31 Days To Fix Your Finances: A Wrapup

During the month of January, The Simple Dollar has been running a series entitled 31 Days To
Fix Your Finances, a series of activities that can enable anyone to improve their financial
status by centering your financial life around your own core values. Instead of supplying a
bunch of budgeting sheets and asking you to commit yourself to a program, this series is about
figuring out what you want out of life and reorganizing your finances so that you can have it.
What follows is a summary of the entire months activities, with links to each individual day. If
youre at all concerned about your personal finances or find yourself often feeling strangely
guilty about the money you spend, youll find some value in the activities of the month.
Lets get started.
Stage 1: Figuring Out Your Goals And Values
Day 1: Your Five Main Values
Day 2: Defining Your Goals From Your Values
Day 3: Create A Plan For Each Goal
The underlying challenge that most people have with their finances is that they see money as
distinctly separate from the rest of their life. Money is an antagonist, an enemy that keeps you
from doing what you want to be doing. The truth is that money is merely a tool, and when you
find yourself feeling as though money is an antagonist, it is no different than a person attempting
to learn how to use a heavy sword; its unwieldy and dangerous.
The first step for learning how to integrate money into your life and use it successfully as a tool
is to figure out what exactly you wish to build with that tool. Without underlying values, goals,
and plans, money is no different than swinging a hammer around without building something.
Thus, this first stage is crucial: what exactly is most important to you, and what will it take to
adequately support those values?
Stage 2: Evaluating Your Situation
Day 4: How Much Did You Earn Last Year?
Day 5: How Much Did You Work Last Year?
Day 6: Your True Hourly Wage
Once youve figured out what is central in your life, its time to take a serious look at what you
have to work with. How much do you make, and how much time do you spend making it? This
seems like an easy question, but its not. How much of your income do you spend maintaining
your job, via transportation, career development, clothing, and so forth? And how much time do
you spend doing things devoted to your job, such as going to work, coming home from work,
attending work-related functions, and so on?

When you calculate these new numbers, you might be shocked both at how much time you
actually spend working in an average week, as well as how little you actually earn. You can drive
this point home especially clearly by calculating a number that well use throughout the month,
your true hourly wage. How much do you really make for each hour that you spend devoted to
your job? Its not nearly what you might think, and that alone might shock you into considering
some different avenues.
Stage 3: Building Your Own Life Budget, Not Following Someone Elses Prescription
Day 7: Work For Your Dreams, Not Your Money
Day 8: Breaking Down Your Expenses
Day 9: Cleaning Up Your Expenses
Day 10: Fitting Your Expenses Into The Bigger Picture
Day 11: Dividing Up The Rest and Finishing Our Time Budget
Day 12: A Flexible Budget That Reflects Your Reality
Once youve taken a hard look at what you actually earn, you can begin to set up the basic
framework of how to spend that money that is in line with your personal goals. This isnt about
printing out worksheets and trying to jam your life into the pigeonholes that someone else has
created for you; instead, this is about defining how you spend money and working from there.
Its almost unfair to refer to this as budgeting, because budgeting carries with it some very bad
connotations, much like putting on an uncomfortable suit. This process is much more like going
to a tailor, who uses you as the basis to construct a custom suit that fits you. This process will
create a custom budget that fits your life with your values and goals as a basis. Were not talking
about restricting you to spending $20 a month on dining expenses, but instead creating a
structure where you can decide whats appropriate because you can see how it relates directly to
your dreams.
Stage 4: Looking At Your Life, Piece By Piece
Day 13: Pay For Your Dreams First
Day 14: Get Rid Of Debts (Slowly But Surely)
Day 15: Coming In Under Budget and An Emergency Fund
Day 16: Evaluating Your Expenses Home and Auto Insurance
Day 17: Evaluating Your Expenses Life Insurance
Day 18: Evaluating Your Expenses Energy
Day 19: Evaluating Your Expenses Automobiles
Day 20: Evaluating Your Expenses Food
Day 21: Evaluating Your Expenses Housing
Day 22: Evaluating Your Expenses Monthly Services
Day 23: Evaluating Your Expenses Bank Fees
Day 24: Evaluating Your Expenses Entertainment and Hobbies
Day 25: Evaluating Your Expenses Credit Cards

Once youve got a basic budget in place, its well worth spending some time carefully evaluating
those numbers that represent you and see if there are any places where there is excess fat and
simply trimming it away. Is your electricity bill pretty high? Maybe there are a few simple ways
to reduce it. Getting tired of paying that life insurance bill? Maybe you dont need it at all or
can utilize something less expensive. Getting dinged over and over again with bank charges?
Look at what theyre charging and do something about it. Credit card finance charges eating you
alive? There are some easy ways to reduce them.
Were looking for ways to trim away fat (things that make you uncomfortable when you look at
them) so that the meat (your goals, dreams, and values) have room to thrive. You dont have to
eliminate that daily latte if it brings you joy just look for the many things you can do without or
that you can reduce without significant pain and youll have the money to chase your dreams.
Stage 5: Setting The Stage For Lifelong Success
Day 26: Refining Your Budget
Day 27: Keeping Good Records
Day 28: Preparing For The Inevitable
Day 29: Paying Cash
Day 30: Live What You Love
Day 31: Keeping It Up
Now that the complete package is coming together, there are some basic methods for keeping the
momentum going. What do you do with the fat youve trimmed away? How do you keep track of
all of your financial information so that its not chaotic and incomprehensible? How do you
ensure that youre not ensnared in loan debt over and over again? How do you keep this good
thing going?
If you follow this plan and keep these principles in mind, you can easily live your dream. Its all
up to you, and it takes just an hour a day for a month to get things going.

11 Reasons Why You Should Never Get a

Full-Time Job
Full-time work is the default setting in our society, but that doesnt make it your best option.
Surrounded by examples of successful businesses whose founders worked 80 hour weeks to
make it happen, most people never fully explore the possibilities of being a part-timer. Whats
stopping you: the money? The status? The fear of failure?
Whatever it is, take a deep breath and keep reading. Once youve checked out these 11 reasons,
you might decide its in your best interest never to get a full-time job. Ever.

1. You Dont Need to Work Full Time

Nobody truly needs to work 40+ hours per week. If you could work fewer hours without
reducing your income, youd take that option, right? You dont need a specific number of hours
work per week; you need a specific amount of income to live on. And there are ways to hit that
target without long hours:

work fewer hours at a higher rate of pay

become your own boss and set your own prices

create semi-passive income streams

2. Youll Save Money

Working a full-time job means you barely have time to enjoy the money you earn, yet somehow
it still gets spent.
Remember that specific amount of income you need? Given the choice between working fulltime or cutting your discretionary spending, youll find ways to trim down your expenses!
Avoiding full-time work is an effective motivator to get you budget-hacking like a boss. You
might save even more money if working part-time or becoming your own boss means you spend
less on transport, food, or childcare.

3. Youll Be Healthier
If you reduce the stress of your job by choosing something with shorter work hours and greater
flexibility, your body will thank you for it. Youll notice improvements in your immune system,
digestion, circulation, and other key signs of physical health compared to an exhausted full-time
worker.

4. Youll Eat Better

Its easy to grab a ready-made sandwich or a sweet snack when youre working, but you often
dont realise how fast all those choices add up to a big pile of junky, pre-processed crap. And if
youre a high-caffeine type who guzzles cola, coffee or tea while you work, youll suffer the
after-effects right through until after bedtime.
For a part-time worker, the employee diet has less of an effect because you have more time to
buy and prepare healthy, fresh food.

5. Youll Have More Energy

The better general health and diet of a part-time worker means that youll have a lot more energy
than if you worked full-time. Instead of arriving home weary from a full days work, youll have

more time to rest your body and mind, so that when the next day arrives youre ready to meet it
head-on and get stuff done.

6. Youll Learn More

If youre lucky, a full-time job comes with a few training opportunities. But if you want to learn
something that isnt included in your employers list of training courses, then youll have to learn
it on your own time. Ha! Time to yourself is a precious rarity if youre a full-time employee.
Stick to part-time jobs or self-employment and youll always have time to learn new things that
make life even more awesome. Plus your brain will be less frazzled and more receptive to fresh
knowledge.

7. Youll Get Creative

Along with better learning performance, part-timers and entrepreneurs often report that their
creative thinking improved when they quit their full-time jobs.
Granted, this could simply mean that creative people are more likely to follow a part-time career
path. It gives you the creative freedom you crave and lets you avoid the burnout that plagues
creatives in high-pressure full-time jobs, but its also likely that having more time off work gives
your brain greater opportunity to make the connections that spark creative insight.

8. You Can Diversify

Theres no rule that says you have to stick to one job at a time. Instead of working full-time at
one thing, why not run two or three different part-time jobs in parallel? Youll be less likely to
get bored or stuck in inflexible ways of thinking.
Having the time to develop diverse projects also protects you from losing everything the way
you could if your full-time job disappears in budget cuts and corporate re-shuffling.

9. Youll Worry Less

Thinking about work when youre not working means one of two things: either you really love
your job, or its getting you down.
Full-time work doesnt only stress your body; it stresses your mind, too. For example, worrying
about work during your time off disturbs your sleep more than almost any other work-related
factor. Youre much more likely to fret about work all evening if youve done nothing but work
all day, so skip the full-time job and you can skip the worry, too.

10. Youll Live Longer

This shouldnt come as a big surprise. Less stress, better food, more sleep of course youll live
longer. Overwork is a killer, and the longer the hours you work, the more it cuts your life
expectancy.

11. Youll Be More Productive

It sounds counter-intuitive, but its true. Spending less time working actually makes you more
productive.
This is the working on vacation effect: when youve got a short amount of time to spend on
work (and something fun to look forward to when its done) youll focus better, work faster and
make fewer mistakes. Win!

10 Keys to Work/Life Balance

Todays employers seem to want more of our time than ever. In the US, the average worker puts
in 55 hours a week; in Europe and other places where short working weeks have long been the
norm, workers are struggling to hold on to their reasonable schedules as employers look to the
US model in an effort to increase their bottom lines. Email, text messaging, cell phones, and
Blackberries keep us tethered to the office even when were technically off-duty.
How can you keep up with your always-on career and still find time to do what you need to do at
home, spend time with your family, enjoy some kind of social life, and just plain relax? At risk

are your personal relationships, your development as a person, your sanity, and even your life.
Stress kills. You need downtime to help your mind and body cope with the demands of your job.
Thats the question I asked readers in the first installment of our Great Big Summer Giveaway.
Some of the answers are below, along with a few of my own ideas about balancing work with the
rest of your life.

1. Attitude is everything.
No matter how much you love your job, no matter how big a part of your life it is, ultimately you
need to be able to turn it off and spend some time not working. This is hard for a lot of people,
because their work is an important part of who they are as people. This can be admirable,
especially when you accomplish great things in your work, but an always-on-the-job attitude can
be harmful in the long run. At the least, the peope around you will get tired of coming in second
to your work, causing damage to your relationships and eventually leaving you without them.
Whats more, it might even reduce your effectiveness in your work both the mind and body
need a break from thinking about and doing the same things all the time to recharge and keep
coming up with fresh ideas.

2. Keep a rational schedule.

The more youre trying to juggle, the more important it is to make a good schedule and keep to
it. Block out all your work and non-work commitments and make sure to allow plenty of
downtime and non-work time. Treat non-work commitments as seriously as you treat working
commitments the time youve assigned to family, housework, and your own activities needs
to be just as inviolable as the time you spend in the office, going to meetings, or meeting
deadlines. This is especially true if youre so busy that you cant reschedule that off-work time.

3. Learn to say No.

If youre having trouble keeping on top of everything going on in your life, it may be that youve
committed more time than you have. If youre like me (and just about everyone else), you dont
like to refuse favors, new responsibilities, or even casual requests, for fear of a) looking
undependable, b) upsetting someone, or c) missing out on something. Make a point of seriously
considering any request that comes your way, and double-check your schedule before taking
anything else on. When its too much, dont be afraid to refuse you wont be doing anyone
any good by taking on tasks that you wont be able to do well because youre too overwhelmed
to handle them, or by accepting social invitations that youre too stressed out to enjoy.

4. Enjoy list-free time.

This tip comes from Sheree, who says she stopped making lists of things to do in her off-time
because of the stress that not finishing the list brought to her weekends. While its reasonable to
want to bring the skills youve honed at work into the rest of your life, if it starts to make your
non-work time feel like just so much more work, then stop. Drop the list for a day or two, and

take things as they come. This is really about attitude, drawing a clear line between your worklife and the rest of your life.

5. Keep it organized.
Theres nothing worse than finding yourself faced with overtime or extra working days because
you didnt get enough done at work. Kim suggests a whole set of organization tips at her blog,
Cupalatte, such as:

Have as little out as possible: meaning nick knacks, decorating items. My

desk has nothing except my computer and phone. Maybe boring but I get
things done. My house has very little out also so there is less cleaning and
less dusting. Less vision clutter makes me feel more zen anyways.
Give away what I dont use regularly: I feel lighter and giving it to
someone with a bigger need makes me feel less guilty for getting rid of good
items.

Going paperless: my office is paperless. Need I say more? Theres no

getting up looking for files, misfiling, paper waste, toner waste, buying
folders, buying paper. Oh, and being able to fax and email documents in
seconds saves so much time.

Use grouping: for everything. I group my medicine cabinet into morning

items versus evening items. For example, morning items would be hair
serum, sunblock, make up, deodorant. Evening items would all be grouped
together too, face wash, floss, toothpaste. My cooking cabinet is grouped into
dry seasonings & wet seasonings. My fridge is grouped into breakfast
items and lunch using the clear plastic $1 container so that with one scoop,
I have all the items I need and dont need to revisit the fridge. As for cleaning
up, everything gets put back in the plastic container and returned to the
fridge once.

6. Batch it.
This was also recommended by Kim at Cupalatte, but bears its own mention. Batching tasks can
be a great way to get more done in less time, whether its handling your work email or your mail
at home. Youll work faster and better because your mid is only on one thing, and when its done,
you can forget it so worrying about that bill you have to pay or that email you should respond
to doesnt spill over into the rest of your day. You know that your bill will get paid during your
normal bill-paying time, and your email got responded to when you processed your email.

7. Clear your mind.

Dave Smyth finds making lists useful so he can stop fretting about what needs to be done,
knowing he wont forget anything.

I used to always have a dreadful list that was always running through my mind of all the things
that I needed to accomplish, mainly work related. They would interrupt my family time causing
me stress at just at the time that I am trying to reduce my stress. So the quicker I can get things
into a list or email that I know I will work later, the better off I am.
On the whole, I agree with Dave lists are crucial but theres something to be said for
Sherees notion of doing without one for a day or two a week, so that relaxation time doesnt
start to feel like more of the daily grind. The key point here, though, is to do whatever it takes to
confine all the things youd be liable to worry about to a trusted system where you know theyll
get taken care of, so you can spend the rest of your time without worrying.

8. Get it wrong the first time.

Bon Temps at Le Bon Temps Roule offers this tip as a way to get last-minute projects and other
time-consumers out of the way so you can get on with your life. The idea is to give yourself a set
amount of time say, an hour to do the job, no matter how poorly. Let go of your
perfectionism and just do as well as you can in the set time. You may have to go back and fix it
up but youll be charged up by knowing the heavy lifting is already done. Plus, by forcing
yourself to cram the whole job into a short time period, youll give yourself a more global
view that might help you see things you wouldnt have otherwise. Obviously, this isnt going to
apply to every situation if your boss comes to you with a last-minute report that has to be
generated, this will work great; if your boss asks you to fill in for the other neurosurgeon, who
got caught in traffic, a little perfectionism is probably in order.

9. Keep the lines of communication open.

I learned this the hard way when a rough patch of work started to alienate me from my family.
Let the people closest to you know whats going on in your work life when things get hectic, so
they dont feel like your lowest priority or worse, suddenly abandoned. And keep your ears open
to hear what they tell you, too if your spouse or partner, your friends, or your kids start
complaining or tell you straight out that youre working too much listen to them. Theyre
generally going to be a better judge of your behavior than you are.

10. Be honest with yourself.

This is the hardest one, but also the most necessary. Part of your weekly review or at least
every third or fourth one should be to ask yourself Am I happy with all this? And to follow
up by looking at how well youre doing of balancing everything. Be honest this is your life
were talking about. If you cant face the hard questions, all the lifehacks and organizing wont
mean a thing youll just slide away.