{ Bu...bu...budget. If You Can Say, You Can Do It }

I've been nudging for more than a week...do you have it all together? Your budget, I mean? Most people look at budgets like diets, it's all about deprivation. I see them as clear boundaries...once you've stepped over the boundary you aren't safe...kinda like financial baby gates, if you will. As you grow and learn, move the gate. Just because you figure out a budget in January, doesn't mean that same budget still meets your needs in May. Look at it constantly.

Owning two businesses has helped me with my personal financial perspective. I opened each business with a set amount of money and they either make money or I adjust the business plan. Home financing isn't that different. You either make a profit or you don't. When you don't, change the plan.

As we watch as some of the world's largest companies fail on Wall Street right now, learn the lessons of that failure...don't over reach, don't play Russian Roulette with your financial future. Live within your means AND try to live below them so that you have something saved for tomorrow. It takes a change in cultural philosophy from "I want it, I need it, I deserve it" to "I want it, I'll work for it so I'll save for it." For the same reason that food prices have spiraled out of control (Do you REALLY think tomatoes are meant to grow in February or be flown or trucked around the globe? The ones I grew and picked last week are already over ripened and ready for sauce), we live in a cultural with more credit card debt and less retirement savings then ever before. CHANGE your mind about spending and change your life to be in control of your money. While the steps to that change are not always smooth or easy, the concept really is that straight forward.