Financial Freedom Quick Tip #38: Two days
Human beings are generally not moved by logic or reason. It is imagination, emotion, feelings that motivate the masses of mankind.
The natural way for humans to make decisions with their money goes like this:
Sense -> Feel -> Spend
Here are a few examples:
- Smell it. Hunger it. Eat it.
- See it. Want it. Charge it.
- Hear it. Fear it. Insure it.
To make good decisions with your money, you need to go against your natural – and immediate – impulses and add an extra step to the process.
Sense -> Feel -> Think -> Spend
Two days
I’ve found that two days is just the right amount of time for me, to be able to think clearly about something that I feel I really want, but not necessarily need.
See something you want to buy? Look it over carefully, acknowledge the feeling, then carry one with your life for two days and think about how buying the thing you want will influence your family, your life goals, your freedom and your happiness.
If, after two days, you’re sure it is a good decision to buy it, then go back and make your purchase.
You can apply the same rule to other financial decisions.
If someone offers you an insurance policy or investment product, hear them out. Then take two days to consider it.
Use your two days to think about all the benefits and disadvantages of having/not having that product and how it will influence your other life- and financial goals. Then make your decision.
Two days of waiting – and a bit of thinking – is usually all it takes to make good financial decisions.
This tip is part of the Financial Freedom Quick Tips series. If you want to receive a notice every time a new quick tip is published, you can subscribe to Liberta.
February 2nd, 2009 at 08:29 am
Great advice!!!
February 4th, 2009 at 11:48 am
excellent principle. i personally need more time to think it over, but this is definitely something we exercise on a daily basis.
February 6th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
hey it’s been awhile. hope everyone at this blog is doing well.
very good advice!!! I find that when I do this I usually don’t go back and get it.