WHERE TO START?

My story is simple from the outside looking inward. Kid grows up in a great family, family teaches kid all core values which include living on less than you make, kid grows up and ignores these teachings. That part of my story may be different than yours. The inward looking out part of my story is most likely very similar to most of yours; so let's give it a try. Kid grows up in a family that has a good home, good car, gets to go out and enjoy life. Kid then grows up and is on their own and wants to maintain the same life. Kid acts like a kid and gets the same life... at a price. To get these things the kid has to sell his or her soul. You may be thinking that is a little drastic. I don't. Seeing first hand through myself and my former job I have seen "kids" come into the bank in horrible financial shape asking for even more. They were willing to sell their souls for just a small loan to buy some new stupid toy. Then the banks, maybe because they have such a soft heart for kids wanting toys, would look at their "I love debt score" (thanks for the quote Dave Ramsey), ask for proof of income... sometimes (keep in mind many times people would go to the local office supply store and create a fake pay stub), then give them a check to do as they stinking please. I'll let you decide who to blame here. I personally decided for a long time to blame the bank.

Zig Ziglar is one of my all time favorite people and authors. I listened to a lot of Zig's lessons on CD as I tried to motivate myself to make more and more money to make the payments on all my junk. I remember hearing Zig as he talked about writing his first book. In that book he wrote he had lost a lot of weight. The only problem was that he hadn't. Zig had a living room full of books to sell that told the world how much weight he lost. Zig used this as self motivation to lose weight and sell the books.

Upon listening to what Zig was saying I had something click that really woke me up. Zig realized the only person responsible for his situation was Zig. The only person responsible for my situation was Trey. The only person responsible for your situation is you. Now before you jump down my throat and tell me all the things that have gone wrong (and I do know that many of you have had things happen that truly weren't your fault) let me explain. The only person that truly can make a life changing difference to your life is you. People can help, people can instruct, people can walk with you every step of the way. However, the only person that can make it happen is yourself.

When it comes to finances, there isn't an "undo" button in life. Sure we can sell our toys, our house, and other things but odds are we can not get everything back. What we can do is realize that only you can make a difference. To make a difference we must start with ourselves. Start with our actions, our beliefs, and our knowledge.

Many times you have heard me talk about knowledge. That is were it starts. It starts with us wanting to change and searching for the resources to gain the knowledge to do this. If we truly are tired of the loose ends, the stress, the sickening feeling of having too much month at the end of our money, we must teach ourselves to change. Teach ourselves how things really need to be and how they work. We must teach ourselves to win.

Thanks