There are time when we all tend to overdwell on something and this is something of serious concern to me right now. I probably will surface from time to time so please bare with me when I occasionally purge about CAPITAL. This may come up from time to time and since my blog has not real direction I figure I may as well add this to the subject matter. It may come up more now because I am consumed with thinking of ways to save, budget, earn fix my thinking when it comes to money.
Financial Diary
2/8/2010
I have decided to keep a financial dairy or Journal. This decision is because I am always losing sight of my financial goals. This happens with many different aspects of life for me. I lose weight when I am keeping a food diary of what I eat and how I felt when I ate it etc. and gain the weight when I stop. I complete more sewing projects when I keep a Journal of the daily thought and happenings.Forget completely about my projects when I stop writing about what I am doing. So I am hoping that I can achieve my financial goals which are: 1) control over my money and how it is spent, 2) achieving a saving that I could live off of for at least 6 months if I lost my job and 3) higher credit score so I can get credit because someone in the wonderful capitalist world decided that it would favor those with a higher scores. So by keeping this journal I am hoping to stay on track.
First of all It is important for the reader of this journal to understand that the usage of the following words I, me, or my actually refers to my husband, and myself. Since we were joined together in marriage, I = we, me= us, my = ours. To keep thing simple in my Financial diary I will just use my, I or me. This will be easier for all concern and especially for me because I swear my brain takes breaks without notice so I get lost easily.
Of course this diary is being started because I find myself in the hole again. I hate it because this happens every January and February. March I get out of it because it always a 3 week pay month so March becomes my recovery month. What makes this maddening is that it has been happening for the last 3 years and every time I think I have beaten it I get smacked in the face with the overdrawn notice from the bank and no funds to cover the amount overdrawn. The way bank process items, you can have several debits hit your account at the same time and they will always process the largest amount first and then you get the overdraft fees on the smaller amounts. This is way a payment of over 600.00 will always process before the 5.00 cup of coffee so if you have enough to pay the 600.00 and are .25 short of the 5.00 so your cup of coffee just cost you 40.00 dollars. Some people say the govt needs to regulate the banks I say read the fine print it's all disclosed to you.
Sorry I went off topic that happens a lot so excuse me.
Right now what I am going to do is look through all that I owe and make a list of each item and how much it is and then make the necessary payments.
Next I will attempt to figure out where my math went wrong and until I have master that I will return to the old fashion way of getting money orders and mailing out the payments.
I will leave at least 10% of my paycheck in the account so that I can start the whole saving 6 month worth of living funds.
The for day to day living is a bit more challenging because determination to stick to the plan it vital. fund for gas to go into the car will be put on a pay as you go debit card, maybe a gift card or just set aside in an envelope , my pocket money will be put into my pocket and once it is gone on well, no trips to the bank to pull funds mainly because only savings will be there. I will just have to be broke until the designated time for new pocket money to be put in my pocket comes around.
Easier said than actually done. But it is so much better for me to look in my pocket and find 4.75 and know that I cannot afford that cup of coffee than it is to use my debit card and pay 40.00 for a cup of coffee.
I know there is a lot more to consider but this is my goal for right now well at until Feb 12.
Financial Diary
2/8/2010
I have decided to keep a financial dairy or Journal. This decision is because I am always losing sight of my financial goals. This happens with many different aspects of life for me. I lose weight when I am keeping a food diary of what I eat and how I felt when I ate it etc. and gain the weight when I stop. I complete more sewing projects when I keep a Journal of the daily thought and happenings.Forget completely about my projects when I stop writing about what I am doing. So I am hoping that I can achieve my financial goals which are: 1) control over my money and how it is spent, 2) achieving a saving that I could live off of for at least 6 months if I lost my job and 3) higher credit score so I can get credit because someone in the wonderful capitalist world decided that it would favor those with a higher scores. So by keeping this journal I am hoping to stay on track.
First of all It is important for the reader of this journal to understand that the usage of the following words I, me, or my actually refers to my husband, and myself. Since we were joined together in marriage, I = we, me= us, my = ours. To keep thing simple in my Financial diary I will just use my, I or me. This will be easier for all concern and especially for me because I swear my brain takes breaks without notice so I get lost easily.
Of course this diary is being started because I find myself in the hole again. I hate it because this happens every January and February. March I get out of it because it always a 3 week pay month so March becomes my recovery month. What makes this maddening is that it has been happening for the last 3 years and every time I think I have beaten it I get smacked in the face with the overdrawn notice from the bank and no funds to cover the amount overdrawn. The way bank process items, you can have several debits hit your account at the same time and they will always process the largest amount first and then you get the overdraft fees on the smaller amounts. This is way a payment of over 600.00 will always process before the 5.00 cup of coffee so if you have enough to pay the 600.00 and are .25 short of the 5.00 so your cup of coffee just cost you 40.00 dollars. Some people say the govt needs to regulate the banks I say read the fine print it's all disclosed to you.
Sorry I went off topic that happens a lot so excuse me.
Right now what I am going to do is look through all that I owe and make a list of each item and how much it is and then make the necessary payments.
Next I will attempt to figure out where my math went wrong and until I have master that I will return to the old fashion way of getting money orders and mailing out the payments.
I will leave at least 10% of my paycheck in the account so that I can start the whole saving 6 month worth of living funds.
The for day to day living is a bit more challenging because determination to stick to the plan it vital. fund for gas to go into the car will be put on a pay as you go debit card, maybe a gift card or just set aside in an envelope , my pocket money will be put into my pocket and once it is gone on well, no trips to the bank to pull funds mainly because only savings will be there. I will just have to be broke until the designated time for new pocket money to be put in my pocket comes around.
Easier said than actually done. But it is so much better for me to look in my pocket and find 4.75 and know that I cannot afford that cup of coffee than it is to use my debit card and pay 40.00 for a cup of coffee.
I know there is a lot more to consider but this is my goal for right now well at until Feb 12.
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