Six Things We Can Do to Fix This Economy

Mary Hunt is one of my favorite resources: she charged herself into roughly $100,000 worth of debt and dug herself out.  The lessons she learned became the foundation for her mission to help others who find themselves in the same situation.  The article below is from the Daily Cheapskate:

Six Things We Can Do to Fix This Economy

It's a mess out there. Unemployment is higher than it's been in 60 years, and the U.S. dollar is losing value at an alarming rate. If that's not bad enough, fears abound that taxes will be heading north for all workers, even while the United States continues to find itself in a deep, protracted recession.

On that happy note, let's turn to the subject at hand. What can we do, you and I, individually, to turn this economy around? In a word: Nothing. What you spend this week, how much you save or burn up in gasoline is not going to make one bit of difference to the U.S. economy.

But we can make a big difference for our individual economic pictures. Add that to what our friends, families, neighbors, colleagues and communities do, and we're looking at the cumulative effect, which can make a difference.

Here is a list of specific things that all of us can do, starting today, to get things back on track in our personal lives. That is how we will affect the larger picture:

Stop living on plastic. Please, just stop spending more money than you have. No matter now difficult your financial picture is right now, adding to your debt is like pouring gasoline on a fire. It is going to make things even worse.

Get out of debt. I'm talking about your unsecured consumer debt. Nothing but higher interest rates and increased fees are coming down the pike. You cannot afford to be in debt. Make a commitment today to do whatever you must to remove that financial bondage from your life.

Rein it in. Yes, you've cut your expenses. Sure you are becoming more frugal than ever. Great. Now, double your efforts. I'm serious. Whatever you are doing now, you can do better. Challenge every expense, every purchase. Is it really necessary? Can you do something else instead? Can you at least wait a few more days? Get tough on yourself. What you do not spend is money you can use to build your emergency fund or pay down debt.

"No" is the word. Place it firmly on the tip of your tongue during the new year: "No!" Use it often when you are tempted to spend foolishly. Just say "No!" to anything that you cannot buy with cash. Say "No!" to anything that will impede your efforts to save and pay off debt. Keep it handy. It will save you a lot of grief, and allow you to make economic progress this year.

Work more. Forget early retirement. Instead, figure out how you can work more, and even years longer. This is going to be a year of extra effort, not a time to ease off.

Buy American. We need to get manufacturing and production to return to the USA as soon as possible. When it fits within your budget to buy goods and services, let's do everything we can to buy American. Look for companies that are producing products for homes and families at websites like StillMadeinUSA.com and MadeinUSA.com.

Do you have ideas on how we can work together to help the economy? Join the conversation at my blog, Money Rules, Debt Stinks!

©Copyright 2010 Mary Hunt
Everyday Cheapskate is a Registered Trademark

Do not rehash the past

Set goals for your new year!

How to Set Goals

originated by:kezooki, Ben Rubenstein, Flickety,

The next time somebody tells you that setting goals is really a lot of hype, tell him this: if life is a journey, how will you get there if you don’t have an itinerary? Goals tell you where you are going, how you are going to get there and what you will do when you get there.

Steps

1    You have to decide what you want first of all. The problem with so many people is that they do not know what they really want. In other words they are not at all clear about what they want in life. Setting your goals, needs you to make a decision about that which you want, and determine when you want to have achieved that thing. In other words you must put a deadline to what you currently want. Get clear about what you want.

2    Have a good plan of attack. Ask yourself:

What do I know about this?

What information do I have?

What information do I need? Where can I get it?

What skills do I need to master?

What other resources should I use?

Is this the best way to do it, or is there some other way?

3    Start small, but keep walking. Goals don’t necessarily have to be big ones. When you set your goal too high, you might find it too overwhelming and time consuming and just give up, or make another one, just as big. It’s akin to quitting cold turkey – there are setbacks.

4    Set goals in small increments, complete with time, dates, amount, some details. If you tell yourself, “I’m going to be an opera singer” and then sit around and wait for it to suddenly happen, you could be waiting all your life. Start with singing lessons for a month, and then a year and expose yourself to opera music. You can then progress to more singing lessons year after year. By breaking down your goals in smaller, workable units, you are more likely to make them come true. Remember, even the great ones had to start somewhere.

5    Be positive when stating your goals. Instead of saying, “I am not going to miss my exercise routine today,” say “I’m really busy, so I’ll probably just make time for 20 minutes on the treadmill.” Stating your goal positively will help you view it as a good thing to do, and not as a byproduct of what you had to avoid.

6    Spread out your goals. So maybe we do have certain general goals that apply to all areas of our lives like, “I want to be successful” or “I want to be rich” but those would seem as far away as the Niagara Falls viewed from Hawaii. Instead, try making tiny goals for different aspects of your life, one or two for each, even more if you like. These areas are: family and home, career, social, physical, mental and spiritual. If you say, “I want to be a successful dad,” then try to make goals towards the development of your family life while still keeping an eye out for ways to improve your career and other areas of your life.

7    Don’t underestimate yourself. It’s tempting to sometimes just slack off, or let yourself off too easy. If you want to write the definitive American novel, then don’t try to churn out just a page or two a day when you know you are more than capable of writing five pages, even ten. The fear of failure is sometimes to blame for setting our goals too low. How often have we said, “I don’t really want to volunteer for that project ‘cause I might screw it up. And then my colleagues will make fun of me.”

8    Remember that some fears are unfounded. How do you know you’ll actually ruin it? And how do you know for sure your coworkers will laugh at your effort? If you try to reason with your fears, more often than not, you’ll realize that there really is no reason for you to be reluctant and that in fact, you can do it.

9    Write it down. Putting your goal down on paper is more than just memorizing it. You are actually confirming your willingness to make it come true. A written list of goals is an effective reminder of what you need to do and once you’re done, a good review of your accomplishment. A simple list on a piece of notebook paper is fine, or using a computer program to really jazz it up works just as well. You may want to hang it up somewhere, as a constant reminder to work toward your goals: inside your closet, the back of your medicine cabinet door, or on your bulletin board near your desk.

10  Affirm it. Affirmation is really more than writing down, “I am going to buy my $750,000 home by Christmas” twenty times. It’s actually being conscious not only of your thought processes, but also of your acts during the day.

11  If you’re trying to save money and then you pass by a shop window where a great pair of shoes seems to have your name on it, think, “If I buy those shoes, would I be making my goal of saving easier? Will I be able to meet my deadline if I splurge just this once? A few months from now if I don’t meet my deadline because I didn't save enough, would I feel good about it?”

12  Stop procrastinating. So you’ve heard this before. Big deal. Well, it is. Time wastage is one of the greatest crimes in history. If Henry Ford put off studying and tinkering with machines for another time, someone else would have improved on automobiles and he wouldn't have gone down in history as a pioneer. If you’re used to procrastination, being bullheaded about a goal can seem scary at first. Try to set a schedule and then reward yourself each time you meet it.

13  Start inculcating the habit of liking something. The most difficult thing is to LIKE something useful. For example we may like that particular model, star, lazing around with friends, to impress the opposite sex etc...but do they give us any long term returns? They just look jazzy for a small period of time and again life is as usual, that which has no achievement. .Our mind generally rejects any conscious attempt to focus on any worthwhile goal. Some really lucky souls subconsciously liked these worthwhile goals and made it big. Many of us focus subconsciously on these petty things such as entertainment, celebrities etc...and when time comes for focusing on big ones we back out because we have an already loaded negative image of that goal. It is simply a misinterpreted relativity. No reason to feel worthless before a big goal just because we have been LIKING petty goals. You need to think big, when you are setting goals, think great thoughts. You must also crystallize your thinking, make it clear to you first, then write it down.

14  Plan ahead, so you can get ahead.

Spiritual Goal Setting Series

Start 2010 with a road map of where you wish to go with your life!  At Unity Spiritual Life Center http://www.unityspirituallifecenter.org/ in Durham, NC.  I will be presenting three Wednesday sessions starting Janual 13 from 7-9 pm in the main Sanctuary.

Week 1: We will have a spiritual goal getting exercise/session from borrowed from my Spiritual Financial Integrity class.  The purpose is for you to develop goals in the main 5 areas of life: Spiritual, Personal/Relationships, Career/Avocation, Money, Growth. 

Remember: A goal not put to paper is only a wish.........

Week 2: (Jan 20) Pictured Prayer/Treasure Mapping workshop to image their goals.  My co-instructor for this session is my friend and amazing healer, Patricia Skinner.

Week 3: (Jan 27) A 90 day prayer and action plan session that takes their time-bound, specific goals and breaks them down into doable chunks. I have some nice affirmations and exercises from Marc Allen www.marcallen.com/ that I will share with the students.

What is all this about?

Sometimes when the concepts of prosperity are presented in spiritual/church formats, the emphasis seems to:

1. Focus only on money and material goods with the “more is better” attitude

2. Underplay or ignore the role of basic financial management

Then pople wonder why they are still broke or not where they want to be.  It is my mission to help guide you, gentle reader, and my clients to get on'e act in gear.

This blog and my services will allow the student to:

• Self-define what prosperity is in all areas of their life: home, family, health, career as well as money

• Determine an individual idea of what and how much one wishes to achieve in alignment with spiritual, physical and emotional needs

• Develop a plan that can be put into practice, be supported by like mined souls, and have a method of tracking and accountability built-in

• Personal action and spiritual practice is necessary to successfully allow Law to work in life and permit us to recognize all the channels to prosperity God opens in life.