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Do you have trouble instilling in yourself a habit that you want to make natural? For example, do you ever want to begin saving money, or prevent yourself from buying a coffee on the way to work? It's often very hard to change yourself in a significant way because of inertia. You will likely do what you've always done, because that's the way you've always done it.

However, if you want to create a habit of saving your money rather than spending it, it can be done. You just have to be willing to make the change. As I wrote in a recent article, you have to be willing to actually want the change. It's easy to think to yourself, "I would like to save more," but not so easy to actually get up and start saving money.

Once you do start, it's very easy to give up after only a few days and go back to how you used to be. Think of people who are trying to begin a diet or exercise regimen -- they are so used to being sedentary that a new lifestyle change rarely sticks.

Steve Pavlina, however, wrote an excellent article on how to make a habit stick. The article is entitled "30 Days to Success". His plan is based on the idea of inertia.

"Let’s say you want to start a new habit like an exercise program or quit a bad habit
like sucking on cancer sticks. We all know that getting started and sticking with the
new habit for a few weeks is the hard part. Once you’ve overcome inertia, it’s much
easier to keep going."

So what's his plan? Make, force, do whatever it takes to get yourself to follow the habit for 30 days. Just 30 days. Don't think to yourself that you have to save your money forever -- just 30 days. By making the mental change to accept that the change is only temporary, you are more likely to be willing to follow through.

Once you are done with 30 days, you can reassess your situation with the confidence that you've already succeeded. Now, you can extend the trial period for longer, or decide to make it a serious habit.

So if you want to quit drinking coffee before work, simply promise yourself to save and invest that extra five bucks for only 30 days. Promise yourself now. You can meet any goal you put your mind to, and financial ones are important to every aspect of your life. All it takes is a willingness to change!

If you dream of being wealthy, getting completely out of debt, or funding an easy retirement, there's something you should know. It's not impossible. However, if you find yourself consistently deeper and deeper in debt, perhaps it's time to change some of the bad habits that have kept you from achieving your goals.

Supposedly, one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the results to be different. If you continuously spend more than you earn, how can you ever expect to get out of debt?

The Motley Fool published an article that talks about the basic habits of a millionaire. Some of the advice is great advice, although a bit unspecific. The author outlines three major rules.

1. Believe it's possible
2. Burn your boats
3. Associate with those who are already successful

The first piece of advice is good. You have to believe that you can succeed -- once you believe in yourself, you can plot a feasible plan to make your goal a reality. The second piece of advice relates to raising the cost of failure -- by doing so (through destroying credit cards or telling your friends to yell at you if you overspend), you make it more difficult to not succeed. The last step is imperative -- befriend and get advice from those who had been in your situation in the past. Only by doing this will you be able to learn from others' mistakes.

The process of getting out of debt and achieving your goals can be a difficult one to bear. However, the act of planning your approach can make it much easier. You just have to first believe it is possible to succeed and then do everything in your power to make it happen.

Think back to your high school days. Did you ever learn anything about how to deal with money? Sure, you learned all about how geometry and algebra can be used in the real world, and how to interpret literature, but many schools never teach this most basic skill.

Good news is on the horizon, though. The Tennessee State Board of Education has enacted a new high school policy that will make Tennessee the eighth state to require a personal finance class to graduate. The other seven, as noted by the National Council on Economic Education, are Illinois, Idaho, Utah, South Dakota, Missouri, Louisiana, and Georgia. This is great, especially since Tennessee has one of the highest numbers of bankruptcy in America.

The difficulty is making a personal finance course engaging and interesting to high schoolers. I don't know how I would do it -- thinking back to my own high school days, most kids wouldn't even come to classes on economics, much less learn from them. I think the most difficult part is making the classes fun and personally relevant to each student.

Hopefully, more states will formally educate their students on how to deal with money. With consumerism at an all time high in our culture, a good understanding of financial concepts is bound to help people succeed in life.

Would you rather earn $50,000 a year while other people make $25,000, or would you rather earn $100,000 a year while other people get $250,000? Assume for the moment that prices of goods and services will stay the same.

This question has been asked by researchers in the past, and the answer is always astonishing. An LA Times article explored this phenomenon and further described other weird ways that people think about money.

For example, looking at the above question, it seems only rational that people would want to earn $100,000, right? I mean, that’s twice as much as $50,000, and if prices are the same, that means your absolute standard of living will be twice as high!

However, research has shown that most people will choose the opposing option: They would rather earn $50,000 as long as they are making more than other people. Their absolute standard of living isn't important to them--only their comparative standard. Rationally, this doesn't make sense, but humans aren't always rational.

Another situation described in the article involves the following question:

Would you rather be A or B?

A is waiting in line at a movie theater. When he gets to the ticket window, he is told that as he is the 100,000th customer of the theater, he has just won $100.

B is waiting in line at a different theater. The man in front of him wins $1,000 for being the 1-millionth customer of the theater. Mr. B wins $150.

People are willing to lose $50 just to avoid having the person in front win more money than they do.

The article continues on to give an evolutionary explanation for why people prefer to think comparatively rather than absolutely. Regardless of the reasoning, it still shows that financial thinking is not always rational. It also explains why some people will go bankrupt just to be able to show off their house or car. It reminds me of one of my best friends, whose aunt and uncle were going bankrupt and were about to lose their house but continued buying expensive furniture so that they could show it off to their relatives.

The thing that scared me the most was that I wasn't sure of my answer to the two questions above. I'm not even sure how rational a consumer I am. How rational are you?

Earlier this year, Fortune Magazine writers looked at several research studies to see what major changes are taking place in the working world in 2008. This meta-analysis of statistics is very interesting, especially for people considering taking a new job or moving into a new career. But first there are some key findings you should know about if you are staying in your current position.

For starters, if you are expecting a raise this year because last year's wasn't so good, you might be mistaken. According to the study:

Pay hikes for salaried employees and managers this year will be exactly the same as in 2007, averaging a ho-hum 3.9%. Hourly workers will make out a tiny bit worse, with increases of 3.7%.

One very interesting change is the increasing willingness of employers to offer flexible working arrangements.

Almost 80% [of employers] said they'll introduce or expand alternative work schedules, for instance, allowing employees to come in early and leave early or come in late and work late; 38% plan to allow compressed workweeks, in which people work the same hours but in fewer days; and 33% expect to encourage an increase in telecommuting.

If you are considering changing jobs or careers, be sure to pay special attention to this trend: more than ever, your online reputation is critical.

Hiring managers and recruiters were surveyed by executive career network ExecuNet, and apparently job seekers' "online image management will make or break more job searches" in 2008 than ever.
The article includes useful tips, advice and other resources for job hunters including how to manage your online image.