How To Discipline Yourself To Live Within Your Means

Have you asked yourself, “Kailan kaya ako yayaman?” even if you are earning bigger than your other friends and relatives?

The truth is, you may never achieve the goal of being rich if you are currently living beyond your means. Did you know that the reason you are not achieving it is not because you have small salary but rather because of your overmuchness lifestyle choices?

If you believe you are guilty, then you should take these steps to turn things around.

1) Know your net worth.

To give you a clearer view on the status of your finances, it is recommended that you conduct a net worth analysis.

Analyzing your net worth is quite simple:

Add the following outright assets:
Savings + Retirement accounts + Stock investments + your real estate property + others

Add everything you owe (debts):
car loan payments + credit card bills + personal loans + other payables

Then subtract your debts from your assets in order to arrive at your net worth.

If the result is a negative number, then you are living beyond your means. This means that even if you have a job today and you are earning a salary, you still essentially own nothing.

In order for your numbers to become positive, start living within your means.

2) Practice cash-only living.

Many people, Filipinos included, do not really understand what living within or below means for obvious reason: they live on loans and credit cards.

The best thing to mitigate this problem is to instill a habitual behavior of living on cash alone. Just try 21 days of spending with your cash alone and not with your credit cards.

This will challenge your spending behaviour but you will be surprised on what you can do if you are able to make it on the 22nd day just using your cash on hand for your daily expenses.

Do not forget to record your debts as mentioned in our recommendation No. 1. The limitations of living on cash only may frustrate you, this will be a learning experience for you as you will be forced to be more careful and thoughtful in identifying where you are spending your money.

3) Clear out the clutter.

If you are a willing victim of the culture of rushing to malls whenever there are “sale offers”, you must be collecting items you don’t really need inside your closet or drawers.

If your closet contains items you haven’t worn in over a year, old technology, books, or sporting goods, you’ve already got more than you need.

The greatest 3-day sale madness in town is not really helping you saving money when you are actually using your credit card or money you borrowed from your officemate.

Maybe it’s time for you to clear out the clutter and consider selling your items on eBay, Amazon, OLX, ukay-ukay shops, or even at your garage. Or better yet, why not donate them to people who may need them the most?

4. Reformulate your definition of success.

While you really do not show your bank savings or credit card bills to your social media “friends” or neighbors, the way you dress yourself, the car you drive, the restaurants you go to, or how frequent you travel to places other people have not been to in their lives may make people judge how well you are doing. Even if the truth is you don’ really have the means.

There is a big difference between being truly rich and just trying to look rich.

It’s not that complicated to follow these steps but you need to convince yourself that there’s no gain if there is no pain.

Be guided on how to prepare yourself to coming back home for good by subscribing to Rock To Riches for FREE.

Rock your way to abundance!

#moneyliferocknroll

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