One tweak a week!

Here’s another idea for you to try!

Work on tackling just *one* thing a week relating to your money, and then enjoy the satisfaction of both improving your finances AND being able to check something off the to-do list 😉

BOOM!

// End of post

Haha…

But it’s not my brilliant idea, here’s Suzanne who was inspired to do this and share it with us:

Good morning J.,

I listen to Paula Pant’s Afford Anything podcast, and she introduced me to the concept of One Tweak a Week. Essentially, you do one small thing each week to move yourself forward financially. They can be small things (like checking your credit score), or bigger things (like paying off your car – which I did last week!). I really, really like this idea because it keeps the momentum going, however small, and has some accountability built in if you share it with a spouse/friend.

So, I have an ongoing note written in my phone, with a list of “tweaks” to do. It helps to have a pre- thought out list so you can just do it instead of scratching your head each week. This week I’m going to a college planning workshop at my local library. After I complete the tweak, I move it to the “done” column and write the date…so I’ll be able to see my effort and progress over the year.

It’s not always easy to think of more tweaks. And of course it’s specific to one’s personal situation. But I was wondering if you and your readers could come up with a massive list of tweaks to help everyone consider what they might do next. What do you think?

– Suzanne G.

I think it’s beautiful! Especially the *tracking* of it all and putting down the dates of completion! What a thing to look back on over time!!

And I can literally think of a half dozen things right off the bat that would go on my list if I were forced to put one together… And I’m pretty sure you’re forcing me to, right? I hope?? 🙂

Here it is in all its embarrassing glory:

1. Pay all my hospital bills that keep on piling up due to my wicked pneumonia that I finally kicked and now just too lazy/annoyed to deal with, haha…
2. Call to get an improper charge waived on a different bill that had already been paid (why is it that errors never go in OUR favor?!)
3. Look into flood insurance because the Mrs keeps having nightmares of floods in our place and I’m starting to wonder if they’re actually premonitions?
4. Start looking for Minivan deals which I promised said Mrs I’d do months ago…
5. Start really thinking about long-term plans for our newly acquired stack of cash…
6. Up the contributions to the Mrs’ TSP plan now that our incomes are more solid than they have been in recent years… (And which motivation I owe to YOU guys for continuing to bring it up over the months/years! So thank you!! I always forget about that account for some reason?)

I could prob go on here, but I’ll stop there at the risk of losing my blogger card 😉

I gotta admit though – it feels damn good breaking it all down and putting it in writing like that! So much nicer dumping it out of my brain and ready for some action finally, haha… Especially if I only need to do ONE item each week vs saving up for a 5 hour window that will *never* come!

So I’m in!

Who’s with me???

What are your small annoying things you keep trying to do but for whatever reason haven’t yet??? What about dreams you’ve been missing out on because they seem way too big to tackle all at once? Could you break them down into smaller *weekly* tasks like these if you wanted to harness it in that way?!

I don’t know anyone who can’t do one thing a week, so might be an easy way to get the ball rolling again if you’ve recently fallen off the wagon… Just don’t try adding them all up if you miss a week or two!! That never works! Just start over from the beginning again and give it another college try…

Here’s the direct link to that podcast episode referred to if you want to take a listen: Episode #169: One Tweak a Week in 2019 — Easy Improvements to Your Financial Life

Then when you’re done with that, go back to episodes #1-#26 and see if there are any other gems you can squirrel away in your pockets…

I hear one of the co-hosts used to dish ’em out like candy 😉

UPDATE: Just spent an hour this morning going through the hospital bills and paying them off!! Week one complete! Haha…