Getting Back on Budgeting Track

Posted on March 12, 2011 7 Comments

When you’re sick, time flies by: a nap turns in to a five-hour sleep session, fatigue can ground you for an entire day, and suddenly you’ve lost an entire week to the flu. Such was the case with me last week – I was achy, feverish, sore, and tired. I missed two days of work, glued myself to my couch, loaded up on Mucinex-D, and napped incessantly. When I managed to get back to work, I was so tired at the end of each day, all I could do was come home and sleep. And finally I feel better.

But something curious happens to the body when you spend that much time on the couch. Now that I’m past the cold, all my healthy instincts are seemingly gone. I crave no vegetables, only chicken soup and bread. It’s mental torture to physically get to the gym (though once I’m there I’m fine to work out). I only want to sit, to eat carbs, and to veg in front of the TV. It’s like the cold took my living healthy mojo. And I’m desperate to get it back (but not enough to, you know, go out for a run…yawn).

I think this happens in the budgeting world, too. If you’ve gone so long being financially unhealthy, just thinking about getting in financial shape can seem overwhelming. The idea of actually creating a budget or tracking your expenses seems so daunting. Not doing anything is much easier psychologically than wrapping your mind around your finances.  Who cares if you’re cutting your finances close every month?

But, as with a healthy lifestyle, once you’ve started budgeting, the process becomes much easier. Once you get over the hump of just doing SOMETHING about your finances, the next seemingly fall into place. Consider Mint.com. Yes, it’s a pain in the bootie to input all your accounts (credit cards, loans,  retirements, savings and checking) because you have to locate passwords and find account account information. But once you do it, your accounts are all in one convenient viewing dashboard. You can log in whenever you want and see where your finances are going. Graphs, charts, comparisons… they’re all there, waiting for you to view. And, once you set up your accounts and track them for a month, you can start to set some goals for yourself. You can build a budget. You can track your progress against your budget. And Mint.com isn’t the only site to do this, it’s just one example (a free one, at that).

A friend recently complained that she isn’t putting anything away for retirement. She read that I was saving 10 percent of my salary for retirement and couldn’t comprehend doing the same. Well, I started by putting in 3 percent. And then I just slowly increased by a percentage point every now and then until I got up to 10.  You can do the same; but getting over the mental hurdle to start putting cash away is the hardest part. Do it once, set it up to happen automatically, and then you’ll never have to think about it again. (Unless you want to.)

So as I fight with myself to set up my indoor bike trainer and just get freaking moving today, I urge you to think about the mental hurdles preventing you from just freaking moving on your budget goals. Are you the only thing stopping yourself from getting in financial shape? If so, what can you do to get over the mental block? Figure it out and do it. Make a small change today. And then watch how easy it becomes.

Category: Life, Money

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