I think in many ways the step to becoming responsible with money and finance is to really start from square one in appreciating what you have already while utilizing your resources in a non wasteful way. I think food would be a great example of this where in some cultures they try to use every part of a food item while others would say just eat say the meat of the product and throw the rest in the trash. That mentality goes a long way as subconsciously you tend to carry the same habits when it comes to finance.
One example was that there is this person I know who is extremely bad with money as he pretty much grew up with things being given to him and so he doesn’t exactly have that same sense of appreciation for things as many others would. One day after eating lunch with another person on a small dining table, like most we were all taught to clean up after ourselves and so that is what happened. Now there is a wash cloth to clean up the table and normally someone would simply walk over to the sink area to dampen it to then quickly wipe the table. Instead, they got lazy it seems.
There happens to be a water dispenser in the room that was right next to them which had bottled water of course. The other person had the wash cloth and was thinking about using the bottled water instead of walking over to the sink area. Even he knew that it was kind of wrong to do so and so the person confirmed with the other first if he should do that. Surprisingly, he was told to go ahead. Now I am the one that paid for that water, so I was just staring in disbelief on how people could be that wasteful just because it looks like there is so much.
I immediately commented on that on how they shouldn’t waste the bottled water like that in a very disapproval tone. The person with the wash cloth felt bad while the person who is bad with money tried to just keep his head down for as long as possible. I just thought at that moment on how his bad financial habits are so reflective when it comes to other things as well and what the real issue is in terms of him struggling with money. It goes to show too that attitude and mindset plays such a huge role.
So if you ever have to start with anything I’d say in regards to taking a step to improve your financial situation, I’d say learning to not be wasteful with things that seem like you have a lot of and learn to appreciate what you have more would be a great thing to start with.
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