90 Days to Financial Stability

Why do I, and other debt coaches like me, advise you to keep a spending journal? What is the benefit of that? It isn’t only for you to see where your money is going but also so you will start to think before you spend. If you know that there is a record of every cent you spend, somewhere it is going to be listed that you spent money you didn’t have on something foolish, you may stop yourself. Even if you are the only one who sees it, you may stop. Or course, you   could just not record it but that would be lying and you don’t want to lie to yourself. Another advantage of keeping a spending journal is when you also record how you are feeling when you want to spend money (or do) you may be able to find your triggers. Did you just get into a fight with your significant other and now want to go out and spend a lot of money? If you have sat down and wrote in your spending journal about this experience – the fight, the feelings it brought up and the desire to buy...

Women are not good with money?  Did you grow up hearing that? I did. At one time, women did not have bank accounts, handle cheques or any of that sort of stuff. Today, I am consulting an article in The Guardian that looks at women’s financial rights from Cleopatra’s time to present. I am also going to do more research so I can relate Canada’s role in this. We are going to start by looking at life in ancient Egypt, 3100 BCE and after. Back then, women had the same financial rights as men. They were able to hold and dispose of property in their name. They could enter into contracts, sue and be sued, serve on juries, be trial witness and witness legal documents. Next, we will look at the biblical era, 1800 BC and after. Consulting Jewish law then, a woman had the right to own her own property and sue in court without a man representing her. However, she could not directly inherit from her husband - unless it was a gift and there were no children – and daughters c...

Jill is a divorced woman in her forties. She lives from paycheck to paycheck, trying to make ends meet. There are months she isn’t sure that she’s going to have enough money to meet her obligations and then Jill has to scramble, taking money from one bill to help pay another. She makes a decent income but doesn’t know why she is always broke.   She knows she has to do something so she decides to start a budget.   She makes a list of her income and all her expenses and sticks with the plan. For a little while. Soon though, Jill finds herself slipping back into her old habits and struggling to pay everything. Jill is convinced that she can’t stick to a budget and budgets don’t work. Does that sound familiar? Have you ever gone through something similar? Have you started a budget only to fall off it within months? You aren’t alone, many people do this. There are many reasons this happens. 1.        The budget is too ...

If you have done ANY research into finances, you know that many financial gurus will tell you to start saving money and a system many use is 50/30/20. 50% of your income goes to essentials such as rent, transportation, food etc; 30% to lifestyle choices such as cable, dining out, entertainment and 20% to savings. But what if you can't save that 20%? What if you just don't make enough to make ends meet never mind saving money?! It can be scary and so disheartening to feel as if you are never going to be financially secure because you can't afford to save that 20%. You can't follow the guidelines of those who know better because your essentials are taking up more than 50% of your income. (Hey, I understand! I live in Vancouver, Canada and it is an expensive city where rents and other costs just keep increasing.) But here's the good news. Don't despair because it isn't always the amount you save that is important, it is getting into the habit of saving th...

None of us likes to be embarrassed or humiliated. The memories of those burning emotions can make us relieve the embarrassment years later. But embarrassment doesn't kill us. Nor does it hurt us. In order to avoid humiliation in the areas of finance, many people will sign up for overdraft protection with their bank or credit union. This will ensure that, if a person writes a check or makes a payment through electronic means and there isn't enough money in the account to cover it, then the bank will 'dip' into the overdraft to get the money to pay for the charge. Sounds great, right? Not so fast. There is a monthly fee you will be charged. Plus a fee for when you use the overdraft AND interest on the amount in the overdraft. Or you may decide to use the pay as you go method. I saw one bank that will charge you $5.00 for each day the overdraft is increased or created. Whichever method you use, the charges are going to add up. And you will be contributing to ...