Heel, brain. Good boy.

Tip 1 for Day 2: Write post in Notepad first so you don't have to rewrite it.

So as I battled the very non-Spring-like blustery winds on the walk up to the office building, I couldn't help but be drawn to the thought of slipping across the street to the neighborhood $tarbuck$. It was easy for me to resist today, because the Ronin's coffers are bare, but it made me think of those days when I have the cash and the $5 doesn't seem like a significant amount. Today it seems a princely sum and it made me consider that my biggest problem is not my day to day expendatures, but my binge purchasing during the time when I have an influx of money.

I was talking about this just last night. It seems that Diet and Finance are beasts of the same family, just with different plumage. A lot of people "Diet" for time to lose X pounds with a strenuous routine. At the end they look and feel better, but they haven't effected a lasting change in their eating habits and eventually regain some or all of the weight. I feel like I do the same with cash. I'm normally fairly frugal, but when I get a bonus or a refund, I tend to binge and reward myself for not buying all those other times. In truth, I don't buy because I run myself out of money and can't. But the extra money doesn't last, so I fall back into the same habits and lose any ground I had gained, like a failed fiscal diet.

They say there is no "magic formula" for real weight management, you simply have to burn more calories than you consume. Turn that on it's ear and you have the same non-secret for finance: Save more money than you spend.

Some people seem to be wired this way by default. It seems I will be spending the next 370 days to try and teach my brain to roll-over.