There’s a different routine in my house these days. I’m writing this on the first day of school for my younger two boys and over the past few weeks my older two sons have gone to their respective colleges (VCU in Richmond and MassArt in Boston). The lazy days of summer are over and the kids are going to bed early and getting up at the crack of dawn. And with the older boys out of the house, there is no more having to wait up until they’re safely in the driveway after a night out with friends. It’s great!
For many families, the beginning of the school year marks the start of new routines -- packing lunches in the morning, extra-curricular activities in the afternoon and homework at night. At dinner tonight, our family talked about the day’s events and about the changes to our schedules and routines. We spoke about how success in the classroom often starts with having a good attitude toward school. And this got me thinking about personal finance and how simple changes in one’s attitude and routine can often have a profound effect.
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| Eat Your Brocolli |
A lot of people view personal finance as complete drudgery, a task to be avoided in favor of … pretty much anything else in life. For folks who keep that negative attitude, personal finance success will be very difficult. Instead, we should view it as a personal challenge – just like eating our broccoli. Who knows, if you go into it with a positive attitude, maybe you’ll find it isn’t that bad after all. It took me a long time, but I finally realized broccoli doesn't taste so bad; in fact, I think it's delicious.
Perhaps you’ve got the equivalent to cold broccoli sitting on the corner of your empty dinner plate. I can’t begin to tell you how many people I meet who have sizable amounts of money saved up in their old company’s 401k plan, but who never really pay any attention to the portfolio; it just sits there neglected. Simalarly, you'd be surprised at how many times bank CDs get automatically rolled over at ridiculously low interest rates just because individuals don’t take the time to explore their options. If you’re ready to start a new financial routine, you need to start with a checkup.
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| Create Habits to Handle Personal Finance |
The goal, of course, is to create good financial routines which become habits that are burned into your subconscious – things you do because you’ve trained your mind to do them automatically. It is financial routines like this that play a huge role in financial success.
This article was written by Steve Davis and appeared in the column "Talking with Davis about Money Matters" found at http://mansfield-ma.patch.com
