My 3 Biggest Personal Finance Successes
Published October 4th, 2008
A couple of weeks ago, before the big laptop crash, I wrote about my 3 biggest personal finance mistakes. This week, I will proudly focus on my 3 biggest personal finance successes. These triumphs have one thing in common, they are not about the money itself. Are you confused? Let me explain. I believe that there are usually good explanations for why people are financially unhealthy, and unless those underlying reasons (which sometimes have nothing to do with money) are addressed, things don’t often improve. I really believe it doesn’t have to do with the actual dollar value. There will always be people who earn more money than I do who aren’t happy, or able to get it together financially, as there will also be those who earn far less than I do, who not only survive, but thrive on very little. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, it’s not necessarily how much money you earn, but what you do with it that counts.
These are my three biggest successes because they changed my focus, my relationships, and how I live my life and look at money. They have made my marriage stronger, my life happier, and my relationship with money so that I rule it–not the other way around.
1. Teaching my husband about money
At a work seminar recently, I attended a lecture on time management, presented by a former family law mediator. She said the single biggest reason marriages fail is that the couple has two different value systems which never get reconciled, and consequently, when the marriage breaks up, things usually get even uglier. I believe this. My husband and I come from two very different family backgrounds, and learned two opposite ways of handing money. During the several years we dated before marriage, one of us was always in university, and we were partially living off of student loans. While I was always generally frugal and fiscally responsible on my end, I let things slide with my husband, and figured he would get serious about our finances when he finally graduated and had to start paying back the loans. Well, that day came, and surprise, surprise, no financial magic happened.
It took a lot of hard work, but my husband is a good man who wants to learn, and I’m always willing to meet him in the middle. He did want to pay off the investment we made in both of our educations, but didn’t know where to start–so we started from scratch. We signed up for online banking a couple of years ago, and I began by going through every bank account we have, teaching him to follow where the money comes from, when and how it comes in, and ditto for how it comes out. He progressed in his habits and knowledge from there. I won’t lie, it was difficult to get around many of the things he had seen and been trained to do with money from a young age, but we are getting there every day. The key here was trying a few different things, and finding a way of teaching him, and coming up with a system that would work for both of us in the long term. You can read more about this in Get Your Spouse Involved In Personal Finance. The bottom line here is that it wasn’t easy, but it’s worth it in the long run to have both partners in the relationship on the same financial team. Relationships are about teamwork, and finding creative ways to get to common ground, and without that, it’s much, much harder to achieve those financial hopes and dreams we all have for our lives.
2. Starting this website
With no IT or web design/building knowledge whatsoever, just learning everything I needed to get this site running and keep it running was a huge challenge–but I was prepared for it, and I’m immensely proud of myself for leaving my comfort zone to learn something new. The funny thing is, that the biggest success so far with this site has come where I least expected it. I’ve found a community online through the blog carnivals, that is an infinite source of great information, friendship, and support when it comes to personal finance and real people. Much of the information out there in the mass media is just marketing, or given to benefit someone else, but finding a personal finance community online has really helped my motivation to stick with, and constantly find new and creative ways to achieve my goals. This site motivates me do do better for the readers that depend on me, and for myself. I am really looking forward to what the future will bring, and being able to share it with everyone.
3. Not living in the past
Historically, I was always very hard on myself and others close to me when a mistake was made. In many ways, it would stop me from getting back on the horse and trying again. Realizing after something bad or a mistake happens, that I’ve gotten though it and I’m just fine was a very powerful realization on many levels. Accepting that I don’t have to perfect all the time, and that I can’t change what’s happened in the past has literally opened up the door to my future. No longer feel like I have to play catch-up–those feelings used to lead me to feel like I could never win. I now am much more forgiving of myself and others when something does go wrong. When things go South, I truly have learned to deal with it, accept it, and move on with my life looking forward. Money is just money– not emotion, not friendship, and not love. It’s of course very important for us to be able to have money to meet certain needs in our life, but it’s not the single biggest thing that will determine my happiness. I’ve known this on a rational level for very a long time, and said it, but now I truly accept it on an emotional level as well, and it’s made me feel like I’m in control of anything we spend, save, and how we pay off our debts from school. This is a huge change that I hope will serve me well through the rest of my years.
Well, that was a lot of honesty for a Saturday morning! Now it’s your turn. I’d love it if you share your biggest financial sucesses! Feel free to do so via the comment form below, or writing a post on your own blog and linking back.
Barak on October 4, 2008
Teaching the spouse, starting a website and looking to the future. 3 great things…congrats!
My biggest financial successes to date are 1) finding someone to mentor me, 2) paying off all debt and 3) saving to meet future needs.
Blessings,
Barak
David B Katague on October 14, 2008
Excellent post and the honesty of the blog touches me. My 3 greatest financial successes are: retirement, creating also a website as well as start blogging last May and engaged in a small business in the philippines(a beach resort and conference center).
Have a good day!
Maciej Zagozda on November 2, 2008
Another great improvement you can make, and that is very relevant to learning about your personal finances, is to plan your home budget. Recently I’ve found tools like Spending Tracker: http://www.spendingtracker.co.uk very useful and there are probably couple of similar tools available out there.