With everything in life sometimes it is important to remember that you need to have perspective of the size of your task in comparison to the pay back for doing that task. This sounds inanely simple when you read it, but ask yourself if you have been guilty of over committing your resources in these types of situations? The expression penny-wise and pound foolish does come to mind with many money perspectives.
I have seen co-workers visit city hall multiple times to fight parking tickets, and such, yet those same folks don’t file their taxes (even though they are owed money). Shouldn’t they just pay the ticket and file their taxes instead? Far be it from me to pontificate, but evidently I am mistaken in this point of view.
Do you spend countless hours looking for the best bargains while shopping for food, but don’t spend any time looking at your investments or figuring out how to get your banking services cheaper? You could be like those extreme couponing ladies who spend countless hours clipping to get free groceries, but do you need 45 boxes of tampons and 70 bottles of Catalina salad dressing? I guess tampons don’t go bad, but still, how much money do you need to spend storing all of this (or is this where hoarding starts?).
I know people who bargain for everything, and I am envious of their chutzpah, I cannot always ask for the best deal, even when I know there might be a better deal to be had (like our banking discussions yesterday). Is it worth arguing for every penny?
Writing a daily blog, taking over an hour for most days, sometimes more, and then comparing your hourly rate at work, and wonder why you are writing the blog? OK, that was a trick one, I do this mostly for my own cathartic rants, and that doesn’t really have a monetary value.
Any other “penny-wise and pound foolish” examples that I am missing?
Not sure of any other examples but I wanted to take a minute to tell you how correct you are with this one! People don’t realize that they are doing this until it is either done and they look back at it, or some one points it out. It has a great comparison to personal finance budgeting as well. Some people spend more time allocating money to each category on their budget, rather then just save their money. People need to read this article and relate it to every aspect of their financial life! Great Read!