Mine is procrastination. It has caused me to delay saving for retirement, looking for a job, finding better deals, etc. It affects a lot more than just my finances though. I should have aksed what is your worst habit is that affects your finances. Procrastination also causes problems with my school work, exercise,blogging, and just about every aspect of my life. That is how I had no school Wednesday and still didn’t manage to get a blog post done.
This Monday I was stressed out because I had delayed two projects until they both had to be done that day. I could have easily had them done before Monday and spared myself the stress and ordeal of working all day on them but I didn’t. You’d think I’d learn from this but that hasn’t been the case in the past. I might do a little better for a while but then I’ll start letting things slide and eventually I’m procrastinating as bad as ever. I have a lot of things I want to do but I never seem to have time to do them. I know I could do more if I would just stop wasting time putting off actual work. I’m sure there is some way to cure this habit but I haven’t gotten around to looking for the solution yet.
I have a few worst habits. Procrastination is up there on the list but I have also noticed that I give in to spending too easily. Mostly I am willing to drop extra cash to get something for the girlfriend or the kids just cause they ask or want something. If I cut out getting them little treats so often I would save quite a bit.
Mine used to be procrastination too…but now it has turned to obsessiveness. I am constantly checking my finances and tweaking my budget and updating Quicken and Mint.
I think that I have been burdened with debt for so long and not known how to manage it that now as I have started seeing the light at the end of the debt tunnel I am going a bit overboard.
I think I need to go to budget rehab!!! 🙂
I use to procrastinate a lot and not pay a bill on time and get the finance charges and late fees. That stopped quickly after things added up. My wife and I are bad at buying stuff for our two young boys. We won’t buy anything for us, but when it comes to them anything is fair game.
Eating out. I love to eat out. I’ve talked about that a lot on my blog. But I can’t stop. I’ve given up on trying. 🙂
Thanks for all the comments. Sadly, I do share most of the bad financial habits mentioned. Procrastination is just the worst of them. I do pretty well despite that though so I can’t worry about it too much.
I wrote a blog about this just recently. Mine would include sleeping in and then needing to drive to work because the public transit here takes longer… forgetting to return library books… and letting my own ignorance prevent me from being proactive about investments.
I’d spend some time looking into that, ie, why do you think you procrastinate? Perhaps this may help:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/overcoming-procrastination.htm
I do not use money for what it ia allocated for a the time. This is the main reason I cannot keep a budget.