Subscribe Feed (RSS)A new book was just released on personal financial success and it’s not like any other book on budgeting you’ve seen. Finances are just a small part of your overall success, contrary to popular belief, because everyone seems to measure success by money.
“This program has helped so much more than our finances. If we’d never come for coaching, we would just be like roommates, living in the same house. I had no idea how much our relationship and our marriage would grow. We talk to each other more than we have in 25 years together.” – Maggie Davis Grand Junction, Colorado
So why is a money coach such an important piece in your financial puzzle? Financial coaching is a process of looking long-term at your financial life and not only create a budget, but also help you approach decisions in such a way that you do not get back into the same mess you were in before.
Take for example this story: In spite of their double income, Matt and Sandra are accruing around $15,000 of credit card debt a year and neither can really explain where the money went. They manage the growing burden by transferring balances and refinancing, but they are frustrated at finding themselves in the same cycle year after year. Sandra has read many of the popular books in an effort to budget better and teach her children good spending habits, but in the end, she always found the advice impossible to implement.
No matter how many trendy new systems and ideas she committed herself to, no change ever occurred. (Sandra) “I made every attempt to follow the programs and exercises in the books, but because I wasn’t accountable to anyone, after a few weeks of just gritting my teeth with the effort, I would automatically fall back into the same habits.” Since everyone around them seemed to be in the same boat, Matt and Sandra didn’t consider their situation dire. It certainly wouldn’t have occurred to them to seek out financial help or advice. Particularly not to Matt who grew up financially privileged and has become a successful businessman. He definitely wasn’t going to listen to anyone tell him how to care for his own family or what to do with his own money. They figured they were fine.
A number of us have never questioned the way we operate. We do the best we can, repeat the patterns we have learned, and scrape by. Some of us think that there must be some financial secret that we are missing, a new budgeting or moneymaking strategy that we have yet to read about. When we do have time to deal with it, we will buy the workbook and get on track. But deep down, we know that is not going to work. We all need a system that will actually produce lasting results, and more importantly this system needs to be an easy to follow part of our lives so that we integrate it into our lifestyle without feeling like it’s laborious.
Brad Hawkins has been in the field of Denver Financial Counseling for a long time and maintains a website about Denver Christian debt help where you can get answers to the rest of your questions and and receive your Free copy of the 1st Chapter of his new book.
Tags: budgeting, finance, Personal Finances
