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4. Bad Habits kill prosperity.

Look around your home. Do you have things in your life that you have not used in the last year? If you have then you are not using your money to its full potential. Clear your life of clutter. I am at this time, taking one tote a week to the RMA store for donation. After having lived in this house for 11 years, I had accumulated way too many things. It feels good to clear the clutter and donate to someone who could actually use it! We need to be able to see our lives uncluttered. It’s time to give it away or throw it away.

Another bad habit is eating out all the time, or buying your coffee on the run each day. Alcohol and tobacco are really expensive bad habits. Driving unnecessarily in today’s economy is a bad habit at over $4.00 a gallon, we need to consolidate our trips. You get the picture.

5. Lack of vision or goals.

From here to the end of the year you are going to hear me speak again and again about your vision statement for 2013. I am already taking notes to write mine out. I will tell you that I have been writing a vision statement each year for 20 years and I have accomplished almost, not quite, everything I have written down. I still have three months to finish my vision statement for this year.

Habukkuk 2:1I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint.2 Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.3For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.

You must begin now to invest in your future. Retirement will be here before you know it .We must plan to have enough money to sustain us until the age of 100 at least. Lack of vision and goals will kill your future.

6. Not being prepared.

You have put all of your eggs in one basket. There is a great old book called, “Who Moved My Cheese?” It’s about how these two workers had worked at a plant their entire adult life and then the plant closes down. One guy figures out a way to get another job while the other flounders not knowing what to do for work. In the bible we see Jacob’s well keep getting plugged up as he walks forward and digs another. Are we prepared to dig another if we have to? Are we prepared for what lies ahead? If your well runs dry what will you do?

7.  You rely on others to handle your money.

Couples are famous for this. If the one that does the finances dropped dead tomorrow would you know what you owed and what you had in the bank? If you don’t then don’t expect to prosper. While we are here, do you have life insurance for the loved ones you leave behind? You don’t want to be a burden to those you love.