Sometimes The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Budget Is Nothing

Sometimes The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Budget Is Nothing

When next month’s paycheck finally comes in, here’s a great idea on what to do with it: nothing.

Calculator and money image from Shutterstock

As personal finance site Mortimer’s Money Machines explains, while there are a lot of ways to take action to improve your budget, one of the most tricks is doing nothing at all. Bored of your current car and want something new? Do nothing. See your investments drop for a couple days? Do nothing. Just get a raise or a tax return and you’re wondering what the best way to spend it is? Have you tried doing nothing?

How many times in your life have you reached a new milestone, earned a pay raise, promotion, or bonus, and heard someone say, “So, what are you going to do to celebrate?” Usually the implication is that now at long last you can buy some great thing you’ve been yearning for all the while you toiled away for your new income…

Luckily, our new-found financial discipline paid immediate dividends. We decided to do nothing. And the more I look at this situation, the more I realise doing nothing is the smartest thing to do.

There are some situations where you need to make a change to your budget. If your debt is snowballing or you can’t keep up with your bills, changing something will be good. The rest of the time, though, doing nothing is more powerful for your budget than any clever scheme you can concoct to “get a good deal” on anything.

Step 1: Do Nothing. Step 2: Profit. [Mortimer’s Money Machines via Rockstar Finance]


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