Sometimes we’ll have a little fun with some posts here at SAFTM. I don’t mind making fun of myself. But I do think quite a bit about personal finance when things happen in my personal life. And when I do I’ll post a story or two about it. This is one of those posts. I hope you don’t mind. 
Last night I went back to the gym for the first time in a long time. I’ve had a hard time staying committed to working out over the last couple of years. I generally go once or twice, train too hard, and take a “few days off” that turn into a few months off or longer. Let’s hope this is not one of those times. Anyhow, onto why you’re reading about this on a personal finance blog.
I went to the gym and promised myself that I would not over train. I would work out one muscle group and maybe do a little cardio and then go home. That’s it. One hour. Then home. I picked “chest” because that’s the standard gym-rat first muscle group to do (Is that a good enough reason? There really was no other logic to it except that’s what I used to do the last time I worked out regularly, about three years ago.). Three sets of three different chest exercises later, I was done. I did fine. I was back! I felt good.
Now for cardio. This is where the personal finance lessons came in. I thought of many of you, but especially nicoleandmaggie. Here is what happened:
I walked over to the cardio equipment. For some reason, I kept walking. I walked right past the treadmills, past the elliptical machines, past the steppers and right into the “boxing room.” I figured I would find a jump rope and a bag to “hit” for a little bit, build up my heart rate for a few minutes, do “a sit-up,” and then go home. I didn’t really have a plan, but I had an idea – a bad idea.
Instead of a jump rope, I found a woman playing with a stereo.
“Do you mind if I hit the speed bag for a few minutes and maybe do a little jump rope in the corner?” I asked.
“Sure, but we’re going to start a class in a few minutes, so you can either join the class or work out on your own until it starts and then leave,” she politely replied.
“A class? What kind of class?”
(politely, again) “Boxing.” (Duh, Nick!)
“Like beginner’s boxing?” (I knew right then that this was not going to end well for me.)
“Sure.”
This is where everything went wrong. I’m sure you guessed it by now. After a few more questions I decided to stay for the class!
Fast forward thirty minutes later and I’m on the floor, with my feet and shoulders raised, trying to balance on my lower back to “engage” my “abs” and she is literally standing over me, one leg on either side of my hips slamming a medicine ball into my “abs” twenty times in a row! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
(You get the picture?) And to make things worse, every time she slammed the ball down on my “abs” she is screaming “breathe out when I hit you!!!“ (I had a big lunch. And a second lunch (two business lunches – don’t worry I didn’t pay for either…). Breathing out forcefully while someone was crashing a weighted ball into my gut was not a good idea.)
But why was I thinking of you while she was literally smacking me in the side of the head for not properly “ducking and weaving” forty five minutes into the “beginner” boxing class? Because every time she smacked me in the head I thought of how I felt every time I made a mistake with my money.
Here are a few other tenets of personal finance from today’s class:
Have a plan. Know your plan. Pace yourself. If you don’t, you’re going to be surprised, and it’s probably going to hurt.
I learned this in the first nine minutes. The instructor told me we do three rounds of shadow boxing. She set the timer for three minutes and said “go.” I kicked my shadow’s “bootie” for three minutes straight! Then the bell rang and I stopped. I got yelled at. Why? Because I didn’t ask whether we took breaks between rounds. I planned for three minutes on, one off, and so on. But she didn’t say anything about resting between the rounds. I still had six minutes left! If I knew I had nine minutes straight I would have paced myself and been “fine.”
So no matter what’ you’re doing (starting a business, starting to invest, saving for college, paying off debt), have a plan. Be organized. Plan it out. Do some homework. And, if you can, plan for a slow and steady ascent to wealth. Generally, a slow, careful plan is one you can stick with – and realistic.
If you’re not careful you can get in your own way and destroy an otherwise good financial plan.
I learned this about four minutes into the class when I literally punched myself in the face! Yes, you read that right. I was still shocked that I had five minutes left with no rest and wishing I had planned better. I was so mad at myself for not pacing myself better that I lost focus and then whack! I punched myself in the right eye with an “uppercut.”
My eye was watering! Fortunately my other eye was covered in sweat and tearing up a little from the pain, so the instructor didn’t know. But it hurt, too! (I guess I have a pretty good uppercut…).
So don’t get lazy or stop paying attention to your financial plan. Please don’t lose focus and punch your retirement plan in the face! I promise you that will sting more than a punch to the face.
If your initial plan doesn’t go how you pictured it, you can still accomplish your goals – even if it is slightly more difficult or painful than you expected.
I learned this about seven minutes into the class. After the initial shock of not resting in between the first three rounds of shadowboxing, I finally knew what I had ahead of me – six minutes and no rest. I had to pace myself better. I was thrown off. I wasn’t ready for six more minutes and had to adjust because I was committed to doing it.
This is when I was thinking about nicoleandmaggie and their fantastic post yesterday about being in no hurry to join the millionaire club. Why didn’t I pace myself a little better?!?! Why was I in such a hurry to beat the pulp out of my shadow?!?! I needed to regroup and slow down. I did it! And I made it through! It just wasn’t very fun…
So why are you in such a rush? Rushing may not be right for you. It’s not right for everyone. Some people are sprinters by nature and that’s OK. Others are marathon runners. That’s OK too. But life is a marathon. So if you’re a sprinter, you’ll need to be able to keep up that pace and intensity for quite a while! And if in 2006, you were a sprinter and your plan was to retire quickly, rich, by flipping houses, you probably need to adjust your plan. You can still get there, but you’re stuck in a marathon. Adjust your plan and keep up the pace.
As you age, you need to adjust your game plan.
I bet you saw this one coming…I learned this right before she started crushing my ribs like she was tenderizing a cheap piece of chuck. I was about 28 minutes into an hour class. A lot of me was jiggling. Everything was hurting.
I was not 21-years-old anymore like MoneyMan! I’m a little over a decade removed from there. So I couldn’t punch through the bag any more. I had to punch to the bag. I have to slowly get back into shape. I was older. I don’t need to be a tough guy. I don’t need to go full steam ahead. Slow and steady.
Just like with exercise, as you age you need to have a slower, more conservative approach to personal finance. When you’re in your late sixties, you probably shouldn’t be speculating on the Iraqi Dinar or putting all of your retirement money you’re living on in pork bellies! You’ll start to love words like dividends, bonds, cash equivalents and CDs. Be a little (or a lot) more conservative when you age.
I could go on for pages and pages about how often I thought about personal finance tenets as I was trying to hold down my lunch (and “second lunch”).
But I’ll stop here. The point is simple. A personal financial plan is never going to be perfect. But if you (a) plan, (b) pay attention, (c) stick to your plan, and (d) pace yourself, at the end of the day you’re probably going to be in better financial shape when you finish than when you started. You’ll feel some pain as you go. Things will not going to go exactly as you planned. You’ll think you “can’t” make it at times. But you can and you will! I promise.
Here’s a great first step. You guessed it, put your credit card down and slowly step away from the mall!
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