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What Is Your Weakness?

We all have one. Something we love that we can’t bring ourselves to give up even when we’re busy paying down debt or saving for a really important goal. And our plans are only as good as our weakest financial link.

Questions to Ask Yourself

Not all weaknesses are bad. For example, if you’ve given up everything so you can pay down some credit card debt except for your weekly movie rental, then you are doing pretty good.

Sure, you could save more by eliminating the movie rental, but would you give up the only fun thing you do? It’s also important to enjoy the journey to wherever you are going.

How can you determine if your weaknesses are good or bad? Ask yourself the following questions:

1. What is my weakness?

2. How many weaknesses do I have?

3. How big are my weaknesses?

4. How much money does my weakness cost me per year?

5. How hard would it be to eliminate my weakness?

6. If I eliminated my weakness, would I be happy?

Only you can answer these questions and determine how your weakness is impacting your financial freedom.

Common Weaknesses

Last night I stumbled across an old article on the Top 10 money drains [1] from Bankrate. I’m sure many of them still hold true:

  1. Coffee
  2. Cigarettes
  3. Alcohol
  4. Bottled water
  5. Manicures
  6. Car washes
  7. Weekday lunches out
  8. Vending machines snacks
  9. Interest charges on credit cards
  10. Unused memberships

The majority of this list doesn’t apply to me. I used to eat my lunches out, but now that I’m at home, I don’t feel the need to go out for lunch every day just to get out of the office.

My Weakness

Since it’s fall, our current money drain has to be college football. We’re season ticket holders, but the price doesn’t stop at the tickets. Here’s how it breaks down:

  • Ticket price: $640 for 2 (including seat backs)
  • Donation required to buy tickets: $200
  • Tailgating food and drink: $50 per game
  • Food and drink at the game:$20 per game
  • Ordering dinner since we’re gone all day: $30

Some other typical costs that we don’t have to pay for because we’ve made arrangements with family and friends are: babysitting and parking.

With seven home games a year, it costs us over $200 per game, or over $1,500 per season. This is just for the home games! We used to travel for at least one away game and tried to go to the bowl game each year. (Although that’s on hold this year, since we have two toddlers.)

Talk about a financial weakness!

What is Your Weakness?

It’s time to confess…

What is your weakness? And how much does it cost you?