Money Is Money
Money Is Money
How many of you plan regular dates with your spouse? It’s a great way to stay connected in the midst of our “busyness!” At our house, we actually plan a monthly Money Date. This is a monthly scheduled event. We review major expenditures for the month, as well as where we can or…
I am sure many of you, over the years, have been told “Money is the root of all evil.” That is a paraphrase of the Bible verse “The love of money is the root of all evil.” I Timothy 6:10. Carl Sandburg repeated this phrase, saying “Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root…
Here it is, one month after the holidays and gift-giving. Did anyone receive a gift that they really couldn’t use right now, or that they already had too many of? One example that comes to my mind is kitchen towels. How often do we take a kitchen towel to someone else as a house-warming gift? …
On a recent visit with a relative to his regular cardiologist appointment, I learned some enlightening information from the nurse practitioner. In a discussion focused on cholesterol, she related that the soft plaque that floats around in our arteries is what we need to try to control through diet, exercise, and stress management. …
I’m sure you have read numerous articles about setting goals, especially in the financial part of your life. I have no doubt that you have these objectives in mind as you work through your monthly budget and all the activities that are included in that schedule. However, while our intentions may be good, sometimes it…
Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be completely free of financial worries? Many people do, but many of them also think it is impossible to achieve. It is not! The key to personal financial success is to decide what goal you want to achieve, put some financial numbers on it and…
During a recent business trip to Florida, my wife and I had a very scary experience. On the way to Florida, we stayed in the Nashville, Tennessee area and were on our way out of our hotel one afternoon when we faced a genuine challenge. As we were entering the elevator from our third-floor room,…
You may be thinking that this blog post is about getting the most optimal auto mileage, and, in a sense, it actually is related to that. However, I’m not really talking about getting more miles per gallon, although that would result in an even bigger payback from this concept. About 30 years ago, I was…
As a single person, I thought if my checkbook was close to what the bank statement showed each month, that was “good enough.”
Before buying things because you “deserve” them, try reflecting on two very important questions.
“If you measure something, you can understand it. If you understand it, you can control it, and if you can control it, you can improve it.” The same holds true in your monthly budgeting.
The reality is that it is nearly impossible to complete & follow a monthly budget without improving your overall financial position. There are several reasons for this, so I would challenge you to do this.
First, just developing a budget for yourself will raise your awareness of what you have for revenue or income sources and then also boost your cognizance of how much you are spending each month. Next, you will come to grips with the reality of one of three facts. Either you need to boost your income sources, reduce your outgoing expenditures or, thank goodness, if you have more income than expenses, you can then save some money. Of course, this is fantastic! You just need to determine where you will store or invest those extra funds each month…