You Can Laugh At Money Worries If You Follow This Simple Plan

In order to have a much tighter control over our spending habits AND save money, here are the two major changes we made.

1. Created a monthly budget for each of the following – food, pets, home improvement and misc.

2. Put this monthly budget money in separate jars and use that cash for shopping.

We actually got the idea from the show Till Debt Do Us Part. (love that show)

I also just subscribed to the blog of Gail who hosts the show and I’m 100% sure I’ll love it.

It’s odd that we have never fully committed to budgeting money. Now I feel more in control and a huge stress relief.

What can you do today to get your finances under control?

Don’t Wait For Your Life To Change – Change it

Ric Elias: 3 things I learned while my plane crashed

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Why My Brain Loves My Visa Card

As you know I’m making a huge effort to save more money and lose weight. Here is what I’m learning about saving money.

Don’t buy stuff. Don’t even go to stores. Stores are wonderfully set up to affect the emotional part of your mind.

I’ve written a few times about the emotional mind fighting the rational mind. And my solution is to shape the world around you (avoid shopping). That way your emotional mind is completely taken out of the equation.

The problem is that the emotional mind wins more often than it should. Let’s look at how Costco stores are set up. Whenever I walk into a Costco store there are beautiful flat screen televisions when you first walk in.

My first thought is “It would be great to have a second plasma TV in the bedroom. And it would only be a small one, so only $899!”

As I round the second corner there is always a display case of beautiful watches and jewellery.  I love to look at the luxury watches at great prices. Good thing I’ve learnt not to buy watches.

But the flat screen TV thought I have, comes up every time I step into a Costco.

If I bought the TV It would be a purely emotional purchase.  My rational mind (don’t need a second TV and I don’t have the cash) would severely lose out.

The good thing is that I don’t make these Costco purchases. But…

But I did buy a beautiful Hugo Boss lamb skin jacket the other month. It was marked down from $1500 to $1000 to $262. Did I need this jacket? Noooo. Was it purely an emotional purchase? Of course it was. My prefrontal cortex lost all rational reasoning. AND I used my Visa card. AND I bought a couple of lovely polo shirts. Total bill for one jacket and two polo shirts was around $400.

Whenever we consider buying anything (even cereal) it is a tug of war in between the emotional and rational sides.  That cereal is very expensive but I love it AND it’s healthy.

So the lesson here is to be very aware of what triggers you to purchase something. And be especially conscious of your financial situation. And also be aware that using a Visa card is much, much less painful than having to go out and withdraw $400 cash AND hand it over for a jacket and two summer tops.

Using a Visa card is much more abstract to the brain then using cash.

This is how my brain works. I much more aware now.   What do I do with my Visa card?

They Laughed At Me When I Promised To Reduce Debt And Weight

Yea. I’ve lost 2 pounds magically. Go Me! Down to 208

Ok, let’s get serious.

As you know I’m on a journey to lose 20 pounds and reduce a few nagging debts. I’ll give you all my secrets in the next post.

Last night I was looking into buying gold bullion! So how will this reduce my debt? It won’t! But it sure was incredibly fun to think about owning little gold 1 ounce bricks and lovingly placing them in my very own safety deposit box.  Every time I would feel a little depressed I’d scamper over to the bank and pet my gold.

That would be awesome!

So where was I? Oh yes ..reduce debt.  The point of this post was to show you how easy it was to get derailed from my goal of reducing my debt. Buying gold will not reduce it.

Focus!

How are you doing on your life changes?  Making any?  Hmmmmm??

Advise To People That Don’t Lose Weight Or Never Get Wealthy

Aright! In my last post I wrote I about losing weight and get rid of some small debts.

I would love for you to follow me on this journey. I promise to inspire and motivate you.

I now weigh 210 pounds (mind you I carry this weight really well) and would like to go down to 190.

I have about 4600 dollars in silly debt which I will eliminate ASAP, but I will also create an emergency fund AND I would like to buy a second house in Florida. Woot!

Not too difficult right?

As someone who writes regularly about making life changes should be a piece of cake.   Right?

Let’ see how it goes.

I’ll give you a glimpse of what’s working and what isn’t.

So come along for the ride. I’ll be using the tracker and all the My Life Changes tools available to help me.

And if all else fails it will be time to make THE PLEDGE!!

THE PLEDGE is all tested and ready to go.

DO you need a pledge? Think about it.

Admit it ….you do.

What Really Matters To You?

Welcome to all of you that have joined My Life Changes! I’ve taken a break from writing but am back in the saddle again and am going to chronicle my own life changing journey to inspire and motivate you.

After reading the book “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” ,  I’ve decided to focus on two key goals in my own life. Goals that really matter! Weight loss and debt reduction. The book taught me to focus and commit to improving what is truly most important to me.  Usually it’s best to focus on one at a time, but I think I can manage two.   I’ve been spinning my wheels in these two areas and it’s time to take a breath, plan and hit the gas pedal.

I would love to lose 20 pounds and get rid of two small nagging debts by Dec 1 2011.  I also look forward to setting up a savings account for emergencies

I’ve written extensively about weight lose and debt, now it’s time to conquer these two key goals before even THINKING about another one. Come along on the trip with me! Yes I’ll motivate and inspire you in other ways, but I’ll always let you know how I’m doing in these two areas.

Sounds easy right?  Uh huh. Making life changes and creating a new lifestyle is never easy. It takes commitment and constant follow up until the new goal becomes a habit.

What really matters to you? Pick an area in YOUR life that matters and come along for the ride with me.

Read Big Fat Books To Change Your Life

Your health is incredibly important to you. Right? You feed your body good stuff to stay healthy.  What are you feeding your mind? Doesn’t your mind deserve to be fed the best stuff that you can find? Are you feeding it television show, advertisements and soon to be forgotten magazine articles?

Start changing your life by reading books. Feed your mind the best books that you can find. When you read the book highlight the best parts. Highlight the parts that inspire you.  Highlight the parts that motivate you. Create a habit of reading at least one great book a month.

Feed your mind the best stuff you can find.

Feed it a book.

Before Life Gets In The Way Start Living

I’m starting up another business aimed at helping companies improve their key business processes. It will have a simple and efficient project tracking tool. It will have a 5 step process to process improvement accompanied by short and effective videos. I will market this Internet business to the world. It WILL be an extraordinary success.

People ask me all the time how I started this website.   People tell me they have self doubts about their ability to write. They tell me that they wouldn’t have anything to say, that hasn’t been written before.

This is all complete bullshit. Take your self doubts and trash them.  You are unique. There is nobody on this planet quite like you.

And seriously. Don’t give a fuck what other people think.

We all want to hear what you have to say. We all want to see what you have to offer.

Be bold. Be courage in action.

It’s now or never.

You aren’t going to live forever.

Never back down.

Who is telling you how to live your life?

Change Your Life For 5 Dollars A Month

The deluxe version of My Life Changes is a cheap 5 dollars a month. It’s really, really cheap compared to the cost of developing it.

For 5 dollars a month you get E-mail reminders, Private journal, Archiving, a motivating timeline and no Advertisements!!

We spend 5 dollars on a coffee at Starbucks or a Happy meal. Why not consider 5 dollars a month on My Life Changes?

It would really help me add more tools to this website and give you all these great options!

I’ll even give you this cool link to a hilarious comic about where not to spend your hard earned money.

This is how I feel about buying apps

Thanks!

Terry

Owner My Life Changes

Quite Simply, The 5 Most Important Money Rules

1. Have you ever tracked your spending habits? Are you terrified to find out what you REALLY spend your money on?  I once tracked my money habits down to the last penny for two years. I found out I was spending most of my money on miscellaneous items. Itunes, Amazon books, nice clothes, car repairs, dinners out…etc.   It’s incredibly easy to spend money on fun or emergency items. Until you actually see the facts, you have no fucking clue! Facts will help you! Stop being scared and face reality. Track your spending.

2. Hide your money and hide it well. I have repeated this a million times. Out of sight out of mind. Have part of your pay check deposited into a 401k. Make it as difficult as possible for you to extract money from your bank account. Whenever I see my bank accounts with a little extra I say, “Hey, I deserve to spend that little extra”. Justifying spending that little extra is way too easy! You will never build up a nest egg thinking this way. Hide it!

3. Live within your means. The number one rule in money is to STOP spending more than you earn. Stop using easy credit. Stop buying houses you can’t afford. Stop keeping up with your friends, family or neighbours toys.  Your ego is your biggest enemy. Live simple, live free, and live happy!

4. Find out what money means to you. Is it just there to pay your bills every pay check? Is it a way to impress your friends? Or is it a convenient way to pay for items? Are you buying stuff or are you buying experiences. Experiences can last a lifetime while stuff never does. Find out what money means to you. Control it before it controls you!

5. Hang out with your friends and appreciate nature. Turn off the TV.  Avoid advertising. Money is only paper to pay for items in your life. Life is about living each and every day with joy, meaning and happiness. You don’t need money for this. Surprised? Don’t be. Go out and meet your friends and have a great time. Did that cost a lot? No. It’s a fact that your connection with your friends brings you the most happiness in life. Paper money doesn’t even come close. Love nature and love your friends.  They will love you back. Money doesn’t.

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