Do you know how to play The Money Game? I’vebeen attempting to master the game for many years now and realize that it is indeed a tough and challenging game. It’s a game where the rules are often changing, life “stuff” always seems to get in the way just when a good game gets going, and you can be winning one day and losing the next. How do you have success at a game when the odds are so often against you? I think after almost 50 years of being immersed in The Money Game and holding a variety of jobs in the finance world, I have learned a few tricks of the trade and strategies for success. More important than what I have learned in the work world, I have mastered the game because of money principles I learned from my parents and tips that my husband of 57 years and I decided to take more than five decades ago and make them a core part of our guiding life principles.
Today, I hope to share some of those principles which are money based and may prove useful to you as you play, and hopefully win, The Money Game.
The guiding life principles I eluded to did not come to my husband and me in a neat, spiral bound notebook, or framed plaque to hang on a wall. Some of the principles were drilled into us as young children of parents who worked hard and wanted us to have more opportunities and thus saved money for our education. My husband and I were both from poor households where parents lived from paycheck to paycheck and struggled to make ends meet. It meant foregoing some family trips we heard about from friends, summer camps and certainly vacations abroad. But, we learned the lessons of waiting for what we wanted, and paying for it with cash and not credit. Even in that environment, we observed and absorbed concepts that later formed the foundation of how we have managed our money.
Later, beginning with our first year of marriage, we read everything we could (there wasn’t much) to help us understand how finances worked. There have been setbacks — job loss, illness, injuries — but through the application of our guiding principles and some luck, we came through each one financially stronger.
We combined our family history lessons and principles, examined what worked for our parents and added what we have learned in research to form our own family guiding principles that have guided us through our married life. Listed below are some of them:
1. “Get something in your head so you can have something in your pocket.” as my Mother, Mimi, used to say. In other words, learn the rules of the money game and apply them vigorously in your day-to-day life. Read everything you can get your hands on about making and keeping your money. Find a favorite website, blog or author and read up.
2. Set both short- and long-term goals with clear measures.
3. Develop and work within a strong budget/spending plan.
4. Communicate clearly, openly, honestly and regularly.
5. Live beneath your means.
6. Always save a large portion of your income.
7. Assume there will be a tomorrow and prepare for it.
8. Wait for it; work for it; and pay for it.
I am confident you can reach your financial goals if you will
internalize and master the rules of the money game and adopt
most of the principles above. It just takes commitment,
perseverance and determination. You can do it. I know you can!
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