Category: Money Mindset

Learn more about how your mindset affects your financial situation

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Frugal or Cheapskate… Am I Just Too Damned Cheap?

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So I’m out having dinner with my daughter and the bill comes to the table. It’s my treat (of course, since she rarely has the money to pick up any tab) and I pull out my rewards card for the loyalty points and of course the coupon: “Save $10.00 off any 2 dinners with the purchase of 2 drinks”. And then it happens.

“Dad, do you always have to use a coupon? It’s so embarrassing, like can’t you just enjoy this without having that? Are you that cheap?”

There's a difference between being frugal and being a cheapskate. It takes some self-reflection to determine which you are, and how you got that way.

It never fails to amaze me when that conversation begins, and it often does. I have tried most of my life to teach both my children about being thrifty, or frugal if you prefer! For some unexplainable reason they just don’t seem to get it. Is it being cheap to want to conserve my money? Is it being cheap to take my daughter out to dinner? A free dinner for her? Exactly what is it that embarrasses her? Continue reading

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If I Had a Million Dollars, I’d Spend It Like This

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How many times have you thought about how you’d spend a million dollars if it were suddenly yours? Like a zillion times? And that was probably just this past week, right? So here’s my problem. I really want a million dollars and I’m tired of just wishing for it.

Have you ever wondered what you'd do with a million dollars? I've given it a thought or two (or more) and here's how I would spend it.

Getting a Million Dollars

Back in the 1990’s, one of the biggest hit songs was The Barenaked Ladies singing “If I Had a Million Dollars”. Imagine, they probably made a million dollars just singing about that. Kind of ironic, isn’t it? So simple and yet why didn’t any of us do it? Continue reading

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Do You Suffer From Fruguility (Frugality Guilt)?

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Being frugal is an ideal that an awful lot of people follow these days and that number seems to be growing all the time. And there’s a good reason for that: things are really expensive. I mean if you’re looking to buy clothes and accessories, housing and furniture, cars and travel, we have to fight our urges to spend too much or else we may end up with guilty feelings.

Frugality is an admirable goal, but if you don't control your spending, you end up feeling guilty. It's important to strike a balance with your money.

Frugality and Its Challenges

Being frugal, that is being economical or thrifty with your money and your purchases, is a very worthy goal. There are so many thing that we actually need in our lives to not only survive, but to have some degree of comfort and satisfaction, that we must trade our money for things. We just can’t help that. Food, a place to live, etc. are requirements. But the vast majority of us go way beyond what is required and find ourselves involved with the attractive “wants” in our lives that are just so damned tempting and expensive. Continue reading

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The Best and the Worst of Being Financially Successful

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Being highly motivated to take control of one’s personal finances is a good thing. I think we can all agree to that. The idea of making a practice of the right choices and decisions to provide well for yourself and your family—of being financially successful—is really an ingrained idea in our minds once we are old enough to understand the concept. Again I say good for those who do just that.

Being financially successful is an admirable goal, but how you achieve it counts for more than the goal itself. Here's the best and worst of it.

 

It isn’t easy to put your nose to the grindstone and work so hard that at times you think that you may have given up too much. It may be at that time that the thought of being financially independent or wildly wealthy gets you through your second thoughts about the sacrifices you might be making to become financially successful. Continue reading

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Money Mindset: Success, Greed, and Your Soul

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For the Love of Money

Over the past few months, I have been thinking an awful lot about the complexities and more “abstract” points about money and its place in my life (and yours too). Our money mindset, if you will. After all it’s really such a huge part of everyone’s life. Let me try my best to explain what it is that’s going through my mind. Perhaps you have thought similarly or maybe not. In any case, think just for a bit about the following and humor me.

When your money mindset becomes an obsession, it isn't healthy. Your peace of mind and success is about more than just money.

I’ve come to the conclusion that money is the most talked about and thought of subject in life, not today specifically, but in summation of all the days of our lives. We talk about earning it, spending it, saving it, giving it away, winning it, losing it, investing it, and wanting it. We think we need more of it, deserve it, and we are usually jealous of those who have lots of it. We dream about it, or perhaps have nightmares about it, we scheme about it and some even steal it. Money it so very important in our lives even though we know that there are many other things that we should devote just as much attention to everyday. Continue reading

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Common Cents: Common Money Issues That Worry Me

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Sometimes when I’m just not centered in the right mindset about my personal finance, I start to wander off on tangents about money issues I am facing and how to handle them. I know that I worry about them even though I now have a solid base in my financial plans. I am always completely honest in my approach to what has to be done and when to do it. And then it hits me. I am not alone in my worries about money nor am I alone in the many ways that are out there to deal with the money issues that I, and in fact all of us, face every day of the year. These are common problems we all have and we need the required common sense and money “cents” to solve them.

Common Cents: Common Money Issues That Worry Me

So let’s break it down.  Here’s a few of the issues that I think we all worry about and what we can do to help us get through them. Continue reading