Money matters tend to be a very private affair. Even married couples sometimes have trouble sharing the details of their financial lives with their spouses.
Yet one of the best ways to improve your financial affairs is to share them with the world.
Yep, you heard me right. It is better to be open and transparent with your finances then to be closed and never tell anyone your financial situation.
Why?
Talking about your finances with other people does quite a few positive things for you:
- It keeps you accountable.
- It keeps you from lying to yourself.
- It allows you to learn from other people’s mistakes.
- It helps give you a better perspective.
- It helps you to learn and grow in ways you never thought possible.
That last one is really important and is one of the reasons YOU will reach your personal finance goals faster then the guy or gal that tries to go it alone.
There is a wealth of personal finance knowledge out there, and interacting with other people is the best way to accelerate the learning process. Many of the top personal finance bloggers started blogs so that they could be open and honest about their finances in a public setting, thereby providing some serious momentum to success.
I think one of the best ways to interact with other people is through forums. And I highly recommend the Early Retirement Extreme Forum group. If you want to be a part of the largest personal finance forum out there, it is probably the Get Rich Slowly Forum.
It might also be a great idea for you to start or join a personal finance and/or investing group in your area. It is always good to bounce ideas off of other people, and everyone can help provide the motivation needed to get better at managing your personal finances.
If you don’t do anything else, find just one person interested in improving their personal finance situation and be accountable to each other. Share stories with each other, and help inspire each other. Read the same books and blogs and then discuss them. Just sharing a little bit, with your friend or spouse, will go a long way to helping you improve your personal finance situation.
This is our 7th challenge in The Personal Finance Challenge Series…
i started a blog to post my journey to debt recovery in hopes that it will encourage me to analyze my situation and get back on the right track
Hi James,
I think that is a great step in the right direction. I truly believe that being open and honest with your finances will help you more than you realize.
Cheers,
Jeremy
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