Taking off the Blinders

Get Rich Slowly has a series of articles about the stages of personal finance that he (and many others) go through.

His descriptions really resonate with me as we are just beginning along the same journey he documented on his blog. But as I research ways to improve our situation, rather than finding a candle in the dark I feel more like blinders are coming off. As if I have been purposely hiding my eyes for all these years from the many simple ways I could have managed my money better. Granted, there are a lot of great online services available now that weren’t previously, but that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t have done more before this. I COULD have done more. I SHOULD have done more. But I didn’t. I kept the blinders on.

Seeing the Light

I’ve never been comfortable with numbers. Math and I don’t get along. I think that is part of the reason I avoided learning anything more than the absolute basics of personal finance. I had visions of complex accounting, constantly crunching numbers, pulling out my hair because I’d never be able to get the right results.

Now that I have finally put some bone into my back and turned to face the problem instead of ignoring it, I am finding that while some topics are still ominous and overwhelming to me (like, the stock market), there are so many easy things I can do right now that are not any more scary than the basic banking we all do every day.

Better Banking

One of the easiest things we can do to maximize the money we do currently have is to get a better bank account. It’s so easy to just pick a bank account and then forget about it as years pass. I’m amazed at all the benefits I can get at other banks for the same exact money I currently have, sitting in a plain ol’ checking account.

• Interest on checking accounts with zero minimum balance requirements
• Higher interest online savings accounts
• Refunds on ATM fees charged by other banks

All without doing anything different than we are currently doing – except switching to the new bank. How do these plain bank accounts even still exist, I wonder? To take advantage of all of us who aren’t paying attention, apparently. Well, unfortunately for them – we’re now paying attention.

Look at this site listing high yield checking accounts: HighYieldCheckingDeals.com

Paying Attention

Last year, I lost 35 pounds. One of the biggest lessons I learned during that process was to PAY ATTENTION. It was so easy for years before to just not think about my weight, not step on the scale because I knew I wouldn’t like the number. Wear baggy clothes so I wouldn’t have to worry about the body underneath. Then, one day I looked in the mirror and saw how terrible I looked, realized how sluggish I felt and knew I had to do something. It took nearly an entire year of carefully counting calories and revamping my eating habits to get in a better place. And I still have work to do! Even though I’m at a better size than I was before, I’m not at the optimum size for me.

Our finances are exactly the same. We’ve just been cruising along all this time, not paying attention. Then when we finally looked up, we realized we’d really dug ourselves a hole. I can already tell the lesson will be the same – PAY ATTENTION! Make sure bills get paid on time so you avoid fees. Watch the banking trends so you can take advantage of better bank accounts as they come along. Right now our finances are just like my weight last year – we’re just starting to pay attention, learning how we need to act, and what to do to be healthy going forward.