In The Millionaire Next Door, the author says that people who become wealthy allocate twice the number of hours per week to planning their finances as those who do not become wealthy. The way they allocate their time is consistent with their intentions of enhancing their net worth. If you put adequate time into your finances each week, you will be come more self-reliant!
CHALLENGE: Have a scheduled weekly financial planning meeting.
Have it at the same time each week so that you always remember. Your financial planning meeting should include your spouse (even if you are the family "budgeteer", it's important that your spouse know the plan and how you want to accomplish it. More on marriage and money later).
Things you might include in your meeting:
- What have we spent money on this week? Is it consistent with our budget?
- Have we paid tithing this week? Have we paid ourselves?
- Do we have any outstanding bills that need to be paid?
- Are we working toward paying off debt?
- Are we on track to meet our goals?
- How is our retirement savings going (which you should start in your 20's, by the way!)
- Is our investment framework consistent with our investment goals?
- Are our cash accounts balanced?
- Has anything come up that would require an adjustment to our budget?
