I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Now that I’ve got my personal finance house “in order”, I really don’t think about money all that much. My finances pretty much take care of themselves, and I only spend a few minutes a week “managing” my money. In fact, I can give you a complete rundown of what it takes to manage my finances. I’ll use February as an example.
January 31st: Deposit Wife’s Paycheck
February 1st: Pay electric, phone, cell phone, satellite, and insurance bills, using online bill pay. File bills.
February 12th: Deposit My Paycheck
February 13th: Pay gymnastics fees (for daughter), pay daycare bill (for son), write tithe check.
February 27th: Transfer any excess money to ING Direct. (Transfer money from ING Direct to ESA for my children.)
February 28th: Deposit My Wife’s Paycheck. (Deposit any ad revenue checks from websites.)
That’s it. That’s all I have to do. Managing my finances (at this point) has become very simple. In fact, I could eliminate several of the above steps, and do everything on the 15th of each month. I used to worry about having enough money at the end of the month, enough money to pay my bills, and enough money to pay my credit card payments. Now, I can relax, pay my bills, and watch my savings grow.
If you’d like a “boring” life like mine, may I suggest the following?
Create a budget.
Get out of debt.
Save up some cash money.
Increase your retirement savings.
Think about college funding.
Take some time to educate yourself about money and investing.
Be good to yourself and the people around you. Life is way to short to spend all of you time thinking about (worrying about) money all of the time.
Stop buying stuff you don’t need.
Get rid of stuff you don’t need.
Listen to the advice of others, but only take the advice that you can fully and completely understand!
Realize that your family and friends are far more valuable than your bank account.
Find someone who is less fortunate than you are and do something nice for them.
Find someone who is much more fortunate than you are and do something nice for them.
Stop eating out so much.
Listen when people are talking to you, especially older people. Not everything that is great happened six minutes ago.
Buy quality.
If you have kids, be kind to them and teach them about money.
Take responsibility for your financial future.
Be patient. Be aggressive. Be wise. Be proud. Be humble.
Stop existing and BE!!!
I probably spend about 2-3 hours a week on my finances. Most of it is spent on either researching potential investments and dealing with property management issues.
I am comfortable with this level of time commitment. I enjoy it and feel that I am rewarded for my efforts – but I am not spending so much time on my finances that I neglect other areas of my life.
I have my paychecks deposited directly. My regular monthy payments are electronically paid. I only write 6 checks a month and transfer some money around. Total amount of time is probably less than 20 minutes. The best part is that I have no worries about stretching my paycheck or having too much month and not enough money. It’s a great feeling!
For the ladies who may read this blog, there is a great, Christian based book that came out called Women, Get Answers About Your Money by Carolyn Castleberry, which is very helpful for all things concerning money. Although addressed to women, it’s a great resource for anyone, whether a woman with a family, a single woman or a woman recently single trying to figure things out.