Easy Seniors Life

Trying to change everything at once

Financial fitness is a lot like physical fitness — you can’t expect to bench your body weight on the first trip to the gym or run a marathon when you’ve sat on the couch four hours a day for the past year. Likewise, if you’re in debt and have bad habits, it’s going to take time to start thinking about money the right way.

Let’s say you read everything in this article and were immediately motivated to cut all extra spending, contribute to a 401(k), and start an emergency fund. No more stupid money mistakes. Then you see a sharp decrease in spending money, and instead of adjusting your lifestyle, which would be hard, you will probably stop your 401(k) and emergency savings contributions, which is easy.

How to avoid it: Start small, and start slow. Think of saving like losing weight: there is no lose-weight-quick or get-rich-quick solution that will last.

This article by Jess Miller was originally published on Debt.com.