Lesson 3: Money Troubles: Looking for New Directions

I have never understood those people who seem to get what they want out of life. It has baffled me and I have considered it a miracle of sorts. The people who get the jobs they LOVE. They people who marry their soul mates, the people who seem to always be in the right place at the right time.

I think I am beginning to understand something. These people are not aliens from another planet. They are humans, and they have taught me something.

We can get more from life if we make a decision to run towards what we want rather than floating around in financial indecision and bad financial habits, hoping things will get better. I know from experience. I filed bankruptcy and I expected something miraculous to happen to improve my credit. Maybe I expected a bank of huge angels to go to every credit bureau and erase the bad marks on my credit. I can't truthfully say what I really expected, but I wasn't doing much to get what I wanted out of life.

We have to plan for success. Successful people are doing something to get what they want.

I have had a major battle with this issue. I didn't realize I had to be aggresive in improving my credit and waiting out the 7 years after the bankruptcy just wasn't enough. (It has been 6 years and for the first 3 years, I did nothing to actively improve my credit.) I'll be honest, I went into hiding and paid cash for everything. I never applied for credit, I was terrified that people would judge me.

As a result, I have had to make up for lost time by educating myself on how to improve my credit.

This lesson is less about how to improve your credit rating and more about how to make a decision to plan for success. If you decide to plan for success, improving your credit rating will come naturally.

Change Your Habits

If you survived Lesson 2’s assignment you are now ready to tackle the real problem. Yeah, I am afraid that means you have to deal with yourself, your habits, the way you think, and the things you do. You should also know what kind of Money Drunk you are based on Julia Cameron’s book. If you have at least laughed at me or yourself once then we are making progress.

If you are one inch closer to knowing about the dangers of being in the clouds about your money then you should know with some work and some reality checks, no pun intended, things can get better from here. Lesson 3’s focus is on our habits. I know, boring, right, but absolutely necessary. My habit was one of being passive about my life. I waited for things to scream at me before I dealt with them.

Filing bankruptcy was the ultimate Tarzan yell for my life. I didn’t deal with my bad money habits until my circumstances screamed at me. It was so loud I thought I had to be fitted for a hearing aid.

In the months before I filed bankruptcy, I hoped everything would be just fine. However, I didn’t balance my checkbook or forecast what I would do if I didn’t work for 2 months. I didn’t even have money saved up to live on for 4 weeks. I wasn’t unlike many Americans. According to Paul Lim’s book "Money Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make," “more Americans of modest means think they stand a better chance of accumulating $500,000 by winning the lottery than by patiently and methodically saving small amounts of money each year.”

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in miracles. I believe amazing unexplainable things can happen in our lives. I am usually upbeat about life. But here is the thing. You have to be practical. Yes there may be angels out there ready and willing to guide you to financial success, but you have to be the one who helps them to help you. So if you cringe and cry and watch Friends reruns when it's time to sit down and deal with your bills and balance your checkbook, you need to retrain yourself and develop a new habit.

Yes, we would all like to take a pill and lose a lot of weight, or blink and have all our money troubles moonwalk out of our lives, but life is a journey and quick fixes cost too much and don’t guarantee success. It’s better to gear up and get ready for the long haul. Consider balancing your checkbook every Tuesday before the Friends reruns come on television. Balance your checkbook every Tuesday and then go out and get a latte to celebrate your newfound discipline. Just make sure you’re budgeting for the latte.

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