La bourse ou la vie

Je viens de lire un texte dans le dernier bulletin de Simple Living, qui est le premier épisode d'une saga en 9 étapes basée sur le livre Your money or your life de Joe Dominguez & Vicki Robin. L'auteur de l'article en question, Fred Ecks, explique qu'il a dévoré ce livre et que depuis, il a changé de vie. Je veux bien le croire.

Chaque nouvel article contiendra un résumé commenté d'un chapite du livre, suivi d'une mise en pratique. La première étape (le premier TD!) est la suivante:

Step 1: Making Peace With The Past

The first step the authors present is to look at our financial history, consider what we've done, and accept it. The idea is to give us a clean slate. What's past is now history. We're moving on. For me, it was embarrassing. I didn't want to look at what I had done. In reviewing it, I came to accept it. By now it's a sort of novelty. I look back and smile at the way I used to live.

The first part of Step 1 is to calculate how much we have earned in our lives. The authors say to do this meticulously. While many people do, I confess that I didn't. I figured out a reasonable estimate, which was about $276,000. At the time, I was 28 years old. I was a software engineer, generating a good income.

The second part of Step 1 is to calculate what we've got to show for it. In short, we create a personal balance sheet. In my case, I was over $12,000 in credit card debt, but I owned a home with about $10,000 in equity. I guessed the total value of my possessions to be about $5,000. The result was that I had a financial "net worth" of about $3,000. That's it, after earning $276,000!

I think the most important message the authors give us is, "No shame, no blame." Emotions such as guilt and regret don't help us at all. We can't change the past. The key is to know how we have been living, so we can make a conscious change toward a better way of life. We come to know our tendencies. We know what we want to change! We recognize our own dissatisfaction. We have no one to impress, and we have nothing to be embarrassed about. That was all before. Now we don't live that way. Now we live the way we want to. Our choices become conscious.

Je n'en ai pas le temps tout de suite (ça promet!) mais j'ai bien l'intention de me prêter au jeu, pour voir. Rien qu'à y réfléchir deux secondes, déjà, je sais que ça promet.

Résultats à venir, donc.