Posted by Lending Club :: December 29, 2008 @ 8:50 amAutomation is one of those concepts that can significantly improve your financial situation. This same power also has the potential to make things worse.
The power behind automating your personal finances is that it requires very little effort. After initial setup, the process happens automatically with little or no extra effort required. Saving through a company-sponsored 401(k) plan is one such example. After setting up your contribution and investment choices, money is automatically withdrawn from your paycheck without you having to do any additional work. You should periodically monitor your investment choices, but the process of saving has been taken out of your hands. Many automated finance topics, including 401(k) contributions, were covered in the bestselling book, The Automatic Millionaire, by David Bach.
While that book made a compelling case for automating your finances, you should be careful not to automate bad financial habits as well. A classic example of this is the gym membership that automatically drafts your membership fees from your checking account each month. I know that I would have cancelled my membership much sooner if I had to drive to the gym each month and hand over cash. That would have been much more painful and made me realize that the only reason I ever went to the gym was to pay for a membership I never used. Since the process was automated, I hung on much longer before canceling. Having other bills paid automatically can save time, but should only be done for expenses you definitely would have chosen to continue paying anyway.
The truth is that automating your finances is simply a way to get around your own laziness. It works well because once the initial setup is done, additional effort would be required to cancel the process. All things being equal, most of us choose inaction over action. To make the most of automating your finances, try to use it for as many savings and as few spending methods as possible.
Which expenses have you automated?
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2 Comments
One trick I've been trying to implement is to have separate
accounts for my automatic, semi-automatic, and spending accounts.
So my ING checking gets all of the fixed monthly bills, and the
bill pay system automatically makes the payment. I have another
checking account that gets enough money to pay for monthly expenses
like utilities or debt payments. Those change every month, but
still stay in a narrow band, so there's always enough to pay the
bills. The third checking account is used mostly for groceries and
gas, which means we're only living paycheck to paycheck when it
comes to groceries, which isn't so bad with proper budgeting.
I read the qualifications for getting a loan from lendingclub. Did
you know that there is a difference between having no credit and
bad credit? Why not have those with a zero credit score qualify for
a loan? A zero credit score means you have no established credit
history or you have cleaned up your bad credit. You know that
people with bad or damaged credit are already a risk, so I know you
wouldn't take a change. But you know those with no credit are
considered a risk, but some are a risk while others are not a risk.
You should realize people with currently good or positve credit
once had no credit history.
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