Happy Lent

This Lent must be quite serious, because the Catholics are giving up a Pope for it! OK, bad form on that one, but I just could not resist.

No I am not talking about lent as in, “I lent Michael James $10 either”, (more likely that sentence is backwards) I mean Big “L” Lent, as in the Christian Religious tradition.

Not sure of the fun things you could do for Lent? I have done this a few times, but for those new readers here are a couple of really simple things you can try for 40 days and see if it helps and if you can do it (Lent is great as a Test Period for Financial habit change):

Make Cash King (or Queen): Simply put away ALL your cards (including your debit cards) and use cash, until Good Friday this year (March 29th this year). I don’t buy the whole, “Debit is just like cash”, no it isn’t, it allows you to spend without knowing how much you have left, so use cash, it is a much better barometer for your spending habits.

Find a killable debt, and kill it! Simple enough, but it can’t be a massive debt, because you can’t really get it done in this short period of time, but if you have a credit card debt that can be dealt with in less than 2 months, do it! When you are done, celebrate, by going and killing another debt!

You can give up something as a penance type gesture, like giving up coffee (if you buy it somewhere expensive), however, check with your loved ones first to make sure they are OK with that. I quit coffee one Lent and was a complete son of a bitch (more so than usual if that is possible) and Mrs. C8j forced me to start drinking it for her sanity. If you are paying $6 a day on coffee, you could save up to about $300 right there, could make for a fun time somewhere. If you bring your lunches you’ll save even more money.

Scare the hell out of your wife and suggest you go to Church every Sunday during Lent (if you are not Church going folk), it’s fun to add that kind of tom-foolery during Lent as well.