Have you ever noticed if you set expectations and it does not happen --- how it will to happiness decline? But what if our perception of happiness when expectations do not occur is only about our own self fault because we did not control our emotions because of personal perceptions? What if expectations only produce unhappy results - if we allow it too?
Examples: You are looking forward to something and expecting something fun or attendance at an event and something happens that it doesn't go to plan or expectation, the unhappiness follows.
I do believe most accept that sometimes things occur out of one's control that expectations are not and can not always be safely or financially met. But for other's depending on the expectation, it can be a saddened detrimental altering of lifestyle.
Businesses and commerc set annual expectations of employee performance, retail sales increases from one year to another while hoping to achieve decreasing costs of supplies and expenses from one annual ago to create new standards of financial expectations to be made. How many are disappointed or unhappy annually when these expectations of revenues and expenses are not met in financial projected business goals?
But who really thinks up these numbers? Who really has the authority to say that the national economy will rise or fall at consumer activities or is responsible for the increase and decrease that affects us all nationally? Why do they bother to detail financial information of national consumer spending activity when - this does not benefit the people nor does it really benefit customers or consumers and the places they do business with.
These national programs that tally up the financial dollar amounts of annual expectations in financial goals and targets are not adequately doing their homework.
Sure businesses can project what the financial accepting standards should be from year to year and what they expect to be performed in financial goals to be met and increases of profits to achieve and decreases of supplies and expenses. But what if, the tools they use nationally is not where they should be looking.
What if the truthful mathematical expectations really begins and ends in the financial management of individual households? Think about it.
How many individuals really control and manage their monthly expenses based upon what they earn as net income instead of the limits of what their assets are worth or even spend beyond what they make? How many annual do their own expectations of revenue increases annually or controlling to decrease their expenditures annually? The citizens of this country do push the market numbers of how businesses configure their annual expectations.
So does this really represent that Americans are financially and mathematically incompetent to operate and manage their own homes financially too? We complain about a national debt. We complain about financial government dependants. We complain about taxes that are paid and high insurance rates and medical care costs and the costs of living in general. But who is honestly responsible for the increases annually? We all are.
The mortgage company - rental homes -- vacation homes - water- electric - Internet - satellite - cable - land line telephone - wireless services - vehicle insurance - life insurance - health insurance - homeowner insurance - fire dues - fire insurance - flood insurance and anything other monthly expenses we pay to survive and sustain a life monthly. Exhausting list isn't it and it's not complete as most common bond expenses that most homes pay out in America monthly.
This does not include the necessities for: groceries, cleaning supplies and other necessities we require to live and survive that is an expense to our homes monthly. This does not include the luxuries that we buy that have nothing to do with basic survival but the luxuries we pay monthly that make life enjoyable and fun to experience.
How many sit down and prioritize their monthly costs and necessity and luxury expenses going out? How many sit and figure up how to decrease their own expenses annually? How many citizens in their individual homes really know how to apply their limits on their own financial matters and to decrease their expenses and increase the financial returns?
For every year, there are no economical discounts that come. There is no economical relief of the cost of living increases, prices going up for consumers basic needs, necessity needs and luxuries.
What if every individual in America would create their own financial tally of increase and decreasing of spending and saving just as businesses, corporations and commerce does annually?
How much more could we control the price escalations year after year - if we were only as persistent in setting our own annual financial expectations of spending and debt increases and focused on competitive shopping with less spending, less for bills and less for luxuries to what we could really afford with our debt to income ratio?
What positive impact could we really make in American national economy if we were responsible about our financial matters too? What would or could really happen nationally if we took the annual financial calculations seriously in our own homes as the employers do that set goals of performance expectations annually?
Perhaps, there is something to ponder upon for all of us. I use to fret so much at the monthly bills as they came in. For some of my monthly bills are figures that do not increase nor decrease and even in competitive shopping - there are no cheaper alternatives.
But I can control the electricity and water that is used in my home as a starter example. Most keep items plugged into outlets that are not used all the time. But these unused items do increase electricity use in a home causing the electrical current to charge you for use even if you are not using them.
Those pennies a day of items a day use that are plugged up constantly can add up quickly when you have 3 or more dozen of items plugged in that are not used all the time. They do not need to be plugged in until you use them.
Large streams of water can be nice unless you pay for a gallons used - as our home does. But how much can we control? We can control the financial expenses when we become aware of how much we can control and do something to gain that financial control we have with awareness and education.
I celebrate monthly on the bills that I have that are decreased from the same time last year use. The efforts I make to control these items are returned in savings which create revenue. Pennies do make dollars.
The electric bill is very detailed of Kilowatt hours used monthly and even the temperature outside of the average monthly bill. It may take a little time to read the statement to comprehend it financially and gain consumer understanding of how to use this information and apply it directly to your home to decrease your costs. Even if the KWH goes up annually, you can still control how much KWH your home uses a month.
Many here in my rural complain of how expensive their water bills are or their electricity is. However, no one winter proofs their homes as an investment. No one will learn how to decrease their expenses that they can control as these two primary bills can be.
Electricity can be saved by simply leaving items unplugged that are not in constant use by unplugging them. Water costs can be decreased by turning the cut-off values down under the sinks and tubs - so that you control the flow of the water that comes from these items - which will decrease your costs. The smaller stream of water you use - the lower the water bill.
For my home, children love to leave light switches on when not in a room. Being verbal about not wasting teaches them why it is important not to waste and how the savings will benefit them too. Children also insist on turning their water streams wide open to splash every where that wastes water instead of filling up a glass or washing their hands that also washes the floor too.
So in decreasing the water flow under the item being used, you will save time, energy and wasted words by telling them not to do it. Because you set the control from the cut-off water valves that gives just enough water without waste. Very beneficial of plumbing techniques to know when children are in the home and to save on costs too.
Rates Per Gallon and Kilowatt Per Hour is the primary tools you need to learn to begin to understand how to decrease these two utilities. You can manage and control these if you really want to as well as any other financial spenditure you sent out in payment. I highly recommend operating your home and financial matters as a business would. Your home will make or break what your money can do for you depending on what you control.
Set annual goals to monitor your weekly-biweekly or monthly income status too. We - the consumers of America - do control more than we think about our governmental and national debt too. We can blame every one all day long about our financial hardships, the struggles we make and the endless issues of financial annual increases.
But until we realize that we are home business owners ourselves by the income we survive upon - nothing will change. Debts will increase. Revenue will decrease. Before you know it, the financial boundaries we live in - even with the most preventative measures we financially and consciously make - won't be enough.
So be money smart and control your own financial matters. Spend what you can responsibly afford to the income you actually bring home. Do not go in debt unless something is a pertinent necessity and not a luxury.
Do annual checks and balances and challenge yourself and those in your home to decrease your costs from year to year as much as possible. Unconscious life goes on every day - every where with millions who are spending what they simply can not afford on items they simply do not need while neglecting to take care of the financial matters they can take care of.
A Person I Use to Know told me a few years ago: "Why don't you borrow from family or friends or get another loan company with lower rates? Why don't you have any family to help you financially?"
Apparently, the general consensus in America is that when a person must rely on a high interest loans to purchase a necessity - that they have financial options. OR every one has someone in family to borrow from. This is not always the case. Neither of these thoughts or actions is healthy when it comes to money even if it is an option.
This person I was speaking too was a previous employer. I informed him of my financial hardships and was requesting a closer detail assignment to my home to decrease my gas expense of commuting to work. I needed a closer assignment as my vehicle had major mechanical problems that I could not afford to fix while living in the same high commuting costs that I was paying for gas. The years of high mileage travel had caught up mechanically to this vehicle too. I assumed that most are like me just as this employer thought most was like him too. Living and learning about money - the hard way - or having others to depend on to carry us through financial hardships.
I was wrong. This direct manager was wrong too. This individual grew up in a financially comfortable lifestyle. A comfort where even the lessons of money was taught by depending on another to help out financially when poor money choices were made and repercussions began. He did not understand my request for a closer detail to home to save my costs and vehicle no more than I could explain to him that I didn't have resources. My employment was my financial resource and I needed his help to grant my request closer to home to decrease my costs. But to no avail. But I better understand it now. Because in matters of money, geography, culture and experiences do determine the biased person we become in matters of money. It's human nature and life.
I was taught a dependency about money early on. Money from the government assistance programs that were financially responsible for raising me due to my parent's ill-equipped and lack of desire to be financially sustainable our self.
Free medical. Free monthly check. Free food benefits. My grandparent's would allow money to be borrowed and to repay back as needed to many in our family through the years including my own adult money problems that neglect and careless of spending caused too.
It didn't matter if the money that was being spent was for a necessity or because of luxuries. It was still a financial dependency when I'd have to go to them to borrow. I never learned about my own relationship with money until I realized that I did not want to be dependant on anyone.
Even if high interest loans was all I could turn to so I could afford to buy our home or purchase my vehicles to get to and from work - I didn't want nor need their money to fix my problems that I contributed to and falsely managed myself.
The relationship a person has with their financial control or mismanagement begins and ends with self. Most do have a very unhealthy and instable relations with their money, bills, and misconceptions about what is a necessity and luxury. I was guilty and even at times, still am.
Perhaps, it is growing up rural where opportunities for financial gain and financial comfort can be hard to achieve depending on geography and culture or heritage lifestyles too. But we all can do more with our money than we consciously realize.
I will never do another high interest loan personally. For there are options out there for everything to financially sustain one's self - even if it means to financially survive in a new lifestyle. But education and accepting and admitting truth to our self - can save us more than we realize - if we want too. Education about money is the best tool we can ever have in controlling our money.
Expectations can decline happiness when you focus on the losses that you may have to give up temporarily - so you can gain more in the long run. Self-gratification should always come with a later retrieval than anything of immediate rewards. The urgency to enjoy something now will truly create a long-term problem that could be prevented - if we only perceived in a new positive direction instead of the same faulty and broken systems we use that have not been working nor benefited us. Sometimes - it in the unhappiness produced by desperation that we consciously realize the importance and control we need in our life to benefit us the most.
Money matters to us all. Money gives us the life we want. But to be happy, content and in peace with money - it means we must be proactive in what we do with it and conscious of it - as we are the rewards that money can buy us too. I am still learning and suspect that I will always learn about new ways to make my money work for me.
But for the girl that I Use to Know in matters of money, myself- I have never been happier and yet, I have never had financial less to work with either. Ironic how that works out isn't it?
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