7 foolproof ways to drag yourself out of the money mist

While I’m in Vegas for BlogWorld, how about a lesson in money management from my favorite mathematician, Colin Beveridge?

I’m not saying things are bad, but I just got an email from a Nigerian widow saying General Abacha had died penniless.

I don’t want that to happen to me — or you.

One of the chief causes of money worries is not knowing where you are and where you need to be. I understand that, I’m terrified of checking my bank account, way behind on my bookkeeping, and a great big baby when it comes to dealing with my finances.

But I do it anyway. And you can too. Here are seven ways I trick myself into getting the money stuff done.

(1) Get a budget buddy

You are not the only person who’s afraid of checking the numbers. Set up an internet date with a friend once a week where you can force each other to log into your internet banking, check all your numbers, complain about how much of a chore it is, and share each other’s successes. Having someone to hold you directly accountable is a huge motivator – and helps you get it done.

(2) Set yourself a concrete target

Almost all the life coaches will tell you about SMART goals. That stands for Specific, Measurable, Ambitious, Reasonable and Timed. Something like “Make some extra money” isn’t much good as a goal; “Make an extra $1,000 from selling online services by the end of the year” is much better. “Clear all of my credit card debt by Christmas” is another good one.

(3) Treat it like a game

Everybody loves games, right? It’s not you against your finance buddy, it’s you against the world. The world wants to take all of the money you don’t have, and needs all kinds of persuasion to give you any of its cash. Which is hardly fair, since it has a lot more than you to begin with. Luckily, the world doesn’t have the focussed goal that you do, so you can beat it with a bit of effort. If you have a day where you take more from it than it takes from you, you win. See how many days you can win in a row.

(4) Keep your targets in plain view

Eyes on the prize, people, eyes on the prize. If you want to meet your goal, you need to have it in front of you. Get a red marker and a yellow sticky, get writing and get sticking. Update it every time you get closer. Watching your target get closer and closer is a great motivator.

(5) Break your targets down

Now, it’s a bit intimidating to say “I need to make $1,000 by the end of the year” and have that number staring you in your face all the time. I prefer instead to break it into a daily goal. I could work it out by hand, but I prefer to go to Wolfram Alpha and ask: “How many days until new year?” It thinks for a moment and says 86 days. $1,000 divided by 86 is $11.63. A thousand bucks is a lot of money. Twelve dollars isn’t. You can make that, right? Go to.

(6) Remember that fear of the picture is always worse than the picture itself

The main reason I’m terrified of checking my accounts is that I’m always sure a monster will have swooped in and eaten all of my available funds. This generally isn’t the case. It might not be as bright a picture as you’d like, but you need to know where you are before you can decide what you need to do. It’s like housework: the longer you put it off, the longer it takes. And then you find it wasn’t actually all that bad, and the nice clean house makes you feel better.

(7) This isn’t quantum physics — reality doesn’t change because you look at it.

Looking under the bed doesn’t change whether there’s a monster there. It just tells you “there’s no monster and I can happily and safely go to sleep” or “actually, the monster situation might need a little bit of work.” If you don’t know about the monster, it’s much more likely to bite you. If you know it’s there, you can sedate it for the night and make a monster-proofing plan in the morning.

Either way, you’ll sleep better knowing instead of fearing.

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