Growin' Up Gregory

When it comes to managing money, there are certainly some technical skills and principles that are needed - and I'll continue to share some of those each week. But much of actually managing our money, once we get past learning some of the basics of budgeting, investing, spending, etc., really comes down to attitude and discipline. Our attitude towards money reflects how we view it. Do you save out of fear for not having enough sometime in the future? Or do you spend in search of feeling happy right now? Hopefully, you're somewhere in between and can develop a healthy view of money as a resource, not a goal. Discipline is often the hardest part. Setting up a budget, a savings plan, or a debt payoff plan can be simplified with a little advice from someone in finance or banking. But once you have the budget, can you stick to the plan? Can you forego eating out for lunch that many days? Can you make coffee at home and save that $5? Can you payoff that credit card bill instead of or...

What if it's not about the money? Okay, maybe it is. But so much of how we handle our finances is more about our attitude towards money than the technical aspects of managing it. Does that mean we don't need financial education on topics from investing, credit cards, mortgages, budgets, banking, and the list could go on and on? No, of course we do. But we need to remember that many of us view money from different perspectives, especially when it comes to spouses. It's fitting that coin is two-sided because that's often how we view money - you're either a spender or a saver. But often there's an unseen element to it. Take vacations for example. While my wife wants to go to Disney, Sandals, and who knows where else by now; I tend to view each of these as "That'll be $5,462.89. That one's $3,577.34, etc." But vacations and family time aren't a "net cost" as my tightwad self tends to view them. They're an investment in memories th...