Changing Behavior
March 30th, 2006
Does using financial management software make you wealthier? Does budgeting eliminate debt? The answer is no, of course not. These are just tools that help you track where your money comes from and where it goes. Software and budgets only help you become wealthier as they change your behavior. Using those tools alone will do nothing if they don’t provide an incentive for you to improve your financial habits.
In 37signals‘ new book, Getting Real, they hit the nail on the head when they said:
“If it doesn’t change your behavior, then it just doesn’t matter.”
The financial tools we use should enhance our lives, not drain our time and create more clutter. Finance software should be really good at one thing - providing an incentive to increase wealth. (Is there really any other reason we’d spend so much time scrutinizing our finances?) In regards to the time we devote to our finances, we should waste less time trying to understand all the “bells and whistles” of our finance software and more time thinking about how to spend less and invest more of our money.
Sources: Getting Real book
Entry Filed under: Debt Reduction, Firevalt, Frugality, Investing, Saving
1 Comment Add your own
1. Debt Hater | April 1st, 2006 at 8:40 pm
Yup, that’s why I stopped using Quicken. People told me it was so easy, but for me it was just too much. Perhaps once I get a little better at this Quicken will make more sense to me, but not right now. AND it cost $9.95/month to use Quicken to pay bills with my bank! What a waste that was.
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