I'm pretty fired up right now. We just got back from a leadership seminar and the couple that were speaking tonight were phenominal. They really spoke to where I am in life and where I want to be going. Talking about things they have dealt with that I see too commonly around me that I don't want in my life. Wow, amazing. But its late, so I think most people I know who would want to hear about it(and even those who don't) are mostly asleep preparing their minds for church tomorrow morning. Anyway, I had some extra time at work this morning and because there were no customer to work with I got to put in a couple of CDs and I took some notes on what was being said, so I figured I would do some thinking and writing about the notes I took. Oddly enough the CDs I was listening to were predomintly about finances. I just grabbed four of them before I left my house because I had about four hours of work to do. The first thing I have jotted down is pretty funny because until I think about it, most of the time I'm stuck in thinking about things a certain way. I know exactly when my pay day is. I know when they get my check in the main office and when they send it to me. I know what my base pay is and I know what bonuses I got for the month. So, my payday is one day a month. Now, my expense day is every day of the month. When my cc bill would come in I would be suprised every month. Over and Over, everytime it would catch me off guard. Oh crud is it that time of the month again? Good gravey, did we really spend that much on the card this month. Once it is pointed out to me it seems rediculous that I was doing this, but its true. Everyday was my expense day, but I wasn't really paying attention to it. With all of these expenses one has to wonder what the solution is. Well, odviously the answer is make more money. They only problem with that is easily found in my own personal experience. I now make more then double what I started making with this company 4 years ago and yet every month we barely scrape by at the end of the month and I wonder, how is that possible, I made more money this month then ever before and we're still broke. Well, the answer isn't in making more money, it is being more responsible with the money I have. You can actually look at your expenses as potential income. Income from an expense? How can that work? Well, think about it this way, when you get a raise what is the first thing that happens to that money? Taxes. So, for every dollar you make on a raise only $.66 makes it into you pocket. Now, if you were to cut back your expenses then every dollar you save is a dollar in your pocket. Its actually a better return to cut your expenses then to get a raise. Now, I'm sure there are some situations where this isn't the case, but for me it defintly is. So, I have gone back and I'm catagorizing our expenses for the month and I'm going to cut back on unnecisary things, like a $.50 can of DR.Pepper at work in the afternoons or going to Sonic during Happy Hour and getting a gigantic Strawberry Limeade. Building the discipline to cut back those temptations is not going to be easy. But I'm going to do it. As I was listening to the cd go on about saving your way to wealth I decided to call my wife and let her know about my new conviction. I didn't call her to guilt trip her because I can't go out and tell anyone to live their life a certain way if I'm not living that way. It just doens't make sense. So, I'm cutting back on my expenses to create more money at the end of my month for saving. What things are you going to cut out to help you build a legacy?