Behaviors That Destroy Your Financial Health

This can not only be expensive in itself but alcohol has a profound effect on your ability to make sound financial judgements.

Once you've factored in a few rounds at trendy bars, taxis , takeaway or a restaurant curry and maybe a club cover charge; "A few drinks after work" has turned into a £100 hole in your monthly balance sheet.

Though for a few people I know "addiction to Apple products" is becoming a close 2nd.

I've been able to save a rather impressive amount of money by just diverting a portion of my paycheck to an investment account. I never see the money in my checking account, so I never have the money to spend.

Paying yourself out of available funds is hard; there's always something else you could be spending the money on, and it requires a conscious choice and willpower.

By contrast, paying yourself before the money even turns into available funds is easy because there's no choice involved except initial setup.

1) "Your Money or Your Life" (http://www.amazon.com/Your-Money-Life-Transforming-Relations...) - Don't recall if this was mentioned in any of the recommended book threads, but it's definitely a good one. Gets you thinking about what your job really costs and what your time is worth to you.

2) http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ - Truly rethink the value proposition of, well, just about everything in your life. Did you know you can afford another $15,900 worth of house for every mile you live closer to work?

Obviously not a universal truth, but applied to money and/or time it's something that I try to keep in the back of my mind.

I'm very conservative on what I spend, often not making a purchase, even if I could definitely afford it.

I went from 40 to 32 hours in the past years on different jobs when I got a raise. Sometimes I prefer free time over money.

The rest, I can handle.

They think that if they don't act like all the others, they'll be socially rejected. But it ain't so. As long as you have high self-esteem nobody can make you feel "inferior".

Another part of the problem, and it has been brought up recently, is that most people cannot really save enough to make a difference. They don't have enough to really diversify their wealth so they figure out: "oh crap, then I can as well spend it, it's not going to be worth anything in a few years anyway because of inflation".

Note that "saving your wealth" and "saving your money" are two entirely different things. The government is busy confiscating your savings thanks to inflation.

I'd suggest "acting dead, trading up and living the middle class":

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/12/08/acting-dead-trading-up-...

I don't buy all the crap that most people do buy. I do still fork $$$$ for stuff like an Aeron chair but overall I do save money compared to most because I don't need many things, neither does my SO (which used to be a high-maintenance girl but then "saw the light"). But then I don't want the government to confiscate it. So what do I do?

I buy an old sportcar that I put in a garage (and sometimes take it out for a spin), I buy physical gold, I diversify paper money over several currencies, etc.

I do that because I don't have enough to buy cash another property and don't want to be rped in the by taking credits.

But going out paying overpriced drinks with fake friends and going to fancy restaurant just to say that I go to fancy restaurants? No way. I didn't regress at the pre-anal stage where I need to fetishize food. And I much prefer to "impress" people with good looking old exotic cars than with ephemeral restaurants bills ; )

For one thing, I realized that I wasn't spending too much money eating out (as I'd thought) and so I ate out more.

A lot of silly / pointless spending just disappeared simply by tracking it.

While quicken sucked, and I eventually stopped using it, the habits I developed then have remained.

Another thing that helped a lot was paying myself first. I'd have my paycheck split up on deposit into a savings and checking account. The amount in checking was the spending for household, and the amount in savings had specific purposes. Later I had it set up to also automatically move money into investments.

You get used to just living on the money in your checking account, and the rest accumulates without any actions.

I've generally lived pretty frugal-- which makes it easier to finance doing a startup.

But I've never been deprived. I live in "luxury" because I go see a movie in the theater each week and buy the things that are important to me (and the stuff that really isn't, I just stopped buying.)

A third thing that really helped was reading personal finance books. I found them really interesting and easy to read. The millionaire next door, the wealthy barber, etc. I really liked Timothy' Vicks books on Warren Buffett, and Buffettology.

These, of course, are the gateway drugs to things like Options as a Strategic Investment by McMillion -- a thousand pages on options, and I read most of them!

Ultimately, though, mises.org and "Economics in one lesson" by henry hazlitt gave me enlightenment. The latter can be downloaded free here: http://www.fee.org/library/detail/economics-in-one-lesson-pd...

Also, realizing what my "daily latte" was really worth. Not the $5 at starbucks. Back when I had that habit, it amounted to $5x4 times a week *50 weeks a year = $1,000 in Apple stock bought (When I had the habit in 2007) at $135/share (Close Jan 2, 2008) is now worth $3,740.

$3,740 in Apple stock now is worth more than the pleasure of 4 lattes a week back in 2007. I'd make that trade all day long.

The definition of manic has nothing to do with this article, for a start...