“Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. They were jerks before they had money; now they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.” – Warren Buffet

Is your house full of things you don’t need, overwhelmed with bills you can’t pay, always find yourself broke a few days after pay day? If you bare these syndromes, chances are it’s not because of lack of financial discipline or knowledge but probably because of your financial habits; habits you might not be aware of.

Let’s break down these habits.

Mr. Too Generous

There’s nothing wrong with being generous, but then again, there limits one’s generosity. Are you the type who’s easy to persuade or a plain show off, who spend exorbitantly to please others even when you don’t have cash to spare?

Showing you can pay doesn’t really make you rich, it only shows how careless you are, chance are, people will take advantage of your generosity. Be practical when it comes dishing out money, at most times it really isn’t worth the trouble.

The Spender

An interesting fact about humans, whenever we have cash chances are our lifestyle will abruptly change to in proportion to what we have in our pockets. Funny thing about money, it doesn’t always stick around. At one point or the other you’ll run out of the cash you have.

Think, rethink and think again before you start spending. You’ll find that there certain things really don’t have to buy.

Clueless

Do you have a record of how much is coming in and how much is going out? Do you keep a record of your receipts; do you keep tabs of how much you have in your bank account? If not, I am pretty sure you can’t account for the money you handle.

It’s important to record your income and expenses, this will help monitor if you are spending more than you are earning plus could be helpful when there’s a problem with your bank account such as unaccountable money that is missing in your account.

Failing to pay your bills on time

How much do you spend on fines and penalties for having failed to pay your bills or time or how much time have you lost queuing for hours since you waited till the deadline date before you rushed to settle your bills.

Come up with a system that will remind you to settle your bills ahead of the deadline, if possible, pay bills the moment you receive them to avoid worrying about them when more bills pile up.

Spending =100%

Saving = 0%

As onecentatatime.com puts it: Saving doesn’t mean having extra money whenever you want to buy something, it’s also means having a pool of fund to rely on should there be an emergency.

If only we all had a pool of savings to turn to whenever emergencies arise, borrowing to finance our emergencies would be unheard of. It’s advisable to save 10 percent of your net income every month and strictly keep this money for emergencies.