Beat Bad Financial Habits to Boost Savings
As we all have surely faced at various times in our lives, bad habits are tough to beat. “Breaking bad habits successfully depends on your readiness to act,” says Heidi Beckman, clinical health psychologist at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics. She also states that habits are most likely to be broken once you go past the “preparation stages” and into the action or realization stage. Unfortunately, this is most often too late. If we apply this thinking to our retirement savings, it is easy to see how important it is to not continually push out a financial decision to a time that is either more convenient or to wait for a magical moment when the perfect answer falls into our lap.
An article posted by Naomi Mannino describes this in detail and offers a three-step approach to beat bad habits. In addition, she highlights these 6 common habits that we need to make sure to either make or break to ensure financial stability.
1. Resist impulse buying
2. Automate finances
3. Pay more than the minimum
4. Don’t depend solely on a 401(k)
5. Save small rather than not at all
6. Do sweat the small stuff
To read more about these habits, please click here.
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