Personal Financial Planning: start with what you do best.
For most people, personal financial planning - budgeting, investments, insurance, tax planning, estate planning - are complex or (worse) boring. It's not the sort of stuff you want to spend a lot of time on.
On the other hand, people sometimes obsess over things like their investments. Some will try anything to get rich, even spend inordinate amounts of time "imagining" being rich, or "thinking" rich, or some such nonsense. (And you really should know that the imagining yourself to be right, talking to yourself in the mirror, attending "feel good" seminars to get "psyched up" about getting rich is just that - a lot of nonsense.)
So what about really managing your finances efficiently? It's not fun, or exciting, or even, at times, obviously rewarding. Being in the midst of a financial crisis doesn't make things any easier. For a lot of us, it just adds a whole new layer of fear and anxiety. People don't even open their investment statements. And when it comes time to make a decision, many are paralyzed. So nothing ever gets done.
It dawned on me that a lot of this has to do with people maybe trying to do too much. Why not just think about what you do best? So now let's think about that. What you do best? Start with that.
Here's an extreme example: you like spending your money. That's what you do best. Use it to manage your finances effectively. But isn't spending a problem? Not necessarily.
Spending is simply part of life. Spending more than you take in (income) is the problem. If what you do best is spend, then learn to spend wisely. You can still enjoy spending when you're prudent.
Make it an adventure. Start with learning about yourself: why do you spend more than you take in? Is it because you're "compulsive"? Are you spending simply because you do things impulsively rather than with intention? When you act with intention, you think about why you're doing something. You "intend" to do it. You don't just do something because at that moment you decided to just do something.
So you can start your adventure by learning to plan your spending. Spend with intention rather than impulse. Now you're building character.
If you have kids, you can share your adventure in controlling your impulses and doing things prudently, with intention. Imagine the lessons they'll learn. And you'll help to build their characters as well.
Am I getting carried away here? I don't think so. So many people have been spending beyond their means, we've got a big old recession and financial crisis on our hands. Too much debt, too many people, even companies, surviving on credit lines. Heck, when it comes to spending more than you've got, the federal government's the biggest spender of all. Well, maybe we don't want to go their now!
In any case, any time you spend understanding yourself better will always pay off.
On the other hand, people sometimes obsess over things like their investments. Some will try anything to get rich, even spend inordinate amounts of time "imagining" being rich, or "thinking" rich, or some such nonsense. (And you really should know that the imagining yourself to be right, talking to yourself in the mirror, attending "feel good" seminars to get "psyched up" about getting rich is just that - a lot of nonsense.)
So what about really managing your finances efficiently? It's not fun, or exciting, or even, at times, obviously rewarding. Being in the midst of a financial crisis doesn't make things any easier. For a lot of us, it just adds a whole new layer of fear and anxiety. People don't even open their investment statements. And when it comes time to make a decision, many are paralyzed. So nothing ever gets done.
It dawned on me that a lot of this has to do with people maybe trying to do too much. Why not just think about what you do best? So now let's think about that. What you do best? Start with that.
Here's an extreme example: you like spending your money. That's what you do best. Use it to manage your finances effectively. But isn't spending a problem? Not necessarily.
Spending is simply part of life. Spending more than you take in (income) is the problem. If what you do best is spend, then learn to spend wisely. You can still enjoy spending when you're prudent.
Make it an adventure. Start with learning about yourself: why do you spend more than you take in? Is it because you're "compulsive"? Are you spending simply because you do things impulsively rather than with intention? When you act with intention, you think about why you're doing something. You "intend" to do it. You don't just do something because at that moment you decided to just do something.
So you can start your adventure by learning to plan your spending. Spend with intention rather than impulse. Now you're building character.
If you have kids, you can share your adventure in controlling your impulses and doing things prudently, with intention. Imagine the lessons they'll learn. And you'll help to build their characters as well.
Am I getting carried away here? I don't think so. So many people have been spending beyond their means, we've got a big old recession and financial crisis on our hands. Too much debt, too many people, even companies, surviving on credit lines. Heck, when it comes to spending more than you've got, the federal government's the biggest spender of all. Well, maybe we don't want to go their now!
In any case, any time you spend understanding yourself better will always pay off.
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