Are You Letting Yourself Be Controlled?
It's
not a pleasant thought that you may be letting
yourself be controlled.
But if this thought disturbs you, it is wise to examine ways that you could be letting others control you and take appropriate action.
In the article entitled "9 signs that you are setting yourself up to be controlled by other people," there were several signs that
may be helpful to review with an emphasis along financial lines:
- Under "Not
taking care of yourself,"
check to see if you
are taking care of your receipts,
budget,
income and outgo. If you haven't been keeping up with your receipts in
the past, start today. Then do it at the end of every day. Don't let
them pile up. You can do this.
- Under "Not
following through on your
obligations," check
to see that you're paying back any outstanding federal
student loans that you may have acquired to go to truck
driver training school. You cannot use the excuse that you
"didn't learn anything" in school before you got hired by a trucking
company. If you were able to be hired, you had to have
learned enough
to get hired. So pay back what you owe.
- Under "Refusing
to say no,"
we
know of a couple who had been debt-free at one time in their lives and
just got loose with their credit card. Over a period of time
-- and because they refused to live within their means -- they ended up
with
over $20,000 in revolving credit card debt! Ouch! It was so much fun
racking up the bill, they said, but how long will it take them to pay
off what they owe just because they refused to say no?
To their credit, after realizing the attitude that got them into this
trouble, they began a period of self-imposed austerity -- or as we have
said, they pulled in their financial belt tightly -- to begin work to
pay it off. When a particular temptation came along the very first
month, both of them said, "No, we don't have the money, so we're not
upgrading that basic expenditure."
Someone we know once said, "If you wish to be master of
the seven seas, you must make yourself a slave to the compass."
You are
either controlling yourself or letting yourself be controlled.
How can
a person master his or her
own personal finances unless he or she is willing to exercise financial
discipline?
If you have been "letting yourself be controlled" and
you don't like it, the first step you must take is to realize just
where things went wrong.
Examine your attitudes and actions.
Once you identify any problem, you can begin to correct
it.
Learn to set
goals for yourself, the first of which may be to complete a
30-day spending diary (available through our free
downloads) to see just where you're spending your money.
We hope that each of our readers makes it a goal not
only to be debt-free but to have sufficient savings to accomplish a
personal dream
come true, whatever that is for you.
We wish you great success.
Furthermore, we wish you safe travels and lots of money saving opportunities on the road.
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