financial zen

I’ve noticed on a number of blogs and comments - a lot of people type and mention how they are professionals at whatever - journalism, financial planning, communications, marketing… but I see so many people that cannot spell words correctly, or even type correct sentences - let alone use proper grammar!

I know I’m no saint, and we all make mistakes, but some people mention being in their profession for many years yet still can’t type the most basic of phrases - it just makes me wonder how that has affected their professional life.

I don’t think I’d stick around an office where the Doctor can’t tell what’s poison and what’s antidote - let alone a planner (or marketer) that can’t type a proposal and not use spell check (or proper grammar).

Am I being a grammar nazi, or do people agree that it seems our standards for communication have gone down hill?

I’m digging this post by J.D. at Get Rich Slowly - the Perfect Enemy of the Good.

Just to sum it up - we often waste time to make our experiences “the way we want them to be” instead of focusing on doing the actual experience.

We make tiny excuses to avoid items - like J.D. and his quest for his favorite shirt to wear for a jog - we look for little excuses to hold us up. I want to wear those shoes, I want to wear the hat I can’t find, should I wear my running shoes or some casual shoes? What’s the weather like? Hey honey, do you want to come, even though you said you were goign to take a nap? Where’s the dog? - we delay and cut back on what we should be doing instead of DOING it.

I did the same thing for years - in school, with work, with responsibilities. There was always something else I could come up with as an excuse. NO MORE! It’s been my vow to quit this behavior, and so far - I’ve succeeded.

Budgets are worked on, tightened up. My classes are going smoothly (being a full-time student, employee, and husband is a tough act to maintain, on top of writing!). Work is… work, but I’m salary and putting as much effort forward as I can, even when faced with difficulties!

So, procrastinators of the world, stand up, shape up, and GET IT DONE!

It seems so simple, but I know a few people that don’t, so perhaps it’s time to iterate:

You NEED a budget. You NEED to track your spending.

I don’t just mean read over your bank statement, or check your credit card bill.

Follow these simple steps:
Use this calculator and figure out your monthly income after taxes.(I got it from Miss Mini-Ducky)
Plug it into this calculator and get a rough budget.
Make an excel spreadsheet (or use quicken) and enter in ALL your receipts. I really mean all. Your coffee, your McDonald’s, your gasoline, your cell phone. Plug it all in. Categorize it (Food, Auto, Rent, Utilities, Pets, Kids - you can be as specific or as vague as you want -it’s *your* tool).

I suggest using the budget from the calculator as a guideline - use it to give you some rough numbers to guide yourself along and perfect your budget.

We did this for April, and it’s quite an eye-opener. It was on my “ToDo” for 2007 and I saw how horribly we were aware of our expenses - we ate out WAY too much, we put way too much on our credit card.

I ran through our statement, and I see why - luckily, the majority of the credit card was on computer parts (I built a system for Dad - he reimbursed me, the check was sent straight to the card).

One thing we did do this month - I have a UPromise Citicard. A *fraction* of every purchase (especially groceries and local establishments, including bars!) go towards my student loan. We’ve devised a system where we use the card to pay for groceries/food and when we get home, we enter the amount into our budget spreadsheet and I write a check through my online credit union to AUTOMATICALLY be sent that night to pay it off - the money is gone that night, the card is paid in full! So it’s win-win, I get a % to my student loans, my card gets used, and we pay it off!

Problems with our budget:

• I don’t account for external incomes. Side-jobs, ebay, my wife’s job, etc. aren’t included in our budget, which makes it much more conservative then it needs be (so if we’re over budget by $50 - it’s BAD but not HORRIBLE).
• We also discovered our eating out habits is responsible for a huge decline in income. We saw the effect one and a half weeks in and cut out dining out the rest of the month - much to our benefit! We also are starting to research local prices to see where we can get the best deals (who has the cheapest bread, eggs, milk, etc.)

Improvements to the Spreadsheet:
I’m looking for other’s spreadsheets before I post mine to incorporate others improvements. Ours is pretty simple - written in Excel Office 2k7 - with mostly simple layout and design. It’s my goal to have it be our one stop shop for budgeting, I still use Quicken as a “whole picture” view, but I’m finding it to be bulky and annoying - I haven’t given up, I just need to learn it more thoroughly.

Anyone else find a useful method for budgeting? Any “must-haves” or “good to knows” you’ve come across?

Related (via The Simple Dollar):
Tips on making a budget
Why you should make a budget