Discover Your Budget Style

So I've been getting Money and Forbes Magazines for the past few months. Just as an aside, I've decided to stop my subscription to Forbes Magazine though. The writing is a bit over my little ol' head and from all the Obama bashing going on between those pages, I'm starting to think that the powers-that-be at The Forbes Mag may be just a little bit too right-wing for me.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not left or right in terms of politics. I'd like to consider myself wrong or right. I base my beliefs and feelings on the right thing to do, not what my political affiliation is.

But anyway, back to the topic at hand. So I'm pouring over the Money Magazine (love this mag, BTW!) and I come across this article about how to discover your budgeting style and I think I've finally found a budget that might work for me and I'm so excited!!!

The author, Ismat Sarah Mangla, goes into detail about 3 different styles. The first one, and my favorite, is the The Bucket Budget. The other two are The Budget Boot Camp and The Stick Strategy.

The Bucket Budget appealed to me because it is totally hands-off, and there is very little work involved. My past experiences with budgeting failed dismally because it was just way too hard. Much like dieting and going to the dentist...we know these things are good for us, but they just aren't that pleasant to do! And me being the Diva that I am, I just can't get with doing anything that is the least bit unpleasant! But with the economy the way it is, people getting laid off all over the place and the stock market going from red to green and back on daily basis, has shown me that I just don't have a choice. Besides I really want to start doing better in this aspect of my life, which is the main reason I started this blog, so that I can track my journey. I've got to start saving some money and setting up some security for me and my family. In terms of different budgeting tools...Yes, yes...I know that some people swear by Quicken and that's awesome for them. But for a lot of us, including me, using traditional budgeting tools is like "trying to fit a round peg into a square hole," says Bill Starnes, a financial planner in Hockessin, DE. Any pre-schooler knows how well that works. It DOESN"T!!!

So how do the rest of us less "compulsive", um....I'm mean less "organized" folks better manage our finances? Stay tuned to this blog to learn some alternatives that achieve the same goals as a traditional budget, which is to live within our means and meet our savings target. Think about why your last budget didn't work, or why you never even started one in the first place, then decide which of these will work best for you. Be sure to drop me a line to let me know how it's going.

The Bucket Budget - How it works: You'll need three bank accounts -- two checking, one high-yield savings. First figure out how much of every paycheck you want to put toward savings. Have that automatically sent to the savings account, which serves as a future-goals way station; you can redirect it later.

Send the rest of your paycheck to checking account No. 1. (Talk to your payroll department to set up multiple direct deposits.) From this you'll pay monthly fixed expenses, such as mortgage and utilities; set up automatic bill payment online.

Figure out your monthly surplus in this account after recurring bills, divide by four, and set up a weekly automatic transfer for that amount to checking account No. 2. This is for variable expenses like groceries, entertainment, and eating out. Two rules: You can't transfer more money over until the next week, and you can can't use credit cards.

Why It'll Work for You: "This gets you away from micromanaging," says financial planner Eric Kies, who helped develp this system, called First Step Cash Management. In fact, it basically manages itself; all you have to do is watch your balance on the second checking account. The system creates "artificial scarcity," forcing you to live on less and within hard boundaries.

Watch for Budget No. 2 Tomorrow, and don't forget to drop me a line about how this one is working for you, if you chose it.


Diva Mogul Extrodinaire!

Welcome Back

Welcome back to my blog. I haven't posted in a while for a couple of reasons. One a perfectly good reason. The other...NOT so much!

The first reason is the horrible experience of "Sudden Death". No, not sudden death in a sports sense, but actually the sudden death of someone I knew and worked with everyday. It was a shocking and devastating loss to my company, and to me on a personal level. No, I wasn't best friends with Sherry, and didn't see her outside the office, but we worked together everyday and interacted in some way on a daily basis. Then one day she's gone! It was something I couldn't wrap my mind around, and quite a shock to deal with. I can't even imagine what her husband and family must be going through. I'm finally able to lay down and close my eyes without seeing her face.

The second reason (the NOT so much reason) I haven't posted is I just didn't know where to begin, or how to start sharing this journey with you. I'm not sure if my situation is unique or not. I'm thinking it's pretty unique. How many people are 47 years old with a teenage son, no money for retirement, no money for their child's college education, no emergency fund, no vacation fund and no home? I have a funny feeling there aren't many in this exclusive club I belong to. And dammit I've been way too embarrassed to totally put my business out there for everyone to see. Who wants everyone to know when they've a made total and complete mess of things?

But now I realize that the only thing that's going to save me and put me on the right path is total honesty and transparency. Creating this blog to share my story and my experiences with you is the only way to come out of this. I realized that in order to move forward and to do away with my bad habits, my misconceptions about money and to begin the process of healing I had to come back to this blog.

So here I am. It will be a window to my feelings, it will be how I remain accountable and it will be my therapy as I make the transition from Fabulously Broke to Financially Fabulous. More than anything else, I'm hoping my story will help some others as well, so please join me as I begin to reposition my life!

What are you willing to do to reposition your life and move to a better place?

Good Night, Sherry

Yesterday one of the ladies I work with passed away. Sherry left work Wednesday evening like she does every evening, got in the car with her husband, drove home, started relaxing for the evening and suddenly, without warning, had a heart attack. Her husband rushed her to the hospital and they performed surgery on her heart and fixed it. But it was already too late. During the heart attack she stopped breathing and her brain went without oxygen for over 5 minutes. They kept her alive by artificial means until yesterday morning. She had a living will that made her wishes very clear. She didn't want to be kept alive by artificial means. So when the doctors told her husband she was brain dead, and there was nothing else they could do for her, he turned the machines off, and she quietly slipped away. That was it. Just like that she was gone. A colleage was gone. A friend was gone. A wife was gone. A human being was gone.

I couldn't sleep last night thinking about Sherry. Her passing was so quick. One minute she was here and the next minute she was gone. When I said "goodbye" to her on Wednesday evening, like I've done so many evenings during the past two years, it never occured to me it would be the last time I would ever see her again. When I said "Good night Sharon!" to her on Wednesday, I didn't know those would be the last words I would ever say to her.

It made me think...every time you say goodbye to someone, it could be the last time. Life is so fleeting and so fragile. Shouldn't the act of saying "Goodbyes" be something regarded as very special? Maybe like a prayer or something? Or least filled with kind words and some edification of the person we're saying goodbye to? Yet we make them so casual. Sometimes we don't even look at the person we're saying goodbye too. We just assume we'll see the person "tomorrow". We are so wrong for this.

It also made me think about Sherry's life (what little I knew of it). She'd worked at our company for 40 years. She had more vacation than she was ever able to take in one year, because she was so dedicated to the job. She very rarely took sick days. She did talk about retiring in 2 years, she also talked all the time about the cruise she and her husband we're going on this summer. They loved to travel. That's really all I knew of Sharon, those things and the fact she could have retired years ago. I just hope and pray she kept working because she wanted to, and not because she had to.

Is it always good to plan for tomorrow instead of living for today? We're taught that it is, but so many lives speak of something different to me. I can't stop thinking about Sherry and her life, and how she died. And I just hope she enjoyed everything the way she was supposed to, and I hope she didn't put off until tomorrow the things she could have done today. I hope she had a happy life and enjoyed time with friends and family. I hope she did the things that made life worthwhile for her.

How will you say goodbye the next time someone leaves? How would you live your life if you knew tomorrow wasn't coming? I'm pondering those same questions myself.

*Good night, Sherry. Thanks for all your hard work. I really enjoyed working with you today! Have a wonderfully, blessed evening with your family and I'll see you tomorrow!!*

My New Fashion Statement: Be Seen in Green!!

Being seen in green is my new fashion statement. It doesn't pertain to my clothes, as much as it does to my bank account. It's my bank account that will be seen in green from now on. Here is where I will record my journey. I'll share tips with you about how I go from a red bank account to a green bank account. I'll share ideas and topics that I find interesting.

I'm doing this because there are so many other divas (and dudes too!) who are in the same boat I am in. One day we wake up and look around and we are in our 40's, we've worked hard all our lives, and we've spent life thinking we'll have another chance to make a change, or we have all the time in the world. Well today is the only day we have, and I've realized I've got to make today count. I'm faced with no retirement money, no college fund for my 14 year old son and no savings for emergencies. This cannot go on any longer. I've seen security slip away over the last several months. I've seen my 401K slip away as Wall Street has slipped away with million dollar bonuses, leaving a country of hard working people in total disarray in terms of finances and life savings.

It's time for me (all of us) to take our futures into our own hands, and to create a life that is not affected by, or dictated by, the wrong-doing and unethical behavior of greedy corporate big-wigs looking for a fast buck at the expense of the American people. Enough is enough...it's time to be seen in green!

The Dudes at AIG Getting Bonuses?? WTF???

It seems to me this company was doomed to fail simply because the powers-that-be at the head of AIG don't have a clue of what elementary school words like"the best and brightest" mean? Surely if they knew what these words meant they would not have used them to justify paying out millions of dollars of bonuses to the idiots that ran the company in the ground. To me "the best and brightest" means that the people running the company had gone over and beyond to make sure the company sustained growth and profit during the past year? We all know that didn't happen.

I say scratch the bonuses and let's start a college fund for these mofos and send them back to school and make sure they know the definition of the "best" and "brightest". Geez....Come on people...we've got to do better!

Maybe it's just me, but WTF?????