Healthier economic lifestyle

Failure is the first step to success – we all have already heard / read about it somewhere or the other. We know that each failure to do certain thing can trigger a change in life. We are all humans, no one's perfect. How many of us have a healthier economic lifestyle. Have you ever thought about it? All we might do is just blame the Credit Card Company at the end of the month. It's not the Credit card which is responsible for our sluggish economy. It's us.

Time and again, it's been proven "We are what we repeatedly do, Excellence is therefore not an act but a habit."- as rightly said by Aristotle. Our financial problems may not be because of lack of discipline, less knowledge or even reluctance to do things. This might hail from our habits.

Poor financial habits lead to expected problems which often seems 'un-expected' for us. Like if we aren't saving as much, we might not be left out with as much to save for taxes each financial year. Poor financial practices often lead to profligacy, house full of surplus or not-so-required things. At times this might even lead to unwieldy debts. Less savings or huge Credit Card bills are some of the effects seen because of our poor financial practices.

Fortunately for us, habits can be changed. Not overnight, but surely in a well organized slow and steady way. How do we go about it…

Identify the most affected area of your finances:

Before we go about a change, most important is, we know what actually needs to be changed in order to get you the best results possible. To do this, first identify the 'Account' which is actually is the root cause for this financial mess. Often we find our Credit card account to be listed first. Its because by using a credit card we tend to have possession of items actually by spending Credit Card Company's money; not ours – if you allow me to say so. So we often fall prey to huge Credit Card bills. After all, it's easier to spend other's money to get things first. And when we're asked to repay it back.. that's where the problem actually starts. And we blame the Credit Card company for all the mess.

Once you've identified one account which seems to be causing financial insanity; its time for you to identify the most affected category of over-spending which contributed a bigger pie in this account. Remember, the best way is to identify a category where you have repeatedly spent more money. Here are some of the situations which often tent to affect our finances more than we think they do.

• Impulsive spending
  
• Habit of overspending on Credit Card
  
• No records of what-to-where your money is going.
  
• Buying things until your house is full (then probably search for a new house as the current one might not be sufficient enough to live in and accommodate all the new items purchased every month)
  

You might have different financial lifestyle which is actually causing problems. List all of them.

Track the action which paves the way in your spending:

Identifying the action which precedes this spending. Its simple, just try and capture one action which actually leads you to do the spending. Like, if you have a habit of overspending on your credit card, most likely the action which actually is triggering this is that you might be visiting a bigger Groceries stores which tend to advertise more items than the one's which are used daily. Or maybe you are visiting a Groceries stores quiet often, maybe thrice a week. We do have a action which leads our habits. A simple example is, we all brush our teeth after we wake up in the morning. So waking up is the 'trigger' to brushing the teeth. Similarly having a tea is triggered by completing our meal. On and on.. try to identify the appropriate cause for your un-healthy spending habits. Financial habits differ from person to person, maybe you might do to an online stores and then purchase an unwanted gadget. Write all the possible action which has triggered un-healthy habits.

Get a replacement:

Now its time to find a better habit to replace the existing one. If you do not replace it, your trigger would compel you to go back to the glory days. So try identifying a healthier replacement for your un-healthy financial habit. Some of the better habits which might help you are as below.

• Change your course of action, try reading books.
  
• Writing blogs
  
• Watching a movie
  
• Listening to songs
  
• Purchase only if you have money right now to pay for. DO NOT GO ON CREDIT.
  
• Pay your bills immediately.
  
• Track your spending each day, or on a weekly basis to know where you stand.
  

Once you have identified a replacement to your existing bad financial habit, its time to put things to action.

Get the ball rolling:

Now that you have identified your bad habits, known the actions which tend to trigger these habits and have a couple of new Healthier options available. It's time to put things to action. Each time you know you have a trigger for bad habits, like going to groceries store. Try to get the replaced new habit in place of the old one. May be you have chosen to keep your credit card back home to avoid un-necessary credit purchases. Your well maintained cash on hand would be just enough for you to get your weekly groceries. Now take a week's challenge. Try and avoid your old habits, rather replace them inevitably with the new one's you've chosen. Do it for a week, then try extending it to a month. Here are some of the tips which would make you stick to your new habits.

• Do not allow yourself to get back to the old ones. If you are with friends which have the same old habit which you do, try avoiding them for a while until you are better off.
  
• Make it one at a time. Just because you have identified all the un-healthy habits does not mean you have all of them rolling together. Do it one at a time. Concentrate on what you are doing once you've crossed 30 – 40 days you know where you stand. Then you can try concentrating on a second habit of yours.
  
• Increase gradually. Its not this easy, you might even do hard for a month then return back as you have compelled yourself from staying away from old habits. Do not compel yourself, let it be easy on you so that you won't get bored on it easily.
  
• Publicize what you are doing. Not to everyone, but at least to your family, so that they know what you are working on and hence won't unintentionally drag you away from your goals.
  

Its not easy, but not impossible as well. There is every possibility you can change your spending habits and replace them with new better, healthier financial habits. Try sharing your experiences in the comments so that others can get help from it.