Last week I wrote about the idea that every financial decision is an emotional one. If that’s true, then a good question is how do you use emotions to support good financial decisions?
One way is to have a picture of what it would look like in your life if you consistently made good financial decisions. Stories can be useful here, and one source that has been around for several decades is the publication The Richest Man in Babylon. This book is actually a collection of stories showing people moving from a poor position financially to a better one by applying certain principles to their lives.
If you don’t have a strong picture of what good financial health would look like for yourself, you will have little resistance to the strong pictures of advertising or social media. I am speaking about the strong pictures from advertising or social media that lead you to make financial decions that are attractive to you but ones that will lead to a worse off financial future. You need to have a strong stock of emotions that will lead you to long term financial health.
Follow up: returned check from MD office
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about having received a bill from a doctor’s office, paying the bill with a check, and then having the check returned because the doctor’s office said that the bill had already been paid.
Well, this week I received a new bill from the same doctor’s office. What should I do? Send another check that might eventually then be returned to me?
This time, I spent longer reading through the bill. Near the bottom of the page I saw some text that said something to the effect of: “Don’t pay this bill if you have electronic billing set up with us. If you send us a check we will mail it back to you.”
Oh. It would have been nice if I noticed that the last time. Anyways, mystery solved, and nice that I don’t have to do anything in terms of paying the latest bill.