What causes you to FAIL?

I've thought a LOT recently about failures. Failures in relationships, failures with jobs, and of course those ever so present financial failures.

Let's just focus on the financial ones... my therapist helps me with the others :)

WHAT CAUSES YOU TO FAIL??

What are those things in your life that cause you to fail financially?

Some things cannot be helped.

*Sickness

*Injury

*Job Loss

*Economic issues

*Unexpected moves

*Unexpected child

There are just some things in life that we CANNOT control. Actually, there is so MUCH in life that we cannot control. For people like me who consider themselves somewhat of a control freak(just a tad), it's hard for us to handle that. 2 options--sit back and panic everytime something unexpected happens OR prepare for it. I think we should chose the second option. It makes more sense.

We know that things happen so we MUST be prepared. I know that the economy is not doing so good. My husband and I BOTH have jobs that depend on other people and their businesses doing well. So with the economy on a huge down hill slope, that makes it scary. That also means I have to work harder to make sure that I don't let financial issues sneak up on me. I KNOW the economy is bad so when I do have a great huge massive paycheck... I have to pretend like it was just a plain ol' boring paycheck. Pay my bills, put the rest aside. That's called being smart.

BUT... there ARE some things that we CAN control!

*Weekend getaways

*Eating out too often

*Springing for the new shoes we didn't need

Why do we do these things? BECAUSE WE FEEL AS THOUGH WE DESERVE THEM!! I work hard for my money!! I deserve good things! I deserve to get away. In fact, you probably do. But your FAMILY deserves security. Your FAMILY deserves to have that money stashed away for protection.

I'm not saying don't have fun... and I realize that's how I am coming across. I had a terrific weekend and I just did the figures. I spent 12 bucks. That's it. Literally. My family had a good weekend without spending money.

One of the BIGGEST things I read from other bloggers and from readers that email me is this... WE LIKE TO SHOP WHEN WE ARE DOWN! It's like you've had a bad day...you didn't make any money...or you got let go of your job...or you just found out you are about to have to spend 1k on your car....so to get you OUT Of that funk you go shopping?!?! GUILTY-i've done that before. But it's been a LOOONNGGG time!! I still have to work at it. Heck, I work 30 seconds from the mall! It's easy to get down and think that shopping will make it all better, but it won't! That is only a temporary fix.

Read this blog... http://www.deliverawaydebt.com/ I love his writing style and just today he wrote an article about times in our lives that we spend the most. IT's very interesting and worth the read.

What causes ME to fail is things like this:

*birthdays that just SLIPPED up on me! So I go and blow 30 bucks real fast on something that I'm not even proud to give that person. (Let's put those on the calendar so that doesn't happen)

*Realizing I don't have a necklace to match my shirt. I hate that. So I run to the cheapest gaudy jewelry store I can find and since it's so CHEAP, i'll buy 6.

*Extra trips to the grocery store. So I forgot to get toothpaste... (bad example. That's the one thing I have a HUGE stock pile of...but you get the picture), i'll run in and grab that, and an extra tomato. Oh and a box of cookies for desert. My $2 dollar trip turned into $16 before I could count that high!

*Unprepared weekends. I don't have time during the week to do anything except work, but if I don't have my weekend plans layed out before me then I will DEFINITLEY screw up and find myself in a checkout line somewhere...buying something.

What slips you up? What could you change to make sure it doesn't happen anymore??

I'd love to hear from you!