This is the ninth (and final) part of a series on setting up a financial plan.
The beginning of the series is here.
The previous article is “Financial Tools: Budget Tracking/Planning“.

So here we are, all set up with the right tools to build a better financial future. Hooray! But now that the initial hard work is (mostly) over, it’s time to step back for a moment and get some perspective.

All the plans, account setups, expense reductions and general thinking about money I’ve done in the past few months has changed a lot of my perspectives.

I don’t walk into a store and blindly buy things I want right now any more, because every dollar I spend is a dollar that could be working for me elsewhere. And I’m truly grateful for the change, because it will have a marked positive effect in the future.

But like all new interests, obsessions and endeavours, it’s easy to get carried away and become single-minded about them - checking spreadsheets every 30 minutes, and vowing never to spend a red cent on anything ever again - because it could be invested.

Being obsessed has been good for a few months - I’ve put in a lot of spadework and made a lot of decisions which set me on the right path. But now it’s time to let those decisions and tools work for themselves, and think a bit more philosophically about how my life and my finances mesh together.

For me, the quintessential point to base this thinking around is my snowboard. (more…)