The emotion of money.

As my friends and family know, I’m a bit of a serial dieter.  My weight has been an issue ever since I hit my late teens.  It tends to fluctuate up and down.

The only positive that can be gained from that is that I have learnt a lot about different diets and nutrition.

But what does this have to do with finances?

Well, most diets will teach that you have to remove the emotional element from eating. Eating is not there to support any kind of emotional need.  It is purely fuel and therefore, once that is ingrained in your thinking, dieting (allegedly!) becomes easier.

Money is exactly the same. Lots of people have an emotional attachment to money, viewing it as either positive or negative.

Ultimately money is simply an object that you need to choose how to use. It is neither good nor evil.  Many people get too hung up on the emotions associated with spending or saving money, which ultimately leads to failed budgets, overspending or miserly, tight-fisted behaviour.

It is important to get over this attachment and the simplest way to do this is to budget and learn to rely on your own forward planning and control rather than on the emotions that come from your personal attachment to money.

If you own my book, The 21 Day Debt Revolution, I describe the simplest system of budgeting in Day 20. If you would like to change your financial position, I would recommend that you complete the budget on day 5 and then have a quick read of Day 20 and use the Envelope system from the get go.

This will make you think about your spending much more.

Just remember, it’s you who controls your money not the other way around.

J A Scott

A quick money saving tip.

If you are like me and love reading and discovering new books, then today’s blog may well be of great interest to you!

Before I go on, I am making two assumptions:

1.  You buy ebooks in some format.

2.  You have budgeted for these purchases.

If you don’t do either of these things, then this post may well be irrelevant to you.

The last thing I want you to do is spend money on something you won’t use, or worse, spend money you don’t have!

So, here’s my tip for the day:

Sign up for Buck Books.  Buck books is an independent start-up that was set up to promote quality books that cost less than $1.

Signing up means that you get a daily recommendation of both non-fiction and fiction books.  All for less than $1.

This means that you’ll never have to spend more than $1 on a book if you don’t want to.

Ideal for those long train commutes, or this bus journeys you take to work everyday!

So, take a moment to sign up and discover a world of quality books for less than $1!

J.A.Scott

Coffee.

So I had a coffee with my mum today.

I don’t go out for coffee that often, but I was dropping her at the train station to travel home and as we were early we decided to go for coffee and a toasted sandwich in one of the ubiquitous coffee shop chains…

I had a coffee.  She had a hot chocolate.

We both had a sandwich.

£12.10.

Yep. £12.10.

On this occasion she was paying, so no problem on my behalf, but she paid it without really thinking about it at all.  And this got me thinking.

Why are we willing to pay £3 ($5) for a coffee, without even thinking about it, but unwilling to pay even half that amount on an electronic download such as an ebook?

One provides us with about 20 minutes of taste sensation and gets us fired up for the day, whilst the other could provide us with several hours of entertainment, or knowledge that will stay with us for a lifetime.

And my point is not that we should be buying ebooks instead of coffee.

My point is that we should think more about what we buy.

This is why one of the strategies in my book is to write down everything that you buy.  Dieters who keep a food diary lose more weight than those who don’t.

It’s about becoming more aware of what you are buying and making good choices with your money.

If you were to buy a coffee every day of the week, five times a week, at about £3 a go, over the year you would end up paying £780 ($1,182).  That’s a holiday.

That’s a new Apple computer.

That’s a (cheap) car.

That’s your credit card bill paid.

So, this week, why not take one of these:

Or one of these:

 

And instead of buying a coffee, why not put 3 £1  coins (or a $5 bill) in the cup.

Do this every time you would usually buy a coffee and at the end of the month, use that money to buy something that will last.

Have a great day.

J.A.Scott

PS:  Don’t forget to check out www.jascottpublications.com for information on my latest book and other new releases.  (All for less than the cost of a cup of coffee!)

Meal Planning – With free gift!

Another great way to save money is simply through planning meals.

If you plan every meal and write down a shopping list to accommodate all the ingredients you will need, you will find that you are not buying more than necessary.

Use this as a helpful way to keep to your budget and reduce your weekly costs.

I’ve included a useful meal planner that you can print out and use to cover all your meals and snacks this week.  To access it please follow this link.

As an aside, if you have been thinking about starting a diet, this may be a great time to do it.  As you plan your healthy meals and don’t buy chocolate/crisps this week you will find that you will be able to stick to your diet better without the temptation of snacks lying around.

Now go be awesome!

J.A.Scott

Cutting Costs

The quickest way to cut expenses and save money is to make a “zero-dollar” budget.

A zero-dollar budget is when you spend all your money on paper at the start of the month when your pay comes in so that you know exactly how much you can spend on any item or category of items.

This means that you have total control over your money.

You can tell your money where to go rather than sit there at the end of the month wondering where it went.

I’d like to give you a free gift today; a budgeting template which will allow you to complete a budget relatively quickly every month.

I promise you that If you stick to your spending plan, it will feel like you have had a pay rise!

Please click here, to download your free budget spread sheet.

See you soon,

J.A.Scott

P.S. If you like this blog, please also like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter where we can update you with quick tips, news, free gifts, etc…

 

Cars

Nowadays almost everyone needs a car.

What we don’t need is the newest car, the flashiest car or the most expensive car.

We have invested too much money into paying for more than we need.

We take out loans that take away our expendable income in order to pay for a car that gets us from A to B just as well as a car that costs less than a quarter of the price.

We have fallen for the lie that we will save money on fuel consumption while paying ever increasing interest on loans, leases and hire purchase payments.

Why not do what millionaires do? Save up and buy a car you can afford. Keep saving and within a short time you’ll be able to afford an excellent second hand car without having to pay interest or being in debt to anyone else.

The choices is yours!

Three Principles

I focus on three simple principles for tackling debt and, whilst they are simple, they are not always easy.

They are:

1. Stop the debt.
2. Minimise Expenditure.
3. Maximise Income.

They should be targeted in that order.

As soon as you put a stop to debt growing you have already won part of the battle. You are now no longer sinking and instead are swimming towards the surface, swimming towards victory.

Once you have done this (and this is often the hardest step despite being potentially the quickest to do…) Then you can start focusing on using what you have to start reading into your debt…

That’s when the excitement begins!

JAScott

The Beginning

Every journey begins with a dream.

A desire to reach a destination as yet not seen.

A longing for the unknown to become known.

This is where we should start.

Take a few moments to vividly imagine living debt free.

What would you do with the extra income you would have without the debt repayments?

Where would you live?

How would you feel?

As you imagine these things, let the image play over and over in your mind and allow the dream to feel real.

The more you concentrate on making this dream a reality, the more focused you will be.

More focus means more intentionality and this leads to positive steps towards your ultimate victory.

So write down your dream and read your description every day until it becomes less of a dream and more of a future reality…

J.A.Scott