I’m still a work in progress…..

I don’t try to hide the fact that we used to be pretty sucky with our finances.  Although we never let things get too out of hand, I finally accept the fact that we used to waste most of our income.  We bought stuff.  We went on trips.  If we didn’t have the cash, we would finance anything that we desired.  Even furniture.  And vacuums.  I swear.

We also lived without any sort of budget.  Unfortunately, this meant spending without limits until the next payday came along.  Since we have relatively high incomes, it never seemed like much of a problem.  But, we’re not stupid people.  I think we knew deep down that we weren’t reaching our potential.  We had our heads stuck in the sand and were caught in the typical middle class trap of going to work, buying stuff, then working more to buy more stuff.  Luckily, getting pregnant with our second child finally made us snap.  The new responsibility made us realize that our future was being squandered on outrageous grocery spending, credit card debt repayment, and a plethora of unnecessary purchases.  We knew we had to change.

One of the first steps we made toward financial freedom was to create a zero sum budget.  Our new budget was merely the beginning of  a series of positive changes that we made.  In fact, I’ve come to realize that we made a lot of changes within a short time frame.  In addition to drastically cutting our spending, we gradually changed many of our destructive habits as well.  And as we all know, changing old habits can be a long and painful process.  However, I am convinced that the new habits we adopted completely transformed our financial future.  Here are the 5 financial habits that changed our lives: [Read more...]