The 3 Biggest Mistakes to Avoid when Budgeting Your Money

This week I hooked up with Rebecca Tervo CPA to get some practical budgeting tips for my people! Listen to our chat where she reveals three big budgeting mistakes:



Rebecca Tervo, CPA, is the founder of Tervo & Co Financial Fitness. You can check out her blog at www.tervofinancial.com/blog where she writes about personal finance, Quickbooks tips, and her own entrepreneurial experience. Lots of free tips and advice!

Is Your Perfectionism Screwing up your Budget?

Perfectionists have impossibly high standards. Impossibly high standards make things ... well, IMPOSSIBLE! Here I'll tell you how to step into saving and budgeting your money slowly and simply. No stress or overwhelm!

I'm not ignoring you!

Hello, Everyone!

I just realized people have been leaving comments on my blog. I wanted to let you know that I wasn't ignoring you; I just spend most my time in the administrator mode, and so I never even noticed!

I've changed my notification setting, so now I'm ready to enter into a (timely) dialogue with you. Thanks to everyone who has left a comment, and I look forward to more in the future!

Here's my Biggest Loser moment ...

... and it has nothing to do with losing weight. Have you had a Biggest Loser moment? What did you take from it? And if you haven't had one, maybe it's time!



Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It's too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came,
and we pushed,
And they flew.
-- Christopher Logue --

Woo-hoo! One of my segments made it on Clip Syndicate!

Money doesn't grow on trees, but it does magically appear ...

So I'm on my way to the TV studio to do my weekly segment, which contains similar information to this Video Blog. I stop at the gas station on the way there, open the door, and there's a bright shiny nickel waiting for me in the center of the mat!

You might say it's just a random nickel, but I had a full-fledged celebration. MONEY! And all I had to do was bend over and pick it up! It's like it magically appeared just for me as I was getting ready to talk to the TV viewers about this very same topic. How cool is that?!?

Here's the full scoop:

Are you making this top money mistake?

Saying "I can't afford it" or "I don't have money for that" is setting you up for stress and worry. I know it sounds like a stretch, but it's true. Staying focused on what you don't have only sets you up for more failure. Here's more detail about changing your money mindset ...

Money is not your enemy, so stop talking like it is!

Here I go, tripping myself up ...

At the end of January, I started writing a book. I signed up for Donna Kozik's Write a Book in a Weekend. I didn't finish my book that weekend, but within the next two weeks I probably finished about 2/3 of the book. Then I got stuck ...

Over the weeks, I decided that I probably just needed to start over. And believe me, I wasn't looking forward to that prospect!

But I just went back and reread what I've already written, and it's not bad! I feel like I can probably even finish it. I've even made a commitment to my business coach that I'd lay out a plan and have it done in May.

Now, I've never written a book before, so this is an entirely new experience. New experiences definitely get my caveman brain going! It's been judging my writing as being bad, and it's been making the job seem insurmountable (especially if I had to start over).

Yet even though I know my caveman brain inside and out, and I know it often doesn't reflect the truth of a situation, I've been listening to it! I even know that perfectionism and struggle are some of the top symptoms for the way my caveman brain works, and I've fallen for it again!

I'm not going to beat myself up over it, though. I know that I'll always have my caveman brain and that in this instance, it's just trying to protect me from feelings of rejection, ridicule and failure. And that's okay ...

But I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to let my caveman brain tell me what to do. I'm going to get back on the horse and get back to my book.

And I'm not going to worry about how long it is or which format and size it should be, because that's where my caveman brain also wants to go. It wants to distract me with the details. But I know that I just need to take it step-by-step, putting one word in front of another until its done. Then, and ONLY then, do I need to move to those logistics.

So here I go! I'm off to write a fabulous book about the caveman brain!