Successful Investment Series! #2 Forming Financial Habits

Forming Financial Habits 

In my first post of the series I wrote about the importance of setting financial goals (https://steemit.com/investing/@elderfinancial/successful-investment-series-1-importance-of-goal-setting  ) as the number one step. The next step to take in achieving  successful investments are taking those goals and turning them into financial habits. 

• What is a habit = "a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up" 

•  Forming financial habits = These can be hard and tiresome. You must constantly remind yourself of your goals for your finances and then act in a way that helps to achieve them. You must live within your means, not make big unnecessary purchases, save money and invest. This is a lot to keep track of.  Lucky for us, we have technology on our side. 

• Saving/Investing = I have personally never been very good at saving money in my checking account. Luckily, I use automatic withdrawals for all of my financial goals. I am able to establish my goal, choose how much I can afford to put toward that goal on a yearly, monthly or weekly basis and then set it up. Boom, just developed a habit and I did not even have to work hard at all. However, you must remain disciplined enough to leave those automatic withdraws alone until you have achieved your goal. Do you see how easy this is?

• Where can I use automatic withdraws = I use automatic withdraws for everything; monthly savings, 401k company match, ROTH IRA, monthly bills, adventure/trip account, fun/play money checking account and my favorite of all my "Coinbase" account. Yes that is correct, I have automatic withdraws set to be deposited into my Coinbase account. 

• Why do I love automatic withdraws so much = I love them so much because they make sticking to my budget so easy. I just set it up, and forget about it. There is no constant making sure I did this or that, no constant over watch to ensure I have put enough away, or not spent to much. Everything is already taken care of on a predetermined date. All I have to do is continue to make money at my job and its all said and done. 

• Why I use automatic withdraws to deposit in my Coinbase account = I am in crypto for the long haul. I have been using Coinbase's automatic deposits since fall of 2016 when I got interested in Ethereum and  as I probably don't have to tell you it was one of the best financial decisions of my life so far. Using automatic deposits have allowed me to use dollar cost averaging to purchase tokens of ETH. One week it may be high or lower, but in the end I am able to purchase at the average price of all my days of deposits. This for me makes it painless and easy to do. This is what I have recommended to many of my friends and family who have invested in crypto after seeing my success. This is what I would recommend to you if you are looking to invest, especially if you do not have a large sum of money that you are looking to put in at one time. 

• How to set up automatic deposits on Coinbase 

1. Set up a Coinbase account if you do not already have one (use this promo code and you and I both will get $10 worth of free bitcoin from coinbase if you purchase $100 dollars or more of any coin) https://www.coinbase.com/join/563272cc359488006600016a
2. Go to the buy/sell page and input what amount you would like to purchase and how often. Here is a link that shows this (https://blog.coinbase.com/easier-recurring-buys-and-sells-on-coinbase-9a3cd7ea934e)
3. Then just sit back and watch you crypto account grow! (hopefully) 

•       Don't forget = You can use this strategy not just for crypto's but in all walks of your financial life. The idea is to make it as easy and fool proof as possible. The more you can do this the less likely you will be to change you mind and make an emotional decision with you money. 

• This is one of the most important tips! If you follow and maintain habitual discipline you will succeed financially. It is a given! Please if you have any questions, leave them below and I would be more than happy to answer.