You're thinking to yourself, "What do you mean a budget? How can budgeting ever be involved in a Millionaire's Mentality? Millionaires have all the money in the world, there's no need to budget!"
Wrong. Very few people who accomplish their dreams and do what it takes to achieve a Millionaire Mentality have succeed without budgeting skills. When we're striving to be our best possible selves we can not be so narrow-minded as to view budgeting as strictly money business. We must have a budget for every part of our lives, but don't sweat it. Just because you're budgeting doesn't mean you can't live life to the fullest.
BUDGETING MONEY
It's true that budgeting does not include only money but let's face it, you will never be able to fulfill your dreams without good money management. So how do we go about budgeting our money? Let's go over one of the biggest myths that seems like the only way to go in the current "recession."
Saving.
Yes, there it is. Saving your money and locking it away can be one of the most detrimental actions you can take towards accomplishing your goals. You must destroy the fear of spending your money. Now I'm not telling everyone to go blow your life savings on whatever you want like booze and parties (unless your dream is to become the worlds greatest drunkard). We must change our mentality on saving and shift it towards investing. Realize that money is arbitrary. It's just a number in your bank account. Don't be afraid to spend your money efficiently.
Budgeting Now to Invest Later
The goal of budgeting is to find out how much money you can safely invest. How can you determine this? All you need is a month, a paper and pencil, and three steps.
1. Record your spending for one month.
2. Separate your spending categories into Rent/Mortgage, Food, Gas, Car Payment, Utilities, Phone Bill, Insurance Payment, and Misc.
3. Figure out your weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly income
These three simple actions is all it takes to set up an infallible budget and investment plan to capture that dream.
Once you know how much you spend during the month you can subtract that from your monthly income. The number you get from this figure will either piss you off or make you extremely happy. There really is no in-between.
Whether you're negative or positive for the month however makes no difference. With either outcome, you must determine what money spent is an investment and which is purely unnecessary.
In order to have a Millionaire Mentality you must have the ability to cross everything out of the Misc. category that isn't an investment to your future. That night out drinking, instead of writing your novel. How much did that cost you? How about the 150 channels of cable that you never watch? How much money did you just save there? Magazine subscriptions, pricey electronics, fast food, designer clothes, etc. If these purchases do nothing for your goal, then it is all wasted money that could be invested. If you're not willing to give up these misc. items, then you're not yet ready for greatness.
Live Below Your Means
That was the easy part. Now we need to dissect exactly how much we're paying for what we "need."
Here are some tips to live below your means:
1. If you're spending more than 30% of your monthly income on rent/mortgage, it's time to move.
2. If having a car is an unnecessary means to your income, sell it. If you absolutely need a car, use it as a tool. Drive it only when you need to.
3. Only eat out if it is to improve a profitable relationship. If not, cook at home. It's cheaper.
4. Don't buy groceries in excess. If you're buying more than a week's worth of food per person in your home, most of it is going to go bad or uneaten.
5. Learn to spend money on experience, not things.
6. Use your phone as a tool. Cut down your phone plan. "Unlimited Everything" might sound like a sweet deal, but that's 100 dollars a month that could be invested elsewhere.
Once you're willing to trim fat off of the "essentials," you'll find out you need less than you think. Freeing yourself from these financial pitfalls can pay dividends in the future.
BUDGETING TIME
If there's one thing we waste more than money, it's time. Indeed time is money, but the reverse is not true. Money is not time. You can not buy back your teenage years. You can not buy back the countless hours staring at Facebook or watching television. Millionaires know this. With a Millionaire Mentality, you'll learn to look at every action you do as either an investment or a waste. It is much more important that you learn to budget your time than it is your money.Kill Time Vampires
We've all been there. There's a paper to write, studying to do, work to be done, yet we just can't get off the internet. Between Twitter, Stumbleupon, Facebook, tumblr, Pintrest, cat blogs, and memes, working towards our dreams just doesn't seem much fun. So twenty minutes becomes an hour, then three hours, then all of the sudden we've listened through the same album on Spotify 6 times and it's 4:00AM with no work done.
Avoid this stress. You know who you want to be. You know what you love to do. If you're not marketing on social networks. Delete your account. Don't be afraid, people won't forget you. Even if some do, you'll be grateful you don't have to look at any more amateur photos of their Paris trip or how cute their cat looks in a Santa hat. No more reading passive aggressive statuses or whiny girls who just broke up with their boyfriend. Dare to imagine!
You don't have time to be preoccupying yourself with other people wasting theirs. Even worse than wasting their time, they're inviting you to waste your time. Forget about it, you have better things to do. Invest all the extra time towards your dream. Write, exercise, get another job for extra income, double major, or learn a skill. Burn the leeches.
Imagine if you could get back all the time you've wasted on the internet. You'd probably be a millionaire already.
Your Circle
Spend time around positive people. Spend time around people who are better than you. You know you're potential, you know how great you can be, so spend time around people who deserve it. Try to be the best, but don't stick around if the people you interact with are unchallenging.
Think about the last time you thought you were the greatest at something. You might have had the best three point shot in your whole high school. Maybe you were always picked first in gym class and everyone cheered for you every pep rally. Then you got relaxed, you thought you were at your peak, you were already the best. Then you went to college and went out for the team.
You didn't make it.
That's because what you thought was the peak, what you thought was success, was really a plateau. Your circle told you that you were the best, they glorified your skills and called you the best. They allowed you to accept your plateau.
Spend your time around people willing to make you better. People who view success as an infinite journey, are the only people you want to spend your time with. Those who believe the peak is the highest they can climb are only those who never learned to fly. If you surround yourself with eagles, soon you will learn how to soar.
Once you've mastered budgeting your time and money, you'll be amazed at how many more resources you'll have to accomplish your dreams. Now get off the internet and go trim the fat.
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