Where did My Paycheck Go????

Why is it that everytime you get some money you have to give it back to someone else??? Ugh! I cannot tell you how many times I've felt like what's the point of me working if I never get to see the fruits of my labor. I get it, I have to pay my mortgage/rent, cable (a definite must if I want to catch True Blood), student loans, utilities, car loan...and of course my bi-weekly visit to Target. The truth is that our budgets are not what our parents used to consider to be necessary. Granted, they were able to stretch their money in ways that one should never have to, but to be fair we have cooler stuff to spent our mula on. So while I'm in no way taking the role of your "parent" and tell you how to handle your finances, I do ask that you parent your spending.

How many of us can confidently say how much on average we spent on utilities? We should be able to know how much of our income goes towards certain necessities in order to know whether or not we have enough to buy the next Wii game or get that well deserved spa treatment at Toppers. (ahhh, I'm salivating just thinking about it~sorry back to the point). In order to embark on this journey to better finances you have to know where the crap does your paycheck go towards?

NOW... This process can be a bit overwhelming. For whatever reason we seem to think that if we don't bother our money, our money won't bother us. Seriously, I get sweaty palms just thinking about having to pay bills or even find yet another area of my spending habits to cut in order to make ends meet. But unfortunately it is a necessary evil. So, the way I look at it is that "I'm a grown (you know what) woman. My money is not going to punk me out. What do I look like being scared of bills?" Seriously, that's how psych myself out...I know I have issues.

In order to help you out, I've put together a simple worksheet to input your information. All you need to do is take your receipts/bank statements for the past three months, input when, where and how much you spent. Then you'll have a drop down list of categories where you can group your expenses. Pretty harmless. It is afterall the first step to making this thing work people!
For a copy of the spreadsheet email me at infochildrenofsolomon@gmail.com

After you finished, you'll see on the top right hand corner of your spreadsheet how much in total you've spent on the categories I've provided. YES, I did include a category for Target! Let's keep it real folks!


THE REASON: Here's a bit of psychological/financial information. If someone asked what's the most important thing to you? Let's say you answer, family. For most of us this the first thing that pops into our heads. But once you take a look at your spreadsheet you may find that you're spending the bulk of your money at the liquor store or at the nail salon. Your spending behavior is saying something completely different from your answer. That's one of the reasons for this excercise. Also, you need to know where your money is going if you plan on have it work for you. You may be surprised of how much extra cash you could have if you stay out of the dollar store.

Walk the Walk and all that Jazz...

We've all been there, we don't feel like taking anyone's advice about money because...well...we're grown. We work hard, we deal with folks we cannot stand all day every day and most importantly we know how and where I money should be spent. But then, we come to those months where we end up broke. I'm talking about negative balance on our debit cards. You know the kind of broke that we get scared to use our check card because we know there's a possibility we'll be rejected. (In front of the entire Target store! Yeah, I've been there). Does this makes us less grown? No! Does it mean we're dumb? No! It just means we need better financial management skills.

If you're anything like me, you've picked up numerous books on personal management only to find that the "John Smith" they use as an example is pratically rich compare to me. Now, if you're blessed enough to have CDs, IRA, 401 K and stock shares well.....good for you. Now if you're in the middle of protesting the government because you cannot understand why are student loans are so expensive (I mean really, they should be thanking us for not forming part of the ever growing welfare community), or if you have credit card bills that you're still paying for since college (ahhh free money..NOT) or even if you want to plan to just have something to show for your 40 plus hours per week, then you're in the right place.

This blog is meant to be a safe haven for those who want to be financially savvy without feeling like you need a thesaurus just to understand it's content. My goal, as well as the goal of all the contributors is to explain things in a simple way. But most importantly to give you information that does apply to you and not the person who already have most of their finances together. We will provide simple formulas, links and resources to make this thing of not being broke a breeze.

If you have your own personal questions you can always email me at infochildrenofsolomon@gmail.com

Have Fun and Be Blessed!