Today we’re going to have a little drawing lesson. Don’t worry, even my 2-year-old can do this! For the purposes of this lesson, color=money!
*Special thanks to Mr. T for drawing our awesome moose-piggy bank for this demonstration!*
Coloring Your Spending
When you spend money, you should “stay within the lines.” Only spend money that is actually in your moose bank. Think about this picture.
If you wanted to get the money out, you would have to break the moose bank (awwww… but he’s so cute!). Think of this cute moose every time you go to spend money. Does that mean you should never spend money? NO! But before you spend money from your cute moose bank, you need to get into the habit of pausing and thinking about it first.
Is this purchase worth breaking this cute little moose face? Ask yourself does this spending align with my goals? If it does, break that little moose face and go for it, but don’t spend more than is in there… looking at the picture, that isn’t possible, right? There’s no other money anywhere. Remember this. It’s really that simple. If the money isn’t in the moose, you can’t spend it!
Coloring Your Savings
Savings breaks all conventional rules. There’s no need to “stay in the lines.” The most important thing is to save. You want lots of color!
Imagine just dumping the color all over. Will some of it end up in your moose bank? Yes! Will some of it end up in emergency funds, retirement funds, brokerage funds, etc. Yes! We can argue about the nitty gritty details about which moose bank needs which colors, but that’s not important. Pour that color!
Until you increase the amount of color on your savings picture, you don’t need to worry about the details. If you’re pouring color, you’re moving in the right direction.
Mr. Moose Bank Says: “Stay in the lines for your spending, go crazy on your savings!”
