Priorities, Choices, and Willpower

Money management can be boiled down to three words: priorities, choices, and willpower. How you choose to spend your money determines how well you manage it. Your choices are driven by your priorities, and willpower is required to stick with those choices sometimes.

My husband and I were trying to figure out how we could contribute more money to charity when we weren't getting raises this year and none of our expenses were decreasing. We decided that giving more money was a priority. So we chose to give up some of our weekly allowance or fun money to put more in the charity pot. I'm currently trying to save my allowance for eye surgery since I don't do well with glasses or contacts, so this means that it's going to take longer to save up. I am also a book junkie and frequently want to buy new books.

I'm confident that this new choice is the right one, so I'm willing to extend my eye surgery, and refrain from purchasing every book that I want to read. (I guess I'll be spending more time than usual at my local library!) By setting our priorities, making different choices and exerting willpower, we're able to keep our budget balanced and give more money to charity.

These are the same principles that can nearly always be applied to any budget in order to succesfully manage your money.