watching TV

Watch TV and Don’t Die Early: Simple Moves to Make Watching TV Healthier

June 26, 2014 By Jeffrey Strain Leave a Comment

Watching TV can cause premature death. Exercise instead

There’s a new study out which indicates watching three hours or more of TV a day doubles the chances of a premature death. While the exact reason for this isn’t entirely understood at this point, and more research needs to be done, it seems a big part of the problem is the sedentary behavior most people fall into while watching TV.

The conventional wisdom is that the best thing to do is to stop watching so much TV, but that isn’t necessarily the only option out there. Another option would be to change the actual way you watch TV. For those who have shows they aren’t willing to give up, there are some simple steps which can be taken to make watching TV healthier. Here are a few of them:

Light Exercise

Instead of sitting on the couch and slowly becoming a part of it, use your time in front of the TV to get in a bit of light exercise. The exercise doesn’t need to by anything strenuous. Simply getting off the couch and doing something during that period of time will make the entire process of watching TV a lot healthier. Consider doing stretches, yoga, or simply walking in place. Even small amounts of movement will make watching TV much healthier than if you’re sitting for hours without moving at all.

Commercial Breaks

For those who don’t want to move during the show, there’s no excuse not to move about during the commercial breaks. Get into the habit of not remaining in your chair through the commercial breaks. Instead, do 5 minute cleanups around the house. The commercial breaks will give you a chance to do all those little tasks you know need to get done, but you never seem to have the 5 minutes to do. Clean the bathroom sink, tidy up a counter shelf, wipe down a wall with hand prints on it, or take the trash outside. As an added bonus, you’ll end up having a cleaner and more tidy house.

Multi-Task

It’s a rare show on TV these days where you actually have to pay full attention to what’s going on. Most shows allow you to miss portions and still know exactly what’s going on. That gives you the opportunity to multitask while watching TV. The multitasking will add a little bit of movement into the routine as you watch TV. For example, you could fold laundry, iron, clip coupons, or work a little on your favorite hobby. Anything you can do to add a little activity to the process will end up being a benefit.

More and more studies are finding the sedentary behavior of TV watching isn’t good for your health. Watching also costs you a lot of money. That being said, the “watch less” or “stop watching” advice isn’t the only option out there, and with a little effort, it’s possible to turn your TV habit into a healthier and more productive activity than it is for the vast majority of people.

TV Panic: Day 23 & 24

January 27, 2013 By Jeffrey Strain 3 Comments

With the end of the current house sitting job, I have three days before the next one begins. Since I’ve managed to not have to pay anything for lodging so far this month, I figured that I should try to make that the case for the entire month. The plan was to go to visit my sister (just to rub in how well I am doing on the minimum wage challenge thus far a little), but that was quickly changed when I got a message from my mom telling me that her TV wasn’t working.

I stopped watching TV awhile ago and anyone can as stop watching TV well if they want. The key phrase there being that they need to want to stop. I think that people would be a lot better off in most cases if they simply trashed their TV and found other ways to entertain themselves, but I also know that there are some people out there that absolutely love their TV. My mom is one of those people.

I spend a good portion of the morning trying to fix the TV to no avail. When it became apparent that I didn’t think I could fix it, I asked her how long she was willing to live without a TV. She looked at me like I was sentencing her to solitary confinement. (Sidenote: a good way to determine if something is a priority is to start listing the other things that you pay for that you would be willing to give up for whatever it is you are discussing. If you know that you would give up most everything else, you can be fairly certain it’s a priority in your life. This is how I know TV is a priority to my mom). We needed to get a TV and fairly quickly.

The problem, of course, is when things need to be done in a hurry, it’s difficult to get a good price. There isn’t time to look for deals going on or to look into used options. I explained that if we could wait a week, we could get a much better deal, but that also wasn’t an option. So I started to look online and for what deals were available at close-by stores. I was about to go out and make a purchase when I had one final idea come to me.

The problem was that we couldn’t get the TV to turn on. The remote didn’t work. I changed the batteries, it still didn’t work. I tried the on/off switch on the TV and nothing happened. I tried a bunch of other buttons, but they didn’t work either. The thing was that I knew the TV was getting power because the red light indicating that it was turned off could be seen. I wondered if I simply unplugged the TV it might reset (much like turning off a computer when it freezes). I did and thankfully, it worked. The TV now seems to be working fine.

While I did spend almost the entire day fooling around with the TV and then looking for the best price for a quick purchase, in the end I ended up saving my mom a couple hundred dollars. I wish I would have thought of that solution sooner, but it was better late than never. We’ll see if the TV has any more problems, but it seems to be working fine at the moment…

After the entire TV ordeal, I decided that I would go for a hike on the 24th. I headed to Big Basin which is one of my favorite places to hike fairly close to where my mom lives. It’s a wonderful area with large redwood trees and a nice waterfall hike:

In the afternoon, I did head to the coffee shop as I needed to meet with a person who is building an iPhone app for one of our sites. I ended up using my coffee card to pay for the drink (I still have enough on it to do a few more times) although I do need to begin thinking about the alternatives to save money when the card runs out. An interesting thought was that if the main purpose of going is to meet with someone about the blogs (as was the case here), then I could deduct the cost as a business expense and still spend time working there even after the meeting was over. I’m not sure how often that opportunity would come up, but it is another creative way to keep my spending lower that i might be able to leverage.

For the two days I had a total of $1.50 in spending for postcards for the girls. I will need to go to the post office to buy stamps for the increase in postage for postcards so I can use the rest of the stamps I still have. The car miles were all deductible since it was a state park and part of the national parks blog I write. I feel pretty confident that I will end the month of January in a really good financial position (knock on wood) unless there is a major repair that needs to be done with the clicking clutch on the car.

Yesterday’s & Today’s Spending

Food: $0.00
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Misc: $1.50

Total: $1.50

Total Spending

Food: $18.52
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Misc: $19.00

Total: $37.52

Next article: Day 25 & 26: Car Repair Failure & Golden Gate Bridge

(Photo courtesy of tvanhoosear)

Stupid Injuries: Day 12 & 13

January 13, 2013 By Jeffrey Strain 2 Comments

I guess it really shouldn’t be much of a surprise that since I have reached the age where I can apparently injure myself by doing normal everyday things (I managed to pull a muscle in my back from sneezing that took about a week to heal and I managed to hurt a calf muscle walking down the street another time), that trying to do things even a little bit beyond normal would leave me with lingering pain. Let’s just say that there is a very good reason that I have not attempted any form of yoga in the past and I will never be trying any more of it in the future (seriously, I have no idea how I managed to hurt myself trying to put my body into simple positions, but obviously my body didn’t like the idea, and let me know as much). Someone please humor me and tell me that I’m not the only one that gets these types of injuries.

While it was nothing too serious (it seems to be a simple muscle pull), it had me thinking about if it had been something a bit more serious. Getting hurt could be something that makes this minimum wage challenge a lot more difficult to complete even with health insurance, and I can imagine how it would be devastating to any minimum wage budget for those who don’t have insurance. While I’m not planning to have any trips to the hospital this year, I do quite a bit of outdoor activity that could certainly land me there if something goes wrong. I’ll just have to be careful and try not to take too many risks (I have a bad tendency to misread signs when hiking. For some reason I think that signs that read “Warning: Danger Ahead” actually mean “Go ahead and explore: There is something cool ahead that most people won’t see.”)

Needing time to rest a bit and to try to recover, I decided to attempt a no spend weekend. I’m not a big TV watcher these days, but not wanting to a lot of movement, I decided that a bit of TV was OK (plus football playoff games helped). It made for a pretty relaxing weekend where I had an opportunity to think about how I could make the food extend through the 18th without having to go to the store to supplement what I have on hand which I think I’ll be able to do.

I did manage to get in short walks with the two dogs (Buster and Sadie) that I’m taking care of this week:

I hope to do a bit more traveling to places out here this coming week. I did manage to get through he weekend without spending any additional money which has me in a pretty good position with the end of the second week coming up. While I don’t expect things to continue quite as smoothly as they have thus far, it’s been really nice starting off without a lot of unexpected costs piling up from day one.

Yesterday and Today’s Spending

Food: $0.00
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Misc: $0.00

Total: $0.00

Total Spending

Food: $7.39
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Misc: $16.15

Total: $23.54

Next article: Day 14 & 15: Two Days of Hell

20 Ways To Break Your TV Habit and Save A Fortune

January 17, 2012 By Jeffrey Strain 23 Comments

I used to have a bad TV habit. A really bad TV habit. There were the daily prime-time shows during the week that I began watching as soon as I got home, and then sports the entire weekend. It never occurred to me that there could be a life without TV. It was just the daily habit that I had fallen into. When I started to write about personal finance, I was working a full-time job so in order to do it, something had to give. Greatly reducing the amount of TV I watched was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

I am not one of those people that feel that TV is evil just like I don’t believe that credit cards are evil. I watch TV on occasion, but not nearly as much as I once did. If you use TV properly, it can provide great entertainment and even be educational. That being said, there’s a ton of crap on TV that most of us get sucked into watching more often than we wish we would.

In 2011, the average person in the US watched TV more than 158 hours a month at home, 4.5 hours a month on the Internet and 4.3 hours a month on a tablet or smartphone mobile devices for a total of approximately 167 hours a month. That comes to nearly 7 full 24 hour days in front of the TV each month, or more than 5 and a half hours a day. When you take into account weekends and holidays, the average American is spending about the same amount of time in front of the TV as they are at work.

What that says to me is that most of us would greatly benefit if we learned how to watch TV in more moderation and use the extra time to improve our health, finances, and overall well-being. Of course, like any other addiction (and let’s face it, if the average person is spending that much time in front of the TV, it’s an addiction) the first step is to acknowledge that there is a problem. The second is to commit to making a change. While it certainly isn’t easy to break any habit, I can say from my own experience that once you do cut back and watch only what you truly want to watch, you’ll wonder how you ever got sucked into all the crap TV and wasted so much time in front of it.

If you would truly like to cut down on the amount of TV that you watch, you will have to make changes. Like dieting, saving money or exercise, you need to put in place a plan that encourages you to change your previous habits and form new ones. Here are some ideas on how you can break your TV habit:

Remove The Remote

While there are 20 suggestions in this article, this is the easiest one to implement and it’ll guarantee that you quickly and significantly reduce the amount of TV you watch. Take the TV remote control and put it somewhere where it makes it impossible to use. If you actually have to get up out of your chair to change channels and adjust the volume, you are much less likely to get sucked into watching hour after hour of TV. In fact, after doing it a few times there is a pretty good chance that just thinking about having to get up and do those things will help convince you not to turn on the TV in the first place. Don’t believe me? Give it a try for a week and see if there isn’t a dramatic effect on the amount of TV you watch.

Let There Be None

While this sounds rather drastic and something that people who don’t want to watch any TV would do, that is no longer the case. More and more people are watching TV on their computers and mobile devices, so even when eliminating the TV from the house, there are still plenty of opportunities to watch the shows you really want. Without the TV, however, you actively choose those shows rather than get sucked into shows while flipping through all the channels on the remote.

Say “See You Later” To Cable

Or at the very most, go down to the basic cable package. One of the main reasons that people spend so much time in front of the TV is that there are so many shows to choose from. A lot of the shows you’d probably never consider watching except that they happened to be seen while flipping through channels looking for something. Eliminate all but basic cable for a month and see how much of those premium channels you really miss. Chances are you’ll miss it a lot less than you think.

More Than One Is A Crowd

If you aren’t going to eliminate all the TVs in your house, then the most you should have is one. Seriously, when did we decide that there needed to be a TV in every room? There is really no good reason that any house needs more than a single TV and anyone that argues differently is simply making excuses.

Find A Little Room

If possible, don’t place the TV in the main room of the house. Put it into a side room where you have to actively decide to go to watch it rather than the main room where you will pass it many times during the day. This is using the “out of sight, out of mind” strategy. By purposely keeping the TV from being a focal point in the house, it makes it less likely that you will watch it as often.

Play Hide And Seek

If you can’t place the TV into a side room, make every effort to conceal it in the main room. Get an entertainment center that allows you to shut the doors to conceal the TV screen. If you can’t afford something that elaborate, find a nice blanket or another piece of cloth to hang in front of it. Again, this ensures that the TV isn’t constantly being seen and you have to make an effort to actually watch it.

Get The Binoculars

In addition to hiding the TV, arrange whatever room the TV is in so that the TV isn’t the focus of that room. If it’s in a side room, also make that room a library or game room with the focus on the books or games. If it is in the living or family room, arrange the seating so that the focus is on personal interaction instead of all facing the TV. Again, the less the TV is a focus, the less likely you will stop and watch it.

Pay The Piper

If you really want to know how much you value TV, put a price on it. It costs quite a bit of money to go to the movies these days, so most people spend time picking and choosing which movies they really want to see. The same should be true with your TV shows. If you had to pay $5 every time you turned on the TV, and another $5 for every half hour show you watched, chances are you would be a lot more choosy in the programs you watched. This is also a fantastic way to save money to create an emergency fund.

Double Fines

A lot of time wasted in front of the TV is spent watching shows that you have already seen. There is something strangely innate in most of us that have no problem watching the same show again and again even when we know we really should bother watching it again (which is why channel surfing when you have a full cable package is so dangerous — there is always something on some channel that is easy to decide to watch again). Resist this urge by making the cost of a repeat twice the cost of watching it the first time. Then you will know if it is really worth watching it again.

Get In Shape

Another way to reduce the amount of TV you watch is to exercise while you watch (note: If you want to be a really rich person, invent a product that can easily be installed that makes it so that the only way the TV works is if the person watching is using some type of exercise equipment. it would be the greatest diet program of all time. If Americans had to exercise 5 and half hours a day, the obesity problem in this country would quickly disappear). The best thing to do is to create an exercise room and have the only TV in the house in that room (no comfy chairs) and commit to only watch TV when you are actually exercising.

The Uncomfortable Truth

While you don’t want to make any room in your house uncomfortable, you don’t want to make watching TV super comfortable. If you have that soft and comfortable lounge chair directly in front of the TV, there is no way you are going to be leaving that seat unless the house catches on fire even if there is absolutely nothing on TV. The best course of action is to have no furniture to lounge on in the TV room (think exercise room again), but if you do have it, make sure that it isn’t the type where you want to spend the rest of the day. Leave that chair next to the bookshelf for reading or other appropriate activity.

Have No Limits

This sounds kind of counter-intuitive to reducing the amount of TV watched, but making a daily limit can end up defeating the entire process if you really think about it. The truth is that most days you really shouldn’t be watching any TV, but if you have a daily limit of an hour, most people will watch that hour of TV (especially kids) even if there isn’t something that they truly want to watch. It’s much better to make a weekly limit to specific shows.

Be Choosy

You probably have a list of shows that you want to watch each and every week. In addition, take a bit of time and to pick out any additional special TV programming that isn’t weekly, but is of interest that week. Once you have picked, watch only those shows and be sure to turn off the TV once they are over.

Rule With Rules

You know yourself better than anyone else. Use this knowledge to adopt rules that will benefit you the most when it comes to watching TV. If you have a goal of learning a new instrument, make a rule that you must practice an hour before watching any TV. If you have a goal of removing all the clutter from your home, make a rule that you must spend an hour decluttering before you watch TV. Use the TV as a tool to help you achieve the other goals that you have, but never seem to have enough time to do.

Make A Record

Make it a rule to record all the TV shows you want to watch on a DVR. This allows for you to watch the shows when you actually have time and doesn’t interrupt other activities you may be in the middle of when the show comes on. It also allows you to skip the commercials which take a large portion of the time you spend in front of the TV when you watch the TV at a regular broadcast.

Kill Commercial Breaks

If there is some reason that you find yourself in front of the TV during a regular broadcast with commercials that you can’t fast-forward through, have 5 – 10-minute tasks ready to do. get in the habit that the second a commercial comes on, you get out of your seat to do something during that time. It could be to work a few minutes cleaning a particular area of the house, to do 10 push-ups, 10 sit-ups and 10 jumping jacks, or to take the trash out. Whatever it is, just make sure that you get into the habit of getting out of the chair whenever the commercials come on. Not only will you get a lot done, but you also will not be watching things that entice you to make purchases you don’t need.

Dangerous Surf

If you don’t have a specific show to watch, then you shouldn’t be watching TV. That means that when a show that you turned the TV on to watch is over, you immediately turn off the TV and don’t start flipping through the channels to “see if there is something else on.” Not immediately turning off the TV is a good way to get sucked into watching hours of TV that you never planned to watch.

Say No To Noise

A lot of people say that they keep the TV on because they like to have background noise. The problem is that if the TV is on as background noise and you hear something that sounds as if it might be interesting, you get distracted from whatever you were doing. If you go to the TV “just to take a quick look” you will likely soon be sitting and wondering how all the time disappeared when you finally do get up from in front of the TV. The TV should only be turned on for specific shows that you have picked in advance and nothing else. Instead, get your background noise from your music player or the radio.

Improve Productivity

If you’re watching one of the shows on your watch list, that doesn’t mean that you should only be watching. There are very few shows where you need to be so attentive that you can’t be doing other things while still understanding perfectly well what is going on. Always have something that you can do while watching TV. Save tasks like folding laundry, opening mail and the like for when you are watching TV. If you have a hobby that can be done such as knitting, always have that close by so that you can do it while watching. A TV can be a great opportunity to multi-task if you do a bit of preparation so that whatever needs to be done is waiting the minute you turn on the TV.

Have Alternatives

How many times do you see the kids wanting to sit in front of the TV because “there isn’t anything to do!” For that matter, how many times do you find yourself there for a very similar reason? Spend some time creating a list of alternatives to watching TV that individuals and the whole family can do together and enjoy. These alternatives can be classic games like Monopoly, Scrabble or any card game. It could be to go outside and play if the sun is still out. Make the list as long and detailed as possible so that there is always something that can be done instead of watching TV.

Of course, none of these suggestions are exclusive and many can be used together to create a strategy that will allow you to watch only the TV that you truly want to watch while eliminating much you currently watch mainly out of laziness. If you have the will power, you’ll find your productivity skyrocket and all of a sudden you’ll have time to do a lot of things that you never seemed to have time to do before. It could also be worth a million dollars. The one thing that I can guarantee is that if you do make the commitment to limit your TV viewing to exclusively the shows that you want to watch, you won’t have any regrets and you’ll wonder why you didn’t make the changes long ago.

(Photo courtesy of Lisa Newton)

Why Pay to Feel Bad?

February 24, 2010 By Jennifer Derrick 9 Comments

I’ve written before about how we’ve cut out cable TV, preferring instead to use Netflix and over the air channels for our entertainment needs. Recently, however, we allowed cable back into the house. I’m a huge Olympics and tennis junkie and my husband is a big NASCAR fan. And March Madness is coming. Between the 2010 Olympics, the Australian Open, and the beginning of the NASCAR season, there was going to be a lot on TV this winter that we wanted to watch. Since the weather is so crummy and we’re stuck inside, we agreed to have them turn the cable back on for just a couple of months and see whether or not it was something we wanted to reinstate full time.

While we’ve been enjoying the sports, I’m being reminded of why I eliminated cable in the first place. Television makes me feel bad. Unfortunately, I’m the sort of person that, if the TV is in the house, I watch. I guess I have no discipline, but I’m easily sucked into the TV. I end up wasting hours watching junk and mindlessly surfing. That makes me feel bad because later I think of all the things I could and should have done with that time.

TV also makes me feel bad because much of it is depressing. The news is nothing but a rundown of various murders, betrayals, and disasters. The news anchors blow up small problems into huge traumas in an effort to raise their ratings. In turn, my blood pressure and stress level is raised for no reason. Many reality shows are full of backstabbing, stupidity, and anger which can be funny in small doses but ends up making me angry and irritated in turn. Criminal shows and medical shows depict a very depressing world. I get enough of that sort of thing in real life; I don’t need to see it flashed across the screen. And then there are the commercials that I just find annoying. I either don’t want what they’re selling, can’t afford it, or just find the commercial off-putting. In short, to me, there are only a select few shows that are worth watching (but I can get those on DVD if I’m patient) and then there are sports. Sports are really the only reason for me to keep any sort of TV. The rest of it makes me feel awful.

Midway through our return to cable experiment I turned to my husband and asked, “Why are we paying to feel this bad?” He agreed with me and we decided that as soon as the Olympics are over, cable will once again be exiting this house. If I could be more disciplined and turn off the news, etc. and only watch when something really great is on, maybe we could keep it. But since I am weak, it has to go.

My question continued to nag at me. TV isn’t the only thing that people pay for that makes them feel bad. People pay for food that makes them fat and unhealthy. Once in a while is fine, but many people eat like this every day then wonder why they’re sick. Some buy things they don’t need which ends up making them feel bad because they either can’t afford it, have no where to put it so it becomes clutter, or both. Other people spend a fortune chasing trends and then feel bad when they can’t keep up. Cigarettes and alcohol are a whole other world of paying to feel bad. There are a lot of ways that spending can make you feel bad, and not all of them are immediately obvious.

What the cable experiment has taught me is that feeling bad from spending on certain things can sneak up on you. When we had cable before, I didn’t fully realize the effect it had on my mood. It was just the status quo. But when we got rid of it, I felt better even if I couldn’t exactly put my finger on why. Now that it’s back, I realize exactly why it makes me feel bad and I know it needs to go. Had I not gotten rid of it in the first place and seen what life was like on the other side, I’d still be accepting my bad feelings as normal. It’s the same with bad food. When I was addicted to soda, the caffeine and sugar made me jittery and moody. I didn’t realize it until I got rid of it. Now if I do have a soda, say at a party, I can feel the effect immediately and I’m reminded of how much better I feel without it. All those years I felt bad and didn’t realize it, or realize why.

Sometimes you have to pay for things that make you feel bad. A trip to the doctor is no one’s thrill (particularly when shots and tests are involved), but you have to do it, for example. In general, though, you don’t want to spend money on things that make you feel bad. It’s a waste of money, even if it seems like a good idea at the time. Why would you want to pay to feel bad? There are going to be a lot of things in life that are going to make you feel bad for free and without your input or control. Why pay to make yourself feel even worse?

Take some time and think about the things you spend money on in your life. Honestly evaluate how it makes you feel. If you’re not sure or if you suspect it makes you feel bad, try eliminating that thing for a little while and then gauging the effect on your feelings when you add it back in. You might find that things you thought were fun have really been making you feel bad and you might decide to stop spending money on them and instead start spending your money on things that make you feel better.

A Life Without Debt: Engineering a Debt Free Life

December 22, 2009 By Sadie Morris 6 Comments

Many people want to be out of debt. They talk about it and they may even take steps toward the goal. They may make up their minds that they will never have debt (again) and that may become their mantra. They may have the best can-do attitude out there. Yet they may still fail. Why? Because their life is not debt-proofed.

Think about this: When you have a baby you go through the house covering electric sockets, moving items to higher shelves, and locking down toxic chemicals. You baby proof the house so that the kid cannot find his way into trouble. When you go on a diet, you diet proof the house by removing all the bad foods from the pantry and tossing all those temping take out menus. You give yourself a chance to succeed by removing the bad elements from easy reach. It’s no different when you want to live a debt free life. You have to engineer your life in such a way that you prevent trouble and give yourself the best chance to succeed.

What does this mean? You have to identify the areas that are likely to trip up your efforts to become/remain debt free and then either remove them from your life or distance yourself far enough away from them that they become less of a problem. For example, maybe you have a problem with credit cards. You know that if you have one, you’re going to rack it up and not be able to pay it off. The solution is to cancel your cards and stay on a cash-only basis. Remove the temptation from your wallet. Here are some more examples:

The Spendy Friends or Family: If your friends/family members are big spenders it can be hard to remain debt free in the face of pressure to fit in through spending. It may be hard to do, but you need to distance yourself from these people and find new people to hang out with. You don’t have to cut them out of your life entirely, but you do need to create some distance. You can try being honest and saying, “I just can’t spend that much. What else can we do?” but sometimes even that won’t work. You may just have to limit your interactions to a level that your wallet can handle.

Watching too much TV: Many people get an urge to buy when they watch TV. Not surprising when you factor in the ads, the product placements, and the fabulous lives lived by the characters. And, of course, the shopping channels are a whole ‘nother level of spending hell. If you know TV makes you spend, cancel the cable or just chuck the TV altogether.

Recreational shopping: Some people can go to the mall and be perfectly content to window shop. Other people have to spend. If you can’t visit stores without spending, then you need to limit the time you spend in the stores. Make lists and stick to them. Only head to the store when you really need something. Find other fun hobbies to take up your free time.

Your neighbors/neighborhood: Where you live tends to dictate how you spend. Live in a pricey, upscale neighborhood full of luxury cars, pools, and professionally decorated homes, and you’ll probably try to keep up. If your neighborhood is endangering your finances, move to a nice neighborhood populated with moderately priced houses, decent but not extravagant cars, and people who live below their means. You’ll fit in without spending a fortune.

Health/Safety: Sad to say, a lot of debt is made up of medical bills. You can’t prevent every illness or injury that may come your way, but you can do a lot of things to give yourself a decent chance at remaining healthy. Stop smoking and don’t drink to excess. Lose weight and exercise. Eat healthy foods. Get regular checkups and vaccinations. Take care of your teeth. Don’t take unnecessary risks like climbing on an icy roof. Drive safely and buckle up. If you can stay healthy you can avoid a lot of debt.

Eating out to excess: If you always eat out, you may need to learn to cook, or at least keep some easy to prepare meals on hand. Maybe the “cook ahead” method will work for you where you do all your cooking on one day of the week, freeze the results and just reheat throughout the week. If you eat out because you never have time to cook, rethink your schedule so you can fit it in. There’s nothing wrong with eating out sometimes, but it can be a budget killer if you do it most days of the week. Figure out ways to engineer your life so eating out isn’t necessary.

Everyone is different and will have a different set of debt triggers and problems. Identify what’s troublesome for you and work to engineer your life in such a way that the temptation and danger is removed, or at least reduced. You can have the best intentions to be debt free but if your environment is working against you, you’re going to have a more difficult time reaching your goals.