The Wealthy Barber

How many of you have read this book? Probably more have than haven't - though, embarrassingly, I'm only getting around to it now. I saw it on my parent's bookcase years ago, and it's been floating around forever, but I've never locked onto it until now.

Now, I'm not going to go too deeply into it - to be honest, I only started a couple of days ago. But the thing is, last night one particular attitude stuck with me.

This all coincides with a number of situations that have come together to make the timing right. On the one hand, I'm spending more time in my day on things to get my own franchise up and running - which, for the time being, means earning less (as it's an investment in the future, not an immediate return). That, coupled with the potential drop in earnings for the first couple of years, means that I have to be far more attentive to my own personal finances. Having worked with a company budget for the last few years, I used that as my starting point - and constructed a similar spreadsheet for home, with fixed expenses, variable expenses, etc. By playing with different projections, I've managed to balance things out... for now.

But here's the thing that stuck out for me from the first few chapters of the book. Many people find it (relatively) easy to balance a business' budget - but struggle with their own. Why? Simple - because for a business, they see things in terms of needs, and if they don't need it, it's eliminated. On the other hand - when dealing with their own personal finances, they begin to see wants as needs, and this is where the problem begins. "I need to have a couple of nights out", "I need the top-end runners"... we've all said things like this. And the truth is - most of it we don't actually need.

So this is my big takeaway. As of today, I have to begin to shift my paradigm, and really break down wants and needs. I'm hoping that this will help as I approach the next couple of years - my goal is to, despite making less... actually save/buy more, because I'm not nickle and diming myself to death.

When was the last time you looked at your own finances as if you were a business unto yourself?

~Guy