Get Lean and Mean With Money

There’s a lot to be gained from adopting the lean philosophy in your personal, professional and financial life, if you want to be successful with your own goals. Let’s look at some of the ways to accomplish this.You can get lean with your time by becoming more productive at work, getting the most out of your commuting time, using technology to improve your output, and making the right choices when spending your time to generate an income.You can also utilise another important resource — your money — more efficiently. In theory, money is not in limited supply like time which is finite, but you still have to ensure that you make the best use of your funds to get the most optimal return.

Operate an efficient money production line

Imagine that your life was like an assembly line at a manufacturing company. Just like the person in charge of production, you would want to ensure that none of the raw materials were wasted and that you got as much finished product as possible out of your machinery time and employee effort.Let’s review the Japanese words for inefficiencies — muda means idleness or wastage of resources when trying to complete a task; mura is the unequal or unbalanced use of different resources; while muri means the excessive or unreasonable use of a resource which could put it at risk.In order to get the most out of the money you earn or have on hand to further your goals, you need to eliminate these types of inefficiencies. Your aim, like that of a profitable corporation, is to utilise your financial resources in ways that will allow you to get an optimal return on your money.

Don’t squander your money resources

One of the areas you may need to address is the wasteful use of money in your current spending. Do you try to find the best shopping deals to cut back on your grocery bills? Do you conserve on your usage of utilities such as light, water and petrol to get the most while spending the least?Do you habitually use credit cards or payroll loans to finance consumer purchases? The interest you pay on debt actually represents money that has been inefficiently expended; you could have channeled those funds into productive use instead of making the financial institutions richer.Another area of inefficiency is when you have money that sits idly in a non-interest bearing account, or funds that are not generating as much return for you as possible. You can get better interest rates on your money by simply switching from a savings account into a fixed deposit.

Try to maintain your money balance

You also need to determine if there is an imbalance or unevenness in your use of money. Are you putting too much of your resources into some areas while ignoring other important ones? Preparing a detailed budget will help you to see where you may be inefficient with your allocation of funds.