Tue 30 Jul 2013
No more greasy burgers for you. No more frothy Frappucinos, hold the whip. No more fresh new duds just because you deserve it. All great decisions, but you must also ask yourself, “how much am I really saving?”
Are you saving enough to pay off all your bills? Are you significantly reducing the strain on your wallet?
Probably not. Saving $10-15 a week will never make you rich. It will help to ease your burden a bit, but little else.
Frugality gets billed as a well built road that will move you from rags to riches when traveled, but if you look deeper into the stories behind the people who pulled off amazing feats of frugality that left them swimming in riches, you’ll find far more than squeezing extra life from a few hundred pennies.
Read
Sure, these people scrimped and saved, but they did a whole lot more. Whether their secret was having their own business, or investing in someone else’s, they were smart enough to invest in a better tomorrow.
And more often than not, their investment was nothing more complicated then the intelligent use of their time. They took the time to grow themselves, then continued to work hard while they waited for their investment to pay off.
We’ve Been Duped
Many smart consumers have fallen for the thin strategies of our latest recession. Save this. Save that. Dig your family from their massive hole by _______________. (Fill in the blank with the latest scheme you read on Facebook.)
But desperation isn’t unwarranted. Because we want so badly to provide a life of comfort for our family, or to know we’ll have enough saved to take care of ourselves even if our country’s entitlement programs run dry after retirement, we reach even the thinnest straws of broken hope.
Unfortunately, all that grasping isn’t helping us a bit. False starts and empty hopes encourage the decay of precious time and energy we should be using to invest in ourselves and move our lives forward.
Wake Up
You must wake up. The solution is already inside you, as it has been since always. And the solution isn’t in what you eliminate.
Yes, keeping the ban on the coffees and the extra spending helps.
But you want, and deserve, more.
You want piece of mind for your family and your well-being. You want to rest at night knowing you did everything possible to build the strongest foundation of support.
Investing in yourself enables you to build that support.
How much of your time do you invest in making your finances grow the way you should? How much time do you invest in learning and growing yourself so that you can take your business further?
If you don’t have your own business, what part of you can you focus on and improve on to move ahead in your job? We all have some skill that makes us unique. Honing your skills to improve what you already have pays off.
Move Ahead
Taking courses, getting coaching, learning new tricks of your trade will all get you noticed by bosses and clients alike. Fresh knowledge will opens closed doors of opportunity, which can lead to more dollars.
When you prove your worth to those in power, make yourself irreplaceable. This means the most lucrative positions will become available to you, offering higher salaries, additional benefits, or both.
A higher salary, along with a continued Frappuccino restriction, is what will make the biggest difference to your bank account.
What You Can Do Today
Look at your business’ strengths and weaknesses. Decide on what you need to improve to make it the best in its market. Improve it by taking what you know and putting it to better use.
If you don’t have a side business, look at yourself and what you have to offer others (particularly bosses and superiors). Focus on ways to make yourself stronger in your field.
Perhaps you need marketing training. Maybe you need to learn to better people skills, or leadership training. Listen to what is being said around you, keeping your ears perked for new opportunities.
Do your best to improve your position through continuous learning and constant growth. Take what you learn and move forward by creating earning opportunities for yourself.
Add that to what you’ve subtracted through being intelligently frugal, and watch your savings grow.
