I see repeated discussions on SMV here and the majority sight money and what money can get you as SMV boosters. But I see very little in the way of discussing improving your financial. I hope this post breaks that trend.

I recently received the first copy in my new subscription to Money. This has been the biggest boost to my RedPillself since finding the pill. Reading through the magazine, cover to cover, was the push I needed to get off my ass and start working on my personal finances. It has only been one week since I decided to tackle my finances and I have gotten a huge confidence boost in myself and the future.

Personal finance is the second most important thing to becoming the man you need to be after lifting. So, while you are sitting there chowing down your post-workout protein, head of to mint.com(or other similar site) and link up all your accounts(checking, savings, loans, 401k, IRAs, everything). The beauty of the site is it mines your transactions and automatically categorizes transaction and builds budgets based on said history, You can quickly see where you have been spending money, where you can start saving money and it will even help you set goals to build savings or payoff bills. Take a few minutes to run through all your transactions and make sure they are categorized correctly and the budgets are setup to best describe your spending profile.

After that, head of to r/personalfinance and r/financialindependence and start soaking up information, just lurk for awhile.

I have since scheduled autopay on all my bills except for my prepaid cellphone and auto insurance. I went ahead and paid off the remaining auto insurance for the next 4 months, saved me $3/month that Allstate charges for monthly payments. I took the time to figure out were I was on my auto loan since they dont have an online interface for Mint to access. After searching for loan payoff calculators and running some simulations, I realized I could knock about 6-7 months off my loan just by making bi-weekly payments instead of monthly payments (daily compounded interest). Further simulations made me decide its time to talk to my lawyer and finish up the divorce instead of waiting for the ex to do it. The savings in child support along with a tighter budget will have me paying off the car in 10 months and saving me almost $4K in interest payments!!!!!! I can then make super payments on my other loan and have it paid off in less than 10 months after that and save me around another $3K in interest payments. Then I'll be debt free and can really start working on a house.

My credit sucks, it has gotten better, but still sucks. I found a secured credit card that reports to all three credit agencies and is available to more people because you seed the card with money and the bank holds that as collateral. Now I have another weapon to help rebuild my credit.

I wish I would have gotten off my ass earlier and started caring sooner. Im guessing I have wasted about $10K over the past year from bad budgeting and future interest payments.

Get your financial shit together, it will make you feel like a better man.