Weekend ToDo List With Staying Power

Whether you see it as the end of summer or the start of school, the Labor Day weekend rivals New Years as a point for reflection and resolutions. Our routine and our focus tends to change. It’s back to the real world.

Harness that sense of entering a new season with some new approaches to money. Doesn’t have to be big; doesn’t have to totally reorient your relationship with your checkbook. Just take a couple of little steps, doable and worth doing, toward making your money work for you.

Pick a couple of ideas, and try them this weekend:

• Open an IRA
• If you have an IRA, write a $25 check toward your retirement
• Make a bill paying calendar so you are always on time, regardless of the size of your payment
• Pick a highly processed snack food to eliminate from your shopping list
• Buy a tire pressure gauge and use it to keep tires inflated and gas efficiency high
• Downsize your cable bill or your wireless plan, or consolidate the two for savings
• Plan five meatless meals for the next month
• Examine your insurance coverage:  can you raise your deductible or eliminate some coverage to reduce the monthly cost?
• Check your utility’s website for ways to cut your monthly power bill

Getting in command of your finances doesn’t take one big effort;  it takes a bunch of small steps. It takes focus.  But a little success is rewarding, and begets another step and another success.  And assuredly, it won’t happen unless you apply yourself.

I see a  Cargo Cult mentality in lots of my bankruptcy clients, trudging along the same financial path waiting for the solution to their debt problems to drop from the sky or wash up on the shore, despite the math that says the same-old, same-old won’t change a thing for the better.

Make a little financial change with the change of the season.

photo credit: helga tawil sour

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