Lack of time is the number one excuse for not managing your money properly. I learned from some of my clients that they don’t budget, learn about money or invest because they simply don’t have the time.
The next excuse for not managing your money might be that money is the root of all evil. That people with money are soulless misers like Ebenezer Scrooge or Gordon Gekko in the movie, Wall Street.
Maybe some past experience or how you were taught about money at an early age has held you back in some way?
What ever the excuse, let’s tackle each one so that you can get passed these excuses and take action in 2021. That’s the goal of Money-Act. LIGHTS-CAMERA-Money-ACTion! Turn on the lights to your financial education and capture wealth by taking action!
Let’s take the first excuse – lack of time:
I often say the number one skill of a movie producer is to find money. If you take the famous phrase, time is money, then finding time is the same practice as finding money. When finding money, a producer will find ways to scale back in one part of their budget to pay for something else more important. Or maybe they use tax incentives to find money. Whatever the approach, the activity is the same. Getting creative to find money… or in this case finding time to manage your money. What activity in your life can you shave time from in order to put more time toward managing your money? I have a free productivity course that is available to you on clearing your email down to zero, and creating a task list to help you get more things done… however, what I’ve learned since my wife had a stroke this last summer has given me even more practical advice in this area. And it’s all about getting creative. For instance, I hired a housekeeper to help keep the house clean once every 2 weeks, but I still have to maintain it. Once a week I get my leaf blower out and blow all the crap the kids have dropped on the floor from food to paper shavings, etc… I blow it all to one corner of the house, crank up the air purifiers and sweep the pile up. Takes a couple minutes rather than 20 minutes of my time. Sounds funny, but it works and frees me up for other things.
Lets now look at the “Money is the Root of All Evil” excuse:
Sorry, but this is a lame excuse. Everyone needs money to get by today. Even Amish people have to sell goods they make to bring in money to pay for supplies they need. Money was created as a more efficient measurement tool than basic bartering. Now instead of having to split up products or services to trade with others… money gives us a measurement device to acquire other things we need or want. You need food to survive, a roof over your head for comfort… and money is a tool with which to provide these things for yourself and your family. And the way to acquire money is to provide a product or service to your fellow man that enriches their lives. So the more we produce or provide as a service to our fellow man, the better off they are and we are. Even down to purchasing rental properties… you take money that you had worked hard for, to put a downpayment on a property in order to make more money. It’s labeled as “evil” these days to be a landlord, but you worked hard to build up that downpayment to help build your wealth. And equally on the other side of that transaction, is someone who needed a roof over their head for any number of reasons. Maybe they moved to this town temporarily, or someone who couldn’t afford a downpayment for a house yet, or any other unlimited amounts of reasons the person needed to rent a home. And you provided that option for them. There are always 2 sides of every transaction which the free market provides equal benefit to the buyer and seller. So money should be thought of as a means to benefit 2 sides of every transaction rather than some evil purpose. In order to make money you need to provide some product or service that benefits someone else.
Maybe your past has damaged you in some way:
Everyone wishes they could jump in a Dolorean and go 88 miles per hour to try and get a do over in some aspect in their life. But the past is the past and the best we can do is learn from the past and become even better. In fact, mistakes are learning tools that we have all used since we were born. We get up and fall several times before we learn to walk. The same can be said for anything in life. The worst thing you can do is nothing because obviously that gets you no where. I’ve missed out on some amazing deals in my life because I played the “what if” game. After the US real estate market crashed and bottomed out, there was a beautiful house for sale around the corner from my parents house… which was just down the street from a private lake. I had just moved to Canada and knew what an amazing deal the home was, but unfortunately I played the what if game. What if the Canadian dollar goes down and I have to pay the mortgage in weaker Canadian dollars? I don’t want to be trapped! Instead I should have thought, how can I get passed these excuses and capture this amazing deal? Maybe I could have explored the option of taking out a loan from a Canadian bank and convert the loan to Canadian dollars? Maybe I could have explored how much I could get for rent on the place where tenants would be paying the mortgage down and paying all of my other costs like property managers, maintenance, taxes, etc. Nope, instead I walked away… and ever since then, that home has over doubled its value and could have easily rented to cover all of those costs and then some! But that was a mistake that I’ve since learned from. Life is full of risks and you have to weigh the level of risk for sure… but if you don’t make movement of any kind, nothing happens.
Whatever excuse you may have had, maybe your New Years resolution this coming year could be to get passed the excuses. Learn about money and how you can use the money you make to work for you instead of working for money and never getting ahead.
Happy Holidays to all of you wherever you are in the world. All the best!
