Is there something you’ve been neglecting or putting off when it comes to your money? Here are some oft-neglected areas of personal finance:

• Creating a will
• Making a spending plan/budget
• Funding retirement
• Saving for college

Notice anything interesting about that list?

The first two items deal with things we’d rather not think about. If we make a will, we admit in black and white that we’re going to die someday. Who wants to admit that?

If we make a budget or a spending plan, we might have to change, or at the very least shine a spotlight on our current habits. We resist being “told what to do”, even when we’re the ones doing the telling.

The next two items deal with things that feel very far away, so they are easy to put off. Other things feel more urgent, right up until the very last minute. That’s when we realize — too late — that we’d have been a lot better off if we had only started sooner.

Or we may assume we don’t need to plan for those things at all. We intend to work forever and our children will get scholarships. But what if we can’t and they don’t? At that point our choices are limited.

It’s not too late to handle any of the things we’ve been putting off. In fact, it’s time to take action today.

Choose one thing you’ve been avoiding and write it down. (I like to use Google docs for stuff like this, but anything will do.) Now make a list of the things you need to find out about the subject before you can take action. Those are your first steps.

Do one of them today.

When you were a kid, you probably spent some time imagining what your life would be like when you grew up. You probably had a particular occupation in mind, and maybe some idea of what your family life would be like.

Maybe you actually ARE doing exactly what you thought you’d be doing, but a lot of people aren’t. At least, no one I’ve met has ever spent their life doing exactly what they thought they would be doing.

And that’s the thing. Life isn’t linear. It doesn’t proceed in a nice straight line along a pre-planned route.

Instead, there are bumps and hurdles along the way. There are bonuses, too. Sometimes things turn out better than we’d ever imagined. And…sometimes they don’t. Rarely though, do they ever turn out exactly like we had imagined.

That’s what can make planning our financial futures difficult. We may think that we’ll go to college, get a great job, and pay off those loans. Instead we get that MD and decide to stay home with the kids. Or we buy a house with the expectation that housing prices will continue upward, and instead end up unable to sell the house if we want to move.

Things just don’t always happen as planned. So when you’re planning out how you hope you’ll use your money in the future, or making a decision about what to do with your money right now, take alternate scenarios into account too.

How will you feel if things turn out exactly the opposite of what you had hoped or planned? What type of financial situation will you be in then? Is that something you can accept? If not, what could you do differently that might help to avoid that situation entirely or mitigate it if it does occur?

Planning for the best while preparing for the worst is an idea that often leaves you in very good shape. Sometimes preparing for the worst ends up making the best even better when it happens.

It’s easy to understand the basic concepts of personal finance. In a nutshell, they are:

1. Spend less than you earn
2. Save
3. Invest
4. Pay bills on time or early
5. Insure against financial threats
6. Pay attention

None of those things are particularly hard in theory. (The steps for implementing most of them are pretty easy too.)

But in order to actually do most of those things on a regular basis, we have to use a word that most people dislike.

That word is no.

No as in:

No, I…

• am not interested in 90 days same as cash.
• will not tell you what monthly payment amount I’m looking for.
• don’t need everything immediately.
• am not buying it if I don’t have the cash.
• don’t need a new item because of the latest rationalization or commercial I saw.
• can’t count on things continuing on the way they always have.
• may not always feel exactly the same way about what I’m doing or where I’m living.
• will not assume that I’ll automatically get a great paying job the moment I leave college
• am not too busy to pay attention to my money
• will not put off getting disability insurance and making a will

And the thing is, all of those no’s can very quickly get you to a whole lot of yeses.

Yes, you can have an enjoyable life, get the things you want, AND be in great financial shape.

Sometimes no can be a very positive word.