Smart Savings: What's my Motivation?

     A lot of people look at me and say “Heath, you talk about saving money for emergencies, purchases, wealth, and overall good financial health, but how exactly do you do that?”  Okay, so I’ve never actually been asked that exact question, but I should be sometime.  More realistically I get this one:  “It’s impossible for me to save money.”  Or “How can you guys afford to save so much cash?”  Or “You don’t understand how hard my life is.”  Or even worse: “My wife/husband spends all my money every month so I have nothing to save.”

     Let me be serious for a moment:  Okay, done.  Now let me be myself for a moment:  You can always come up with a thousand different reasons NOT to save money, but let me tell you I came up with nearly 10,000 reasons to save money.  Her name is Maggie Hudnall, my adorable and very expensive little girl.  You see, when my wife got pregnant a couple years ago we barely had any money saved up. 

     We also didn’t have the best health insurance at the time.  It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great either.  It had a $4500 maximum out of pocket per year, which isn’t horrible.  However, when you have a negative net worth, a car payment, a computer payment, and no discipline with your money, that’s a HUGE amount.  Now look at that number and DOUBLE IT.  You see, our daughter was conceived in one year and born in the next, so our max out of pocket had to be paid TWICE.  Couple that with the other expenses incurred and you wind up with a whopping $10 grand for a baby.  This was what I refer to as a WAKE UP CALL.

     My wife and I knew something had to change.  There was no way in the world we were going to be able to afford this baby and our other expenses without some kind of plan.  We knew that, and the money was disappearing fast.  We had to take action.  After a little research and some FANTASTIC timing on God’s part, we went to Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University class.  It was offered at our church, and we jumped on it and took advantage of it.

     That class showed us the potential power of savings.  We saw that paying yourself first was one of the most important things you can ever do.  And we tried it.  And it worked.  We got on a budget, first, and then we realized that we could intentionally decide to put away money every month for the purpose of paying for the baby and anything else that came along.  And we did.  We started piling away the money.  I started working overtime left and right to earn some extra cash.  We lived incredibly frugal, I’m talking no eating out, no movies, no new video games, and several months of no blow money.  At one point we were chucking over $1000 per month at our savings and baby bills.  We went crazy.

     And you know what?  It paid off.  No, literally, we paid off the baby bills in cash.  You want to know what feels amazing?  Not having hospital bills following us for months.  Because we paid them off.  You see, bills are afraid of money; the more money you have the faster the bills leave.  If you have enough money, the bills turn right around and leave the second they hit your door.  That’s the best feeling ever.  So we stayed in crazy mode a little longer.

     A few months after my daughter was born we went crazy on my wife’s car, paying the $8000 balance in about four months.  All the while we were still steadily throwing money into our emergency fund every month and it slowly began to grow.  We became debt free except for our house, we piled up thousands of dollars in the bank, and we learned to say “no.”  Guess what?  It worked.

     A lot of people tell me “well it must be nice to make that much money.”  Get over yourself.  My wife and I make just above the national average for a two income home.  And I mean just above.  We don’t make a ton of money but we use it wisely.  Ouch, that word, “wisely.”  Like, wisdom.  We intentionally chose to become wiser with our money, and let me tell you it worked.

     It doesn’t matter how much money you make.  I knew a guy who made nearly $100,000 per year (after taxes, mind you) and was having trouble taking care of his family due to his debts and bad spending habits.  I also know a guy who makes $1000 per month, does what he loves for a living, and is completely debt free.  It has nothing to do with how much you make and EVERYTHING to do with how you spend it.

     Listen, if you’ve been reading my stuff and doubting my words, stop it.  I’m living proof that it works and anyone can do it.  Buckle down, put your grown up pants on, and make it happen, otherwise you’ll always come up with some excuse as to why you can’t.  Make it an intentional goal.  Zig Ziglar says if you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every single time.  Aim at a target of your own creation and shoot for it every day.  You’ll see tremendous results and your life will change.

     It’s no accident that God says in Proverbs 21:20 that a wise man has stores of food and oil (wealth in those days) but a fool consumes all he has.  It’s no wonder that in the same book of wisdom we’re told to look at the ants, how they harvest and work and store up for the winter.  That’s why Jesus said you can’t build a tower without first counting the costs, otherwise you’ll look like a fool when push comes to shove.

     Make yourself a plan and beat those excuses out of your mind.  People like to say they can’t afford to save money.  I’ll argue that you can’t afford NOT to.  That might be cliché but it’s still Common Cents.

-Heath

PS:  If you didn't get the memo, we've moved over to commoncentsnn.wordpress.com.  Check it out, it's much prettier than this version.  The move will be final on August 5th so don't miss out!. 

Smart Savings: How Money Saves Sanity

     Recently my wife and I went on vacation.  We had a blast and my year and a half old daughter had a blast too.  It was a great break from work and the “real” world.  But when we got back, we picked up my wife’s car from the airport and suddenly the AC had stopped working.  In the middle of July.

     Now, some of you may think “well just roll the windows down a hyuk hyuk” but you don’t seem to understand.  My wife and I are AC junkies.  We’re addicted to the AC in our cars.  Without the AC in our cars we start to feel the humidity slowly sapping away our sanity and selling it off to the highest bidder.  We feel the heat pierce through our very souls and no one wants a pierced soul.  My wife has associated the heat and humidity of tidewater Virginia with a plague of epic proportions. 

     I don’t know if you live in the tidewater area of Virginia, but humidity is the bane of our existence.  It can be 70 degrees out, which in any other area would be fantastic, but the Virginia humidity makes it feel like 100.  There are times when the humidity is actually visible.  You can actually SEE the water hanging in the air, waiting for you to come out and play.  Then it attacks.  It sticks to your skin and never lets go, making you feel disgusting.  If you wake up in the morning like me, you feel a little bleh and need a shower.  I shower and then walk outside and feel like I just woke up again.  The moisture just clings to you in an awful way that leaves you feeling like you need another shower.

     I say all that so I can say this: My wife and I are heat-and-humidity-aphobics.  So when her AC died, we needed to have it fixed ASAP.  The next day my wife took her car up to the dealer who said “I can fix it, but it’s gonna cost $1200.”  Turns out my wife’s evaporator coil had a hole in it leaking freon.  Yeah, that sucks.  And to get to the evaporator coil (don’t know if you knew this) you have to completely disassemble the car.  It’s one of those weird pieces that is buried so deep in the car that you have to pack a lunch to get there.  Trust me, we searched for alternative ways and methods of fixing the car, but this was the only way we could have a guaranteed service.  And we trust our mechanic, mostly because he knows if he crossed us my father-in-law would go all retired Navy on him.  Which would be awesome.

     We needed it fixed, so we took the money out of our emergency fund and fixed it.  Yeah…that’s the end of the story.  You may have been expecting me to lament in agony over how hard it was to save that money quickly or how we were forced to borrow money of some kind to pay it off.  Even after seeing how much it was and that we used saved up money, you may be expecting me to say “man it’s hard now because that wiped our savings out.”  But I told you that’s the end of the story.  The beginning of the story was over two years ago when we decided that one of the wisest things we could ever possibly do was start saving money for emergencies.  To start paying ourselves first.

     Over a two year period of time, we had built up enough savings in our emergency fund that paying for that AC fix was not only easy, but almost painless.  I don’t need to put the actual amount on here, but after we paid the $1200 fee to fix our car and appease our inner AC dependency, my wife and I still have several thousands of dollars saved up.  This isn’t to brag that somehow we’re better than you or that somehow we make more than you.  My wife and I make just barely above the national average for a two income home.  The kicker is that we intentionally decided to start saving money for emergencies long before an emergency occurred.  Granted, it was much smaller at the start, but we decided to aggressively save for the rainy days of life.

     I’ll go into more detail in later posts, but the point of this whole story was to get you to think.  How many times have you had car trouble that brought money trouble along with it?  How many times did you break your glasses and have to borrow or work your butt off (or both) to replace them?  Cars break.  Glasses get lost.  Trees fall on your porch.  Little Johnny goes to the doctor and needs crazy expensive medicine.  Someone loses a job.  Someone dies.  Life happens.

     Emergencies can pressure you to make poor financial decisions if you aren’t prepared for them.  Emergencies will happen because we’re all human and none of us are impervious to life.  But when you have $10 or $15 or $20 thousand sitting there for the express purpose of taking care of those moments, emergencies become little more than inconveniences.  That’s the power of a plan.  Not rocket science, just Common Cents.

-Heath

PS:  Thanks again to all my readers.  I have a quick announcement, the drawing for Jon Acuff's book Quitter will take place on Aug. 1st.  Thanks to everyone who entered, and there are still a few days left to get in.  Share my blog on facebook or twitter and email me at commoncentsnn@gmail.com to enter.

Also, take note because starting August 5th Common Cents will make the move to Wordpress.  Wordpress has a much easier system to use and has many more customization options, so we're making the move Aug. 5th.  I'll be posting here and there until the move if final, but if you RSS'd my blog, please be sure to follow us on Wordpress.  Thanks!

Smart Savings: Introduction

Before I begin let me make a plug for my wife's blog over at Join Jen's Journey.  Click that link to follow her on her 60 day challenge to be healthier and feel better.  She claims I inspired her but she inspires me every day to be the best husband and father I can be!


Now that my vague form of advertising is over, let me begin.


     Saving money.  It's one of those weird things in life that everyone knows about, and everyone even knows it's a really good thing to do, but just about no one does it.  It's just like exercise, eating right, reading your Bible, prayer, and giving to charity.  They are all fantastic things that everyone knows are great for you and yet...people tend to forget about them.  I'm not going to speak to the other topics there in this post (though I did do a post on giving not long ago) but I am going to talk a little bit about savings.
     I'm going to do a series on savings this next couple weeks and really drive home some points, but not in a "I told you so" kinda way.  I'll be doing this in a way that says "I'm doing this, and this is my result.  If you do this, this will be your result," kinda way.  In short, My wife and I have done the things we're teaching.  And, shockingly, it works and has a tremendous positive effect on our life.  So that's what we're going to continue teaching.
     Overall, saving money (and I mean putting money aside every month for future use) is a great way to better yourself financially and should be on everyone's list of priorities.

Proverbs 21:20
     "There are stores of precious treasures and oils in the house of the wise, but a fool consumes all he has."

     Biblically is it wise to store up things you need for use later on.  Join me over the next couple weeks as we break this down in detail and see what God and some Common Cents have to say about savings money.

Until then,

-Heath

PS:  People are still entering to win Jon Acuff's book Quitter.  Share my blog on facebook or twitter and email me at commoncentsnn@gmail.com to enter!  Drawing will be August 1st.

Accomplishment: The Roller Coaster of Life

     I am not, and never have been, a skinny man.  The following is a list of words that have never been used to describe me:  Fit.  Lanky.  Scrawny.  Bean Pole. Tiny.  Lightweight.  With that being said, I’m also not necessarily a huge man.  I’ve never been considered morbidly obese but I have been considered overweight and very unhealthy.  The highest I ever hit was 240 something.  You see, the digit in the “ones” place in that number could have been 3 or 5 or 2, but it didn’t matter because the proceeding digit was 4.  240 something.  My actual reaction was “what the crap, Heath?”  At the time I was working in a restaurant part time and doing school full time.  And I actually slapped myself.  I had let myself go.

     I dropped some of that weight when school started back up, and I got into running and weight training and actually at one point got down to 200.  I lost 40 some pounds.  It felt great.  And then the “real world” came in an socked it to me again.  I graduated college and no longer had a free gym to go to nor a beautiful campus to run on.

     Over the next few years I found all that weight I lost.  I found it in some really odd places, I mean who would have thought I would have left it at McDonald’s?  I found some at Pizza Hut too, and I even found a good portion of it inside the soda cans I bought from the grocery store.  How did it get there?

     I went through “normal” life routines.  I got married, I got a better job, I became a father, all the while saying “I’m going to lose this weight, I’m going to drop back down, I’m going to be healthier” which was ironically always followed by “after things settle down.”  I got back up to 235.  That was as close to 240 something as I was going to allow myself to go.  That was right around October of last year.

     My wife and I went insane.  We started only eating healthy foods and working out and running and all kinds of crazy stuff.  And it worked.  She dropped weight (and still is) and I dropped back to 205!  Holy wow!  It was awesome, and we did that in just a few months!

     BUT.  That’s one of my least favorite words: but.  It always implies a counter to what someone just said.  Kinda like “you’re a great guy BUT I’m not going to date you.”  Or “you know, you’d probably do really well at this job BUT it’s going to go to this other guy’s son because we’re into nepotism.”  In this case, however, it’s “I’m losing weight and feeling great and doing it like a boss but I really really like cheeseburgers.  And ice cream.  And donuts.  Etc. ad infinitum.”  So over the past two months I packed back on 10 pounds (it really didn’t help that we went on a cruise, which isn’t an excuse it’s a reason) and got back up to where I am now, sitting at 215.

     “Heath, what’s the point of all this?”  The point is that discipline can be an emotional and physical roller coaster.  You go up when you have victory and down when you fail.  And you can go up and down several times very quickly and completely lose sight of your goals and progress.  But you have to remember a very important fact about roller coasters:  you only get hurt if you try to get off before the ride is finished.

     This is the same comment Dave Ramsey used to describe the rise and fall of mutual funds.  You invest long term and they go up and down and up and down but as long as you stay seated eventually the ride comes to a complete stop and you walk away with more money than you started.  The same idea goes for discipline.

     One morning I ran well over a mile, felt great and was incredibly proud.  Later on one morning I ran about half a mile and nearly died.  Is it because I’m failure?  No, it’s because discipline follows the natural ups and downs of life.  But the point isn’t the ups and downs, it’s staying on the ride until it’s done.  Getting off in the bad parts means you’ll never be able to experience the good parts and you’ll never see the end results.

     I’m writing this because I’m learning it myself.  You see, I’ve gone from 240 something down to 200 back to 235 and down to 205 and now back up to 215.  It would be incredibly easy to get discouraged and even depressed because I have failed and gained weight back.  But I have to be honest….215 still feels a heck of a lot better than 240 something.  And overall, the numbers are still going down.  I just need to stay on this ride until it comes to a complete stop on the other side of 200.  Then it won’t matter what the “ones” or the “tens’ digit is, because they’ll both be proceeded by a 1.

-Heath

PS:  Drawing for Jon Acuff's book Quitter is open until August 1st.  Share my blog on facebook or twitter and email me at commoncentsnn@gmail.com to let me know about it and I'll enter you into the drawing!  I'm probably going to start doing this regularly, so stay tuned and keep sharing!  Hint: sharing multiple posts puts your name in the drawing once for each share.

Honing your Hustle

     Before I get started let me make a small announcement.  My readership is picking up a little which is great!  I wanted to thank everyone who is following me on twitter (@commoncentsnn) and facebook (facebook.com/CommonCentsPersonalFinance).  Share my blog with your friends and let me know about it to be entered to win a free copy of Jon Acuff's book Quitter.  The drawing will be on August 1st.

Back to blogging!



Honing your Hustle

     Recently I finished a fantastic book, Quitter by Jon Acuff.  It is a great book that gives some insight into how to get to your dream job.  Through the book, Jon teaches that there is really only one way to move from your day job to your dream job:  Hustle.

     It’s a strange word, hustle.  It is defined as “rapid or energetic work” and “to be aggressive.”  Used negatively, though, it has a completely different meaning, usually conning people out of money and even related to being a “professional.”  I’ll leave that one alone.

     But Jon’s right.  The only way to get from your day job that you may or may not love to the job that you know you will love is to hustle.  It’s to really get down to it and work it out.  It’s honestly the same for any goal.  Goals don’t reach themselves, and a goal you can reach by being lazy is a pretty crappy goal.  Zig Ziglar says if you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.

     Dream jobs are nice, but not everyone has one.  I’m working on mine right now (in fact if you’re reading this you’re supporting my dream, so thanks! Tell your friends!).  But I’m also learning to hustle on it.  In fact, as I’m writing this it is before 6 AM.  That’s when I write.  That’s why you probably see my posts first go up in the early morning and then again in the evenings.  I write in the mornings.  I also run in the mornings.  I’m talking early, like between 4 and 5 AM.

     Let me make something perfectly clear, I am NOT a morning person, and never have been.  I’m actually quite the night owl once you get to know me.  But waking up early has its benefits.  Like Jon Acuff says in his book, when you wake up early you get up before your excuses do.  Steven Covey, the author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, says that the number one quality of effective people is that they are proactive.  They happen to life, not the other way around.

     Every area of your life is the same.  If you make a goal and really hustle on it, you’ll catch your goal by surprise and Mr. Excuse won’t have time to react.  It’s easy to come up with a million excuses as to why you can’t lose weight, why you can't get on a budget, why you can’t write that book, why you can’t get that job, why you can’t save money, why you can’t be successful.  Because it’s so easy, everyone does it.  I constantly hear people making excuses for their lives, but rarely do I see a person making an effort to move forward and really hustle.  That’s hard and takes some real discipline.

     So if you want to accomplish your goals, which hopefully everyone does, here’s what you need to do:  DO IT.  Work on it.  Work harder than the next guy on your goals and you’ll reach them while he sits back and fails.  Really put some hustle behind your work and you’ll start seeing a real difference.  Proverbs 10:4 says that the slack hand makes one poor but the hand of the diligent makes one rich.  While not fully biblical, the phrase “God helps those who help themselves” isn’t entirely untrue.  He gives us the ability to move forward, we have to choose to move in His guidance.  And that normally takes a little hustle to get where you need to be.

     No one accidentally becomes successful.  It takes work and effort.  But man, reaching your goals is one of the best feelings you’ll ever have, I guarantee it.  It’s just Common Cents, after all.

-Heath

PS:  For my Hampton Roads readers, my next classes are scheduled!  They will be in October and January.  If you like what you’re reading stay tuned for more info on my classes and how you can learn some Common Cents the easier way from someone who had to learn a lot of it the hard way.

Biblical Budgeting: Your Harvest

     This year I recently started caring a lot more about my health.  At the beginning of the year my wife and I were very purposeful about what we ate and what kind of activities and exercise we were doing.  The whole thing came as a progressive movement in my family.

     My mother was a heavy smoker.  She would easily put away a pack and then some a day, though she would never admit it.  My dad was a smoker too, but not nearly as bad.  So the irony of the situation was that my dad was the one who was told that smoking was going to kill him.  Since my mother is the most stubborn woman on the planet (and I mean that in a good way, I definitely inherited that from her) she decided that she would quit too.  And she did.  My mother and father both quit smoking after decades of inhaling clouds of death and cancer.  And they quit cold turkey.  How did they do that?  I mean people seem to think that’s impossible, right?

     And it didn’t stop there.  You see, after my mom stopped smoking, she came across a common problem quitters face:  their taste buds go into overdrive.  So, suddenly, food became the most amazing thing ever.  Needless to say, my mom and dad both put on a few pounds rather quickly.  But my mother (again, incredibly stubborn and strong willed) said that wasn’t going to happen any longer.  My mother, my 50+ mother (she’d shoot me if I put her real age) started to exercise and eat right.

     Mom had never really been big, but not exactly healthy.  I’m sure there were several times my mom wanted to quit and go back to her old lifestyle.  But four years later she is still smoke free and just finisher her first half-marathon.  That’s 13.1 miles, people.  My mother is a shining example of discipline.

Hebrews 12:11

     “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  However it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it.”

     The greater context of this scripture is the discipline of God, how God works in our lives to make us stronger and remove sin.  But the truth is wide-spread.  All discipline, whether from God or ourselves, is painful.  That’s the point of discipline.  It is a process of correcting the areas in our lives that need it.  It is knowing where we are lacking and improving it.  But discipline always comes at a cost.

     My mother gave up smoking, started eating right, and started exercising.  It was hard, I heard her say it many times.  It was difficult and took a lot of sacrifice.  She had to give up things she wanted and things she was used to.  It was painful!  But at the end of it, she took in a serious harvest:  good health and a much more physically fit body.

     My sister went through a similar process after her kids were born.  She put on a little baby weight, but wasn’t having any of that.  She worked her butt off, quite literally, and now is incredibly fit.  She actually used her experience to help other people and is now a personal trainer who runs marathons.  So, I guess I said that to make it known that I don’t really have a choice, I have to get in shape too because it’s now a family thing.  And I am.

     I’m just starting my discipline.  I’m running in the mornings, eating healthier, and consciously making healthier choices.  I am in the hard, painful part.  But it certainly helps that I can see the harvest on the other side.  Eventually, I’ll develop my discipline and the pain will go away.  Not only will it become easier, it will actually become pleasant.  That’s the harvest.

     “Heath, what in the heck does this have to do with biblical budgeting?”

     I’m glad you asked, random no-named person.  Budgeting is hard when you first start.  Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.  Like I’ve said before, you are probably going to fail when you first start.  I say that not to discourage you, but to actually encourage you.  When you know that it’s hard and you know that you are likely to fail when you first try, you will fail and say “oh yeah, Heath said I would likely fail the first time.”  That way, you’ll know in your heart that you may not fail the second time, the third time, and so on.  Eventually you develop discipline and over time you stop failing.  Then, not only does it become easy, but it becomes pleasant.  That’s your harvest.

     Zig Ziglar once said that you don’t pay the price of success, you pay the price of failure.  Success pays you.  It’s true for both physical health and financial health.  If you put in the work and develop discipline, success will pay you with a healthy body and a hefty net worth.  However, if you fail, you’ll pay the price of failure.  For your body, that’s medical bills and feeling awful.  For your money, that’s paying more debts and not being able to retire when you want.

     So get out there and start running the race.  You certainly can’t finish it if you don’t start.  That’s Common Cents.

-Heath

Putting the Cat to Bed: How "No" can Change Your Life

     My daughter is incredibly smart.  She’s actually kinda scary smart.  At the ripe age of 17 months, just shy of a year and a half, she already understand 90% of what we tell her.  Just the other day she was walking around our living room chasing the cats with a blanket.  She would go up to them and put a blanket on them, saying “Night night” as she did.  It was so cute I think I actually puked a little bit of rainbow afterwards.

     Blown away by her ability to understand that putting a blanket on a creature that is laying down means “night night,” we told her to put the blanket on specific cats to see if she knew their names yet.  We told her, “Maggie, put the blanket on Finnigan!” and she would walk over to our fat orange tabby and drop the blanket on him.  Amazed, we tried it with the new kitten.  “Maggie, put the blanket on Flora!”  Sure enough, she understood and went over to our new little black kitten Flora and put the blanket on her.  “Night night!”

     At this point we were rolling.  It was funny and cute, and honestly I should have videotaped this experience and put it on YouTube.  It would have gone viral in about six seconds and I would be collecting advertising checks from YouTube currently.  Gotta remember to have that camera ready.  But the best part was yet to come.

     After my daughter put the blanket on Flora, the little kitten wriggled out from under the blanket and moved away.  My daughter, being the offspring of two incredibly stubborn people, grabbed the blanket and threw it on top of the cat again, this time shouting “NO!  Night night!”  At this point we couldn’t stop laughing as she began to chase the cat around the room insisting that it was time for her to take a nap. 

     The obvious cuteness and humor here is still levels beyond most of daytime television.  But the incredibly interesting part is that my daughter had heard us say “no” enough times to not only repeat it but completely understand its meaning and purpose as a word.  “NO” is a wonderful word that we all need to learn again and completely understand its use.  Just like my 17 month old daughter, we need to learn how to say “No.”  Especially when it comes to our money.

     When we are making financial decisions (which by the way has a very broad scope, from buying a new house all the way down to buying a Buck Double from McDonald’s), we need to always consider the consequences.  Here are three reasons we should say “no” to a financial decision.

     1.       It doesn’t line up with your budget

     This is the easiest and the hardest reason to say “no.”  It should, of course, be the easiest because if you and your spouse didn’t agree to spend money on something you don’t spend money on it.  This seems like a simple idea and should be easy to follow.  But why is it also the hardest?  Because we are tempted by our old system of doing things.

     If you’re like me, then before you had a budget you were stupid.  And I don’t mean like slack-jawed, drool coming out and unintelligible speech stupid.  I mean “WOO HOO I’LL SPEND ALL THE MONEY” stupid.  That was me.  I spent and spent, because I had just gotten a job that overnight had doubled my measly retail manager income.  I was making (at least in my mind) BANK.  So I just kept spending and spending, and when my cash on hand ran out, I’d go get some more.

     This was an incredibly hard area in my life to learn “no” in until we made our budget.  You see, when you use a budget, some people think it’s a strait jacket that keeps you from having fun.  Ironically, a strait jacket is probably the best analogy for a budget, because the true purpose of a strait jacket is to keep a crazy person from hurting themselves or other people.  That’s what a budget really does for you.  It becomes a tool that helps you to not hurt yourself or your family by making dumb decisions.  When the money in a certain area runs out, you stop spending.

     But the temptation is there.  You’ll be three days from the end of the month and the eating out money has long dried up but you still really want Chinese.  Or the clothing fund ran out last week but you still “need” a new pair of running shoes.  Or the soda machine at work (that takes plastic) is just calling your name and your brain is screaming “come on!  It’s just a dollar!”  It’s moments like these that you need to learn that ancient and powerful word, “no.”

     Understand what I’m about to tell you, because it will help you tremendously.  If you made a budget with your spouse (or had someone you trust review it if you’re single) then you made what is commonly called a “written agreement.”  You put down limitations on paper and said you would follow them.  If you don’t go by what is written on that paper, it is no longer just a financial problem.  It has now become an integrity issue.  Keep that in mind, and suddenly saying “no” becomes a lot easier.

     2.       It doesn’t line up with your goals

     Maybe you’re doing well on not overspending on your budgeted areas.  That’s great.  I struggled with it a lot for a while but over time I built up my “no” muscles.  So what’s next after not breaching your agreements?  Making sure you have goals.

     Let’s say you and your spouse made a goal of reaching $10,000 in the bank.  A very admirable goal indeed, and honestly not nearly as hard as you think it is.  Let’s fast forward to the end of the year when you’re sitting at $9500.  You’re so close you can smell it.  You come to the end of your month and you have an extra $300 sitting in your hands.  Do you use that money to come closer to your goal?  Or do you use that money to upgrade your PC’s video card?

     This might be a bit of an easy example, because obviously upgrading your PC’s video card could wait because you’re so stinking close to your goal.  But what if instead of being “so close” at $9500 you were still struggling at $2000?  Buying that video card upgrade might not seem like such a crazy idea, especially if everyone involves agrees on it.  Even budgeted items can be detrimental to your goals if not kept in check.  At the beginning of the month you budgeted to have the money for a video card upgrade, but if not buying that card could help you reach your goal a lot faster, then this is a perfect instance where telling yourself “no” is important. 

     You have to understand that there’s nothing wrong with buying a video card upgrade for your computer.  But doing so will delay reaching your goal.  Decide ahead of time what is more important: the security your family will have with a five-digit savings account, or being able to play Skyrim on ultra-high settings.  Remember, after you flush out your savings you can always go back and buy that upgrade later.  GASP!  Delaying pleasure now to fulfill your goals?  Yeah, that’s what adults do.  They say “no.”

     3.       It doesn’t benefit you

     Overall, looking at your budget every month, you should start to see patterns.  You should really start to see what is important to you.  If this is how you want to live your life, you have to be consistent.  But also, look at your budget again.  Is everything on there really good for you?  Are you budgeting $300 for eating out each month and blowing it at fast food that’s bad for you?  Are you budgeting $200 for your shoe-shopping addiction?  Are you budgeting $500 per month for video games? 

     Yes, by budgeting you get your spending in shape and really learn to control your money, but look deeper than that.  Your budget every month reflects your life.  Every item on that list reflects your values, your hopes, your dreams, your vices, and your faults.  Use your budget as a divining rod to show you the areas of your life that need work. 

     Maybe if you dropped that eating out budget from $300 to $100, took a fifty out of that extra $200 and bought a gym membership, you could lose some weight and save $150.  Perhaps if you cut back on your shoe shopping you could afford that vacation this summer.  Perhaps (and this one hits home pretty hard) if you cut back on video games every month you would have more time to spend working on that book you’ve been telling everyone you want to write.  By lowering your video game budget, you lower its value in your life and increase the value of other things.

     This is why budgeting is so important.  It helps you to control you.  Come on, people, it’s time to put the cat to bed even if it doesn’t want to go.  Learn to say “no” and it will open so many other “yes” opportunities in your life.  Not rocket science, just Common Cents.  Night night.

-Heath