Even the best have their struggles

I have lived on a budget ever since I jumped on the Dave Ramsey bandwagon years ago.  Whenever I pay bills or get paid, I pull out my Excel spreadsheet and start checking bills off. Check, check, check. 😀

But there are times like today were I’m struggling to stay on the bandwagon. I have been “blue” for a couple of weeks and this past weekend, the shade of blue has become a “royal” blue shade. I as sit here and write, I am having the urge to go out and do a little retail therapy.

If you follow Dave Ramsey’s bandwagon, retail therapy is a huge no-no. What I would be buying is NOT a NEED but a WANT….to fill in the void I am feeling. Rational me knows that whatever I buy, no matter how much I buy, that void will still be there and then it will be accompanied with guilt from wasting money on things I don’t need nor had the money for. I know I don’t have the money for because I budgeted my money, I told my money where to go, and the stores I want therapy from is not on that budget.

Let me tell you, the force is strong with this one (retail therapy urge)!!

Uh oh! What now?

Lunch came and it reared up it’s ugly head! Instead of going to the gym, my head screamed, ‘To the store!!!!”

I read a few months ago when I started to go to the gym – Never miss the Monday workout – start the work week right. If a person didn’t do their first workout on Monday, the chances it would be pushed off again the next day increased.

I didn’t want that so I headed to the gym on my lunch. Victory! I didn’t cave into the retail therapy urge. But the end of the work day is creeping up and the voice in my head grows louder and louder.

Even with my accounting background, getting geeked up about budgets and spreadsheets, even I struggle at times with spending. I’m not perfect nor have will power of steel. I stumble at times.

How am I going to deal with this struggle?

A few options:

1. Go home after work and try to keep my mind busy at home. I may overeat, trying to fill the void that triggered the retail therapy urge.
2. Allow myself $5-$10 to spend and see if that satisfies the urge. Sometimes withholding with an iron fist makes things worse. Maybe I’ll cruise over the Goodwill and find a shirt or two that fit that allowance.
3. Go home and write in my journal, trying to figure out my I’m so down lately, been so blue. Maybe getting it on paper will help the void. Or maybe I’ll go home and talk to a friend about what I’m feeling.

Do I know which option I am doing? Not yet and probably won’t until I’m walking out the office door.

Wish me luck!

 

 

 

 

 

Beware of the Money Diet

Over the past few years I have noticed the scale number tick up a few ounces here, a few ounces there until they turn into a pound, which eventually turns into pounds. I finally decided I was was going to do something about it.

I got a gym membership that fit into my budget – $10/month. I started to buy more fresh fruit and veggies now that it was spring and knew their prices would be cheaper. I started to try to walk more with the nicer weather. I tried to only eat small snack size candies to curb my chocolate sweet tooth and not the king size bars. Fiber rich oatmeal for breakfast (low calorie as well), light watery soup for lunch, string cheese and fruit for daytime snacks, and one dinner plate for supper (not the usual 2+ plate fulls).

I have yet to loose any weight….have been told by a few people that I probably gained muscle from the light weight training days. (I know muscle burns more calories which means I’ll be lifting those weights!) I have yet feel my clothes un-shirk themselves – they still are too tight for comfort.

Sure these changes have only started being implemented a month ago, but shouldn’t I see any results?! Maybe next month I’ll lose 10 pounds and will have to get my clothes tailored so they won’t be so baggy on me.

You are probably asking yourself…..Wait?! I thought this post was going to be about money and not her struggle with my weight. Did I have the right website? (Look at web address…..huh…..seems to be the right address….)

The reason I am sharing my weight struggles is because the same mind set can be applied to money and personal finances.

How food dieting relates to money dieting

1) As diets can play havoc with our minds, so can money diets. When someone says, “I’m on a diet” there seems to be this “ohhhhhh” pity for them because you know there are things they are not allowed to have. It can be mentally exhausting fighting cravings of food you are banned from while people around you are shaving it down their throats. (Don’t mind me as I eat 3 little snack Hersey’s candies….Mmmmm…….)

Money dieting can do the same havoc on your mind. You place strict rules on what you won’t pay money for (ex: cable, eating out, new clothes, insert your guilty pleasure that cost money). It also will wear you mentally when you see others around you who are throwing money at everything humanly possible – money they haven’t earned yet, thrown in the air, like they don’t care.

How do I know it’s mentally draining? Been there, done that. People who knows me well know I can pinch pennies and can money diet like I was in a competition, blowing my competitors out of the water. Boom! But that comes with the weight of being so focused on the dollar signs and loosing the understanding of why I was changing my relationship with money.

2) As strict diets are not sustainable, strict budgets aren’t either with money diets. When January 1st comes around and people declare they are going on a diet to lose XX amount of weight or to get healthy (we all know the get healthy kick is a cover up for unwanted weight), there never seems to be the same number of people who are on the bandwagon come May, yet alone September of that year as in January prior. That bandwagon gets pretty empty as the year progresses – same with the gym I have noticed.

Strict money diets are not sustainable because it is impossible to maintain that same willpower long term. And when people fall off the bandwagon of their strict money diet, it doesn’t look pretty – normally racking up debt, sometimes to where they were before they restricted their money, others fall worse from where they started from.

3) Diets can do metabolic damage, money diets can cause their own damages. Time Magazine did an article in May 2017 called “The Weight Lost Trap”. In the article it stated that when a person loses weight, their resting metabolism slows down and no amount of willpower can undo that. (Insert of article below.) Money diets can cause damage too in that a person can start to create  a negative relationship with money and see money as an enemy instead of a means to trade services/goods.

It’s better to make slow changes with money, understand why the changes are being made, and understand the changes are meant not to be negative. Also understanding that the slow changes you made are not a fade, but a part of life, that you are going to keep these habits and not just pitch them when your debt is paid off.

4) Cheating on your diet doesn’t help get you the results you want and the same goes with money diets. Some diets allow cheat days and I will admit, I have cheated on diets in the past.  After I cheat on my diet, I feel bad about myself because I know I shouldn’t have done that, that I undid some of my hard work minutes/hours/days/weeks prior. The same thing can happen with money diets. We “cheat” by convincing ourselves we can buy something because we deserve it or not fulling being transparent when looking at our debt, at our budget for the month, etc.  When you cheat, you only hurt yourself and your progress in the long run. Why do that to yourself? 😦

Now what?!

So to help undo your thoughts about money dieting, below is a quick “cheat sheet” of what not to do. I know from my past experiences, reviewing “cheat sheets” like this will help realign me if I steer off my goal path a tad. To me, it helps me keep my eyes on the goal ahead of me which is having positive money relations, staying in budget by living within my means, and saving along the way.

I hope the cheat sheet below helps you steer on the right path to your goals. 🙂

My personal journey

Budgeting Consulting / Personal accounting services:

 

I have over 15 years of accounting experience in the business world along with the education to back it up – a bachelor’s degree from Northwood University with a dual major is accounting and management. And of course I graduated with my degree with honors (not tooting my horn or anything). 😉

 

I also have had the experience of drowning in debt with 2 car payments, a camper payment, mortgage, student loan debt, and credit card debt spread out through as many credit cards as possible. I was working 2 jobs just to pay the minimum payments, already ear marking my upcoming tax return to pay things charged throughout the year prior in which needed to be paid off before interest was going to be added, prorated back to when the charges were made from vacation trips I didn’t have the money for but deemed necessary from working 2 jobs, raising two little children, and going back to school. I deserved it, I told myself. I worked hard and deserved to play just as hard, even though I didn’t have two pennies to pay for it.

Just charge it and worry about it later. I’ll get a raise soon, right? I’ll pick up more work on the side to cover it – something.

I was drowning and after living from paycheck to paycheck, believing I was being savvy with money, I got real tired of shuffling everything. Shuffling the credit cards came of transferring debt for 0% for X-amount of months, hoping the tax return would come in just in time, to rob Peter to pay Paul – no money in the saving, no money for retirement. I got really tired of that rat race.

I was very good at my job as an accountant, keeping my employer on a balanced budget, but I was being weighted down by debt and was getting so damn tired of it. I was so tired I actually did something about it.

I took my knowledge and applied it to my life. I started Financial Peace University, a program through Dave Ramsey, and for the first time in my life, I was on the right track getting my finances straight. I followed his baby steps, I read his book; I was all in. My accounting brain was soaking up everything he was teaching. I hustled to get baby step #1 done. Baby step #2 took over 3 years, being in so much debt.

In the middle of baby step #2, I went through a bitter divorce, getting stuck with the all debt because the ex was an A**hole! So as a single mom of 2 children, I bared $25,000 of debt and the mortgage on the house. Unable to make the monthly payments on the remaining debt (which was around $300/month in minimum payments), I “gazelle-d it” as Dave Ramsey would put it and had that debt paid off within 9 months. (Hint: I sold everything and anything I didn’t need, eat lots of cheap pasta, and any extra dollars were thrown at it. )

Fast forward to today, I am on baby step #4 and excited to be getting close to baby step #5.

Sure anybody can purchase the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University kit and go through the classes – which I HIGHLY recommend doing! It was a HUGE eye opening experience. The kicker is staying accountable and staying with the program. The program isn’t to be looked at as a diet but a change in way of life.

I went through the Financial Peace University program with a person we will call Jill (to keep the person’s identify private). Jill reached baby step #1. Then when I asked how she was doing one day in class, and she stated she had to use the emergency fund. I asked what happened, thinking her car broke down, or something unplanned accrued. She stated, I needed it for rent…… Rent wasn’t an emergency since it is due the same day of every month – completely against what we were being taught.

Fast forward to the present, Jill is not on the Dave Ramsey program and I have the feeling she is going the opposite direction which saddens me.

Moral to telling you about Jill is that, not everyone is disciplined to go through the challenging times to get debt free, into a great place where one can be independent and feel security in providing for oneself.

This is where I would come in with my personal experience and accounting knowledge and background. Budgets excite me! Bank reconciliations excite me! Crunching numbers and then re-crunching them puts me on cloud 9. Yeah, I’m a huge nerd. 🙂

It’s okay asking for help and guidance until you learn the ropes, slowly adjust to the changes, move yourself to having financial freedom. I’m not going to lie, it’s hard work and sacrifices will have to be made to be able to enjoy the freedoms you long for.

Do you want to be free of having debt burdening you down? Do you want the tools of handling money responsibly, something that should be mandatory taught in school so the next generation doesn’t graduate with tens of thousands in debt before they laid their first job towards their career?  The next generation is looking at their parents in how to live and handle money. They will pick up our bad money habits; demanding the newest and latest right now without waiting to have the money – drinking champagne on cheap beer wages.

Investing in better money habits, investing in getting rid of your debt, will pay off throughout the years of being on the right financial path, guiding your children along the journey, on the correct path so they will be able to reach their dreams without being weighted down as you have been.

What do you say? Are you ready?

Money Sense

Do you feel overwhelmed with debt? Do you fee you like you are living paycheck to paycheck and need help getting ahead? Do you feel like you don’t have time to manage your checkbook like you should? Do you feel unorganized when it comes to your finances? Do you feel like you have no clue on where to start when trying to figure out a family budget? Do you feel like you can’t account for where your money goes and that you need to improvement in becoming money smart?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, I can help! Let me help you by utilizing my college degree in accounting and my decade of accounting experience guide you to where you want to be, or assist on reaching your financial organization goals.

I was just like you, not making good money choices – to read about here: My personal journey

 

 

FYI: Below is a sample of Money Sense options to chose from:

 

Service	Details	Type of Service to Request
Personal accounting services / Light business bookkeeping services	Bank reconciliations, checkbook register management, setting up books, preparing 941 forms, accounting data entry, reporting, etc	Virtual Bookkeeping Rate: here
Budgeting	Review current budget, budget education, create / edit new budget, review to see if current budget fits needs, editing as needed, etc	Virtual Bookkeeping Rate: here
Excel Spreadsheets	Create spreadsheets, spending tracker, cost sheets, covert data to Excel, etc	Virtual Administrative Assistant Rate: here