dig deeper. It took me some time since I kept no records on my spending, but sadly here is basically how it worked out:

Gas 1 week - $20 (it was cheaper back then)
Groceries - $50
Dining out - $130
Snacks - $50

That's it, I spent my entire paycheck eating out. No mortgage, no car payment, no credit card payment, just eating out. I couldn't believe it, I went over it again and again to see where I had missed the huge purchase I had made to account for all that money. There wasn't one, my car and I had managed to eat an entire paycheck in one week. I was so distraught that I immediately went out to Taco Bell, it definitely made me feel better.

At this point I would love to say I changed my ways for good but I was a college student and human all at the same time (see opening statement). Miraculously though my wife still married me and through much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth she corrected my spending habits. However, she was smart enough not to simply cut me off completely because I would have surely fought back a lot harder. She started small, no more Gem doughnuts and chocolate milk between every class, slowly dinners out were eliminated, soon sack lunches were encouraged for work instead of going to McDonald's every day, and so it went on.

The point of this whole story is that I would have been unable to miraculously transform from spoiled money-waster to penny pinching tight-wad in the blink of an eye. Just like anything else, learning to manage money needs to be done in small steps and thought of in small steps. Remember What About Bob with Bill Murray

"Baby steps out the door, baby steps down the hallway..." Baby steps with your finances. It'll take longer but you will be infinitely more successful.



Also, how many times do we need to reiterate that everyone is different before we actually start to believe it. We always pretend to know that everyone is different but when it comes to our quest in life we feel like everyone should be just like us. So, along those lines I am going to admit that yes, we are all different in our spending habits as well. I would wager to say that everyone has some good habits and some bad ones.

Look at your spending, find out what it is on which you waste money (it should be fairly obvious). Mine happened to be food, that doesn't mean yours is food. You are not me, don't copy me I have hated that since I was a kid.

It doesn't have to be something huge, that is the biggest killer of a good financial betterment strategy. Start with something small which doesn't hurt that much. If you are a big movie person, you know, you use them as the thing that keeps your life sane, well that is obviously not the thing to cut out. In fact if you cut something so dear to you right off the start you are an idiot. No, you need to remember start small and easy, nothing you love, just kinda like. After you have successfully cut something out (not just for one day, I mean really cut it out) come back and we will move on.