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This post is the first of seven that will explain 7 Habits of Highly Frugal People…and why they enjoy life more than you do!

One of the prevailing themes of the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is the fact that to change your life you need to change your attitude because no one else is responsible for what happens to you but you. You can either complain about the things you don’t like in your life or you can set about changing them. Not surprisingly, this directly relates to the state of your finances.

If you are tired of:

• living week to week
• having your cell phone regularly cut of
• making excuses to skip outings with your friends
• money running out before the end of the month

….then you can use the seven habits of highly effective people to take control of your money situation and live a more frugal lifestyle, and a happier one.

Habit One: Be Proactive

The first habit of a highly effective person is to take responsibility for one’s life; there is no one else to blame but yourself. Regardless of how you were raised or how you were treated at school you are able to choose your behavior now. Being proactive means understanding that you are in control of the direction your life takes and in control of your day to day interactions. A reactive person is often affected by their environment and will find someone or something to blame for their behavior or bad mood.

What most people forget is that between the stimulus and your response, is your freedom to choose your response. One of the most important things you choose are your words. The language you use is an effective indication of how you see yourself and if you use proactive language such as “I can” or “I will”, you are starting with a more positive attitude than a reactive person who uses language like “I can’t”or “I have to” or “if only”.

How to be proactive for effective frugality:

Getting Started: Take a long hard look at your finances and your budget, your debts, income and expenses and understand where your money is going. The more you ignore the situation the worse it will get.

Go Public With Your Intentions: Using proactive language to vocalize your goal of being more frugal and more financially responsible not only helps you crystallize your goal but can also help you avoid the peer pressure which can make budgeting and frugality hard.

Listen to Yourself: Listen to the reasons you give yourself each time you make a purchase outside of your budget or decide not to put those spare funds into your saving account. Give yourself the opportunity to hear just how shallow many of those reasons are and stop making purchases which can impede your goal of effective frugality.

Get Over It: Understand and implement the 7 Habits I am sharing with you this week; get over the attitude that frugal is “poor”, or “stingy”or “cheap”. Frugal means to maximize the benefit of your time, effort and money so you can enjoy them more!

What new habits will you start this week? I’d love to hear your comments in the box below. For more information on how I am working with new frugal habits, enter your information in the form here.