Found Money and Found Debt

Recently I have had cases of both found money and found debt happen to me in large amounts: $800 and $950 respectively and it made me think about personal habits that help your finances. We tend to think more about the "finance" side (i.e., the dollars and cents) of personal finance, but there are some schools of thought out there that claim that the "personal" side can have a much larger impact. For example, books titled "Think Yourself Rich" and "Secrets of the Millionaire Mind" --neither of which I have read by the way :).

But on a smaller scale, I think that there is daily impact from your personal approaches and habits with your finances. For example, found money implies that you lost it first. Of course it's great to find it again, but what if you never did? Not so good, and you would never know that it was even missing.

Here's another example: We all know that late bill payments can affect our credit rating, but what about waiting too long to collect money that is owed to us? From my own business experience and others I have spoken to, it seems that your best chance to get someone to pay you is right away, while they remember their reason for doing so. If you wait weeks or months, then it gets harder to collect the money that someone owes you for buying their expensive theatre ticket or lending them $20 when they forget their wallet at lunch. And eventually you may become too embarassed to even ask. I know that I do.

And another one that I'm guilty of: Forgetting to use up near-cash assets like reward points or gift certificates. My estimate is that I currently have about $1,000 in such assets for a variety of places, including Shoppers Drug Mart ($75+), Superstore/PC points ($250), Holt Renfrew ($250), Starbucks ($45), PetroPoints (unknown), Amex/Telus ($300), spa ($50) and maybe even more that I can't remember. These arrive as gifts, or build up gradually, and I often forget about them until they are expired or lost. What a waste!

So to come back to yesterday's post for a moment, I'm still thinking about taking the Quicken plunge again. I would like to do one month and then see if I need to go longer (or if I can handle it). This kind of organization is also a personal habit that I feel will have a very positive effect on my finances and I'm thinking of doing it for the month of April.

But my conclusion is that we are self-sabotaging through these wasteful and counterproductive habits. Each step I can take to close holes in my personal "systems" that are money losers is a step that increases my income or decreases my spending, usually very painlessly.

And speaking of points and gift cards, maybe I should be going shopping tonight....

Today's billable hours: 2.5
Today's contracted hours: 3.5