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Health & Fitness

Budget Mondays 10/14/2013

The Columbus Day Edition!

Monday – 10/14/2013

It’s Monday – a painful day for most people, yours truly included. Sometimes it is made even more painful as we remember just how much money we ended up spending over the weekend.

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Budget

It’s one word that can make people cringe, angry and sad all at the same time, a rare occurrence indeed. There are plenty of reasons for this – people are told at work that their budgets are being cut, their ideas cannot be funded because they are not in the budget, and in our personal life, our budgets don’t usually quite match up to our desires.

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People tell me that they want to start budgeting, saving some money, and getting a firmer understanding of their personal financial situation, but that it can be overwhelming to start with. Each week, we discuss tips, tools, and strategies that you can use to help better organize, track, and categorize your spending habits, but what is normally not discussed is the psychological side of it. Budgeting, and trying to rein in (sometimes) bad habits, can be a very stressful endeavor, and can be even more stressful if you are doing it all by yourself.

So what to do?

As stated above, budgeting can stressful, tedious, and frustrating, and so it might be worthwhile to set up a budgeting network, or support group. The psychological reassurance and camaraderie that can be generated in the context of a group is more powerful than what can be achieved individually. Frankly, most people are looking for ways to stretch their dollars further these days, so it should not be too difficult to find people who are starting their own budgeting journey.

It doesn’t have to be a formal group. A phone call once a week to check in and lend moral support would be enough, but you would be amazed at what your budgeting team might be able to accomplish together

Let’s get started!

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