Did you mess up financially this year? Fret not! Your past doesn’t equal your future.
However, in order to change your future, you have to look at your past to see what you did to get you there.
A Time article entitled “5 Toxic Beliefs That Will Basically Ruin Your Life” has tremendous implications for budgeting any time.(1)
Although a lot of people make resolutions (we prefer goal setting) around the new year, the truth is that you can start changing your financial future at any time.
If you’ve had trouble keeping up with your receipts in the past, then do what you need to today.
Do it again tomorrow.
Don’t get bogged down.
Training in Another Area…
Please don’t be offended by this next thought because there’s a lesson from which we can learn.
There’s a training tool for animals called a “clicker” that is used to mark good behavior, the sound of which immediately is followed by a reward.
(For your convenience, we are linking to or listing products on Amazon.com, with which we have an affiliate relationship.)
The premise of using the tool-and-reward combo is:
“Behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated.”
That leads me to ask some questions:
- What behavior in your past do you like or not like?
- If you don’t like a particular behavior, what would get you to change it?
- What would sufficiently reward you for making and keeping the change?
Another Tool
One tool for starting or adjusting a budget is a “Spending Diary” (available through our Free Downloads page).
You can use it to write down
- what you bought,
- when you bought it,
- the cost, and
- what you were feeling when you bought it.
You can take control of your finances.
Remember: Your past doesn’t equal your future.
Note: This article — which was originally written and published on December 17, 2013, by Vicki Simons — was updated slightly in 2018.
Return from Your Past Doesn’t Equal Your Future to our Budgeting page or our Truck Drivers Money Saving Tips home page.
Reference
http://ti.me/1ke0KvE
