March Madness

It’s that time again when the average sports fan and the college basketball nut come together and challenge each other to see who can predict who will win men’s college basketball’s March Madness.   Some of my friends and colleagues also play March Madness and really get into the tournament.  They spend several hours doing the research of which team is getting healthy, or which team is on a hot streak, and they try to predict who will advance into the next round.  Will Kansas continue their dominance from the regular season or will my favorite, Syracuse win the championship this year?

I’m reminded of another March Madness, one that is of much more importance, yet clearly not as much fun. Many of you or someone you know has started receiving in the mail those credit card bills from your Christmas purchases.  Maybe it’s a high heating bill that recently came.  Though there’s many reasons, it seems that March tends to have too much month for their money.

 Take a lesson from my friends who play March Madness.  Find a few hours out of your busy week, and design a plan to cut back and trim expenses in as many areas as possible.  Frank Tyger said it well when he proclaimed, “ Your future depends on many things, but mostly yourself.” 

Finances is a lot like healthy eating.  You need to make the right choices with food for more than a few days to see the benefit of your new habits.  When you start eating right, and making good choices over and over again, for several months, that’s when you will start seeing positive results.

Many people think that there’s an easy solution to winning with personal finances but the reality is that it’s learning to make the tough decisions, week after week, month after month, year after year. 

Brain Tracy had a great ratio equation that really highlights this point; the E2E ratio.  (The entertainment to education ratio.)  He shares about the primary difference between the 5 percent of people who are wealthy and those who are not. The 95% focus their attention and extra time on entertainment, while the wealthy 5% invest their extra time in education.  How much time do you spend on entertainment and how much on education?  Are you trying to learn something new that will help you generate more income in the future?  What are the ways you will proactively feed your mind positive, inspirational ideas, information, and strategies?      

I want you to enjoy March Madness.  But when the March Madness tournament comes around, start thinking about how you are going to plan how to win with your finances and put the same amount of time and energy into your educating yourself.

Write to me at www.finnertyfinancialcoaching.com and let me know how you plan on spending your time managing your money’s March Madness.

Ed Finnerty