Pushing the Financial Reset Button a Little Earlier This Year

People have a great tendency to overspend during the holidays. Sometimes the spending takes the form of buying gifts for others. Other times the spending comes from a lack of discipline during a time when all the outer stimuli in the world says, “Buy, buy, buy!” It’s hard to stand up to that sort of social and societal pressure. Then on top of it all, spending behavior rather than saving behavior is encouraged for three long months, from the end of October to the start of the new year.

Too often it is not until the new year starts that people have the opportunity to breathe and escape the pressures of encouraged spending behaviors. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can push the restart button on your spending and finances any time of the year. And for those feel that they need a milestone holiday or event to help them jumpstart their saving behavior rather than spending behavior, they can look to a holiday like Thanksgiving for help.

Thanksgiving is all about family and friends. It’s all about caring for and being thankful for what little we have. Even millionaires do not own the world and they can be thankful for what little part of it they do have just as the beggar can be thankful for what he has received. More so than New Year’s Day is it a grand opportunity to resolve to reduce one’s spending and put first what is most important in one’s life, those things that we acquire without money and that all the spending in the world could not buy us.

Rather than wait until January 1st to make yet another resolution that will be hard to keep, begin your commitment to being a saver rather than a spender on the last Thursday in November, Thanksgiving Day. Start the habit to save just at the point every year when you're tempted to begin spending the most.

Black Friday doesn't have to be the retailer's Christmas. You can take the day back and reclaim it as a day to save. Even if you do go shopping, you can make conscious decisions about how much you will spend and when you will spend it without being cajoled by the marketplace into believing that you have no real alternatives. Take the holiday season back a little earlier this year and begin on Thanksgiving Day to refocus and reset your spending. Go into the new year with money in the bank and a different resolution that will keep you prosperous all year. 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!