Saving Yourself Is Taking Care Of Yourself

For a few hours in February 2008, Suze Orman allowed her book Women and Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny to be downloaded from Oprah.com at no cost. As I had barely been able to read through only a portion of The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom before becoming disinterested, I was hesitant on taking advantage of this free offer. Yet, free is free, so I did.

As expected, it languished around just waiting for me to read it. Well, now I can say that I've felt the Buddhist proverb in action: When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. After finally diving into Women and Money sometime in the fall of 2008, I did enjoy its message...because I was ready to accept it, that is. Again, I could only take the message in by small doses but I kept coming back to reading it. And thankfully so.

When I came to the chapter about the "Save Yourself Plan" that Suze had created in partnership with TD Ameritrade, I was intrigued. When the book was published, the terms were that if you opened a new money market deposit account at TD Ameritrade anytime from February 27, 2007 through March 31, 2008 and agreed to deposit at least $50 a month for 12 consecutive months, TD Ameritrade would "reward your commitment with a $100 deposit to your account".

Fearing that I had lost out, because it was now past the deadline, I went to the "Save Yourself Plan" website none-the-less hoping for the best. The terms had changed to a minimum deposit of $100 a month but the bonus of $100 was still intact. It took about a month for me to work up the nerve to do it but I finally did. On February 2, 2009, I opened my account and made my very first $100 deposit.

That was a crucial, pivotal step in my life. My need for safety and my need to be a spender have always been in conflict, yet here I was allowing $100 less of my money to be in my control (read "my money" and "my control" with a bit of a frightened voice...the 'what if's' scared me!) Yet, I knew that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and it was time to begin to slowly change myself into a saver. This was huge for me at the time and I have come so incredibly far within these past 12 months.

With absolute joy I can report that, on February 2, 2010, TD Ameritrade did deposit $100 into my account. By February 4th, all of the money (my deposits, accumulated interest on those deposits and the bonus) had been transferred back to my personal savings account. Although I'll soon be bidding adieu to TD Ameritrade, they will never be forgotten. Suze Orman and TD Ameritrade helped me to begin to save myself and I will never forget that.

Until next time...Take Care Of You!

On a side note: Another offer on Oprah.com to download a later book called Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan for free has expired. However, with a revised and updated version called Action Plan: New Rules for New Times due out on March 23, 2010, you might want to keep an eye on Suze's page on the Oprah site if you want a downloadable copy for yourself. Suze has shared her insight and knowledge for free before and it's possible to happen again!

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Resolved to Improve Your Finances in 2010?

So have I. One of my New Year's gifts to myself this year is to continue reigning in my financial life; a process I started 3 years ago this April. I've been inspired by numerous sources along the way and, below, I've listed the wise advice of some of my favorite personal finance bloggers:

From The Ten Most Important Things I've Learned About Money and Life Since Starting The Simple Dollar by Trent Hamm:

The willingness to accept that you’re often at fault when things go wrong is a major step towards being in control of your finances and your life. Analyzing those faults and figuring out what you can do differently so you’re not susceptible to such problems is vital.

J.D. Roth at Get Rich Slowly offers his 10 Steps to Financial Success in 2010. Step #3: Review your accounts (and ask for discounts) is my favorite tip! A good place to start is with a visit to BillShrink.

Teaching your children about advertising, saving, earning and gift-giving to help you save money in the long-run is a great idea shared by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits.

Are you willing to do what it takes to reduce your spending? Ramit Sethi at I Will Teach You To Be Rich shares 30 tactical tips to help you do just that in the "Save $1,000 in 30 Days" challenge.

Jason White (Frugal Dad) reminds us that credit cards are just loans wrapped in plastic. When you go to pull out the card to purchase the newest whatever, be your own banker and ask yourself...

..."How long will it take me to repay this loan?" (a simple starting question that evaluates whether you can afford not only the purchase price but the additional cost of the interest)

..."Am I willing to suspend the purchase for 30 days?" (an effective way to limit the effects of impulse spending is to note the item on a list with the date and consider the purchase 30 days later)

...And, a question I ask myself is, "Is this worth leveraging my future?" (Sure I want this thing, and right now too, but do I want the added problems that can arise from getting it now versus saving up to buy it later?)

As you increase your awareness about your finances, I hope the wise advice of those above will help you zero in on what really matters to you and what doesn't.

Until next time...Take Care Of You!

Copyright © 2010 by tcoyou.com | all rights reserved

What are your thoughts on this topic? Leave a comment and let us know!

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Moving Forward Financially: Part 2

This post is part of the Fearless Living Series, whose posts serve to spotlight areas of your life where fear may be holding you back and to motivate you to find a plan to use in squelching that fear. As long as fear hinders or motivates you, Taking Care Of You will not be a priority in your life.

As Leo Babauta of Zen Habits said so well, "When you take action on a problem, it’s not so bad — it’s just a series of steps you need to take to solve the problem...The plan will kill the fear. It is taking something that is scary and unknown, and turning it into something concrete, solvable, doable."

Fear is such a life drainer. Do not give your power over to fear. Instead, use that fear as a catalyst to prompt you into action. Are you ready to take your power back and experience Taking Care Of You through fearless living?

I used to think of my employment as having to continually earn more money for me so I could spend more money. About the time that I began moving forward financially in my life, my awareness had also recently shifted. Now what I believe is that there is more to it than just that alone. I also am choosing what to spend my life energy on.

From Your Money or Your Life: Money is something we choose to trade our life energy for. Our life energy is our allotment of time here on earth, the hours of precious life available to us. When we go to our jobs we are trading our life energy for money. [...]

Our life energy is more real in our actual experience than money. You could even say money equals life energy. So, while money has no intrinsic reality, our life energy does — at least to us. It’s tangible, and it’s finite. Life energy is all we have. It is precious because it is limited and irretrievable and because our choices about how we use it express the meaning and purpose of our time here on Earth.

I've settled in to work for a non-profit company that is generally balanced between income, responsibilities and its impact on my own personal life. I'm working on clearing away the debt created from choosing to allow another to control my finances. I've realized that I feel secure when there is money in the bank that is just there to cover emergencies and that is there to fund my needs in the future (my first car without a car payment, hopefully!) My financial strategy has also moved past the day-to-day in regards to planning and saving for retirement.

In the first Moving Forward Financially post, your top priority was to take the time to appreciate who you were in the past, realize that the choices you made were the best you could do at the time and forgive yourself. This step is to sweep aside all of that past stuff and prepare yourself for moving forward. When it comes to your finances, there is no looking back at the job choices you've made, the money you've spent, etc. It's all past tense; there isn't anything you can do to change them. What you do have the ability to change is from today going forward.

At the end of the post, your 'assignment' was to use this new 'clean slate' feeling to decide on how you wished to proceed and decide on your plan for what comes next financially. Specifically, to do your research and look at the numerous methods for acquiring, saving and spending money so that you could find the financial strategy that does work for you---that motivates you, utilizes your strengths, does not work against you, etc.--and move forward on it!

If you still haven't yet poked around the internet a bit and tried to develop your own financial strategy, below are a few links that have helped me. Maybe they will give you the inspiration you need for moving forward.

My strategy is best said by J.D. Roth of Get Rich Slowly. Here it is.

It’s my belief that a strong personal economy is still built on fundamentals such as these:

• Clear financial goals
• An adequate emergency fund
• Limited use of debt
• The practice of thrift
• Smart investing for the future

"If you don't have any financial objectives or goals, you'll likely spend most of your life aimlessly earning and spending and making little traction in the process", says Money Saving Mom Crystal Paine.

The following from Trent Hamm at The Simple Dollar is a 2-for-1 covering creating your own small emergency fund and eliminating/avoiding high interest debt. Be sure to follow the links in the post too!

Save more money by doing less using The Two-Headed Savings Approach by Ramit Sethi.

It may feel like you're throwing your money away but keep investing says Generation X Finance.

In conclusion, I leave you with Your Money: The Rules from It's Your Money! and Financial Serenity--The Missing Ingredient by Neal Frankle.

Until next time...Take Care Of You!

Photo Credit: Fear In The Eye
Photo Credit: Moving On Up
Photo Credit: Thinking About Money

Copyright © 2009 by tcoyou.com | all rights reserved
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Fearless Living: Moving Forward Financially

This post is part of the Fearless Living Series, whose posts serve to spotlight areas of your life where fear may be holding you back and to motivate you to find a plan to use in squelching that fear. As long as fear hinders or motivates you, Taking Care Of You will not be a priority in your life.

As Leo Babauta of Zen Habits said so well, "When you take action on a problem, it’s not so bad — it’s just a series of steps you need to take to solve the problem...The plan will kill the fear. It is taking something that is scary and unknown, and turning it into something concrete, solvable, doable."

Fear is such a life drainer. Do not give your power over to fear. Instead, use that fear as a catalyst to prompt you into action. Are you ready to take your power back and experience Taking Care Of You through fearless living?

Doing Anything Is Better Than Nothing
Something I've heard before keeps coming to mind: If we keep doing what we're doing, we'll keep getting what we've got. I don't know if the attribution I found was correct but I'm sure you might have heard something similar before. It's a simple statement that serves to remind us that action produces results.

What results are your current actions producing?

• Are you just getting by?
• Are you feeling so overwhelmed that you ignore every chance that comes up allowing you to proceed down a different financial path?
• Are you working a plan that is working well for you?
• Are you afraid?
  

Ah, there's the truth; fear stops you from taking action on handling your finances. Each of us will not share the exact same fear, however, most of us live with some sort of fear about money. Do you fear not having enough? Or fear that you can't recover from the mismanagement you've done to date? Is your fear that you should be doing better managing your investments? Or fear the responsibility of managing it at all?

The Only Thing Stopping You Is You
For every contradiction that you could provide to that statement, I could counter each one. However, it would be a useless exercise because each stems from that same belief; the only thing stopping you from moving forward financially is you.

For example, here are a few common thoughts we use as roadblocks:

• Waiting for "the right time"...No such thing exists.
• Worrying about the perceptions of others...You are only responsible for yourself and accountable to yourself.
• Life is unfair...Life is just biology; you are the one that defines it in any other way.

I could go on but have you gotten my drift? It's all in the way you look at it. The way you perceive things becomes the way things are, in your mind. Why not look at things with a positive spin?

What Do I Mean By Moving Forward Financially?
Just that. When it comes to your finances, there is no looking back at the job choices you've made, the money you've spent, etc. It's all past tense; there isn't anything you can do to change them. What you do have the ability to change is from today going forward.

Your top priority is to appreciate who you were, realize that the choices you made were the best you could do at the time and forgive yourself. Although looking back may feel like you are moving backwards, you are not. You are simply showing yourself love, patience and grace. This step is to sweep aside all of that past stuff and prepare yourself for moving forward. Do not keep rehashing the past because that will not, I repeat not, ever move you forward.

The present is all you need concern yourself with and this "in the moment thinking" will make you unstoppable, if you allow it.

Think about it. If you move forward with the thoughts and feelings of love for yourself and the positive feelings of excitement towards where you are heading, why would you even want to create those roadblocks? Instead, you will more likely only see bumps that might need a little navigating to get over, under or around but will never block you.

Find Your Plan and Move Forward
Where you go from here is up to you. What is your plan? Are you going to ease into this change through a babystep approach by choosing a small first step to work on and proceed slowly from there? Are you going to create a megalist of everything that needs changing and start working down the list? Maybe you're somewhere in the middle. Regardless, as long as you realize that the only "must do" is to move forward, you will be successful.

After deciding on your basic strategy, do your research and look at the numerous methods for acquiring, saving and spending money. Find the financial strategy that does work for you---that motivates you, utilizes your strengths, does not work against you, etc.--and move forward on it!

If you give it some time and find that the strategy you are pursing does not suit you as well as you'd thought, repeat the process. Life is not stagnant. It has an ebb and flow; a changing of seasons. A plan that is not working for you is a signal for a new season to begin. Recognize it and continue to move forward.

Until next time...Take Care Of You!

Photo Credit: Fear In The Eye
Photo Credit: Dollar Sign In Eye

Copyright © 2009 by tcoyou.com | all rights reserved
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Utilize Money To Enhance Life

An important aspect of taking care of yourself is to utilize money in such a way that it enhances your life, not detracts from it.

The quote to reflect upon for this month was Trent Hamm's response to a reader letter submitted to The Simple Dollar in a post titled "Life Advice to a Graduating College Student".

As Trent offered later in the same article, "The more relationships you have, the more money you have, the more skills you have, the easier it’s going to be to follow your heart. If you don’t do these things and take the easy path, you’re going to find yourself throughout your life being tied down to your circumstances, watching great opportunities pass you by, and that will leave you with nothing but regret."

Logically, we know we should use money to create security and safety. However, we are not always completely logical beings. The complex mixture of life experience, expectations and whatnot can, and does, lead us to handle money in a more emotional way. When this is recognized, it is possible to begin to use that emotional base to help lead us.

How To Utilize Money In Taking Care Of You
The first step is to learn the important difference between needs and wants.

• It is necessary to provide for basic human needs that money can buy, such as subsistence (food, clothing, shelter).
• Next in line of the hierarchy of needs is to satisfy the need for security and safety. It is necessary to set aside an adequate amount in savings to provide for all of your (and your family's) needs, now and in the future.
  

After that, it becomes a lot grayer in terms of what you need vs. what is actually a want.

• Need paper & pen to express creativity or aid in earning income? Yes, probably. But at what level does it become a want? When is a certain paper & pen not adequate and you need that other one?
• Need electricity, transportation, computer access? Many humans live just fine without them...though they are most definitely over-classified as a need by this human. :-)
  

On to step two. By now, you've probably realized that most everything above the level of basic subsistence and protection/security are wants. And that is OK. Wants are not inherently bad.

Rather than fleshing out when fulfilling wants (or even seeking fulfillment of them) becomes problematic, I'd rather focus on stressing the importance of creating balance. This is where utilizing money to enhance your life comes into play.

In its purest essence, money is a tool.

• When used to fulfill needs, it enhances our life positively.
• When used to fulfill wants, it may enhance our life, depending.
• It's about being selective, making the best decisions, identifying our need, simplifying our costs and putting our wants in hierarchical order.

As you utilize money, find the balance unique to you alone that enhances your life and does not detract from your focus on taking care of yourself -- all parts of you. "It is said that people have unlimited wants, but limited resources. Thus, people cannot have everything they want and must look for the best alternatives which they can afford." (Wikipedia: Wants) It is key to recognize when the want is insatiable, e.g. always wanting a newer car than what you own, always wanting to have what another has, and so on.

Life fulfillment will come as your increased awareness guides you to utilize money in such a way that it enhances your life, not detracts from it.

By the way, if you haven't read Trent's writing over at The Simple Dollar, I highly recommend it. Trent understands the psychology of money; it's not simply a tool.
Until next time...Take Care Of You!

Copyright © 2009 by tcoyou.com | all rights reserved
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