Have you ever started something new that you really wanted to stay committed to?
Diets, budgets, exercise, prayer, earlier bedtime, more time with spouse/children.
We start off so great. We can't be stopped. In the gym by 5AM. No chocolate for a month. Asleep at 10PM. Prayed every day for a week.
THEN life happens. Our favorite show is on with a one-hour special. The ice cream truck came by. The snooze button was found. We get busy, life happens, and we fall off of the wagon.
I regularly counsel folks who have fallen off of the wagon with their finances. They are so crestfallen. So sorrowful. So frustrated. Maybe even depressed.
"What should we do?" they ask.
Get back on the wagon!
Put together a new spending plan. Recalculate the debt freedom date. Figure out what caused you to fall off of the wagon in the first place and seek ways to prevent it from happening again.
I know that YOU CAN DO THIS! I was able to do it. You can too! Anyone who has read I Was Broke. Now I'm Not. knows that I include a line at the end of each chapter that says "I believe in you!" You CAN do this.
Here are some common reasons for wagon bruises (develop when one falls off of the wagon).
- No emergency fund. This is the number one cause of wagon bruises. If there is no protection from "life happens" events, one will be highly susceptible to wagon bruising.
- Not saving for KNOWN, upcoming expenses. We know that Christmas is coming. That property taxes will come due. We know that the car WILL break down and that the tires will need replaced. Whether one saves for these expenses or not, the KNOWN, upcoming expense will still occur.
- Spouses not on the same page. If both spouses are not on the same page financially, it can really lead to some severe wagon bruising.
- Bad case of "I-Want-This-Now-Itis". If one can not say "NO!" when tempted to blow the spending plan, it will cause a financial mess.
- Lack of accountability. This really affects single folks a lot. There is no one to say, "Maybe you should reconsider that decision." It is really easy to overspend when there is no accountability.
Have you ever fell off of the wagon? Share how bad the wagon bruises were and what you did to get back on the wagon.
“Bad case of “I-Want-This-Now-Itis”. If one can not say “NO!” when tempted to blow the spending plan, it will cause a financial mess.”
One way that my wife and I have tried to overcome this is that anything that requires a major purchase decision (a purchase of $1000 or more), we have a self-imposed 24-hr waiting period. This came after a bad experience in the purchase of a new car. We allowed the salesman to get the best of us and shortly thereafter regretted the purchase. Now with the 24-hr waiting period, this gives us the ability to allow logic to override emotion when making such a purchase.
Just like Ben Willis, I too have learned to wait. I would love to have a much lower interest rate on my car note. We had to make a purchase rather quickly, but we didn’t shop around. Instead we bought what the salesman told us we needed. While we love the car, we have now outgrown it and cannot buy a new one until we have paid on the loan long enough to make a decent trade-in. Now we’re divorced and I make the car payment by myself using the entire child support check to do it.
I am a single parent now. So yes, not having an accountability partner makes things tougher, but it’s worth it when I apply self-discipline and it works! When it comes to making purchases of any kind, I now wait for a while. I ask myself how much do I actually need this, is there another one similar that I can get cheaper or that gives me more? How long will it last before I have to replace it and how much will the replacement cost? How much will it cost to maintain it? Etc.
We focus so much on the wagon & the load that we forget that it has wheels & we don’t need to try & re-invent the wheels. Use the wheels that are that.