In saying that though I do get the odd surprise.

But you’re very correct in your statement, most of these systems, plans or whatever you want to call it are selling the same information packaged and presented in a different light. The core is still the same.

I read the review about your money your life and it has a lot of good points, like why do you work? I truly believe that when you do work your passionate about, the money follows.

Thats not to say people who are high wage earners aren’t happy, I think when you pick your life career do it because you love it, not because it will bring you wealth.

Anyway, there is always something going on at school that costs money(FREE Education???) I make $80 a month too much for my kids to qualify for free of reduced lunches and lunches are $30 a week for 2 kids. My car is paid for so I reduced my insurance to the state minimum but, the AC went out and it’s going to cost me $900 to get it fixed! $900 is like $9000 to me! The girls are growing so fast that I am constantly having to buy the older one clothes and I hand down the better ones to my youngest. We eat very modestly, a lot of red beans and cornbread and potatoes and rice. It’s filling and good for you but hard to send as a lunch for the girls and taking their lunch embarrasses them as very few kids do that any more. I take my lunch to work to save a little that way. After paying rent, utilities,groceries,insurance, school lunches, health insurance and the misc. that comes around, I have nothing left at the end of the month. I cut my cable back to basic, I don’t own a cell phone and just have the minimum on my home phone,and I have an internet service that is just $9.99 a month so I am holding on to it. I already work 2 jobs, 1 full time and 1 part time and I can’t work more because I have to be a mom too! A friend gave me Kevin Trudeau’s book “Debt Cures” but I haven’t had even 10 minutes to spend on it yet. My girls are good and help with the housework and all but when I get off work and fix dinner and help with homework,and do a load of laundry while spending an hour of time just talking with my girls or watching a movie with them, I am exhausted and fall imediately to sleep when I start reading. So, knowing this small bit of my life, I want to know 1st of all if the book is going to be of any help and secondly, do you have any suggestions that might help? I read your articles religiously during my lunch hour and you seem to have it all together. Just give me a couple of pointers on getting ahead when there’s nothing left at the end of the month if you will please. Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

Living Payday to payday…
Brenda

Because of your advice and commentary I’ve devised a plan to be out of debt in a little over a year and have enough money saved up to quit my job and start working for myself within 5 years. And I really have this blog to thank for most of that motivation.

That’s why I totally support WHATEVER means someone uses in turning their situation around, because different people need different methods at different times in their “journey”.

In the end, those are the only two things that matter. It all works IF you follow it. Following it is the key, and that’s where the differences between presentations comes in. Different people use different psychological and motivational methods to get their habits and thought patterns in line with what has to happen to make “spend less than you earn” become the status quo. To my mind, some methods are “gimmicky”, such as “hiding income” or spending money so that you are “surprised” later with the amount you have left over.

If that works for some people, they should absolutely do it and I fully support them.

However, for me, I find it works better to always have FULL knowledge of how much money I have or don’t have. Hiding things from myself is something that, while it might work for an overspender as an interim step, is not the same as being able to say, “actually, I have only $84.13 allocated for this kind of spending right now and I don’t have a prospect to increase the available amount. So that’s the level of spending I can handle, and anything else needs me to make a formal decision (usually sitting down at home later with my budget) to cut spending elsewhere in my spending plan.” For me, this last approach is more powerful and honest with myself.

In my personal life, I’ve just realized that I’ve already gotten to the point where become more mindful of my spending or more frugal would be pointless or offer extremely limited returns to me. I couldn’t be much more frugal without doing stuff like getting rid of my car completely instead of just using a tank of gas per month and NEVER eating out instead of spending $35 a month eating out. I have made a conscious decision not to do those things. Ifit became advisable to do those things, I would, but I don’t have to and it’s not my vision for myself to live like that. I already am conscious of all my purchases and it’s a reflex habit for me to check with myself, before EVERY purchase, whether it’s worthwhile for me. Money squeaks when it comes out of my wallet, it even squeaks when it comes out of my credit card! At this point, I’ve mastered controlling the outflow of money. What I need to improve now to have a better bottom line is the inflow of money-the top line or income.

I’ve recently realized this, that I need to pay attention to what is harder for me: the fact that I need to earn more money, not to increase my standard of living in the present, but to maintain it in the future when I may not be able to earn money as easily.

I need to be saving A LOT of money every year that I’m not saving, and the only way to get it is to increase my income considerably going forward.

So, that’s my new challenge to myself: Keep the good habits I have (good management of the money I DO earn or have) while changing my habit of underearning for my realistic present and future needs.

Robyn

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