What Are the Critical Elements of a Good Money Management Program?
A good money management program is successful if it's able to break a long and complex journey into manageable stages. People need to see progress, and it needs to be measurable.
Over the years, I have read as many books about money management as I could lay my hands on. A lot of them had the right answers but I could only follow them for a short time before people fell back into their old bad habits. I now know that what these books did not explain was the natural sequence of events to follow.
To have more money, we need to understand the various stages of personal finance and become proactive in managing these stages. This means to commit to a positive course of action and being prepared to devote a certain level of effort and time to it.
I have since found that this procedure represents the natural stages of growth and learning. In the beginning, you need to focus on planning and research to discover what is needed. Then you have to tackle problems and develop plans to overcome them and to prevent them from occurring again. After that, you need to apply discipline and repetition to ensure that strong foundations are built.
For a while, you will experience a period of stability. Problems diminish. Things become easier. Then, if you have been doing everything right, all of a sudden, things will start to go very, very well. Success, at last! Well, not quite. You still need to pull in the reins at this stage and learn how to handle this new level of accomplishment. True success will only be yours when you have learnt how to sustain it without losing ground.
Each stage is defined with certain strategies to apply at each stage. The stages are designed to build upon each other, creating a strong foundation. Progression through the stages will gradually iron out bad habits and spending patterns. You may need to spend a little longer in some stages than others.
It is not a get-rich-quick scheme but it will give you greater confidence and security even in the earlier stages when money may be in short supply.
The greatest enemy of money management is impatience, however I have seen miraculous changes in my clients even after a few months or weeks. Good things will start to happen. Your luck will seem to change. You will start to make better decisions, whether consciously or not.
Related Tags: wealth, debt, investing, personal finance, budgeting, family budget, debt-free, financial advice
Ann Marosy is an accountant, consultant, and former university lecturer. She was formally a Financial Controller of a Fortune 500 Company, and Finalist of SA Executive Woman of the Year. Ann is the author of 'The Money Program' book series, which includes managing the stages of wealth creation, formulas for budgeting, debt-free program and investment strategies. Visit: The Home of The Money Program
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