Like I noted in a previous dispatch of Daily Dimes, now that we are barreling toward the end of the year, we can expect to find more lists, tips, and how-to pieces when it comes to personal finances.

Today is definitely no different, as today we’ll take a look at one article touting the top 14 personal finance “tools” and seven steps to “achieving financial freedom.”

This article on PF Firewall lists the top 14 tools for personal finance, all of which involve the Internet or computer in some form or fashion. I’ve made it pretty clear how I believe that immediately rushing to the Internet to download or purchase a budgeting tool without having any goals, background, or foundation in place will lead to more failure.

I will admit, though, that the author was right about one point — one of the top 14 was using Excel. If you’d prefer to use a spreadsheet to sketch out your net worth, goals, and budget each month, I can sign on to that. That’s just as good as a piece of paper.

My fear with tools like Mint and Quicken is that you have this belief that these programs and services will do all the work for you, and you can just go on autopilot. That is not the case whatsoever — that’s like getting a gym membership and then sitting at home eating ice cream. The tool alone won’t get you back into shape.

The piece also had some great sites to check out for personal finance advisers, fraud detection, credit reports, mortgage comparison, etc. Just be sure to make this the starting point for any research you are doing for a particular topic. Get different points of view, weigh all the pros and cons, and then make a decision you can live with.

Another piece today took at look at seven steps to financial freedom — they mirror my six steps to budgeting bliss, as these are basic steps anyone can — and should — follow in order to start gaining a handle on their finances. Knowing how much money is coming in, going out, prioritizing your expenses, determining if you are in the black or the red … these are all things that you must know.

I wish the piece would have talked about creating goals for yourself and using those to drive your decisions, but the steps they laid out are solid and won’t steer you wrong in any way. Just remember that having goals in place, like getting out of debt or saving money to buy a car, will give you tangible reasons for why you are sacrificing, budgeting, and saving money. You will have something to strive toward, besides people like me telling you that you should do it for your own benefit. Create your own benefits .

It can be tough to budget as a freelancer as you’re not guaranteed a set income every month. As most freelancers find that their earnings fluctuate from month to month, it’s not just a case of vowing to set aside 10 per cent of your monthly income as you may have a poor month and need that money to cover food and bills. This can make it hard to draw up a concrete budget, but there are ways to get around this.

Working out your average monthly income

Calculating your rough monthly income can take several forms, but it’s common to use either an average figure taken from three to twelve months earnings; or a minimum figure if you tend to always receive at least a set amount each month.

Average income. This method works best if your earnings fluctuate throughout the year, especially if you tend to earn more in certain months. This basically involves adding up your earnings from the last year and dividing it by 12 to work out your average monthly income.

Minimum income. This method works best if your earnings are almost always above a certain amount (for example, if you always tend to earn at least $1000 per month from freelancing). This allows you to assume that you won’t earn more than this, so you can set aside any additional earnings for a rainy day or saving for something specific.

Budgeting

Once you’ve worked out your average or minimum monthly income, you need to apply it to your budget. Make sure that your budget includes all of your bills, including debt repayments. It’s not uncommon for freelancers to find that their budget doesn’t cover every outgoing some months, but this problem can be solved if you have savings to fall back on.

Saving

While your earnings may fall beneath your budget in some months, there will be better months in which you find yourself with surplus income. This should be transferred to a separate bank account to cover the leaner months when your income doesn’t cover your outgoings.

My latest discovery: Groupon.  This is a website that aggregates users in order to offer huge discounts on local services.  For example, in Denver, recent daily deals included: a Botanical Garden family membership for 50% off (who knew those we ever discounted?), $25 off a $50 dinner at Zenga, a trendy eatery downtown, a $49 Spa-cation featuring four services that is valued at $136 (hello, incredible holiday gift!), and tons more.  And, of course, using Groupon is free!

Check out Groupon for super-discounted deals.  Love it!

Here is the damage for November!

Blown Budgets:

1.  Food

• I stocked up on a lot of food from warehouse stores this month… I feel like a squirrel hoarding for the winter!
• Dining out:  Roughly $72 total, not too bad.

2.  Clothing  (Sigh.  I WENT CRAZY.)

• $25 winter coat from H&M (Black Friday)
• $40 Seven for all Mankind Dojo jeans from Macys (Black Friday)
• $20 for 3 dresses + 1 vintage silk top from Goodwill
• $31 striped top from Ebay
• $30 for a whole MESS of clothing from Forever 21
• $45 for a whole MESS of clothing from Bebe
• $20 Helmut Lang cropped sweater from Loehmann’s
• $40 for a whole MESS of clothing from Urban Outfitters
• $10 blouse from H&M for work

3.  Shoes and Accessories (Sigh.  Not as crazy as my clothing spending, but.. still crazy.)

• $100 Rotary diamond and black pearl watch from Hautelook (Black Friday)
• $5 bow brooch from Etsy
• $11 for 3 hats from Urban Outfitters
• $5 black opaque tights from Loehmann’s
• $5 jeweled hairpin from Ebay

Overall budget:

-$314

The Verdict?

Terrible!  This month was chock full of binge shopping.  After my car got broken into I guess this was my way of dealing with it.  Sigh.  I really need more self control.  Haha.  I did get a cash gift of $100 from the parents, and I’ve made a lot of money from my shop this month, so I guess that helps but I’m not going to figure that into my spending.

The funny thing is though, is that my net worth increased by more than $6500.  (Most likely due to 401K and investments.)

…BUT that is still no excuse for my crazy spending.  :(

Next months plans?

• I’m definitely going to fill out an pre-qual application for my townhouse search in December.
• Also I’ll have to get my wisdom teeth taken out pretty soon.  (Ouch.)
• I spend SO MUCH MONEY on clothes that I’m going to take a breather in December.  I’m very glad Black Friday is over.  MUST. STOP.
• I’m going to give my mom her new Kate Spade bag for Christmas! Can’t wait

Net Worth Change from October 2009 to November 2009:

+US $6775.86

-E&I

I can’t believe it’s been three weeks since I wrote anything! November didn’t slow down at all after my last post; in fact it became so busy that it flew by. My poor NaNoWriMo got abandoned just before I hit the 10,000-word mark, and it wasn’t because of procrastination either. December is going to be equally frantic, so I’d better write while I have a spare moment. Let me try to sort out the pregnancy-related November stuff from the blur of everything else that happened…hmm…

We’re starting to solidify our parental leave plans. We’re down to two basic options: one where I take all my leave and then NT takes all his leave when I’ve exhausted mine, and one where I take the first three weeks off after the birth and then work two days a week and stay home three days a week, and NT stays home the other two days and works three days. Both of our jobs are amenable to an intermittent  kind of leave, but NT needs to sit down with his and figure out what would be less painful for them–him working short weeks for three months, or being gone for six weeks straight. He’s very instrumental in the day-to-day operations of his company. I guess I am to mine too, but at least there’s one other person who does my job too. At NT’s it’s just him; plus he’s the backup for someone else who hardly has any backup.

Either way, we’ve recently decided that we want to take the last week of our available leave together. Yes, it will shorten the time we keep figlet out of daycare by a week, but if AS takes the week off too, we’ll have a week together as a family, and that won’t happen again for a while.

We came to this decision in a roundabout way. We’ve promised our families a visit in 2010 so they can all meet the new baby. Paid time off will be in short supply due to taking some of it during our parental leave, and times when NT won’t also be in college are rare, so we were thinking the obvious best solution would be to visit NT’s family over Labor Day and mine and AS’s over Thanksgiving. But one day I mentioned how it would be kind of sad to miss two Thanksgivings at home in a row (since we were going to Thanksgiving at my sister’s home this year), and AS’s feelings spilled over. She really didn’t want to miss two of our own Thanksgivings, especially when they were 1) the last Thanksgiving with just the three of us and 2) the first Thanksgiving with figlet. So we thought about it some more, and AS suggested that we visit our Virginia relatives during the last week of our parental leave, which would occur near the end of June or beginning of July. The baby will be three-plus months old by the end of parental leave, no matter when it’s born and when we start the leave. Old enough to travel by plane, I think, and talk about a cute age at which to show it off! So we still have to clear our final plans with our jobs, but that seems to be the best option for us. If all goes well, our little globe-trotter will have taken two plane trips and visited another country by the time it’s six months old!

Figuring out health care has been an absolute nightmare, full of speculation and trying to understand worst-case scenarios. But I finally settled on two possible options, thank goodness, and enrolled in my company’s plan with NT. The other option is to keep NT on his own company’s health insurance, but we don’t have the details of his plan and we know their provider wants to hike up costs by 18%. My HR department has agreed to let me drop NT if we decide that his plan is better for him as an individual. Either way, figlet is coming on my plan, because I have more (as in, any at all) health problems than NT, so it’s better to have me and the baby chipping away at a deductible together versus separately (since I’m sure figlet will have medical needs in its first year). I’m sure NT will have medical issues at some point down the road, but I think his total health costs last year, minus dental, were less than $50 combined. The year before that we set aside $120 in his flex spending account and we ended up having to buy loads of OTC painkillers and cold meds so he didn’t just lose the money. As for me, my health care costs could easily reach $4000 before the year is over. Next year I’m thinking it would be nice if me and the baby stayed under $5000 out of pocket for the year. And to think I’m one of the lucky ones. Sigh. I feel so patriotic. Go America!

This month, the goal is to call around and start gauging daycare costs; what our options are for vegetarian-friendly, cloth-diaper-allowing places; and how soon we need to reserve a spot somewhere. I’m really wanting to stick to a $1200-per-month budget for early daycare, but the one place that’s open about its prices is more than that. So we’ll have to see. AS and I have this pipe dream that all our friends who are currently pregnant and the ones with small children will someday want to band together and get some kind of co-op nanny deal going. Seems too hard to manage, but we will probably ask around. First off, though, we need to get a sense of what traditional daycare centers have to offer and what they cost.

I think that’s all the money stuff out of the way. Oh, I did figure out a big cost savings last night. NT’s job is having a cocktail Xmas party this week, and I was flummoxed as to what I was going to wear. Well, AS’s clothes are a few sizes larger than mine, so I raided her closet last night and found a few pretty dresses made of stretchy material. Voila! Two of them fit and were even kind of flattering. So depending on what she wants to wear, I’m going to get to wear one of those. Cost of maternity cocktail dress I’d probably only wear once: $0. Woo hoo! On the down side, the task of cramming my breasts into my regular bras is getting harder and more comical every day, so I’m probably going to have to buy a couple new ones today. Sad, but oh well. Since I’m only going to need them for a few months, I’m going to cheap out on them. I should probably just bite the bullet and buy a nursing bra, but I can’t bring myself to think about that yet!

OK, on to my pregnancy. Another reason I haven’t felt the need to blog all month is that nothing new has been happening except my belly growing. However, at Thanksgiving, I got an inkling that’s about to change. First off, it was nearly impossible to get comfortable in the rental car, whether I was driving or just a passenger. My back hurt constantly and my belly felt squeezed in my lap. Then, being with my family really emphasized the physical changes, because we’re a group that likes to  play tons of games in large groups, and usually the floor is the best place to do so. Playing cards, or just sitting for long periods of time on the floor for other games, proved to be a challenge. Same problems as the car, achy back and squashed-feeling belly, combined with a certain awkwardness trying to get up afterward.

When I have to run, I can feel myself sort of waddling a bit. Legs held a bit wider so as to support my middle. And I get easily winded. Now I know part of it is that I haven’t been getting much exercise except for the hour of wandering around at lunch, but I think another part is all my organs starting to get crowded and cramped. My heartburn yesterday was so constant that I exceeded the recommended daily maximum of Tums. Vacuuming makes my back hurt. Tying my shoes makes me pant for breath afterward. My snoring has grown so loud — from a combination of being constantly congested, everything being pushed out of place inside me and only having a few comfortable sleeping positions — that I even wake myself up sometimes.

Our new cat’s meows (he seems to be growing more and more clingy and demanding) early in the morning wake me up. I mean completely awake. I’m a sleep-till-the-last-minute kind of girl, always have been, and I go to work a good hour after NT, but now I usually just get up and hang out with him at 6:30 or 7 instead of clinging to the snooze option until about 8 or 8:15. I really do think that it’s because my body and mind are so attuned to the cries of small creatures.

I’ve started to circle the question of labor in my dreams. Before, as I’ve probably mentioned at some point, my dreams were all about pregnancy followed by the baby being already born and at home. Even my dream-self found this odd and would try to remember what labor and delivery had been like, but it was always a complete blank. Now I’ve had one or two dreams about being in a hospital with back and stomach pains (the closest my body can come to figuring out what contractions will feel like), lying down, sitting on a bouncy ball, waiting for a doctor to arrive. Nowhere near the worst bits yet, but this is the closest I’ve come to labor in my dreams. I think my mind and body are trying to prepare me gradually without scaring me too much.

Talking to my sisters and my mom a little bit about pregnancy, I’m actually feeling a bit reassured. Despite how crazy and foreign all these maternal instincts I’m getting seem to me, I realize more and more that the women in my family are sort of completely oriented toward childbirth. I’ve read tons of blogs and forums where many many women complain of feeling disgusting, hating every second of pregnancy, not being able to be excited about their future baby, etc. I really haven’t experienced any of that. Yeah, I know this trimester has been a walk in the park compared to the one I’m about to enter. But I’m a hypochondriac and a big baby when it comes to physical problems, yet I’ve been cheerfully taking every bizarre symptom pretty much in stride, and I used to have this phobia about being tied down, but now feel excited about the prospect of having another human being completely dependent on me for years and years. I know this blog probably seems like I worry all the time and obsess about my physical symptoms, but really once I get things out here I don’t dwell on them in my everyday life. I’m starting to think I come from a real childbearing-oriented line of people. I’m starting to think that everything could be OK, even the labor and delivery. Yes, maybe even the breastfeeding.

I know, Hannukah, isn’t technically one of the High Holidays, but it is one of the most expensive ones.  And to complicate things more, finding gifts for our loved ones is not only expensive, but difficult as well.

Hannah from A Mother in Israel reminded me of the obvious truth that many overlook: when considering a gift, look for something personal that appeals to the recipient.  Apparently, it is the thought that counts.  Some ideas like a massage at a spa, or something that has to do with the receipt’s hobby will always have a personal touch.

Sometimes, the personal touch is not limited to what you can buy, but what you can make.  Miriam from Israeli Kitchen wrote in the following idea.

“Responding to your appeal for Hannukah gifts that are easy on the pocket, I’d say that good-quality home-made food and drink is always acceptable.

A pretty papier-maiche box full of cookies, 3 kinds

Home-made Kahlua or Irish Cream – recycle an attractive bottle or break down and buy one. Recipes widely available on the Net.

Two loaves of home-baked bread, 1 whole-wheat and 1 white.

Chocolate milk mix: 2 Tblsp. cocoa, 3 Tblsp. sugar, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, 1 package vanilla sugar. Put all into an attractive cellophane bag or small ziploc bag. Stick a label on the bag instructing to put the contents in a blender with a liter of cold milk, blend for a few minutes, serve.”

What I like about this is how gourmet this is, how thoughtful it is, and how inexpensive it is (this is a blog about budgeting after all…).  Miriam’s idea takes the idea of a several hundred shekel gift basket and makes it warm and personal, all while breaking the supply chain in half.

While I am talking about this idea, I’d be remiss if I didn’t share my recipe for Jonny’s Irish Cream.  It’s good, parve, and can even be made Kosher for Pesach.

1 container of non-dairy creamer (about 4/5 of a pint)

3-4 eggs

1 cup of vodka

6-8 tablespoons of sugar

3 tablespoons of chocolate syrup

2 teaspoons of instant coffee

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon of almond extract

This recipe makes approximately 1 liter of Irish Creme.

When preparing be sure to use an electronic mixer – otherwise there will be little egg bits which are not too nice.  If you do not have an electronic mixer, then pour the finished product through a strainer in order to remove the little egg bits.

I know this post is a bit heavy on the food.  I plan to go through some other Hannukah ideas over the next week or so.  Right now, I suddenly feel very hungry.

Jeez people. I wish that time went by faster. Kind of. I do because it’d be nice to have my check on Friday. But then also, I want it now. Like… I want them to print it out and give it to me today. Before I go to sleep. Oh wait, I COULD’VE done it with direct deposit but that no longer works for me. =/. Oh well. Life goes on. I’m gonna have to get by with what money I have right now. Blah it sucks but oh well. Life goes on right? Anyways, I downloaded this app onto my phone called BudgetDroid which should be helping me out with Budgeting. I set Josh and I on a $600 spending limit a month, and that includes bills, food AND gas. I don’t know how we’re gonna manage but i’m sure that everything will be okay. =]. I still have faith.

I’m thinking about moonlighting at places. I would really like to. But i’m a very shy person. I don’t do well in front of audiences. I guess I need to work on that if I’m gonna become a famous singer. I wish I had all the confidence in the world but I don’t. I’m getting better at it though. It’s just a matter of me thinking about how people are going to perceive my songs and whether they’ll like them or not. It’s just me being very unconfident. lol. But honestly, I think that people are gonna like them. They are great songs with great messages. I think I write smartly. One thing I would like to know how to do though is record songs on my macbook. Like I know that I have garageband on it, but I don’t really know how to use it. I want to be able to make like a r&b or pop beat/song on garageband. It’d be really cool to create my own music and songs. Like I love my guitar and the acoustic sound, but what I really want is to create pop music. Songs that people can relate to and have fun with. To sing while they’re driving down hollywood blvd while the top is down. Songs people can dance to, get crunk to, get emo to, just everything.

I’m currently trying to write a song about Lady Gaga. Well not really about her, more than just to her. It’s called, “Make Me Famous” I think. I’m gonna see first. I need to think about it more and I want it to be my first like real single that I’m going to create. It’s gonna take a long while but thats okay. It’s gonna be my “Just Dance” or “I Kissed A Girl” or “Umbrella”. Or I hope it is. I’m very excited for it. =].

I’m also still currently working on my story. And What I think i’m gonna do is write my book according to my anniversary cd that I made for my husband. Hmmm… that sounds like a great idea…. ideas ideas….

As year end is rapidly approaching, those of us in the marketing biz are heavily ensconced in planning our budgets and strategies for the coming year. Since a good many businesses were turned upside down in the past year as a result of one of the most unusual (ahem!) economic climates in several decades, many business owners and marketing managers are eyeing each venue with extra scrutiny.

Should we continue with this advertising vehicle next year even though the return was dismal?

We’ve been advertising here for years, but the traffic fell off the deep end this year. Do we continue out of loyalty, hoping things will recover? Or do we cut our losses?

These are but a couple of the quandaries business owners and marketing managers grapple with as they try to determine the best course of action for the coming year. How do you know if your decision to stay or go with a specific marketing strategy or advertising venue is the right one? Here are a few criteria to help you decide what’s best for your business:

1. What was your ROI (return on investment) for the past year? If you spent gobs of money in hopes of raking in lots of new customers spending beaucoup de bucks, how did you do? Break even? 3.2:1? Or did you spend tons of money with little or no results? If the numbers don’t add up it’s a clear sign this venue isn’t producing. Cut your losses.
2. What do you do if this venue used to be a gold mine of new customers? Here’s what’s happened in the last 24 months to help explain the change in results: The fish moved to a different pond. You are fishing in an empty pond. This is not unlike barking up the wrong tree. How long will you stay? Markets change. This last year they all changed a lot, including where your customers are. Customer loyalty went out the window. Now you must find new loyal customers. Stop fishing in the same pond. It’s empty.
3. What about brand awareness? Shouldn’t that be worth something? Yes. It should. In a normal economy. Building and maintaining brand awareness is very important to your overall marketing strategy and success. But again, say you’re considering staying with the same venues (that aren’t producing very well) under the pretext that you’re doing it to save face with your existing clients who see the ads and to “build awareness” with potential clients. First, your existing clients already have brand awareness. And you likely already have many other venues to reach them. You’ve already captured their contact information through email and snail mail channels, so you don’t actually need to reach them just so they “see” you out there. Second, you’re not building any brand awareness with potential clients because this venue didn’t produce well enough the past year to make enough customers. It didn’t work.
4. Have you hit rock bottom with this venue? The bottom line is that it’s very hard to let go of what’s familiar and comfortable – even when it’s not going well. It’s a bit like a divorce. No one wants to go through that pain even when you know in the back of your head it’s the right thing to do. Perhaps you know the advertiser or rep particularly well on a personal level. Perhaps you know this company is hurting financially too. You don’t want to be the bad guy. But if you stay, is it the equivalent of flushing your money down the toilet? Maybe… How do you feel about that?
5. If the alternative to staying with a non-producing advertising venue is going with another one (The Great Unknown); and you don’t know if it will be successful or not, what do you do? This is tough because you’re wondering if the grass will be greener with another venue or will it be just as brown as with the current one? I recommend trying the new venue. Why? Because the fact is you already know that the current venue doesn’t work. You have concrete information it doesn’t work anymore. You can cross it off the list. That means you’ve only got one way to go: up. And it’s got to be under new circumstances with a new venue. It may not be great, but it’s got to be better than the old guy.

Remember, everything has changed in the last year. Are you going to change with it or be left behind? Your customers have already changed. The fish are now in a different pond (unless you can prove through a successful ROI that they’re still in your pond). Start fishing where the fish are. You stand a much better chance of catching one – even with a plain hook – than fishing with a well-baited hook in an empty pond.

Mint.com

The quest for financial security is an uphill battle for many, but in reality this is more due to a lack of education and no affordable access to someone who will help manage finances, than anything else.

Enter Mint.com, the online (free) solution to budgeting, banking, and staying off broke-mode. Mint is a well-known and critically acclaimed tool for bridging the gap between the clueless spender and the well-clued-in financial banker. We all gotta keep our stacks up (word to Karl Lewis) and this is a good way to start. Get on this!!

Mint.com

——-

oh joy!

Graphic design is a staple interest and skill of mine, and I can always appreciate a great designer, well-versed in the graphic arts. While checking out the new Johnny Cupcakes site, I came across a link to oh joy!. As soon as I saw the home page, I fell in love.

Joy Cho is an educated, established and highly creative designer who’s been in the industry for quite a while. Her products are visually efficient and interesting, and she’s designed for everyone from Urban Outfitters, to Target. And she’s designed well.

The site has a clean, modern, and whimsical feel, and the items scream a message of “specialty gift/collectors item”. I think I might do a bit of oh joy! investing, myself. A great find — get on this!!

(Check the blog out, too — its a solid design resource on what’s going on right now.)

ohjoy.com

oh joy! blog

^And it doesn’t hurt that Ms. Joy Cho is legitimately pretty, indeed.

Get your stacks right, and put your designer product game on deck. Until next Monday!

_Reverend Zombie 16.17

Humanzee … is that you?

Buying groceries is one of those grey areas of budgeting – it can either be very cheap or very expensive, depending on how you approach it.

The first thing you should do is create a food budget that is realistic; one that fits well within your means and complements your lifestyle.

Once you’ve got that figured out, it’s time for the actual grocery run. Before you head out, here are a few extra money-saving suggestions that may come in handy when you’re perusing the food aisles.

Read more: http://talentegg.ca/launch/2009/11/how-to-stretch-your-dollar-grocery-shopping/

I neglected to link to this last week, but Tertium Quids praised Goochland County for putting its checkbook online. From the RTD editorial they linked to:

That represents a quantum leap in clarity over the financial reporting of some local governments, whose budget documents are sometimes long on verbiage and short on specifics. Knowing that a utility department’s personnel costs are X hundred thousand and its operating expenses are Y million doesn’t say anything about whether the money is spent wisely and well.

Nick Howard at TQ suggests the next step is the launching of a citizen’s audit committee to examine the newly open expenses. This all sparked my attention in light of this move by our own county government here in Shenandoah:

The Shenandoah County Board of Supervisors might turn to professionals to help find a new county administrator.

Current County Administrator Vince Poling announced last month that he plans to retire in 2010. On Monday, he said his target retirement date is June 30.

The supervisors have established a salary range of $85,000-$100,000 for the new administrator, said Poling, whose salary is $111,000 a year.

He said four executive search firms have been interviewed, and District 6 Supervisor Conrad Helsley, the chairman of the personnel committee, is negotiating with one of the firms.

Though Supervisor Helsley makes some intriguing points as to why a search firm may be needed, its still a question for debate, particularly when one would hope that Supervisors should know what they need in an administrator.

At any rate, this, along with nauseating budget documents whose line items offer very little insight into just how money is spent and anectodotal stories from local merchants about misguided expenses, adds further fuel to the fire for transparency here in our own backyard.

It was embarrassing to ask my parents for money again last night. It was $200 this time, a hail-mary pass to keep my rent check from bouncing.

I was ashamed because I knew it wasn’t just the car payment and insurance and decrease in work hours over the Thanksgiving holiday that hit me hard, even though they were contributing factors. But I was also overzealous with spending over the past couple weeks. Friends had birthdays. Things went on sale for the holidays. My work shoes finally wore out. Plain and simple, I lost track of what I could afford.

My parents, always there for me in a pinch, transferred money to a checking account we opened when I was in high school, over a decade ago. They’ve helped me out more than a few times this year, especially when I lost my job and was unemployed for a few months last spring.

This morning, I left my apartment early, withdrew the cash, then deposited it into my main checking account, which I keep with a different bank. I drove to work, nervous and upset with myself.

The cash is still a pending transaction, and I hope it clears into my checking account before the rent check goes through. If not, I’m going to have an unpleasant conversation with my landlord, a man who’s default setting is already a little angry.

The bottom line is this: There is no reason I should be in this situation. I make fairly decent money doing freelance and contract work, but I’ve let my spending get out of control. I don’t budget. I don’t save. I’ve let things go week-to-week for so long that I’ve become desensitized to the fear and panic these dangerous choices should instill in me.

In a few months, I will turn 30. I’m going to leave my twenties with no wealth accumulated and nearly $10,000 in debt. If I don’t make drastic changes to my life now, I could be in the same place when I turn 40.

I am lucky enough to have parents that bail me out when things get rough, but I feel like they shouldn’t have to. They never complain about it, never guilt trip me, and never make me feel bad when I can’t make ends meet. But I want to be completely financially independent. I want them to be proud. I want to be able to save, to build wealth, to not panic at the end of the month when a stack of bills are due and I’m forced to choose which ones will be late and which will be paid on time.

When I get home from work tonight, I’m going to write it all down. What am I spending on my essentials? How much is left over to save? Where can I make cuts? What are my goals for the next decade?

I need to change my life. Tonight, I’ll take the first steps. I know I can do this.

Simply Fantastic: Living Better on Less makes a perfect Christmas gift for any and all the members of your family. It’s easy to read, has interesting, sometimes funny, anecdotes from my life in the working world and as a wife and mother sprinkled throughout the book, providing readers with real-world examples of how to become financially free. You can open it up to any page and find a strategy or tip to save money.

Not a heavy-duty financial book Simply Fantastic is a good, easy to read, educational book for all ages. From new graduates and young couples to working families and retirees, Simply Fantastic is the go-to guide for anyone trying to save money and improve their financial outlook, all while living a better life.

Brimming with optimism and humor, Simply Fantastic is a valuable guide to financial responsibility for all ages.

MORE INFORMATION ON BOOK:

Wesley Watkis, personal finance and investment strategist with the W&W Group, and David Berenbaum of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition offer tips for creating and sticking to a family budget.

Before the combination of messages in your inbox , TV commercials and decorated windows tempt you to spend beyond your rational limits, watch this.

It reminds me of that great quote:  ”Children need your presence more than they need your presents.”

Ugh! My Amozon Wish List is causing problems!  I apparently had two accounts and for some reason it kept switching me between them.  Well I ended up deleting one of the wish lists I accidentally made on the wrong account and now I can’t access my real wishlist from any account.  It still exists, I can search it and it is still there but I can’t add or delete anything or tinker with it.  It is bugging me but whatever.

Also, my washing machine has broken.  This is irritating because I can’t get it fixed because of money and my lack of it.  I have less than two weeks until I go home for the holidays (I think I am down to 11 days, woot!) and a large portion of that time will be in uniform.  I can make it work and hopefully by the time I come back I will have some money to put toward the problem and get it solved.  It is just frustrating at the beginning of the month because rent takes a large portion of my check so I don’t have a lot for the next couple of weeks.  Eventually I will have enough saved from my second check to make it easier and balance it out through the whole month but that is a cycle I have to start and haven’t had the opportunity yet.  The holidays, unfortunately, are sucking away my funds.  I splurge on people for gifts and though I haven’t gone out of my planned budget stupid things like the washer breaking happen and I am all sorts of messed up.  Luckily it is almost January, and what happens in January?  More money for me.  At the start of the year is a pay raise plus I should be done with my GI Bill payments.  It is supposed to be 12 months I just don’t know if they took the first month the January I started or the February after so everything could get sorted.  Whatever the case, soon I will have extra money to make everything easier.  Bleh, eventually I will get this whole money and budgeting thing down…hell, maybe I will even get some money into my savings account one day, that would be nice.

I want to eat real food!  I think I could technically eat it now (most foods anyway), my jaw doesn’t hurt and it has been almost a week, but I still have holes.  I don’t like the idea of getting food in the holes.  I think I am at a point where I couldn’t get an infection but i am not positive either.  I want at least a layer of gum tissue rather than just the blood clot.  The holes are still getting smaller so hopefully I don’t have to wait long.  It’s just odd, I was told I could eat whatever I felt comfortable with after the first 24 hours (barring straws) but I just don’t wanna…it’s too weird to me.  I know tons of other people have done it so I guess it doesn’t cause that big of a problem and I just swish my mouth with water or something and that clears it all out?  Meh, I will figure it out as I go.  I have tried mac n cheese and that was ok but I mainly tried to chew with my front teeth (kind of irritating I must say) and just swallowed without chewing too much.  I am having spaghetti O’s for lunch tomorrow so I think it will be much of the same.  I guess I just keep up with the super squishy, soft, melt in your mouth and liquid foods until I just can’t take it anymore.

Most weddings end up bigger than they started.

Have a good look at your savings to see how much you are comfortable with putting into your big day.

If at all possible, don’t start your life together in the red – keep tab on your expenses as you go along.

Sometimes, less is more. Do you really need that fancy uber-licious $5000 gown? Or will something close enough in quality and detail do?

Finance and Career Highlights (November 30, 2009)    Today we are highlighting great strategies for your career and business. We have included tips for planning and budgeting your small business; tips on how to write a great slogan; and successful marketing strategies from a six-year old’s lemonade stand.

Ideas, Articles and Resources:

	Small Business: Tips for Practical Planning and Budgeting   Small business owners and managers face many uncertainties about the future. But the future of a business is not entirely a matter of chance. Proper planning and budgeting can dramatically increase the likelihood a business will attain its goals.
		5 Tips on How to Write a Killer Slogan   Slogans are claimed to be the most effective means of drawing attention to a product or brand. Here are 5 tips that will help you construct the best slogan for your product.

9 Marketing Tips from a Six-Year Old’s Lemonade Stand   The success of a six-year old’s lemonade stand highlights 9 important tips for the successful marketing of your business.

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My wife was able to negotiate a lower payment arrangement with our cable provider which allowed us more features than we had before and I just wanted to say how proud I am of her.  In our previous 6 years of marriage we had never had DVR or many of the movie channels.  Well that is until recently when Mindy took her negotiating skills to task and was able to get us more for less.

What can I say?  How can I complain?  Now it’s no big deal if we have something come up and there’s a television show we want to watch but we’re too afraid of missing it.  Wow it sounded great until I realized the big game is gonna be on next Saturday and we’re scheduled to go to the in-law’s house.  Maybe I can convince her I need to watch the game live. 

With the DVR I have taken full advantage of recording Dave Ramsey’s shows and have spent the majority of the weekend watching them.  Amazing how hearing other people’s success stories can motivate a person to achieve their own dreams.  That’s what I am here for to zero in on personal debt and destroy it.  I will be debt free and I will work my budget off to get there.

The 2009 year is almost over and my question is what kind of year did you have?  Did you meet your financial goals?  Did you fail to meet them?  What did you accomplish and what would you have liked to have accomplished?  In looking around and taking a hard look at my own life I see the misfortunes that happen to a lot of people.  I was gung ho about starting on my budget ready to become debt free and when the movement was not fast enough for me what happened?  I stop paying attention and when I stopped paying attention I fell back into the same ole rut I was previously in.

Now I’m not saying that I am going to be on here everyday but during my sabbatical from this blogging site I re-evaluated my budgeting skills.  What I found was quite alarming as I had done everything the financial guru’s had said to do.  Get a budget and put it into writing however even though the budget looked good on paper there was one key ingredient that I had left out. 

My bills are all due at various times in the month and to say that my rent is ‘x’ amount of dollars for December, January, February, etc. sounded good but reality was I might need to pull from my November checks to pay for my December rent.  Already off the bat my beautiful budget that I had meticulously figured out days in advance was shot.  It was done for so rather than be intelligent about it I took the stupid approach as the paper, pen and calculator went flying.  My new approach will consist of breaking down the bills by pay check.  I believe if I would have been doing this all along I would have positioned myself not to have gotten frustrated but to have been in control.

I want to do this right and I want to make sure that I am set up to succeed.  In doing this comes my part in making sure that I stick to the budget.  During this same time period I will begin a work out regiment with the goal of losing weight.  As long as everything goes as plans my waist line will be getting smaller as my bank account grows. 

The advice that I have for anyone who has started a budget only to find themselves giving up is to hold off on the negative feelings.  I’m beginning this walk and I’m inviting you to join me.  If you have something to add as a suggestion, comment or just want to make your presence known feel free to let the blogosphere know.

I don’t budget. And I’m sure as fuck not frugal. But I should learn to be.

I earn a measly $200 or so a week, and almost without exception save zilch (or, if I save, then that just tops up the next week’s spending money). It’s amplified by the fact that I get paid in cash, which tends to sit idly in my wallet. Common problems: weeks when I burn through the cash before the next pay-day; weeks when, for whatever reason, I need more than just the previous week’s wages; an inability to buy anything worth more than the $200; horrible habits for when I move out.

How to get a grip on this? The obvious answer is to put away some money each week and, well, just fucking save. Something I’m going to start on Friday (when I next get paid). But how much should I put away? I have about $900 in the bank (from a tax-return, not saving), and here’s what’s coming up financially:

• I want, and quite badly need, a laptop which costs $1200 if I get a MacBook.
• I’ll need spending money for when I go to Melbourne in late December.
• I have pledged $500 which is due in late February.
• I’ll need spending money for April when I’m back in Melbourne.
• I’ll need a wad of cash for when uni restarts (late February).
• And, at some point, I want to move out, which requires a goods basket full of new and necessary things. As well as, more importantly, learning to live on less.

I have no great suggestions, but to begin with I’ll try cut out the general superfluous spending — magazines, books, unnecessarily expensive food, etc. That’ll at least be a start to making the frugal less futile.

Having just thrown what many said was a fantastic Cocktail party, here are a couple of tips.

a.  While I don’t often look at junk mail, if you are going to do a large shop, write a list and look through the different brochures. Alcohol and fruit can vary greatly between shops on opposite sides of the road, and sometimes the smaller specialty shops are cheaper.

b.  Instead of having pizzas delivered which ususally results in wastage, buy bulk frozen ones and then spread them out over the night (adding your own toppings too). This also gives the more shy guests a reason to walk around and meet others (by playing “offerer of food”).