Staying on track when attempting financial change
Mark writes in:
I鈥檝e been reading The Simple Dollar for a year or so and I鈥檝e found it really inspirational. My problem is that I can鈥檛 get past the 鈥渋nspirational鈥� part.
Several times, I鈥檝e started to try to implement your tips. I鈥檒l make grocery lists and try out lots of free activities and give up my morning coffee and start watching less television and reading more. What I find, though, after a week or so is that I just get frustrated with all of it and I quit all of it and go back to doing exactly what I was doing before. How do you start changing if you can鈥檛 even tackle a handful of simple changes like this?
In order for change in your personal life to succeed, you need several elements. From what I can tell from your description here, Mark, you鈥檙e missing several of them.
First and foremost, you need a goal. Why are you doing this? Where do you want to be in five years? Will you be out of debt? What will you do with debt freedom? Will you have a family? A home? A better career?
Don鈥檛 spend your time worrying about specific money-saving tactics right now. Spend a week or so really thinking about your future and what you really want from it. Where do you want to be in a year? In five years? In ten years? What do you aspire to?
Flesh these goals out. Add lots of detail to them so that you can really get a sense of what it might take to get there.
Most importantly, write them down. Record these goals somewhere, along with all of the details you come up with.
Think of it this way: if you鈥檙e not working towards something better than where you鈥檙e at right now, why make sacrifices at all?
Once you have that goal in mind, you need a plan. What exactly needs to be done to get to the goal (or goals) that you鈥檝e set for yourself?
One big part of this is often a . A debt repayment plan basically organizes and orders your debts to maximize the effectiveness of your debt payments.
You might also want to come up with an educational plan or an exercise plan or a plan for improving yourself in some other fashion, whatever that might be.
Make the plan realistic. Never forget that . Your plan should be one that鈥檚 easily achievable, even if it means putting off your goal for a little bit longer. It should also allow you to go beyond the plan if you so choose on any given day.
Once you鈥檝e done that, do a lot of 鈥渙ne and done鈥� financial changes. Fill your spare time with these things. Install a programmable thermostat. Air seal your home. Clean out your closets and sell off the stuff that you don鈥檛 use that has value. Trim down your DVD collection.
Spend your spare energy doing these things for a few days. Better yet, as you do them, calculate the results. How much will they reduce your energy bill? When you sell off that stuff and throw the cash straight into your debt repayment plan, how muh is that plan accelerated? Do you pay things off a few months faster now?
This is the first taste of success, and it鈥檚 usually an inspiring one. You鈥檝e got goals and plans for getting there. You鈥檝e done something that directly helps your plan along and it wasn鈥檛 all that hard, either. You鈥檝e reached some success.
Once you鈥檝e done this, now鈥檚 the time to start with the behavior changes. However, I鈥檓 going to suggest that you not just do a bunch at once. Instead, pick out one change and focus on maintaining only that one change for thirty days. If you decide to switch to 鈥渙ffice coffee鈥� instead of stops at the coffee shop, do that, but don鈥檛 force other changes.
Again, figure up how much you鈥檙e saving from that one behavior change and roll that savings into one of your plans for the future. If you鈥檝e simply made a change that saves $10 over the course of a month, that鈥檚 just fine 鈥� add $10 more to your next debt payment or put $10 into a savings account.
Take it slow. Every step you take is a real improvement, and it鈥檚 far better than taking thirty steps at once, stumbling, falling down, and rolling back down the hill.
Good luck.
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