Have You Had a Conversation With Your Money Lately?

Have you ever gotten to the end of the month and asked yourself, where did all of my money go? More important still, how many of us would be able to answer that question? Do you tell your money where to go, or do you wonder where it went? I hope these questions have you thinking. You need to know these things in order to stay on your path to Financial Freedom.

So we are going to talk about the importance of living on a budget, or spending plan, or cash flow plan, whichever term suits your fancy. Use whatever name you need to in order to make the task more palatable. I will use the term Spending Plan in hopes that the restrictive enigma attached to the word budget will not cloud your view and as a result you will be open to achieve a greater level of freedom through this particular discipline.

A Spending Plan is a plan of how much money you have coming in and where it goes. While I understand that Personal Finance is personal, think for a moment about how a business is run. How successful do you think a business would be if they did not track income and expenses? The same holds true for your Personal Finances. If you were an employee of a company called “You Incorporated” and you ran their finances the way you run your finances now, would you fire you? This is a rhetorical question, but not really. What could you be doing to better manage your finances? It all starts with telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went.

I believe that most people’s apprehension with creating a spending plan is that they will not have money to do any of the fun things that they are accustomed to enjoying. While this may be partially true in that you will need to create boundaries where your spending is concerned, you are the master of your budget. And you can make allowances for fun money, or blow money, as a part of your overall spending plan.

Are you convinced yet of the importance of creating and living on a Spending Plan? OK great! So I would like to give you some homework until we meet again – practice the art of discipline by consistently balancing your checkbook. You may be thinking, this has nothing to do with a budget. But it does. This exercise will help you start the lifetime conversation that you will have with your money. This will give you a look retrospectively of where your money is going.

When we talk again in a couple of weeks, I will walk you through the elements of a Spending Plan and how to create and live by one.

Happy balancing! I’ll be talking to you!

Peace & Blessings
Sharon

I'll be back Monday, June 14th!


Tuesday's Blog: Rise'& her 11 kids.... "The Wampler Zoo"