Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

The Value of Accountablility

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We can all talk about doing the right thing with our finances all day long.  We can talk about making a budget, spending according to that budget, and living a frugal financial lifestyle.  But, none of that makes any difference if we don’t walk that walk.

Sometimes, we can’t do that on our own.  Sometimes it takes a wife, parent, sibling, or a friend to hold us accountable for our actions and for our progress towards our goals.  Accountability has an incredible value to you.  Some will quickly scoff and attribute a negative value to it, but it really isn’t a negative thing.  And many who would scoff at it are merely afraid to accept any accountability for fear that they will be found failing.

The value of accountability is in it’s ability to push you towards your goals.  If you set goals but there is no one who knows them and can hold you accountable, then there is no one (aside from yourself) who knows if you’ve failed.  That’s safe for you, as failure isn’t usually something that we want publicized.  But, it’s also bad for you.  It makes it easier to fail.  It makes it easier to simply move on from a failure and not learn from it.

Accountability won’t make you succeed.  You’ll still need to do the footwork towards meeting your goals.  What accountability does is give you that extra support from those that are holding you accountable towards making your goals.  Don’t think of it as someone waiting for you to fail, or someone who is just waiting to rub in a misstep.  Instead, think of those who hold you accountable as people who want you to succeed.

You should want to be held accountable.  Search out those around you who truly want you to be healthy, and want you to succeed.  Let them in on your goals and the steps that you are taking to making your goals happen.  They’ll gladly help you and act as a positive force for your goals.  Don’t be afraid of being accountable.  Embrace it.

31 Days to a Better Bank Balance

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If you’re ready to make a change and get your finances in order, you need to check out the 31 Days to a Better Bank Balance by my Yakezie friend, Money Crush!

Each post contains a great nugget of personal finance wisdom and a task/step that you can complete that very day to improve your personal finances.  The goal being that at the end of the 31 days, you’ll have a much better hold on where your money is, where it goes, and where it comes from!

Money Crush has already posted the first day today, so go to the link above and get started.  I think you’ll thank yourself for it.

Could You Give It All Away?

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There’s been a bit of publicity lately about The Giving Pledge, an organization started/inspired by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates that is aimed at the Forbes wealthiest 400 people.  They and the organization encourage the worlds wealthy to give it all away.  Or at least a majority of their wealth.

Reading about all of this brings up the questions.  Could you give it all away?  Would you?  Should you?

At the real bottom of this is a more important question.  Why do we build wealth?  What purpose do we give our lives that we strive to attain wealth.  In Warren Buffetts case, I think you could argue that he has always seen it as a challenge.  Bill Gates saw a technological breakthrough and found a way to improve upon it.  Again, a challenge.  The challenge is not usually about the money though.  Buffett saw the building of the businesses as the challenge.  He wanted to be a better investor than anyone else.  Mission accomplished, I’d say.  Gates’ passion was in geekery.  He wanted to build a better computer.  Also, mission accomplished.

Gates and Buffetts passions made them very rich.  And, since you can’t take it with you, it’s gotta go somewhere.  Both have chosen to give a majority of their wealth away.  Kudos to them.  But, would you?  Could you?

For me, I would like to think that I could and would give most of it away.  Since I don’t have any to speak of, it’s easy to say that.  Ask me again when I’m 50 ish. 😉  Many Christians would say that it’s the right thing to do.  Non-Christians will have a different reason.  Some would say that we have a moral obligation to make someone elses life better and to share the wealth.  Whatever the reason, I think it really comes down to doing good.  Most people are good by nature.  And doing good for others is in our nature.  That doesn’t mean that we all want to be paupers who volunteer all their time, but most of us are happy to share some of our spoils with those less fortunate.

What about you?  Would you give it away?  Why?