After each mowing of my lawn, I trim around the house and the objects in the yard. This includes around a landscaping circle in the middle of my backyard that used to be the resting place of one of those large trampolines. We had put the landscaping circle there, complete with wood chips, because we knew the trampoline would kill the grass anyway. The trampoline and wood chips have been gone for years, so the circle is mostly filled in with ugly weeds. Whenever I trim, I go around the circle, as well as trim the weeds inside the circle all the way down to the ground. Then I mutter some words under my breath about how I should just remove the circle and plant grass.
It would take me an hour or two at the most to remove the landscape edging, loosen the dirt, and plant grass. Once the grass has come in, I wouldn’t have to use my trimmer at all on that area. I’d just mow over it just like I do today (before I trim it completely to the ground). For just a little effort to change things, I would make my life easier. But I never do it. I just continue to waste 15 minutes a week on maintenance for this unneeded circle.
Change is hard, even if that change would make our lives easier, more productive, and more enjoyable.
I once had the exact same situation with my finances. I used to spend an enormous amount of time just managing my debt. All my time and energy was spent trying to piece together a financial plan to meet all my financial commitments for the month, and find enough funds to live the kind of life I wanted to live. The goal was to do this for each pay period, and just get to the next paycheck. It was the definition of living paycheck to paycheck.
Just like the circle in my backyard, exerting a little upfront effort would eventually lead to a simplification of my life. I decided to downsize every aspect of my life for a period of time in order to get my debt, and my spending under control. Once I removed large monthly debt payments from my permanent budget I had enough funds left over such that I didn’t have to spend so much time and energy trying to just get to the next payday. My life has become much simpler, and more enjoyable.
You can do the same thing to your life, all it takes is a little effort. The folks here at CleverDude want to help you make the changes needed to improve the quality of your life, such as:
- Create a budget to manage your money
- Provide motivation to pay off your debt
- Find ways to increase your income
- Help you get started with investing for the future
Change is hard, but change is necessary to build a better future for yourself and for your family!
How about you, Clever friends, could your life be improved if you just took the time to make some simple changes to your finances?
Brought to you courtesy of Brock
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You’re absolutely correct on this one. When I was around 30 I thought I was going to be bringing in nice money forever and didn’t mind putting pretty much everything on my credit cards, knowing I could pay the minimum easily and a little more when I was in the mood. Then my loss of job with a horrible economy hit at the same time and… well, it was pretty scary.
I learned from that and, though I still have a credit card, it’s an American Express. Everything else comes from my debit card, which stands in as a credit card when needed but requires me to have money in the account to cover my purchases. That took training, but I’m much better for it.
I have to say that is one of the best titles for a post ever. It should be obvious but a lot of times we (ok, I 😗) like to complain or just think about how our life could be better but we keep right on doing the same things, over and over.
And it doesn’t just apply to finances it applies to everything. We are pretty much on track financially but I am now concentrating on the health and wellness part of my life.