Debt-Free Forever Gail Vaz-Oxlade (best ereader for epub TXT) 📖

promise yourself you’ll never do that again! Reward yourself for your hard work. Take whatever you’ve been using for debt repayment and, just once, splurge on something you really, really want.

STEP 8: REALLOCATE THE MONEY

Your final step, having become debt-free and done your little self-indulgent splurge, is to reallocate the money you’ve been using for debt repayment. Use one-third to boost your emergency and/or long-term savings. Use one-third to work toward a goal: taking a trip, buying a car, redoing the kitchen. This is going to be your Planned Spending money from here on in. As for the rest, incorporate it back into your budget so you have some wiggle room.

CONCLUSION

TAKE CONTROL … REALLY!

Everyone has regrets, right? There’s all that debt you’ve run up on your credit cards. There’s the effort you did not put in to finish the paper, get the project completed on time, get a promotion. And there’s the laundry, the dusting, the thank-you notes you haven’t got around to just yet. So you beat yourself up. You say you should have. You feel rotten. ‘Course, you probably don’t do things any differently the next time, giving you plenty more fodder for Mother Regret to stand over you and berate you: you fool, you simpleton, you dummy!

Here’s a Gail Bulletin: You’re wasting your energy if you’re spending time visiting with Mother Regret! Get over yourself and get on with your life.

But, Gail, all those stupid things I’ve done … shouldn’t I feel like a dope?

Sure you should. If you’ve done dopey things, then you’re justified in calling yourself a dope. But wasting good energy wallowing in regret is counterproductive. After all, the things you are regretting are things past. You can’t do a thing about them. So beating yourself up over your mistakes over and over and over brings you no closer to where you want to be. (Feeling like a dope, on the other hand, will hopefully keep you from making the same mistake again.)

TURN REGRET INTO ACTION

Made some mistakes? Who hasn’t? And why do you think yours are worse than anyone else’s? As Warren Buffet says, “All saints have a past; all sinners have a future.”

The first thing you have to do is stop beating yourself up. Lamenting the mistakes we’ve made doesn’t help us to see ourselves as successful, which is a part of becoming successful. So instead of focusing on all the debt you’ve created, set your eyes on the payments you are making to whittle that debt away.

While you can’t do anything about the mistakes you’ve made, you can learn from them. If you couldn’t resist making purchases because your credit card was sitting cozily in your wallet, then accept that you have no self-control and leave the credit card at home.

Making a list of your regrets, with notes on strategies not to repeat those mistakes, can be a great way to shut Mother Regret up! Grab a pad and pencil and jot down the things for which you’re kicking yourself in the pants. Now take all the new things you’re going to do differently and transfer them to your Strategies for Success List. Burn the Regrets List. Use the Strategies for Success List to help you set some goals for the future.

Many people regret the things in their lives that they never did. My mother always said, “It isn’t the things we do in life that bring the most regret, it’s the things we never did. So do it all.” I took her advice and regret very little. There are things that hurt, things that I wish had come out differently, but I don’t regret them. They were lessons from which I learned and grew.

If you have things you wish you had done, it’s time to make the Mother of All To-Do Lists so you don’t end up with Mother Regret whispering your failings, your chicken-heartedness, your procrastination in your ear. Write them down and then get busy doing them. It isn’t too late; not until you’re dead!

As you move forward, stay focused on today. Looking too far into the future can be intimidating. Looking over your shoulder at where you’ve been is just navel gazing. Be in the present. What are you going to do today, and keep doing every today, to make the life you want?

This may mean swapping some bad habits you’ve had for some better ones. If you’ve habitually used the bank machine as a wallet, racking up wicked bank charges every month, then today you will start planning how you spend your money. This month you will go to the bank machine only once a week, or twice a month, whatever works for you. And you’ll only carry as much money as you plan to spend, so you can’t use it all up on a whim. Addicted to eating out? Today you’ll make lunch. Addicted to shopping? Start using a shopping list and only buying what’s on the list.

GAIL’S TIPS

The Japanese have an interesting approach to forming new habits. Kaizen focuses on continuous but small change, which helps to maintain momentum. So instead of saying you’re cooking all your meals at home from here on in, you pick one night a week when you’re going to cook and you stick to it, until the Wednesday Night Home-Cooked Meal is a habit. Then you add another day. And another. And another, until you’ve reached your final goal.

Today’s the day to wipe clean the slate and begin the rest of your life. Will you allow Mother Regret to make you miserable? Or will you take control of the rest of your life and do only those things that keep you in the zone—the place you want to be?

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY, TAKE CONTROL

At the crux of most financial problems is an unwillingness to accept personal responsibility for the actions we’ve taken. Your life is your own creation. If you feel like a victim, you have made it so. So if