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
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