{"id":600,"date":"2012-03-08T03:17:36","date_gmt":"2012-03-08T11:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cultofmoney.com\/?p=600"},"modified":"2012-04-07T19:59:48","modified_gmt":"2012-04-08T03:59:48","slug":"play-your-finances-like-a-video-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cultofmoney.com\/play-your-finances-like-a-video-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Play your finances like a video game"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"What<\/a>
What is your high score in the money game?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Video games and your finances have a lot in common.\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to keep score, there are multiple strategies that lead to winning, and there are always tips and cheats available if you look, among other similarities.\u00a0 Below are the similarities and how you should strive to play your finances.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Go for that high score<\/strong> \u2013 Not necessarily the highest on the board, but your own personal best.\u00a0 Whether it is PacMan, getting your mage to level 80, or your saving account balance, aim high, and really try for your personal best.<\/li>\n
  2. When things don\u2019t work out, just load a save game<\/strong> \u2013 Sometime we do things or try things and it doesn\u2019t work out.\u00a0 Fine, go back to how you did it before, or try an entirely new method.\u00a0 The message is that if it doesn\u2019t work for you, don\u2019t do it.\u00a0 This could be budgeting and tracking every dollar, or the cash envelope method.\u00a0 Some things just click, and others don\u2019t<\/li>\n
  3. Get bigger weapons<\/strong> \u2013 Maybe the problem is you\u2019re just not using a big enough club against your debt.\u00a0 Go get the BFG and go big on your problem.\u00a0 Go and see a professional and get your tax problem cleared up.\u00a0 Maybe you need a CFP to talk to you about retirement problems.\u00a0 Sometime you just need the big guns.<\/li>\n
  4. Have fun<\/strong> \u2013 It\u2019s going to be hard to convince yourself to do something unpleasant for extended periods of time.\u00a0 You need to either change how you feel about some, reframing it to see the benefits instead of the costs, or use some type of system to keep you motivated like the WAVE method of saving.<\/li>\n
  5. \n
    \"Are<\/a>
    Are you lost in the financial forest?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Level up<\/strong> \u2013 You should actively work to increase your intelligence, endurance, speed, and agility in a financial sense.\u00a0 Read blogs and books, work at trying to save diligently, pay your bills automatically as soon as they arrive, and build your emergency fund so that you\u2019re agile enough to respond to whatever happens.\u00a0 Work toward higher levels and bigger challenges.\u00a0 With experience, you\u2019ll be able to tackle them.<\/li>\n

  6. Work with others on that hard quest<\/strong> \u2013 If you find yourself having trouble on something, start working on a team.\u00a0 Go find others who want the same thing and use them for accountability and assistance.\u00a0 Bring your spouse into the financial fold and work together on all the tough challenges.\u00a0 Even if you end up splitting the take, part of some success is better than all of failure.<\/li>\n
  7. Play the game to your strengths<\/strong> \u2013 Some people are fighters, some people are mages, play to your strength.\u00a0 If you work best kicking and slashing your way through something first hand, making the mistakes and having the hit points to sustain you, go for it.\u00a0 If you like to plan things out, build up your fireball spell and then strike at an opportune moment, more power to you!\u00a0 Actively shape events so that you can use your desired strategy on them.<\/li>\n
  8. Have a strategy<\/strong> \u2013 Whether you kill the biggest monster in the room first, or pick off all the little rodents first doesn\u2019t really matter.\u00a0 It\u2019s that you have a strategy and follow it.\u00a0 Use the snowball to pay off your highest rate debt first, or send in the $6 to finish off that low debt and cancel the card.\u00a0 Just have a plan and stick to it.<\/li>\n
  9. Save your progress often<\/strong> \u2013 Progress in the financial sense is usually money.\u00a0 Save it often in case you run into one of those problems and you need to load a game.\u00a0 If you have saved something, it is significantly easier to deal with the problems.\u00a0 So save often and save as much as you reasonably can, as you\u2019ll need it when you unexpectedly wonder into that guy with the super enchanted elven katana.<\/li>\n
  10. \n
    \"Do<\/a>
    Do you have a map to guide you to treasure?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    High reward means high risk<\/strong> \u2013 Do you go for that last level of the dungeon even though your health is low, or play it safe and go back to the inn at the nearby town?\u00a0 Understand that with higher reward comes higher risk.\u00a0 There are no free lunches, so if an investment promises 40% returns, understand that the odds are quite high you\u2019ll end up with nothing.<\/li>\n

  11. Real people play better than computers<\/strong> \u2013 you may be able to be the computer on the hardest level, but when you\u2019re out there playing with the human players in the world, they do unexpected things, come up with unique strategies, and are hard to predict.\u00a0 All the planning and work in Excel can only go so far, remember to get out there with the humans and implement your plan.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So play your finances like a video game.\u00a0 Create your character, put in the time it take to get good, level up, and save often.\u00a0 You\u2019ll have fun doing it, and who knows, maybe you\u2019ll set the high score that everyone else will aspire to.<\/p>\n

    Readers, are you able to have fun while having a strategy to win?\u00a0 Or are you constantly throwing your financial controller against the wall in frustration?\u00a0 What’s your high score?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Video games and your finances have a lot in common.\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to keep score, there are multiple strategies that lead to winning, and there are always tips and cheats available if you look, among other similarities.\u00a0 Below are the similarities and how you should strive to play your finances. Go for that high score […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,14,48],"tags":[33,34,32,71],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cultofmoney.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cultofmoney.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cultofmoney.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cultofmoney.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cultofmoney.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cultofmoney.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cultofmoney.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cultofmoney.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cultofmoney.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cultofmoney.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}