Overspending at Christmas – Now What?
December 27th, 2009
It seems that every year over the holidays I end up spending more money that I was originally intending; maybe I am too generous and give people too many gifts or maybe I should plan better for the holidays (possibly both). This year I had a list and worked from the list but I still managed to overspend a little. I bought my wife a couple gifts that were a bit on the larger side because I know she wanted those items (a camera and some jewelery), now its time to deal with my spending. Have you found yourself in this situation where you spent more money than you were intending and now its time to scramble a little?
I overspent now what?
This year I spent probably 300$ more than I was thinking and this went onto one of my credit cards, now this isn’t a huge amount but I am going to have to adjust my budgeting over the next few weeks to make sure that this doesn’t have a long term effect. An easy way to cover this would be to deposit an extra 100$ per pay onto the credit card to cover the $300 which would mean that by the end of January I would be back to square one. If you can’t cover the extra hundred per pay deposit $50 or whatever you can. You can manage to pay a little more on the credit cards in order to cover the extra spending fairly quickly.
Now if you can’t deposit more then you’ll need to be a bit more creative and adjust your spending more significantly, remember no one put a gun to your head and forced you to spend the money, you did that. If you’re in big trouble after the holidays then what I just suggested above will be more drastic. In the new year you might need to cut down on spending and put more onto your credit cards or you might need to work out some kind of a plan with them. Remember don’t beat yourself up over this, I know that this is something that I did in the past, learn from your mistakes and correct the problem (it will likely take time so you’ll need to be patient). If you need to there are organizations that can help – though if Christmas pushed you this far over the edge you were probably there already. Don’t panic it can be solved (most likely)
Savings Account!
What really saved me this year is the fact that in September I started depositing $50 per pay into a savings account, I knew that Christmas was coming up and I would likely need a bit of extra cash. This really saved me and where in previous years I would be really scrambling for all of January trying to figure out how to pay my bills this year I just have to pay back an extra $300. When you’re in debt its hard to contemplate saving money that could be going to pay down your debt and I’m sure there are people that would disagree with me but always always set aside a little money into a savings account. You never know when you might need that money. All I was doing is saving $50 per pay for a few months and while I don’t have any spare money kicking around after the holidays I am not panicking.
Be concious of your spending and don’t neglect savings.
Posted in Commentary, Debt, Financial Situation | No Comments
Happy Holidays!
December 26th, 2009
Happy Holidays everyone; I really hope that each and every one of you has had a great holiday (regardless of if you celebrate it or not).
Don’t forget that its not about the gifts (though they are always nice) but its about the small things like spending time with the family or taking the day off to do nothing but watch movies and recharge yourself. Whatever it is it doesn’t have to be monetary and in fact most of the most memorable moments I find aren’t.
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A slow Re-Invention of Self – Finding my Passion
December 11th, 2009
The past few months have been a bit on the challenging side for me, actually I would say that this past year has a bit challenging for me. Between juggling all of my real and perceived responsibilities I haven’t had much time to myself and I have been feeling a bit of a void that is symbolized by a lack of passion and direction. At times I have been worn thing and others I have been unhappy but I think the biggest thing is that I don’t feel that I am living up to my own potential.
By no means do I think that I am a failure I just think that there is something I am missing that will take me to a place where I feel that if I am not working at my potential I am working towards it and my internal success recognition will become based on this rather than seeing the results of others and comparing myself to them personally and professionally. I am happy and grateful about many things in my life and without these I think I would be both a lesser man and to put it frankly pretty bloody miserable.
Passion
Over the past probably year I have been reading about passion and trying slowly and quietly to find my own. One of the biggest problems that I have found in trying to nail this down is that while a lot of books in the self help area deal with success and passion theymerely state that people will find their greatest success and happiness by finding their passion. The reality is that I have never been taught to look deep within myself to find out what is my life’s calling is or to find out the things that will drive me to get up in the morning a couple hours before everyone wakes up and keep me up at night to put in that little bit of extra effort.
How does one find ones passion? There are a few ways to do it and these will depend on the person and their circumstances. For me this has been a slow process and one filled with this slow nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right (and its not the burrito I had at lunch). Its a feeling that is telling me that my current measure of success could be better but unfortunately that feeling doesn’t tell me what needs to be changed. So I have been exploring the concept of having a passion and trying to see what I need to do to find this.
In some ways this process has been a little discouraging; while I’m starting to feel that I have made some progress I have discovered that rather than being closer to finding my passion I am in reality further away than when I was younger (both as a teen and a child). My interests and hobbies have atrophied over the years to the point question what are your hobbies makes me cringe slightly because the answer has become “I’m not really sure”.
I think a person can have many passions both over the course of their lives and at the same time. There are people out there who accomplish momentous achievements in many areas seemingly at the same time. Are these people some magical beings that just happen to know the secret handshake that allows them to do this? No. They are incredibly talented and they understand themselves their interests and what drives them and how to motivate themselves.
My Past
You’re reading this blog because I’ve always had some interest in money and I’ve always battled my own demons when it comes to managing my own money. This is an interest that I know about but one that has suffered because of business and a general lack of passion when it comes to anything. For a little while I contemplated simply closing shop on this site but I enjoy it and I believe that it has helped me grow (and hopefully helped the odd reader). This got me thinking about how to find my passion… when I started this site it got started with a spark an idea that has fitfully existed for a little over three years. I haven’t had many of these ideas lately so the starting point to find out what some of my interests are was to go backwards in time to when I had more interests and to see if there are any passions there that can be cultivated with some time.
If you live the 9 to 5 grind pause for a moment and think back to when you were a child can you remember all of the things you were interested in? Chances are that with a little thought you’ll be amazed at all the things you did then compared to now. That’s the idea that is driving this part of my slow reinvention.
Fear
Now I don’t think I could really talk about finding my passion without at least mentioning fear because I have slowly learnt over the past year that fear drives me in many strange ways that I’m not really all that happy about. I think that I’m not the only one in this situation either; there are so many people living their lives in a rut that a whole industry has come to exist to help them (aka self help). How am I going to deal with these fears? The reality is that right now I’m not sure I know that I am going to have to because living my life unhappy in a rut is not a way to live and I will not let a fear keep me back.
The problem with these fears is that often times I don’t think its a fear that is driving a decision but something else like caution, prudence or being realistic about something. Now at times those things will keep you from making a bad decision but that isn’t always the case. I think that all too often a choice is avoided because of some misguided fear that really should be addressed. The other thing is that I’ve found that my self confidence has been really low for years, while on the surface its high deep down it’s been pretty low and I think a lot of that is rooted in these misguided fears. Along with identifying my interests and hopefully passions I will need to tackle my fears and the demons that come with them.
Going forward
If you’ve made it this far I congratulate you, this is a personal finance blog not a self help blog and something about what I’ve said has sparked an interest in you. Thank you. This is not going to be an instant change or fix and hopefully it doesn’t take me too long to figure it out but it is something that needs to be done for my own peace of mind. What does this mean for the site? Well hopefully it translates to more posts because I have determined that this is an area that I have been interested and want to continue to explore.
Posted in Commentary, News/Misc | 1 Comment
Suvival Mode
November 5th, 2009
Most people have some form of debt, from a lot of consumer debt to a mortgage, its become an accepted fact that everyone had some. Typically we make an effort to pay this debt down and keep moving forward. Take for example my situation I’ve got about 12K in credit card debt which I can slowly pay down over the next few years without altering my lifestyle at all. I don’t have to make any sacrifice to keep everything going the way that it is and I believe that a lot of people fall into this category.
A couple days ago I read a post over at Money Crush about Getting out of ‘Survival Mode’ and this got me thinking about this so called Survival Mode. For me being in survival mode means you do anything and everything you can in order to save money, presumably to survive. Thankfully I haven’t been that situation for a while now but I have been there before and I know that you act totally differently towards money when it really matters. The thought that came to mind was how quickly would I be able to get rid of my debts if I were able to get into survival mode and stay there until EVERYTHING was paid off?
As much as I like to muse about questions like this the reality is I probably wouldn’t be able to stay there very long. I enjoy my lifestyle even if it means that I’m going to carry debt for a while. Each day I spend money on things that I don’t really need like a candy bar or coffee and I could easily do without these little temptations. Even if I didn’t enter a true survival mode I think it might be possible to enter a pseudo survival mode where you question each purchase with: do I need this purchase to survive. I think that by questioning each purchase like this and really focusing on survival elements you can save yourself a great deal of money.
Being in the situation where you have to stretch every dollar just to survive not a fun situation to be in but it does give you an appreciation for what you do and don’t have and what really matters. In the grand scheme of things if you’re floating credit card debt because you like your $5 a day latte it equates to being pretty dumb and not something that you should be complaining about.
Posted in Commentary, Debt | No Comments
My Frivolous Purchase
November 2nd, 2009
This past weekend I decided to invest a little money in a very worthy cause, myself! I made what many people might consider a rather frivolous purchase. I bought myself a mini laptop, a Dell 10v specifically and so far I have to say I’m fairly impressed with it. I didn’t make this purchase lightly, I’ve been eyeing getting myself one of these computers for a while now and it was time.
Every now and then you have to treat yourself to something nice or all the money in the world isn’t really worth collecting. I commute a fair amount and although I do have a work laptop I am not going to use it for my personal stuff so when the idea of these mini laptops started to gain popularity I have to say I was rather intrigued. That was close to a year ago and since then they’ve become all the rage which is great for me because the price has gone down. I purchased this little item from a big box store for $399+ taxes which might seem high but it came in a custom color and with a 6 cell battery. The net result is I would have paid a similar price directly from Dell.
While some people will lament the fact that I spent that much money on a luxury item this wasn’t a purchase made overnight or on a whim. It also wasn’t a purchase that was made on credit. I have learnt my lesson when it comes to spending my money on the geek toys; save up, wait and if you still want it then purchase it. I waited over a year and I saved up the money for this so there won’t be any credit card bills coming in the mail nor will this weeks groceries be on the lighter side.
The one thing that made me second guess this purchase is the fact that I could have paid down my debt a bit more rather than paying minimums. But as I mentioned earlier you have to be able to treat yourself every now and then. I haven’t purchased anything that was specifically for me and me only in… probably close to two years, maybe longer. There is a couple benefits to this purchase other than the geek factor and that is that I’ll have a bit more portability with my computing life (thankfully I’m not a facebook user or I might have to update my profile everytime I find a new hotspot), there are a couple projects that i would like to work on and this might remove any additional excuses that I have for not doing them.
Now a question for my readers – have you ever treated yourself, and I’m not talking about the latte that you’re sipping while browsing through your daily reads, I’m talking about a purchase that you wanted but could have lived without that was more significant. Did you wait? Did you save up for it? Did you feel any type of remorse or regret?
Posted in Commentary, News/Misc | 3 Comments
The Quiet Financial Blog
October 26th, 2009
Over the past couple months things have really quieted down on the site, I think there’s been a grand total of 2 posts in almost three months. No I haven’t given up on the site though I will admit I really didn’t have much to say for a couple months and it got to the point where I wasn’t even thinking about blogging. In the past couple weeks the thought to jump back on the site and write again has been coming back to mind. Now there won’t be any grand proclamations about what will and won’t happen or how great or badly I’ve been doing.
In some respects things have been great, my daughter turned one at the beginning of the month and she’s been doing awesome. She’s been bringing joy into my life every day since her birth. Yes some days are tougher than others, lets be realistic its parenthood not every day will be perfect. The magic is the fact that when I see her face when I pick her up the smile she gives me and the excitement I get is enough to make it all worth while. Being a parent really has taught me a lot from resposibility to seeing the simplicity and joy in life.
On the financial front things have improved and stayed the same at the same time. Yes I’m still carrying debt (close to three months of quiet isn’t going to erase that much debt), but I have managed to start building my savings. The debt is being maintained and slowly lowered while at the same time I’ve managed to save up a small amount of money (about $1,000). While my successes and general status quo in the financial arena have not been stellar there hasn’t been any regression which is a good sign by itself.
For a while I was torn about the site, I didn’t have anything I wanted to say, and I contemplated shutting it down. But I do like writing about personal finance and my finances. If I can somehow convince one kid or one person not to make the mistakes I made then all the writing would have been a success. So I would like to start writing again, it might take a little while to get topics flowing again but I want to write so I will just like I will continue to make the small steps to improve my financial situation – even a small step in the right direction is a good one.
Posted in Commentary, Financial Situation, News/Misc | No Comments
The Financial Baby Steps Continue
September 22nd, 2009
In my last post a little over a month ago I talked about maintaining focus on debt through baby steps and although I haven’t been posting I have managed to maintain this attitude and approach for the most part. I fell off when it came to the posting because of a great many reasons most of which are not really all that relevant on a Personal Finance blog but what I have managed to do is to keep making the small dents in the debt. Today I updated the little tracker that shows how much credit card debt I have and over the couple months that I’ve had that in place I’ve managed to reduce my debt by $585. While this isn’t a huge amount when compared to the full amount it does show continuous progress.
In addition to these small baby steps in repaying my debt I’ve also managed to set aside a little over $500 in a mutual fund account. Again this isn’t quite enough in case something came up and I needed the money it is a baby step in the right direction. For years I’ve managed to save absolutely nothing and now I’ve got a few hundred dollars invested in a mutual fund and this will continue to grow.
Seeing the results of these baby steps over time can be really motiviating (at least it is for me). Less than two months ago I had nothing saved and had more consumer debt than I do now. Just seeing these small successes and seeing them add up makes me realize that yes the debt is fairly large but it can and will be tackled. The best part of these successes is that I didn’t make any huge adjustments to my lifestyle or any sacrifices just a few small changes. Now I’m confident I can make a few more changes to continue the baby steps and speed up the process of saving and debt reduction.
Posted in Debt, Financial Situation | 2 Comments
Maintaining Focus on Debt – remember the baby steps
August 17th, 2009
A few weeks ago I decided to start focusing on my finances and on my debt again. At first I was all full of ideas and wanted to tackle the problem right away. But based on previous experience I was pretty sure that I would hit a wall eventually and rather than jumping in full tilt I decided to start slower by looking at my expenses for a few weeks first. I’ve started to notice my motivation wane a little but because I didn’t try to solve all my financial problems at once I am not burned out by the idea just yet.
For me failure or setbacks aren’t always a bad thing, as long as you learn from them. Because I have encountered issues with keeping my motivation high while trying to achieve a goal I know what to look for when making a second attempt. One of the really big things that I notice that I tend to do is to try doing everything at once. Unfortunately the only thing this accomplishes is to overwhelm me so when tackling a new goal I try to start slow even though I know I can handle more. By noticing the small warning signs that come up you can take steps to push through to eventual success.
Maintaining focus – small steps
Have you ever noticed how many people sign up for gyms only to stop going after a few months? They don’t ease themselves into their routines and when they don’t see results right away they give up. Most of the time they go into denial for a few months until they realize how much they’re paying a month for the gym membership that they never use at which point they quit. Maintaining focus on your debts and your finances isn’t any different. You have to start with small steps and goals.
Just as you see your motivation waning you can stop and realize how many of your small steps you’ve accomplished. This week marks my 2nd month of weekly budgeting and although I was late a few times and I missed a week I have managed to keep my updates going. It’s a small step and I haven’t really done too much but its progress and just seeing this makes me want to take the next small step. Another great small step I took was to start paying myself first and setting aside money – again only a small step at $50 per pay but I’m seeing some small results.
A thousand mile journey starts with the first step.
Whenever I see someone incredibly successful I am amazed by what they have accomplished. What I often forget is all of the small steps that they took to get to where they were. Take Bill Gates, he’s one of the richest men in the world and he was one of the founders of Microsoft. He didn’t wake up one day a billionaire; he fought tooth and nail to make that company a success. A series of small steps. When you’re having trouble staying focused on repaying your debt or growing your investments remember all the successful people around you didn’t have any more than you did (some probably less) they took small steps each one forward until they got to where they were going.
Now whenever I feel that I am starting to loose my motivation and focus I will take small steps but keep taking these steps. Because every step forward is just that a step forward no matter how small it is. Babies learn to walk slowly and one step at a time; sometimes you just need to go back to that mentality.
Posted in Commentary, Financial Situation | 1 Comment
Week in Review (August 3-9)
August 12th, 2009
This past couple weeks has been incredibly busy as you can tell by my lack of posting. Our close friends got married this past weekend which meant that on top of the usual running around we had a lot more to do in the weeks leading up to the wedding day. I wasn’t part of the wedding party but my wife was which translated into my helping her out so she could put some time towards the wedding. The net result was that we ended up spending a lot more than we would have liked but it was for a great cause and our friends wedding went off without a hitch. Now that this event is behind us I would like get back to the usual routine, hopefully at a slightly slower pace.
I have to say that the wedding did make me reflect on life in general; we put so much effort into things that don’t matter yet not nearly enough time into the things that do. I thought about my own wedding a couple years back and realized that I myself am a fairly laid back person but even I get caught up in the craziness of it all. I also thought more about the rat race that I am a member of and how much I would enjoy not being entirely reliant on the ‘daily grind’ to pay for everything.
The whole concept of the rat race is tied to the fact that we need to have the constant flow of money in order to keep everything moving along, in order to pay our debts, pay our mortgage and essentially pay to live. I’ve also been re-reading Timothy Ferriss’ book The 4-Hour Work Week
Overall this weekend was just a small reminder of why its important for me to keep at the finances and debt reduction and that although I am still not 100% clear on what I want other than being in the rat race I do know I don’t want to be in it anymore.
Posted in 2009, Commentary, Weekly Budgets | No Comments
Saving Idea – Reuse
July 31st, 2009
I beleieve that in North America we have been conditioned to consume and throw out. When we purchase a product we use it and when it gets a little old we toss it and get a better model. Take a look at your cell phone, if you have one, did you replace it within the last year or two? Chances are that you did and your old cell phone was still perfectly functional; it was replaced simply because there was a better model out there for us to use. Rather than simply buying new all the time this weeks saving idea suggests that we reuse some of the items that we throw out. I will not pretend to be any different from other consumers, I too buy products when I might not NEED them. But I do try to reuse whenever possible.
A perfect example of this occured for me a couple years ago when my friend was moving out of town. He was never big on cell phones and didn’t have his own. Because of the move he was contemplating getting one. When he told me this I offered to give him an old cell phone of mine. I had purchased it as part of a pay as you go package. I changed packages and cell phone carriers a couple months after making the purchase and had kept the phone. In the end I gave my friend the phone and he’s still using it. We were able to reuse an item that would otherwise have cost him a bunch of money.
Opportunities to reuse items are all around us and it doesn’t have to be for big ticket items only. We have jars of rice at home that were once salsa jars; this keeps the rice protected and from spilling. I could have purchased special jars or containers for this but why when I had some perfectly good containers available. Printed pieces of paper have been turned into little scraps for notes so they can be reused before they are recycled. Getting into the mindset of reusing items isn’t always easy because we are so used to buy use and throw out that we don’t even realize that something might have a second use or could be useful for someone else..
Saving ideas are posted on Fridays as suggestions on how you could save yourself some money. If you have a saving idea send it along to matt@onemillionandbeyond.com.
Posted in 2009, Weekly Budgets | 1 Comment
