There are things we all know about money–they are common knowledge. You should save for a rainy day, budget so you don’t overspend and keep your debt as minimal as possible. However, when it all boils down, our attitudes and practices around our finances are based more in history and emotion than actual knowledge. Here are the biggest things that heavily influence your spending habits:

There’s a show called “Extreme Cheapskates” where they profile real people who go to great lengths to save money. For example, they interviewed a guy that showers in his clothes rather than doing laundry AND showering. Talk about two birds, one stone.

When it comes to money, your habits and attitudes have been shaped by a lot of factors. Your family of origin, religion, culture, age, romantic partners and social pressure have all likely played a role in how you save and spend. While the factors that influence us are varied, I have a theory that most of us fall into one of a few categories when it comes to our style of money management.

If you haven’t noticed, we have been talking a lot about bad habits this month and we would definitely have to turn in our membership cards to the “Badass Bookkeepers Club” if we didn’t bring up bad bookkeeping habits (that club doesn’t exist, but it should. Let’s get matching jackets).

Checking your credit score is one of those things most of us know we SHOULD do, but we don’t really know why. It’s also one of those little tasks that is really easy to forget about or push to the side. Experts recommend you check your credit report at least once a year and more often if you have a lot of accounts. There are a few really good reasons you should be checking your credit report regularly (and one you may not have thought about):

Debt can sneak up on you. Your income was a little light & you have to cover your bills, there’s an unexpected car repair, maybe you just didn’t plan as well as you thought & you find yourself in the red. No matter what got you into debt, it’s very common to ignore the problem. I say that with ZERO judgment, by the way–I’m just as guilty when it comes to not wanting to confront the issue and avoiding the real number I owe.