4 Steps Toward Financial Health

I would like to welcome Marcia Richards to Motivation for Creation!  Marcia founded the Life List Club with Jess Witkins, my guest poster from last Life List Club Friday.  She has a great blog, and recommend you go check it out, and read the Life List Club Friday guest poster over there at the same time!  So, here's Marcia!

I'm so happy to be here at Lara's place on this Life List Friday! While she's over at David Walker's blog, I'm going to share with you some tips I learned a long time ago from the financial expert, Suze Orman, about how to get healthy--financially. No matter your age or experience with money, these tips can remind you how to stay on track. January is the poster-child of all things healthy, right? Let's get started!

4 Steps Toward Financial Health


How many times do we throw away leftovers without a second thought, or buy a blouse you just had to have but then it hangs in your closet complete with tags til you notice it 6 months later and give it away?
Would we cut up a dollar bill as easily? I don't think so.

When we get together with friends on the weekend, we want to make it special, but how many times do we overspend? I know I've purchased clothes just before they went on sale, because I couldn't wait. And right now I have 45 books waiting to be read on my Kindle, not to mention another 25 books on my shelf that have not been cracked open yet. Do I need this many right now? How often do you stop at the deli or pizza shop because you don't feel like cooking at home?

How about you? When have you wasted money you could have saved? We all have stories we could tell. If you're trying to get out of debt or trying to create a cushion of savings for emergencies, to buy a house, pay off college loans, or annual vacations...whatever, a change in spending habits is the path to being financially healthy.

1. Be honest: Take an honest look at where your money goes. Did you really need a $5  Mochiatta and a $3 pastry on your way to work? Lunch out with your BFF? And you picked up take-out at the neighborhood Italian cafe? You may have had a tough day and deserved all these conveniences, BUT that $35 you just spent could have been socked away.

Keep track of every dime you spend everyday for a two-week period. Then sit down with that list and check off the necessities on that list. Add up everything without a check mark to see what you could have saved.

Then consider the emotional side of your spending. Do you indulge in the pint container of Hagen Das ice cream when you're lonely or stressed? When you have treated yourself to anything new for a while, do you go splurge on new shoes? Try to find ways of satisfying those emotional moments with something that isn't going to cost you your extra cash.

2. Cut up your credit cards: I've actually seen a grown man whine at the suggestion of cutting up a credit card. "But, I neeeed it!" NO! You don't. Credit card rates are higher than ever and savings account pay next to nothing. We're losing on both ends.

Use your bank's or credit union's debit card for all your previous credit card purchases. They are accepted as widely as credit. Or use cash. Now you've stopped the bleeding, so to speak. No more skyrocketing bills with high interest and exorbitant late fees. Now you can focus on reducing your debt.

3. Make a real-life spending plan: When you create a spending plan, include everything you spend money on, even the most miniscule item. If you leave out some of the things you pay for because they seem to small to count, you could be throwing off your budget by hundreds of dollars annually.
Don't forget bigger things like the guy who does your taxes, your bi-annual insurance payment, your haircut and color every couple of months, veterinarian bills and pet grooming, your co-pays at your own doctor's office, dental visits, child care. If you pay your mortgage bi-monthly, don't forget you're not just paying twice a month but every two weeks--because of the extra portion of a week every month there are an extra four payments made over 12 months.

Add up all the smaller expenditures like tipping the paperboy, Christmas tips for your hairdresser and the postman, bringing a bottle of wine to a friend's house, magazine subscriptions, holiday cards and gifts, charcoal for the grill, batteries, oil changes for your car, the extra groceries for Christmas cookie baking, your once a week movie out or pay per view, and that scrumptious pizza delivery when you're too busy to cook.

4. Save 10% and create a stream: This is actually two tips in one. First, "pay yourself first" is an expression most people have heard. Now it's time to take it seriously, just like you've had to take getting physically fit seriously. It won't happen if you make excuses. If your net pay each week is $400, skim $40 right off the top and bank it. Don't worry about short-changing yourself to pay bills or buy groceries. if you've followed the previous tips, you will have this 10% to put away. Do it religiously. Don't cheat yourself. In just a few months, your account will swell from $0 to $1,000! You can try tricks like tossing all your loose coin in a jar and letting it fill that jar before you deposit it. Or, take a $1 bill out of your wallet everyday and put it in a box until you have $25, then bank it.


Create an additional stream of income to add to your 10%.  Years ago when my husband was putting my stepchildren through the private colleges they chose, he added a part-time job to his full-time job. Every weekend, he went to a flea market with a table and a stockpile of licensed ball caps that he had purchased at a good rate. When I needed more income, I made various craft items and found a market for them--one was a unique gift for a real estate sales woman to give to her clients when she sold them a house.

There are endless possibilities for a second stream of income such as creating websites for those who are techno-challenged, solicit speaking engagements to talk about something in your realm of expertise, teach an adult education class. Do you crochet well? Sell your creations at a craft fair. Create gift baskets to sell to people you know to use for gift giving. Is your husband a neat freak? Why not start a part-time car detailing business?

I know a woman who was hired by a homebuilder to clean the finished houses before they are turned over to the buyer.

Stop worrying and crank up that imagination!

One more thing, I worked for banks and credit unions for years in my 30's and 40's and learned that banks are in the business of catering to corporations first and individuals second. Credit unions are owned by the members. Consequently, their priority is the satisfaction of the members. The fees for services are lower and the rates of return on savings accounts are slightly higher. Just something for you to consider.

Have you ever had a time when you needed to get creative to bring home more money? What kind of struggles are you having with saving?

Marcia Richards is a veteran blogger and author of Marcia Richards’ Blog…Sexy. Smart. From The Heart. Marcia writes about SSS (strong, smart, sexy) Women, History, and the path to realizing your dreams. She has a Historical Trilogy and a collection of Short stories in progress. When she’s not writing, she can be found playing with the grandkids or her husband, traveling or turning old furniture into works of art. She believes there is always something new to learn and time to play.

Come hang out with Marcia at: http://twitter.com/MarciaARichards or http://facebook.com/MarciaARichards .

Visit Marcia at: http://Marcia-Richards.com

Nightgale Blog Challenge #4 - I AM

Well, here we are.  The last of the Nightgale Blog Challenge. I have seriously enjoyed writing these stories, and meeting all of you new writer friends!  I feel like I accomplished what I wanted, which was to explore the characters for my next novel.  I can hardly wait to start plotting it out.

A quick note: this "story" seems more like a prologue to the others.  The prompt was "Writing is Immortality." It was tough to come up with something that stuck with my theme, but I managed to get writing and immortality both in there, so I hope it's acceptable!

Please come back this friday, as I have the great fortune to welcome Marcia Richards from the Life List Club for a fabulous guest post about financial health.  I will be hanging out over at David Walker's blog on friday, so if you get a chance, please stop by and say "hi"!

I AM

I AM chose his words carefully.  The tip of the pen lightly touched the paper, motionless.  Once he decided what to write next, the pen took off across the blank pages of the Book of Creation.

Creating a companion was work.

I AM frowned.  Adam had turned out to be a disappointment. I AM had made the man in his own image, giving him freedom and choice, and at the first temptation Adam turned his back on him.

He still loved Adam.  He loved all of his creation. He refused to reject him, or humanity, and so had created a road back to companionship with him.  He wasn’t going to wait around, lonely, though.

The pen scratched across the paper.

Perhaps he needed to start with an immortal, like the angels of the Virtues.  They did such a nice job taking care of the heavens.

He wrote faster as he rushed to capture the idea in his head into the Book of Creation.

Created from his own essence, the new being would be made of the heavens, of light, and
of energy.  He would not be bound by time and space.  He would be forever.  He would have
choice as well, but because he would live within the heavens, he would not be easily drawn
away from I AM.

He sat back, and reread the words of the new creation.  When he reached the end, I AM
smiled, and wrote the last sentence.

He shall be called Ahriman.

Confessions of a Shopaholic

I am excited to welcome to Motivation for Creation writer and Life List Club member, Jess Witkins.  She does a wonderful job of introducing herself, so I will turn the post over to her!

Hello Lara’s blog readers! Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Jess Witkins, and I’m a shopaholic. But let me back up a minute. About 6 months ago, my phenomenal friend and superwoman, Marcia Richards, co-created a little bloggy baby with me called the Life List Club. The LLC is a group combined of readers and writers and everyone that falls in between. It’s essentially, YOUR club! What Marcia and I do, and the other six contributors, is write bi-weekly inspirations and real life stories of the ambitions, struggles, setbacks, success stories, meltdowns, and milestone parties that consume all our journeys towards the things we want in our lives. We want to inspire you and help you take the next steps toward accomplishing your own goals, knowing you’ve got pals along the whole journey to give you the nudge you need.

Recently, the group celebrated its 2nd milestone party, which meant we’ve been working on our life lists for about 6 months. That’s a long time, and a great position to look at what goals you’ve set and adapt as necessary, take account of lessons learned, and recognize small successes where you find them. My Life List has many things on it, mainly writing related, but it also included a desire to travel, to save more money, and make changes necessary to one day move to a new city or return to school. Well, that all costs money. And if there was one goal that was sitting quietly in the back of the classroom with it’s glasses cockeyed and kleenex shoved up its nose to stop it from running, it was my life list goal money saving baby. (Yes, I know that was a disgusting image, but this goal needed some desperate attention and a lesson in taking a stand against the other goal babies!) 

Now, any hardcore movieholic/chick flick entrepreneur has seen the Isla Fisher film Confessions of a Shopaholic, the film where the delightfully perky redhead spends money on the latest fashions, gets the guy, but also runs herself into rampant, full on debt. *sigh* Fairytale, here I come!

Honestly, it could become my fate. Thankfully, I’m taking charge well before my shoe collection does! I am lucky enough to only have student loan debt so far. But it doesn’t mean I’ve been able to save anything for old age or emergencies. Through college and beyond I’ve been living paycheck to paycheck, and it suddenly occurred to me: with every job promotion I’ve received and higher pay that came with it, I improved my standard of living, rather than take that money as an opportunity to save. For instance, I used the extra money to buy lots of new clothes, a habit hard to break when you manage a department store in the mall! I also spend money on food a lot. A pizza here, some tacos there doesn’t seem like much until you add all the receipts together and it matches what you spent in groceries!

So, I’m making changes. First things first, I can’t ignore my bank statements for months and then manage them all at once. I was forgetting to jot down receipts and suddenly my paycheck was almost gone when I tallied it all up! So now, I vow to manage my finances once a week, making sure my balances are accurate.

Step two was a great idea given to me by a friend I met at a writer’s conference. It’s a website called piggymojo.com which lets you track what you didn’t buy in order to show you what you could be saving. It’s completely private (unless you want to friend others for the pep boost), and you don’t enter your banking information. You do put in a goaled amount you’d like to save and a period of time. Then you synch up to twitter and make updates like if I think about stopping for fast food I don’t need, and I skip it, I can tweet “$6 lunch,” or if I see a sweater I think is cute, but I don’t put it in my shopping cart, I can tweet “$20 sweater” and piggymojo will add up what I don’t spend and I can then look at that amount and put it in my savings! I’m SUCH a visual learner that this is really helping me, and it feels like a reward when I get to “report” in via twitter how much I saved.

Step three was remembering to put your money where it matters. I made a list of what I wanted to do this year. It included traveling to the DFW conference in Dallas, TX to attend the writer’s conference and MEET up with some of my LLC peeps, visit my High School best friend in South Korea, and take a road trip to Yellowstone National Park with my honey. I’ve looked up costs of plane tickets so I know what I need to save. I’m not positive it’ll all happen, but at least I feel I have some concrete plans to work towards. That, and the continuous payments towards my student loans...

How about you readers? What money saving/budgeting tips do you have for this shopaholic? What things are on “saving up for” lists? How ‘bout your life lists? Can’t wait to chat with you all in the comments! And don’t forget, you can find Lara at Gary Gauthier’s blog today! Happy Friday!

Bio: Jess Witkins claims the title Perseverance Expert. She grew up in a small Wisconsin town as the much younger youngest sibling of four, she’s witnessed the paranormal, jumped out of a plane, worked in retail, traveled to exotic locations like Italy, Ireland, and Shipshewana, Indiana, and she’s eaten bologna and lived to tell about it! She deals with it all and writes about it! Come along on her midwest adventures; Witkins promises to keep it honest and entertaining. Go ahead, SUBSCRIBE, you know you want to.
Follow on Twitter: @jesswitkins