Are you deluding yourself?

Have you been saying to yourself that everything is fine? Your finances aren’t as bad as you think they are. Maybe you think that you are too young to think about your financial future.

I would imagine that most people delude themselves in some areas of their financial lives. Some delude themselves a lot more than others. Do any of these statements sound familiar?

• I’ve got plenty of time to think about my retirement.
• Budgeting is boring and only for people who don’t have a lot of money.
• Money is not important.
• Everyone has credit card debt.
• Living for today is far more important than worrying about the future.
• If I get the right investment strategy that will take care of my retirement.
• I don’t earn enough.
• I’ll get onto it later.
• I don’t need any professional help because I know what I’m doing.
• Property investment will solve all of my financial problems.
• The government will look after me.

This is only a very short list of the sorts of things we say to ourselves. I guess my big question is, if these do sound familiar how are those beliefs working out for you? Are you satisfied with your current financial position and the decisions that you are making? If you are then congratulations, you are in a small minority. If you are not satisfied, what would you like to do differently? 

Many many times I’ve heard people make comments like, I wish I had started saving earlier or I wish I hadn’t wasted so much money when I was younger. If you imagined a time in the future and thought about what your financial decisions mean, would you be happy with the decisions you are making today? Give some thought to what the financial decisions you make today might mean to you in the future. You might make different decisions.

By Lisa Dudson