Learning From Other People's Financial Regrets

The Internet is a fantastic place for people who love lists. You can find lists of the 100 best books ever written, the 100 worst movies since movies began, and a list of nearly every piece of clothing Kate Middleton has ever worn.  The most recent list to draw me in was "35 Things I Wish I Had Done Before Turning 35."  It was written by business executive Hemal Jhaveri, who is, as the title suggests, a few months from her birthday.  

I've never met Ms. Jhaveri, but I could relate to some of the things on her list, like how she still gets wistful over a missed loved connection here or there, over not having traveled the world and the fact that she didn't have a band or go to enough rock shows. I feel her pain.

But what really caught my attention was that a full 20% of her regrets have to do with money. 

The Best Financial Advice I’ve Ever Gotten

The best financial advice I’ve ever gotten wasn’t about how to earn, save or invest money. It wasn’t some hugely frustrating story about how if I give up my daily coffee I can be a millionaire by the time I’m 50 (that one still irritates me, and I’m not even a coffee drinker).  And it didn’t require me to get advice from some fancy and expensive financial advisor.

The best financial advice I’ve ever gotten was this:

A Spending Plan - The Un-Budget

Not my favorite kind of pie.

I hate budgets.  They're just so . . . limiting.

I’d like tell you I never use a budget. But I guess that wouldn’t be completely true since the point of a budget is to help you keep track of the money flowing in and out of your pocket/bank account/Kate Spade wallet, and I do have a way of doing that.  

And since I didn’t always have a good sense of my spending I had to experiment with different methods before I found one that worked for me. So, technically, I suppose I do have a budget.  But I still hate budgets so I don’t call it that.  Instead, I call it a spending strategy because spending is more fun than budgeting and strategies are empowering.  

Here's how you can set up your own budget spending strategy in eight easy steps.