My Challenge

I was in the dentist’s office waiting for my boys to get their 6 month exam. In the lobby they had a lot of different magazines to chose from. I had read somewhere else that you should make yourself read other people’s success stories with money, you should subscribe to money magazines or even read the Wall Street Journal every now and then. If you care about your money, you need to invest on learning about money & how to make it grow and last. Instead of picking up People, I picked up a business magazine. I started glancing at the different articles, I flipped to the one that was a little interesting. It was about how you can get a better grasp on how you spend money. Sometimes it’s hard to get a good concept on where all your money goes from paycheck to paycheck. You write a check to Target, to the grocery store. You use your debit card to Starbucks and for lunch. How much money are you really spending daily? We already know that most paycheck cycles, we’re spending our entire paycheck and possibly more with the credit cards. The article suggested using only cash on your purchases for a week. It also suggested only going to the ATM to withdraw cash once a week. When you think about it, who ever pays cash for groceries anymore? You use your debit card and oftentimes get funds back. Later the cash flies out of your hands without a thought on where it all went. $20 doesn’t take us a long way anymore. Paying cash for gas, maybe we’ll think twice about a leisurely drive when we just dropped $80 on gas. Who knows what will happen when we take this challenge?! I think I’ll do it, use cash only for the next week. Hopefully it’ll be a positive experience and I’ll be able to understand where all that money goes from week to week. I’ll let you know what happens.