“It’s Super Fantastic Analogy Fun Time!”

When people see someone losing weight & wearing awesome new clothes the first thing they will ask is, “What are you doing?” The person who has lost the weight usually says, “I stopped eating brownies in my cereal & having a midnight snack of biscuits & gravy.” They will tell you the entire long process that involves changing their eating habits & picking up new ways to exercise.

The bottom line is basically they began to do what works & stopped doing what doesn’t work. No matter how great your cousin Anthony feels after dropping the 100 pounds & no matter how many times he volunteers to work a weight loss plan with you...nothing short of the apocalypse can force you into the gym.

I have seriously found that people view money management the same way as they view dieting. Since I’ve blogged/Tweeted/talked non-stop about getting out of debt I’ve had a lot of people tell me they want to do the same. The strange thing is, once I answer their questions concerning how we are finding success in finances they tend not to bring it up again. There has only been one person who has talked about it more than once. The others bailed.

There are probably several reasons this happens. One reason I figure is just plain old work. It takes work to get your finances under control & there is just no other way to put it. It takes time to review the budget, check the bank account weekly, save receipts, & the likes. It is time consuming, but gosh, that pile of cash at the end of the month is totally worth it. It’s like I’m paid to spend time doing something for myself! I like those apples!

Another reason is mindset. People may not feel confident in working on finances. Don’t worry about the big stuff yet. We’re just talking about writing down a bill or two. I was intimidated when I first started getting serious about finances & becoming debt free. Now, I’ve got two awesome readers to my very own financial guru blog! Okay, that was a wild joke, but still. :) But really, no one wants you to quote Roth IRA stats or annual percentage rates. That stuff comes later. Just get a pen & jot down your budget. No big deal. Painless.

The biggest thing for Jason & I was just getting intense about it. It took some time for me to get there & I messed around with a budget for a few months. Then I got crazy about it. I’m talking crazy like the cat lady who lives down the street. Well, except I don’t smell like I’ve bathed in felines. But you get my idea. Once I threw those numbers together for a couple of months I began to wonder how far we could get if we REALLY tried.

Here’s the short of it: Every day that you don’t plan or work with your finances is another day you can’t obtain your goals. Take baby steps Bob. Print the budget today, fill in some lines tomorrow, gather some receipts the following day, & before you know it you’ve got an entire month mapped out. Once the cash starts piling up, you’ll be chomping at the bits to see it happen again the following month.

Now go get ‘em Tiger! :)

Nevertheless ~