It seems that everybody has their own attitudes to making money and spending it. I know many people that have learnt the hard way, and it seems that the one real solution to improving your relationship with money isn’t about getting a job that pays more money, but actually about that age-old cliche- living within your means! But it seems that we’ve got so many individual items of debt and credit card companies to pay off, it’s really all about reigning it in.
Reign in your spending habits.
Addressing The Pressing Problems
Feeling in debt isn’t a particularly happy frame of mind to be in, is it? I know so many people that have worried themselves almost to death because of debt, but it seems that the one way to get over this properly isn’t to run away from your problems, but rather, it’s about tackling the beast head on! Learning to negotiate with credit card debt collectors, utility suppliers, and all of those types of creditors is a skill that can take some time to learn. But once we know how to tackle it, it means that we’ve bought ourselves some additional breathing space.
Cutting Back On Your Lifestyle
And while you can buy yourself some breathing space by appealing to the companies you owe money too, this doesn’t solve the problem completely. Our lifestyles are the big issue that we have to address so that we can enjoy life but not feel that we’ve got to completely starve ourselves! Feeling that to save money we have to go without the essentials in life,is a common misconception. We’ve just got to find ways to live within our means.
And when we’ve got people, or in my case, a loving little animal, that we need to care for, we feel that we can’t just give them the bare minimum. This means that we make sacrifices in other ways. Living a healthy lifestyle doesn’t mean that we have to spend through the nose on organic, free-range, gluten-free, vegan products!
Making New Habits
Instead, the act of saving money is all about creating new habits. Do you know how long it takes to form a new habit? On average, it takes 2 months. And when we are trying to get used to a new brand of baked beans, this can feel like the longest 2 months in the world! But, much like any habit, from healthy eating to exercise, saving money and reining in our lifestyle is something that, once we’ve finally hit our stride in, we get used to it. It’s not easy to make sacrifices, especially when money is concerned, but once we make certain concessions, it can be somewhat freeing. Yes, in our 60s, we might feel that we’ve done the hard work, and now it’s time to splurge, but pick and choose your battles! Going without or sacrificing certain parts of your lifestyle so that you can spend more on another part seems like a fair compromise. And if you’re sacrificing your favourite brand of beans so you can enjoy a better glass of Merlot or a takeaway, then it doesn’t feel so bad.
