Bad habits can ruin any well thought out financial plans. Habits such as your morning coffee, buying lunch at work each day, and of course smoking and drinking, can drain your bank account. They are not as noticeable as someone backing a truck up and loading all your money in and driving away. However, the results are the same. A woman shared her story with me. Her bad habit was smoking cigarettes. She smoked less than a carton a week. Along with her husband's habit they used about two cartons a week. On occasion the decision had to be made whether to buy food or the cigarettes. Guess which one got bought. She made the choice to get a job outside her home, to make the food/cigarette decision go away. Now she could have both. Work began to take more and more of her time. She enjoyed the other stuff besides cigarettes the money would buy. A budget was never considered, she spent every dime she made. She had STUFF! It all came to a halt when her son began failing school. It became important to stay home and help him with his homework. The problem was she had STUFF. She and her husband returned to one income but had much higher bills. Something needed to give. The stuff had to go, so she started with the obvious, the cigarettes. Not before she tried every way to keep them. She tried to fit them into her budget. She lowered her grocery bill, began hanging her clothes, used only cold water in her washing machine, anything to save money to keep her cigarettes. She discovered that whatever she did she could not scrimp and save enough. It came down to another decision: Stay at home with her son and quit smoking or, go back to work to keep her habit supplied. She made the decision to stay home with her son. She stopped smoking. In the three and one-half years since she has quit, she has NOT smoked 27,000 cigarettes. She has saved $7,185.00, more than $1900 a year. She has put that money to better uses. You know you could find a place for more than $150 a month; I know I could. Don't let your bad habits rule your life and drain your resources. Get them under control and put that saved money to good use in your financial plan. (C) 2005 David Wilding |
