I can guarantee that most people on this planet want nothing more than financial freedom.
They want the ability to walk into a shop and just buy whatever they fancy. The good news is, this is
100% possible but to live this lifestyle, you need to carefully plan your finances years in advance.
Unfortunately, financial literacy is not a common topic of discussion in schools;
this is one of the reasons why so many people end up broke.
There are many habits you should adopt if you want to live a financially abundant lifestyle.
This ranges from budgeting all the way to your mental diet.
The earlier you adopt these following practices, the quicker your bank balance will grow.
1. Eating out As social beings, food is a big part of our life.
Think about it: how many of your outings with friends and family are centred around food?
Now, there’s nothing wrong with a ‘food date’ a couple of times a month
but when it’s an everyday thing, you need to start evaluating how it’s
negatively impacting not only your waistline, but your finances too.
A 2015 study revealed that Americans, on a whole, spent more money at bars and restaurants
than they did on groceries. This number has kept rising since. Add to this that restaurant food
and online food delivery services are much more expensive than a week’s worth of fresh groceries.
While decreasing your bank balance, take-out food is also known to increase your waistline
because of the high sugar and oil content. Restaurant portion sizes
can be two to three times larger than the recommended U.S dietary guidelines.
Having food like these every day for almost each meal leads to health concerns.
So, the next time you decide to eat out or grab something to go, remember that you’re
wasting at least three times the money over a single meal. With the promise of a bigger bank
balance and a healthier body, cooking from scratch should be everybody’s top priority.
2. Impulse buying An impulse buy refers to any time you purchase
something you weren’t planning to. If you didn’t plan for it in your budget, that’s definitely an
impulse buy. Easy access to payment methods have made it easy for those who like shopping online to
make impulse purchases which they eventually realise never needed in the first place.
This is one of those habits that slowly depletes your bank account.
You have to refrain from those and uninstall all those shopping apps and spend more time
doing something else probably one that won’t mess with your finances.
Impulse buying is mostly emotional, and usually results from one form of emotional distress
or the other. You might decide to buy a new television because it might look cool on your wall
and although it might indeed look great on your wall it won’t look so great on your bank account.
Before making a purchase connect with your body and notice how that item makes you feel.
If your gut tells you probably shouldn’t buy something, listen to it. Breaking this habit
is all about understanding your financial goals and deciding to stop making the wrong financial
decisions and be intentional. Spending money can be supper fun but that excitement never lasts.
3. Smoking
Smoking is bad for your health; this is common knowledge. Smoking is also bad
for your bank balance. Whatever you smoke (or chew), it is an expensive addiction to have.
Here’s a rough estimate of how much you could end up wasting: let’s say a pack of cigarettes is $7
and you go through two packs a day. That takes you to $14 a day and this averages out to about $5000
a year. Along with this, smokers are usually charged higher rates for health and life
insurance policies because they are considered high-risk candidates for insurance companies.
You could, instead, get a round-trip plane ticket to your dream destination with all that money.
4. Not planning your grocery shopping
According to the USDA, an estimated 30-40% of food produced in the USA gets thrown out.
One easy way to reduce this number is by planning your meals and only buying
groceries you know your need. Along with saving the environment, you’ll also be saving your money.
Plan out your meal for the entire week. Check your freezer, cupboards and pantry for extra food
you can add to your meals. This will increase how much money you have in your bank balance.
Top tip: buy ingredients you can stretch across multiple meals and
cook meals you can eat multiple times a week so you can save extra bucks.
5. Gambling Financial issues are often the
first sign of a gambling problem. When gambling becomes uncontrollable, the gambler spends more
money trying and usually failing to win back what they’ve lost only to drown in more debt.
Gambling debt is any debt that stems from gambling activity. It’s the money owed to
a party you have gambled with, be it a casino, a bookmaker, or any other group or individual.
What can make gambling debt so detrimental to the financial and mental health of the debtor
is when it interacts with other forms of debt. This could be credit cards,
personal loans, and overdrafts to finance gambling or by missing mortgage,
loan credit card and bill payments after diverting funds towards betting.
Recovering from gambling debt may require a combination of changes to your spending habits
and consolidating your debt portfolio. There are some simple initial steps you can take
to gain a better understanding of what needs to be done. Once you have an overview of your
gambling debts, you’ll be in a much better position to assess what approach to take.
Depending on the size of the debt, you may be able
to arrange a manageable repayment plan with the gambling provider in question.
You may also want to consider handling control of your finances over to someone you trust
as an intermediary step towards tackling your gambling debts.
It may all sound overwhelming, so ensure are surrounded by a strong support system that
can keep you be accountable all the while helping you come out stronger.
6. Trying to keep up appearances Heard of the phrase ‘Keeping up with the
Joneses’? The sad reality is that so many people go bankrupt trying to follow this ‘philosophy’.
If you find yourself buying things you can’t afford just to impress people,
you need to realise this is useless. Not only will it break your bank balance, the very people
you are doing this to impress, really don’t care. This being said, it’s quite difficult to get out
of this mindset because peer pressure is so strong in this society. Social media doesn’t help either.
There is nothing wrong with spending your hard-earned money,
but you need to ensure it’s what YOU want to purchase. Live within your means, better yet
below your means. This links in with budgeting. If you know beforehand what you wish to purchase
and you have a set budget for it, you won’t waste your money on purchases you don’t actually want.
7. Credit Card Debt In order to meet some financial needs,
it sometimes makes sense to take a loan to buy something especially if that thing is
very important and you have no cash to get it. Borrowing money for a house, your education,
or perhaps a vehicle can be beneficial. But there are purchases you should never borrow
money to purchase. Despite the apparent urgency that surrounds them, learning to wait or lowering
your expectations will undoubtedly save you money and a lot of stress in the long run.
You spend money you don’t have by using credit cards and taking out loans,
cash advances and overdrawing your account.
When you use these methods to pay bills and make purchases, you’re creating debt. If you
don’t fully repay them each month it only continues to grow. This can be prevented
by reducing your expenses and relying only on your income to pay for your wants and needs.
Debt isn’t something that happens accidentally as you go about your day-to-day life.
There are certain spending habits that lead to it. Recognising these habits could save you a lot of
money and stress later. Dipping into savings, borrowing from others and using credit, are
ways you can spend more money than you bring in. Sooner or later, this habit catches up with you.
You soon deplete your savings, max your credit cards and run out of places to borrow money.
In short, what I’m trying to say is, it’s quite easy to fall into credit card debt when you are
not aware of it. A lot of people forget that they don’t actually have the money they are spending.
It’s vital to remember you have to pay the money after the fact.
You end up with debt when you spend more than you can pay off;
if you don’t fully repay your bills every month, it will just add on.
Many people ignore the debt and just continue spending further increasing the bill every month.
You have to be aware of your financial spending habits and catch yourself before you rack up debt.
8. Having negative opinions about money This is an interesting one that many aren’t
aware of. The way you think about money matters more than anything.
You can save up all you want but if you go around thinking ‘I am always broke’ or ‘I do not have
enough to buy XYZ’, you will never have enough money to save, invest and ultimately, enjoy.
Your mind set is the secret piece of the puzzle. It’s easy to let the negativity creep into your
mind and ruin the way you view money. Don’t let it. Use positive affirmations centred around
finances so you can rise above your limiting beliefs and grow your bank account tenfold.
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Until next time, take care!