Ever felt “if I’m going to save more I need to be more disciplined”?
Truth is, you don’t need more discipline. It’s something else…
Our culture is designed to make you constantly want more and better and to make it easy to spend money to get it.
We are inundated with marketing messages and the marketers know our soft spots. Credit is readily available and tap-n-go and online shopping make it quick and easy to indulge our desires.
Faced with an environment of abundant temptation and easy money, of course we mere mortals struggle to save.
Struggling to save is not a lack of willpower, it’s not a character flaw. It’s a design flaw in the systems we’ve been using to navigate that environment.
We can’t easily change that environment nor our brains, so I believe our best step is to learn a budgeting system to successfully navigate the environment.
A budgeting system helps us get control of our spending so we can afford what matters without relying on discipline.
Elements of a budgeting system
Two key elements of a budgeting system are:
- A plan of what is affordable (the budget)
- A process that helps you stick to the plan (using minimal discipline)
When we just rely on discipline to stick to our budget we struggle because willpower is fickle and unreliable.
If you’ve been struggling to stick to your saving goals the missing link may be the process.
A process includes the ‘hardware’ of your account structure and the ‘software’ of healthy habits. To be most effective it needs to be tailored for your situation and personality.
Speak to me for help setting up your budgeting system.