Three from Me!

For the month of June, we'll be looking at what we can do to be financially fit!

Right now I'm working on my Fourth Get It Together Girl! workbook. This one is all about money-saving tips. It isn't about investing or budgeting, it's about little things you can do to make sure you have enough money at the end of your month. Most of these are things I do myself, so I wanted to share my three favorite tips with you.

1. The Gift that Keeps Giving

We all know that gift cards make good gifts but did you know they make good budgeting tools as well? A while back things were really tight and I would be stuck on the day before payday with an empty tank and no money to fill it up. When I tried to put aside a $20 for gas, I’d inevitably end up spending it on something else. The solution: I found agas station chain that had stations near my house and my job. When I got paid, I would fill up my tank and get a $25 gas gift card. The gas gcard can’t be spent for dinners out or movies. So it gets used for it’s intended purpose: gas.

This was so successful that I started using it for movies, a my favorite stores. Instead of walking into a store with my debit card, I can purchase a gift card for the exact amount I want to spend. If I want to spend $100 a month on clothes, I purchase a $100 gift card from a store I want to shop in. If I budget so much for the movies, I buy a gift card once a month to cover all of those movies. This way I am never caught without.

2. Levelize

In the winter, gas bills can climb to astronomical heights and the electric can do the same thing in the summer. When you levelize, or enter an equal payment plan, you pay for your service at a consistent rate year-round. This way there are no surprises when you open your bill

3. Find Your Triggers

Money and food are often hard to manage because we overlook the emotional component. Yet, spending can be very addicting and like most addictive behaviors you need to know what your triggers are. Do you shop when stressed or unhappy? Maybe you spend to retaliate against the spouse? You could associate shopping and spending money with feeling good and hanging out with friends. Know what your triggers are and plan accordingly.

What else can you do when you are feeling those feelings. Who’s help can you enlist. Ask your girlfriends to rein you in when you start on a binger. Acknowledging the emotion behind your actions is half of the battle. As long as acknowledgment is followed by action, you’ll know you are on the right course!

Want more tips? Buy the book when it comes out! LOL!

Money Management Resourses

For the month of June, we'll be looking at what we can do to be financially fit!

There are a number of resources you can use to make money management a bit easier. Here are the tools that I personally use.

Mobile Checkbook: This app is a simple checkbook register for your phone. Before Mobile Checkbook, it was difficult for me to keep track of receipts and try to remember to log everything. With Mobile Checkbook, I have my expenses entered immediately. If I am shopping or eating out then I have that expense recorded before I leave the parking lot. My checkbook is now accurate down to the penny, and that rarely happen before!

Mint.com: I mentioned this one last week. It's great for setting up budgets and tracking expenses. It is a free site and you can link your bank account to it so it is tracking all of your debits, checks and electronic transactions. You can go in and determine what your budget categories are and which expenses go where. This sounds time-intensive but once you have it set up, it doesn't take a lot of time at all.

Credit Karma.com: This is another free site that monitors your credit. It doesn't use the actual credit reports (from the Big Three) but it has its own algorithm that will help you monitor your general credit rating. It also links you to offers for credit cards, online bank accounts and other financial products for people with similar Credit Karma ratings.

Annual Credit Report: This is the government sponsored site where you are entitled to one free credit report per year. Free Credit Report dot com and other sites will charge you for something. This site will not. You can get online copies of your credit report. However, be prepared to print them as it is difficult to save them!

Additionally, you should have your bank's app on your phone. I also have apps on my phone for my credit card accounts as well. This way I can always quickly get your account balances.

Where Does It Go?

For the month of June, we'll be looking at what we can do to be financially fit!

Ever wonder where your money goes? Do you know? Well, you should!  Spend some time, a week or a month, tallying all of your expenses and you'll have a realistic idea (not just vague estimates) of where your money is going.

If you use your debit card for everything, log into your account at the end of every day or week, and tally up your expenses. Use an Excel workbook or an old-fashioned notebook. Devise your most important categories: dining out, groceries, entertainment, gas, .... You might even get more specific. Instead of 'dining out' you might have coffee, lunch, dinner.

If you use the debit card, also consider signing up for Mint.com. You can use this free resource and link your bank account to it. This site is great for budgeting because it is designed to help you figure out exactly where your money is going. Take about 30 minutes to an hour to set it up and figure out how it works and it will show you (in pretty graphs and pie charts) where your money is going.

You can go old school, get a small pocket-sized notebook and write your expenses in it as you make them. If you don't want to go quite that old school, you can write down your expenses using the memo function on your phone. This is the best way to go if you still make a lot of cash purchases.

Finding out exactly where your money goes does take a bit of effort but this is the most accurate way of tracking your expenses. If you don't, you'll be relying on vague estimates that may or may not be correct and when it comes to money and budgeting, you need clarity and facts.

Financial Fitness: Fasting

For the month of June, we'll be looking at what we can do to be financially fit!

A year ago, I went on a financial fast with a good friend of mine. We vowed to only spend the money necessary to pay bills, get groceries and gas. There would be no eating out, no shopping, no purchasing any extras. We did this for several reasons. First, we wanted to work on developing some new more frugal habits. Second, we wanted to see how much we could save.

Here is what I took away from that experience.

Planning works! I had to think about my money in a way I hadn't done before. I turned off the autopilot. I stopped just running my debit card for every little purchase. Planning saved me from making a lot of impulse purchases.

Preparing food isn't as time consuming as I thought. The excuse for a lot of last minute fast food stops was that I didn't have time to cook. I found that it didn't take a lot of time to make my own burger or heat up some leftovers.

Separating needs from wants. I realized that a lot of things I would have purchased weren't necessary expenses (needs) they were extras (wants). After the month was over, I realized that I wasn't as tied to buying a lot of the things I had gone without during that month. I started to ask myself, "Do I really need that?" and "Do I really want to spend money on that?"

I had more money than I thought I did. I realized I didn't have to cry broke. In fact, the reason I was broke so often is because I was making a lot of mindless purchases and those things added up!

If you want to try this for yourself, you have to start with a plan. Here is what I suggest.

• Use this month to prepare for next month. Don't start right away, use this month to prepare and plan so you won't be caught off-guard.
• Make allowances for expected expenses. If you know you will have to pay for your child's summer camp or   if you are already planning for a major event, work those expenses into your monthly fasting plan. If you plan for those events upfront, they won't catch you off guard. 
• Look at your day-to-day expenses. I looked at the snacks, coffees and lunches I was used to buying and made some substitutions I could manage on my own - taking my own coffee, what I could pack for lunch, ...
• Don't go it alone! It was great to have a friend going through this with me. We were there to support each other, help the other overcome temptations and celebrate small successes. Having a partner in financial fitness made it almost fun!

Investor Beware!

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. What happens when the wrong words come out of the right mouth? What do you do when you are listening to someone you respect or trust? We don’t want to believe someone like that would steer us wrong and maybe that isn’t there intention. However, before you invest your time or money into something, it makes sense to check it out yourself. Regardless of who the messenger is, do your homework on the message itself.

Where is this coming from? I enjoy a variety of perspectives, so, throughout the day, I listen to several talk radio shows ranging from the ultra-liberal to the conservative. One of the hosts I listen to however is playing a dangerous game with his listeners and their hard-earned cash. He is encouraging them to invest in ‘franchises’ with small donations (at least $500) donated through PayPal. He strongly suggests that listeners file for bankruptcy through a company he is affiliated with. Last week on his show he had someone from a payday lender extolling the virtues of payday loans.

Never is there a dissenting position or an alternate point of view. In fact, anyone who doesn’t agree with this charlatan is chided as being against the poor or being a hater (a word I hate). Listen to him and he will assure you that his motives are pure and altruistic. He has nothing but his listeners’ best interest in heart. Maybe he does; but then again...

I fail to see how paying fees between $10 and $100 at interest rates between 266% - 366% on a small loan ($1,200 and less) helps a person who is struggling (I googled this information in about a minute). Likewise, investing in a ‘franchise’ that has a spotty success record with a group of people you don’t know doesn’t sound financially prudent to me (couldn’t find any information about this franchise opportunity online). If after doing their own fact checking someone decides that bankruptcy is a good idea or that this is the investment opportunity for them, then fine.

However, a decision should never be made based on the personality of the messenger or the content of their overall message. A little research and investigation doesn’t mean you are ‘against’ someone. In fact, people who are legitimate in their offerings will, in many cases, encourage you to investigate them. They know they are on the up-and-up. If someone doesn’t want you to look into their business or background, that, to me, is a bright red flag.

Radio show hosts, family members, slick salesmen, they may all have great ideas or business opportunities but trust yourself and your instincts. Only you know if something is right for you. Have the wherewithal to gather the facts. Have the courage to say no, if that is the best answer for you.

When it comes to your precious time, you can never get that back once it’s gone. While you might be able to get your money back, it usually takes a lot longer and a lot more effort to recoup your losses than it took to earn the money in the first place.

A Day for Giving Thanks!

Like the name says, Thanksgiving is about giving thanks. And today, as you enjoy your fabulous feast surrounded by family and friends, you will probably agree that we have a lot to be thankful for. It’s easy to be thankful on Thanksgiving. However, we have to find a way to take that gratitude into the other 364.25 days of the year.

There is always something to be thankful for. It’s so easy to focus on things that are not going right or on the things that we don’t have. Even though it’s harder, we have to make the effort in those times, to remember that there are a significant amount of things that are going right (often more than is going wrong). And for those things, we should be thankful.

I talked to a young man the other day who really and truly thought that every single problem he had, and would ever have, would be cured by money. There are so many things that young man could have been grateful for but the only thing he could see was all the money he didn’t have.

He couldn’t see that he had his health, a sound mind, supportive friends and family. He had his youth; he had a future ahead of him. He had nice clothes on his back and a home to return to at the end of the day.

When I mentioned these things to him, he just brushed them off. The clothes weren’t the ones he wanted. His home was still with his family and he was tired of them. He thought having health and a sound mind were laughable. Besides, he didn’t have a car; he had to ride the bus.

Most of us do the same thing. We don’t appreciate what we have because it’s not exactly what we want. We live in a state of perpetual covetness and longing. We wonder why she got the job. We agonize over why he seems to ‘get all of the breaks.’ We look at the happy couple on their wedding day and think, “Why isn’t that me?” What a way to live!

Gratitude isn’t settling for less. You need to continue to work towards your dreams and your goals but enjoy where you are and what you have right now. Gratitude is the key that will release you from a number of stressors and frustrations. That same key also unlocks a secret source of happiness and contentment. When you lose the frustrations and the complaints, you lift a weight off of your chest that makes room for more gratitude and all of the goodness that comes with it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Revving Up for the Holidays!

We are less than two weeks away from Thanksgiving. There is a lot to look forward to: big, yummy holiday dinners, parties, shopping for gifts, decorating, seasonal music and the list goes on. But for many people, the holidays bring just as much stress as they do satisfaction. So, it might be a good time, before we get caught up in the midst of things, to take a moment and prepare for the not-so-nice aspects of the holidays.

Financial
We are technically out of the recession, but for a sizable number of people that fact hasn't caught up to our realities. In the midst of tight belts and tighter budgets, it is inevitable that some changes to traditional holiday spending might be in order.

Scale Back: Does everyone on your list need a gift? This especially applies to all of those acquaintance gifts. Little things can add up to a lot. When it comes to adult family members, consider skipping gift exchanges all together or possibly doing a Secret Santa with a spending limit.

Lower Expectations: When it comes to teens and older children, you might want to explain that Christmas might be a little different this year. It might not be possible to get everything on a long list but ask them what they would like the most or in a specific monetary range.

Family
For many this is either the best part of Christmas or the worst. The key here is to have a clear plan for those relatives that might try your patience or push your buttons.

Make It a Team Effort: Pair up with a sibling, cousin or friend that will be attending the same family function and lean on each other for support. Things immediately seem better when you realize that you aren't in it alone.

Set Boundaries: Who says you have to stay at the dinner all-day and well into the night? If you aren't hosting dinner, plan on leaving a little early. Let people know what is off-limits before hand, if possible. If you are dealing with unemployment or a recent divorce, let several supportive family members know that you would rather not talk about it. In fact, engage members of your team to help you out if those touchy subjects come up.

The key is to have a plan - whether it is a spending plan, a plan for handling family or for not eating too much at the company party - if you think it through in advance you will be able to avoid a lot of sticky or stressful situations, or at least get through them with less drama and damage.