Why you are having money problems
Why are you having money problems? Here are 10 mistakes you might be making with your money and what you can do about it today.
1. You don't have a goal. You need a plan to achieve a goal.
Wanting to "be better with money" is not a goal. It's a wish. Pick a number and a date, then work backward to what you need to do each month to get there.
2. You're not using a zero-based budget. A budget is telling you where your money is to go.
Every dollar gets a job before the month starts. If a dollar has no assignment, it will find its own, and it usually picks something you won't remember buying.
3. You are not using real numbers; you are lying to your budget as you write it down. Let's work with the truth: actual, real numbers. Look 90 days past, then create a 90-day future.
Pull your last three months of statements and add it up honestly. Not what you think you spend, what you actually spend. That's your starting line, and you can't plan a route from a place you're pretending not to be.
4. You're not tracking your expenses daily.
You look at your social daily to see what happened. Do the same thing with your money. It's very easy to reconcile what happened yesterday and very difficult to remember what happened four days ago. Give it two minutes a day. Same phone, same habit, different app. If you can scroll for twenty minutes, you can check what you spent.
5. You are not budgeting for self-care, otherwise known as the fun stuff.
A budget with no fun in it is a diet you'll quit by Friday. Plan for the coffee, the dinner out, the thing that makes you glad to be alive, and give it a number. Spending on purpose feels very different from spending and then feeling guilty.
6. You are not investing in or maintaining your future. Portfolios, home repairs: put money into those things that will return value.
The roof doesn't care that you were busy. Small, regular maintenance is cheaper than a big emergency, and the same goes for your retirement account. Pay the future version of you first.
7. You are not automating your systems.
Automate, automate, automate. Savings, bills, investing, extra debt payments. If it depends on you remembering, it depends on you being in a good mood. Set it up once and let it run.
8. You are not using cash.
Credit is so advertised and marketed so they can market to you more. Ask yourself why credit gets so much attention. It's not a favor. Cash hurts a little when it leaves your hand, and that small sting is information you need. A swipe hides it.
9. You buy on impulse. Cash is great; a locked-down credit card does the same thing. It puts a barrier in your way that you must be deliberate about to avoid or circumvent.
Lock the card in an app, a drawer, or a block of ice if you have to. The point is to add friction, so the purchase has to survive a moment of thinking before it happens. Most impulse buys don't.
10. You aren't being paid what you are worth. Put a monetary value on your time.
Figure out what an hour of your life is worth, and then use it. Is that purchase worth six hours of your work? Is that job paying you fairly for what you bring? Once you put a price on your time, you start spending it, and selling it, differently.
Where to start
You don't need to fix all ten today. Pick one, do it this week, and come back for the next. Most money problems aren't about how much you make. They're about what you haven't decided yet.
