Category Archives: Budget

Establish and Maintain a Savings Program

Build up and Increase Your Capital

There are two valuable tools to help you build and increase your capital both are within your grasp and well worth using. One is a successful savings plan, the other an effective investment program.

A Successful Savings Plan Looks to the Future

Whether you’re saving for your child’s education, a new home, a dream vacation or your retirement, saving is the result of planning. No matter what personal goals you’ve set, plans can only be made for the future. They have nothing to do with the past, and affect the present only in your daily choice to stick to your plan. A goal’s nature is firmly planted in the future whether for a day, a month, or a year.

Postponed gratification is the price for a strong financial future. Exercising patience and self-discipline insures your future is filled with less worry and more happiness through financial security. This is exactly opposite of current marketing and the attitude of self-indulgence and instant satisfaction.

Great Power in Focus and Consistency

If you poured a bucket of water over a sandstone boulder several times a day for ten years, the sandstone boulder would probably change very little. But, if you dripped water on the same spot on the stone every second minute by minute, hour by hour for the same ten years it could make a noticeable indentation, maybe even produce a hole all the way through the boulder. Successful Saving is focused and consistent.

Saving is NOT Complicated!

Many people just lack training in self-discipline. You need to practice more self-control and follow your true goals and dreams. In a world of convenience and instant gratification, it’s easy to get used to giving in to what’s fastest or easiest… unfortunately, it often isn’t what’s best for you. Getting tempted down a side road leads away from your goals and dreams, and you’ll end up frustrated and disappointed in yourself and your future.

Your grandparents dreamed of the days when much of the drudgery of earning a living would be replaced by machines and scientific wonders. They dreamed of thirty-hour workweeks, more free time, peace and prosperity. But tomorrow didn’t come as they imagined. Instead, many Americans have become virtual slaves to current wonders and technology and the instant gratification it presents.

Today, the typical family puts in longer workweeks, has less free time, and chases prosperity on a treadmill going nowhere. Families often exercise too little choice or planning in spending their money. They find themselves in financial bondage because they lack the essential skills of self-discipline and planning necessary to face a flood of choices.

Live Happy Do the Right Thing.

The number one reason for not starting a savings program is procrastination. People understand the principal of saving, and they’re aware of the benefits many even have some sort of plan. But they struggle with just getting past standing still. You may either put off starting or make excuses to not follow through. When you’re not true to your sincere desires, you become discouraged and unhappy which often holds you back from your goal.

Time’s Your Asset

The problem’s compounded since procrastination robs you of TIME, which is a critical asset of your successful savings plan. It’s not all your fault, the culture of convenience and instant gratification, says it’s not popular to sacrifice the ‘bling, bling’ of today for financial security tomorrow. And you’ve learned the need to belong is a primary social need. But to live right—you must do right by yourself you must act responsibly.

Tempted by Modern Advertising? 

You’ve already learned how relentlessly marketers work to manipulate you, and your children, toward short-term buying decisions. The multi-billion-dollar advertising industry thrives on glamorizing the “benefits” of instant gratification.

Small thinking…

Today, people seem more interested in things than in principles. The emphasis on the improved value of property instead of the pure value of land is a good example. Today’s landowners control small parcels of property with improvements of maybe a fence or garage. It’s much different than the larger, productive land tracts typical of earlier land ownership. Such fragile improvements show our contemporary interest in things of short duration. There’s nothing wrong with small improvements, but the emphasis is on immediate fulfillment instead of enduring quality.

It’s shortsighted and causes people to devalue the virtues of long-term planning.

The Secret to Saving is Simple.

To become a great saver, simply learn new habits and attitudes towards money and its use. Everything you’ve learned in these Financial Fitness Workbooks will help you achieve this. Your emphasis must be on your long-term goals instead of short-term impulses. Live your financial philosophy and follow your roadmap to a financially healthy future. Don’t be blown off course by the winds of instant gratification. You’re the one who decides who’ll control your financial future… will it be you or your creditors? Now you know the steps you must take if you want to arrive at Financial Freedom, so choose to be the master of your future.

You Can Do This!

There are multiple resources available out there for reference, ideas and support. The important thing to remember is that your financial health isn’t going to change overnight. It is a process that begins with daily financial choices and it builds into years of savings built around a strong financial plan. Remember these three steps:

1. Take Control of Your Finances
2. Improve Your Financial Life
3. Prepare for the Future

It may seem like an old cliche but the real truth is while it won’t be easy in the end it will be worth it!