Are you conscious on how you spend your money? The moment we’ve garnered consciousness in this world, we have been made aware that there are rules to live by. As infants, our parents told us not to put our hands in our mouth, as toddlers, we were often restricted in touching things that we might break and as soon as we started going to school, we were constantly told to be nice and to not fight with the other children in our class. The list goes on even until adulthood. Do’s and don’ts have become a constant in our daily lives. But it seems like the don’ts appear to be more convincing to most people; no wonder most of us are inclined to follow them better.
When it comes to our finances, we may have encountered a lot of lessons and step by step to do’s in order to be successful but since we just ruled out that the don’ts may have a different level of effect on us, let’s see if doing the don’ts can give us a clearer picture of how we can succeed in our finances.
#1 Don’t exceed the ability to pay back within a month.
The ultimate way to be successful in our finances is when we are able to make ourselves debt-free; and the number cause of being in debt is the inability to pay back what needs to be paid. Take for example the cases of credit card holders. A lot of credit card holders consider their credit cards as “extra money” when in reality it really is not. Anything that is something that needs paying back in the future must be treated as something that can be paid back today.
Just because credit cards can come in handy doesn’t mean we can just spend away and consider this money disposable. Credit cards, when not taken care of, can be the supreme reason for debt. Credit cards are not villains in the financial world, it’s when people mismanage them that becomes tricky.
#2 Don’t fall into the lifestyle of the RICH.
This trick begins when people believe they can never slip into a RICH lifestyle, they believe this is something that they are not in danger of slipping into. But reality is, all of us have some elements of RICH thinking somewhere deep inside which cause us to spend money that we really do not want to spend. The RICH lifestyle happens when people treat themselves as if they constantly deserve the things they want. It’s the “I deserve this” kind of mentality. It’s when they choose to reward themselves first for a job well done even when they don’t actually need the “reward”.
It is important to understand that there isn’t really a need to spend as if we deserve what we want simply because we have a disposable income. “Treat yourself” are two very dangerous words that people live by in their financial life and the brain is so powerful that it can trick people to believing that they deserve everything that they want. Let us keep in mind that the true indicator of wealth is the difference between how much we have and how much we actually spend.
#3 Don’t neglect checking your cashflow or budget (at least twice a week).
The easiest way to be bad with money is to simply avoid it. When we become guilty with our purchases or felt like we’ve gone overboard with spending, there is a high probability that we consciously ignore our cashflow or budget, because they remind us of that guilt. While this attitude allows people to avoid the problem (of guilt), continually ignoring account statements can lead to bigger financial problems in the future.
It is vital that we learn to confront the detailed realities of our money life. Making sure that we recognize all the purchases listed in our statements and being hands on with checking our account balance are good ways of becoming successful with our finances.
#4 Don’t expect savings to grow instantly.
The fact is, a lot of people treat savings as a passive idea instead of actually treating is as a verb – the act of setting aside money for future purposes. Savings aren’t achieved overnight, it’s usually an effect of a good practice that is survived day after day. Treat savings as an active category of spending, meaning we need to first learn how to set aside savings money before everything else instead of setting aside money that is left over after living our life.
We can consider saying as an active form of spending; when we save, we buy freedom, flexibility, safety and the future.
THINK. REFLECT. APPLY.
When it comes to your finances, do you have discipline to really take control of your finances? Or it ends up controlling you?
Do you want to know how to develop the right money discipline to control your finances?
Join me at my year starter online course “BAGONG TAON, BAGONG FINANCIAL LIFE.” What will your learn? 12 MONEY LESSONS TO MAKE YOUR WEALTHY AND DEBT-FREE! Jan. 5 Sat 9pm to 12mn via FB LIVE for more info please go to chinkeetan.com/bagongtaon
How do you thrive with rules? Do you often find yourself compliant with the do’s or the don’ts?
When it comes to your finances, which type of rules are you most likely inclined to follow?
List down help rules (do’s or don’ts) and commit to following these rules every day.
“Stay on top of your finances. Don’t leave that up to others.” Leif Garrett
Chinkee Tan’s Wealth of Advice appears Wednesdays on GoodNewsPilipinas.com
(Chinkee Tan is a top Filipino motivational speaker, wealth and life coach whose goal is to inform, educate, motivate, and disturb. His vision is to help people become financially-literate and debt-free.For more info about Chinkee Tan, please visit his fan page at FB, Twitter and Instagram. Also follow VIBER PUBLIC CHAT GROUP search chinkee tan, and VISIONCHINKEE on You Tube for more news and encouragements.)
