The Healthiest Habit Finance

Let’s try and get back to a focused topic for this blog. The idea of habits. If you have been following along and working on those habit building muscles. It might be time to discuss financial habits. As I have become quite serious about saving and investing recently, I might share my opinion and discoveries I make along the way. To start, building good financial habits is one of the best things you can do for yourself, period. When one becomes serious about the idea of investing and saving, a multitude of health and life benefits come about in the process. As I steadily funnel more of my income into investment and high interest savings accounts, I find myself being stricter with where my money is spent. Do I really need to buy that glass of wine? What if I stopped drinking entirely? Steadily, I find myself cutting back on expenses. It’s not that I don’t enjoy these things, I am just more mindful of that cup of coffee. Is it that much better to go to the local coffee shop once, twice, or every morning in a week? Sure, it’s only two dollars. But how quickly does that two dollars add up? Say (for easy math) you get coffee five days a week, at two dollars a pop, that’s ten dollars a week. In one month 40 dollars has gone to a cup of coffee. What’s that look like in a year? 480 dollars. If this trend continues in ten years you will have spent 4,800 dollars on a morning cup of coffee. How much of that could you put into savings or investments instead? An easy solution might be to make coffee at home. Which could significantly cut down that coffee expenditure, while still enjoying that morning cup or two.

Being frugal, does not mean never spending money, but it means knowing the value of your money. Knowing what you can do without. Learn to cook a meal or two at home. I know plenty of people who say there is no way they can save any money. This is an excuse, and excuses have no place in building one’s financial wealth. As I strive to increase the amount being put into my accounts, I feel an increased sense of guilt if I do buy some item. Especially, if I know I could have received the same pleasure for less. Did I really just spend fifteen dollars on a delivery pizza? I could have walked to the store and saved myself ten dollars or even more depending on the sales. Or better yet, I could have skipped the desire for unhealthy pizza and purchased frozen vegetables, and other healthy options, cooked it at home for a fraction of the price. Every day, we make decisions on what to do with our money. Just as it takes practice and time to develop good habit-muscles, it also takes time to develop healthy-finance muscles.

I was very much of the opinion that I would never have enough to save. I suggest what has worked for me so far is to start by automatically taking five dollars out of each pay check. The cost of a cup of coffee or a beer out. I think we can all manage with one less of those things. I make the case that starting down the road of financial wealth, leads to better choices in all aspects of your life. A night out every weekend drinking at the bar, or a night home with a cup of tea? A delivery pizza or frozen vegetables and fresh fruit? Everything that we do from the cars we drive to where we live is a choice. These choices lead to financial freedom or imprisonment.

I hope to share this financial journey with anyone who is reading my blog, and anyone who thinks it is impossible to save money. It is possible. You just have to start.