What’s a typical week like for you, money-wise?

For me it goes like this: I run errands and spend money, eat out and spend money, get groceries and gas and spend money, and pile up receipts on my desk. Then at the end of the week (or sometimes several times a week) I enter my receipts into Quicken & my spreadsheet, make transfers as applicable to various accounts, pay bills, etc.

It seems like I’m always doing stuff with my money. I’m busy busy busy.

But for the most part all I’m really doing is maintaining the status quo. Maintaining is important, because I wouldn’t want to run out of money or being paying late fees, but that shouldn’t be ALL there is.

It’s important to work on your financial life too, not just on your finances. Don’t get so caught up in minutiae that you can’t see the forest for the trees. Where do you want to be in 5 years? How about next month? What are you doing to get there?

If you know you should begin investing someday, set aside 10 minutes to find out the name of a good book on investing. Then set aside another few minutes to go get it from the library. Then a few more each day to actually read it. You’ve got to get started.

Of course it’s important to manage the daily details of your money, but those will always be there. (And somehow you’ll still find time to squeeze them in, even if you add a little “big picture” stuff to your week as well.) Don’t be the person who looks back 20 years from now and says “If only”…