No Debt Plan

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Last time we started to talk about portion control in your food habits.

I said there were three ways to link portion control in food to portion control in your finances:

• directly: eating less food means you save more money
• directly: eating too much means you will be unhealthy, gain weight, and spend more on health care in the future, and
• indirectly: if you can’t maintain portion control in food, you may not be maintaining control of your spending

We’re going to talk about third point today.

Portion control is simply having the ability to push away from the table when you are full or satisfied. In a restaurant, having the ability to recognize that what you are being served is simply too much for one person to eat, and taking half of it home with you.

This relates to your personal finances.

One of the basic keys to building long term wealth is to spend less than you earn. It’s pretty simple. If you spend X dollars and you earn X-1 dollars, you can’t be building wealth. How do you stop spending more than you earn? Learn to be content.

You don’t need that new flat screen TV. You don’t need that new BMW. You don’t need that Gucci handbag. Be content with what you have. Push away from spending table. Take a look at the things around you — perhaps your monthly subscription services (cable, NetFlix, the gym) — and ask yourself, do I really need this? Do you really use all of those shoes in your closet?

Can you see that what is being served to you is simply too much for one person to enjoy? Ask yourself, “how much time do I really use this service each month?”

Ramit Sethi of iwillteachyoutoberich.com recently had a food oriented title to a post related to this topic: The A La Carte Method: Use Psychology Against Yourself to Save Money.

What do you think? Do you have problems pushing away from the table (food or spending or…)?