Time Is…

I often hear people say time is money. But time is so much more than that. Time is potential and therefore more valuable than money. Time is so precious and so powerful that I thank God it’s not something that can be bought, sold and controlled. The better you get at managing your time, the less others get to dictate yours.

Did you know there are only 96 days left in the year? You can manifest a lot of change in your life in 96 short days. You can make certain that you go into the new year with great habits already formed. You can eliminate any BS that you’ve allowed yourself to get away with for far too long. If you have a goal to pay off or save, you will be giving yourself the ultimate head start by starting now. Use your 96 days to improve your situation and set yourself up for a successful new year.

I decided to use my 96 days to tune up my finances, of course. That means finding more money to invest and raising the amount of my automatic investments. I think it’s important to save until I’m a little uncomfortable. But first I needed to know where I was spending my money. I decided to run a spending report for the last billing cycle (American Express has amazing reports) for the first time.

I use this credit card for everything and then I pay it in full every month (I love accumulating the points). I often make payments weekly to keep the balance low. I wasn’t too surprised to see that I spent $1,100 over the last month because I had to make a few one-time purchases and I don’t live on a strict budget.

I save, invest and pay bills, which is deducted automatically. Whatever is left I can spend freely. This is something I may have to revisit. With it being only two days into my new billing cycle I figured now would be a great time to cut back on whatever I could.

The image is blurry so I’ll just say that for merchandise and supplies (yellow) I spent $583.48. I purchased a couple of things that I won’t have to buy again for a while (a printer, extra ink and a white board) that put me $300 over my limit in this category.

Next up, and it should be in red, was my bad habit of eating out, which came to $424.00. I never imagined my soups, salads and snacks would be anywhere close to $450/month. I may hate cooking and all the dirty dishes that go along with it but I don’t hate it to the tune of $400/month.

Eating out is going to be a really hard habit for me to break but I refuse to go into to the New Year with it. If I’m able to cut back in this area, I’ll be able to raise the amount that I save and invest painlessly. The plan is to stop cold turkey, so I did something that I also borderline hate: I went to the darn supermarket!

You can check out my lunch for the week below:

I spent all of $35.28 on my lunch for the week and if this works, my lunch costs for the month will go down to $140. Saving myself $285/month over the next three months for a grand total of $855 over the next 96 days. This money will go a long way towards helping me reach my dividend and net worth goals this year and put me ahead of schedule for next year’s goals.

What are you going to change and improve with your last 96 days of 2018?