How to Cultivate Your Money Consciousness

A hallmark of money consciousness is being able to shop, save and accomplish financial goals all at the same time. The financial mentality can be built up slowly or quickly, just like a life can be built through experiences, learning, and doing. Each single action taken and every thought that is financial in nature is one step closer to a cultivated money awareness. This article will discuss a few of steps that can be used to build such a money consciousness.

Setting financial goals

By setting financial goals each month, one trains the mind to think financially. Even small goals can accomplish this. After several months, this may become habit and representative of money consciousness.

To illustrate financial goal setting, an annual plan to save 1-2% of one's household income every month may not seem like a lot but could be all that is needed to build consistent financial awareness Even if the goal is short at the end of the year, there is a good chance more will have been saved if no plan had been used.

Budgeting

Setting a monthly budget is something many people already do as a matter of making ends meet. However budgeting itself can be improved upon to yield greater financial results. For example, there may be little ways to cut costs such as the following:

• Pay auto insurance in 6 month installments to save on monthly premiums
• If one drives an old car, it may be a good decision to switch to liability insurance
• Performing errands all in one day can save on gas bills
• Switching to an average utility plan may even out bills for extreme temperature months.

Shopping wisely

To shop wisely means not spending too much, saving money, cutting costs and still living well. This is possible and can build money consciousness as well. For example, one may buy things that are needed every month in bulk. Even if the upfront cost is higher, the long terms savings will be greater. Shopping at discount and close out stores may even save the 1-2% example in the goals setting section of this article. This is an example of simultaneous shopping, saving money and reaching financial goals.

Investing

Another step in cultivating money consciousness is investing. Investing doesn't have to mean using a broker to buy and sell stocks. It can mean doing one small improvement to one's home every couple of months. Putting a little extra money in a savings account for rainy days, or purchasing a collectors item on ebay. There are many ways to invest big or small, whether it be time, energy or money, investing is an element in the mind of financial adepts. Even investing thought into how one can save more, do more with one's money and time is an investment.

Learn financial thought

Financial thought is a repertoire of concepts, ideas, principles, values and objectives that meld together into a financial model or paradigm depending on the context. There are many aspects to money, financial instruments, exchange, taxation etc. that can be learned and incorporated into one's knowledge to build financial awareness. For example, if one has a tax preparer do one's taxes every year, find out how it all works by studying where the Government takes money and where they give credit. Financial thought is an ongoing process that can take years to develop, but like all the above steps, each one step is movement in the direction of money consciousness.

Cultivating a money consciousness does not have to mean hard living and tremendous sacrifice, but it does take a little financial wisdom and good practice. The above techniques can be useful if practiced at least semi-continuously. Even the act of thinking about how to build money consciousness once a day can help build such an awareness that could end up being more than one thought possible.