You say you know where your money goes and you don’t need it all written down to keep up with it? Is your fiance' the same way. I tell you if my husband spend some money today and I ask him next week what he spent his money on this week, he will not be able to tell me.
I issue you this challenge. Keep track of every penny you spend for one month and I do mean every penny. Prepare yourself. You will be shocked at what small expenses add up to. Take the total you spent on just one unnecessary item for the month, multiply it by 12 months in a year and multiply the result by 5 to represent 5 years.
That is how much you could have saved AND drawn interest on in just five years. That, my friend, is the very reason all of us need a budget.
If we can get control of the small expenses that really don’t matter to the overall scheme of our lives, we can enjoy financial success. I imagine you will no longer be saying, I can't afford this or I can't afford that. Yes, you can because you eliminated frivolous spending.
The little things really do count. Cutting what you spend on lunch from five dollars a day to three dollars a day on every work day in a five day work week saves $10 a week… $40 a month… $480 a year… $2400 in five years….plus interest.
See what I mean… it really IS the little things and you still eat lunch everyday AND that was only one place to save money in your daily living without doing without one thing you really need. There are a lot of places to cut expenses if you look for them.
Set some specific long term and short term goals. There are no wrong answers here. If it’s important to you, then it’s important period.
If you want to be able to make a down payment on a house, start a college fund for your kids, buy a sports car, take a vacation to Hawaii or even the Poconos… anything… then that is your goal and your reason to get a handle on your financial situation now.
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