The lesson I learned about money by watching my older brother.

When I was a kid I can remember sitting in the van watching my dad and my pappaw cut grass for an owner of a few apartment complexes around town. This was way before every guy in town had a truck pulling a trailer full of large scale mowers. My pappaw had an old red Dodge Van and we would load up the little push mowers into the van and off we would go.

While they cut the grass my brother and I would pick up the trash and collect any aluminum cans for recycling. They would give us a few bucks depending on how much we had to pick up and clean up. As we get older, my dad stopped cutting grass and it was just my brother and I with my pappaw. We had this grass cutting job from around age nine until I started working a “real” job at age sixteen.

I think when I first started cutting the grass, my cut of the check was about $10. And when we stopped, I think my cut might have been $25 a week.

If we cut the grass on a Thursday my money would be gone by the time the next Thursday rolled around. As I think about it right not, I can’t think of anything of significance that I ever bought with that grass cutting money. But I can think of several pairs of shoes my brother bought over the years and how he ultimately bought his first car with some of that money.

My brother would take his money and put it in a box and then put it in his dresser. I on the other hand would spend the money as soon as I got it. In some cases on the way home from the job. I didn’t learn the lesson my brother somehow innately knew, that hiding your money is the best way to protect yourself from spending it.

If you fast forward to my twenties, I pretty much was the same way. I would spend my money almost as quickly as I would get it. There was always something to buy. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I learned the lesson my brother knew all those years ago.

Money will always find a way to leave you. You have to hide it from yourself.

This is the lesson I have now used for the last fifteen years of my life. Now, I don’t actually hide it from myself like my brother did. Instead I have allocated my money to be put in certain places.

This is nothing new to you I hope, but along the way I learned the concept of paying yourself first. Make sure you have some of your paycheck go towards a savings account or some kind of retirement account right off the top.

Then pay your bills, and any money you have left over after that be sure to put it somewhere that makes it difficult for you to get to it. If you don’t you will spend it. You will always find a reason to spend that extra money. Money will find a way to leave you, unless you put it somewhere.

I personally put my money in real estate. There are a variety of reasons why I invest and put my money in real estate. But one of the main ones is this. It is difficult for you to pull it out. Once you put your money in an asset, it is difficult to get it out of the asset. And that’s a good thing. Because time is the best thing for your money in a real estate deal.

There are a lot of more sophisticated financial plans and budgeting philosophies I could share with you. And if you are interested in them let me know by connecting with us through the form down below.

For the purposes of this post, I just want you to remember this. Money will find a way to leave you, if you don’t want it to leave you. Hide it from yourself.

To your success and your future.

Connect with us below.