I have a confession to make. I'm a recovering money control freak. My wife laughed at me for years as I tracked ever little penny of expenses. The reality was it was a good thing to know about my spending, but now with the kid I just don't have the time to bother with the same level of detail.
So how do you get over being a money control freak? Start automatic bill payments and fund transfers for your savings, then comes the hard part. Don't track them as every tranfer leaves the account each month (Alright, you can make sure they leave on the first month). Just limit yourself to doing the end of month summary check to see if you have any extra money in your chequing account that can go over the high interest savings account.
I've now go it all set up so I have to pay just two bills in online banking and do one account transfer of money. Every other bill and account transfer is now automatic.
It's been several months now and it is working. I'm spending less time checking my bank balances and more time reading and playing with the kid. So if you are a fellow money control freak, don't worry there is hope. All you have to do is give up just a bit of control and get a life beyond your money. After all isn't all this saving for early retirement about having time to do the things you love. Why wait until your retired to start?
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3 comments:
Great Post! I am a prime example of a money control freak. I use MS Money to track all my expenses and cashflow. Perhaps when i master all my bills, i'll start to let go.
FrugalTrader
http://www.MillionDollarJourney.com
Good luck on retirement. I'd love to be able to retire by 45 too, but I'm afraid I'd be so bored I'd have to pick up a hobby or three.
I love being a Professional Blogger and could probably do this till I retire from this world altogether.
Gayla
by way of Problogger.
Gayla,
Thanks for dropping by. I do plan on working on several hobbies at that time. I'm planning on more writing and doing some more woodworking. Actually I don't think I'll ever be bored, I just have too much I want to do!
CD
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