Thursday, August 25, 2011

How to Spend Extravagantly on the Things You Love

Money is a pretty revealing thing. When you sit down and take a look at the comings and goings of the funds in your checking account you can learn quite a bit about what you value.

Your spending habits don’t lie. When you look at where you spend your resources, the truth is, that you chose to spend there over somewhere else. It’s not good or bad; it just is what it is. It might be subliminal, but I suspect that we often think we were forced to spend money on things. But in fact, it is a conscious choice every time we pull the debit card out. The strange thing this is that even though we each have a choice, when we preform a self audit on our checking account, what the numbers say we value may not be in fact what we want to value.

So how can I make my bank statement reflect what I value?

Guys, I don’t know about you but I love to be in control of my finances. I feel empowered when I have the ability to make my money work for me instead of me for my money. The honest truth is that sometimes that’s not the case. Sometimes when I look at my bank statement I spent money on things that I honestly do not care about… but you couldn’t tell by just looking at the numbers. 

I have had to change the way I think about taking control. Obviously I have to spend on the essentials. I have to keep a roof over my head, I have to eat, I need transportation to get to work, etc. But after those basics, I have some choices and I want those choices to reflect what I value. Some people might value gym memberships, others might value fine dining, it really could be anything. The point is that everyone has different loves and most people don’t love everything. So spend lavishly on the things you care about and then cut out the things you don’t care about with intensity.

Make your bank statement a reflection of what you love to do. Take control of your finances and make your money work for you.

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