What’s Gotta Stay

All of us come from different backgrounds and currently live in different states in our lives. This is particularly true when talking about our financial mindsets. Regardless of your current financial position, you should always strive to live within your means.

Credit card debt, and debt in general for that matter is at an all time high. As a society we are consuming more than we can sustain with our incomes, and therefore relying on debt to fund our appetites. Perhaps the government is partially at fault, giving us a perfect example of massive deficit spending, but what we are doing cannot be sustained. Eventually you will reach limits beyond what you can sustain, and you will have to pay up in the end.

No matter whether you make a little or a lot, living within your means and trying to live with a frugal attitude is sage advice. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t live life and indulge periodically, but be sure that your indulgence doesn’t become your regular way of life. It all comes down to finding a good balance in your life, and your attitude towards saving is at the root of it.

When researching this topic, I came across this humorous story on getting rich:

A young man asked an old rich man how he made his money.

The old guy fingered his worsted wool vest and said,

“Well, son, it was 1932. The depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last nickel.

I invested that nickel in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for ten cents.

The next morning, I invested those ten cents in two apples. I spent the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5:00 pm for 20 cents. I continued this system for a month, by the end of which I’d accumulated a fortune of $1.37.

Then my wife’s father died and left us two million dollars.”

Some people happen upon wealth, and others earn it in various ways. For most of us, saving for the future comes in small things we do every day. There are thousands of financial advice sites on the ‘net, but one I read and recommend is Get Rich Slowly where the advice centers on the little things we can do each day to curb our overspending and save for the future. However you do it, shape your attitudes and habits. In the end, good financial habits can relieve mental (and actual) burdens that debt brings along with it, and help plan for a secure future.