The 7 Personal Finance Articles We Loved This Week
I’ve written a little bit recently about how I’ve finally started working exercise into my daily routine. There have been a few moments in my life where I’ve thought, “You know, I could stand to be stronger and have more endurance,” including last month, when carrying bags of clothing from the subway to a Goodwill donation center was exhausting. But it wasn’t until I started tracking my exercise that I actually continued working at it. I used to go to the occasional dance class and do the occasional at-home yoga video, plan to do it the next day, and then forget to.
Now, I write down whatever exercise I completed each day, including if I did nothing. I wasn’t sure why this practice was helpful in continuing to work towards my loose exercise goals — I don’t have a goal weight in mind or anything, so I’m striving to simply “be stronger” — until I came across J. Money‘s last pick this week, from Raptitude. If you have a habit you’re working to build (finance-related or otherwise), be sure to check it out. Here’s my favorite tidbit:
I’ve spent my entire adult life experimenting with self-improvement campaigns of all sorts, and nothing has worked better than tracking alone. Just recording the numbers — without striving to change anything about what you’re tracking — almost always creates a sustainable, healthy transition to a better way of doing things.
It sounds radical: let yourself do what you want as long as you track it. But it leads to lasting change far more quickly and painlessly than the conventional method: striving to meet arbitrary, self-imposed quotas, hoping it will one day stop being so painful.
Read on for the rest of this week’s great picks!
1. Financial Advice From the Thief Next Door — Debt Files
“Ola was a bad person. At least that’s what everyone told me. My neighbors told me he had a criminal record which included assault, car theft, and narcotics dealing, but that his REAL passion was B&E thievery…Definitely not good for me, because Ola lived next door in our rundown dump of an apartment building.”
2. Great News: There’s Another Recession Coming! — Mr. Money Mustache “Most people who are wealthy today, achieved it by building and acquiring profitable investments in the past, when they were on sale. A recession is just a big sale — on almost everything.”
3. 10 New FinTech Startups We Like from Finovate Spring 2017 — PT Money
“We were on the lookout for innovative financial products and services that you could begin using in your financial life. Here’s a look at some of the products we got to see on stage.”
4. How to Make a Damn Decision — The Minimalists
“Today is the best day of your life, because today is the day everything changes: Today is the day your ‘shoulds’ turn into ‘musts.’ Today is the day you decide to take action.”
5. Driving for Dollars — Building Income
“Driving for dollars” is a concept a lot of investors and real estate brokers employ. It means getting into your car and traveling through targeted neighborhoods where you want to buy a property. If you’ve ever searched for a house in a certain neighborhood, you have done the same exact thing.”
6. What Would Happen If You Retired Today? — Miss Mazuma
“I have been working and earning a W2 since 1993 when I was 14. That’s 24 years of working for the man and all those years of labor have afforded me $1,110 per month of FREEDOM. Isn’t that incredible?! Not from a high or low standpoint, but just that it is actually calculable?!”
7. Where Breakthroughs Really Come From — Raptitude
“If you do this one thing, you’ll have a lot more money and a lot less worry, without any concerted efforts to earn more or restrict your spending. Probably the only way it won’t change your life is if you’re already doing it.”
Image via Pexels
