Money Listens

There’s a bumper sticker that says “Born to Shop.” I believe this is true, some people are born to shop. Likewise, some people are natural savers. They’re born frugal. This is a wild guess, but I’d say about 10% of the population are born with the frugal gene. Probably another 10% have the shopping gene. What about the 80% that are somewhere in the middle? Somebody, somewhere, sometime, taught the majority of us how to manage or mismanage our money. Parents, friends, television commercials- take your pick.

If you were lucky, you were taught some good money management skills such as how to budget, how to save, how to plan for your purchases. You learned to say “no,” to prioritize, to choose the most meaningful activities. If you were unlucky, you learned to spend all you made, to shop for fun and recreation, to buy things when you felt “down” and needed a pick-me-up. You learned you “needed” the greatest and best. Whether you could afford something was inconsequential; if your friends had it, you bought it. If you’re in this category, don’t despair. You can teach yourself the habits of good money management and practice them until they become second nature.

How can you teach yourself? There are lots of great books and websites. Taking a class at a community college or Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University are great starts. Books and classes can show you how to budget and plan. But you still have to practice what you learn until you develop good money habits. What would happen if instead of just reading about this stuff you actually did this stuff? What if you actually spent less than you earned, lived on a budget, saved and planned for your future? It would be hard work and probably take months if not years to change old habits. But you could do it. You would have no debt, a nice nest egg for retirement, and be in control of your finances.

And everybody would think you were just “Born Frugal.”

This entry (Permalink) was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 10:45 pm and is filed under A to Z. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.