Gut Check?

Have you checked your total money situation yet? What's holding you up? Do you know your income per month and how much you pay in bills?

Go ahead, make the list -- then think about other yearly accuring payments that you need to add. Home Insurance. Oil change in automobiles. Rough estimate on Doctor bills and meds.

No better time than now to get a grasp on what's coming in and what's going out --

Attitude Check

Ok -- sometimes it is hard for us to realize how we "feel" or "think" about our money. Answer the simple questions and you will get a fast check up!

What do you say about your money when you talk about it?

What do you think when you are thinking about your money?

What actions do you take?

I have noticed that I talk very negatively about money, mainly because I think negatively about it....and, you guessed it, my actions are not positive with money.

Attitude change needed here folks.

Tony Robbins, a self help guru, stated once that to fix a problem -- the key is not dwelling on the negative, (example: Why did this happen? Why me?) but to focus your questions on the positive. (What do I need to do next to make the situation better?) That has helped me with past issues. I just never thought to bring that idea into my money management.

Well, that has changed. I am going to (notice my positive tone!!)think and talk positive about my money, and my financial situation from this point on. It must start with our thinking and move to our talking and then our actions will follow.

You try it too!!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

In the next section of Suze Orman's book "The Courage to be Rich", she deals with a person's attitude about money. Am I angry, shameful, or in fear of losing everything? I can honestly answer yes, to a certain extent, to all of the above questions.

**I would encourage you to read Suze's book and go through the exercises she has on finding your negative emotions and how to deal with them.

Then the next thing that needs to be done is an attitude adjustment about your money. That brings in the respect. Most of us think that money brings respect, but how about respecting money?

Take my example - today I don't know exactly the balance in my checkbook. That is a lack of respect. What happens when we neglect something? It tends to fall apart. Neglect the finances and then we don't control them, they control us. We don't know the status of our accounts, that breeds fear.

Money then becomes negative. Finances as a whole become negative, or bring a negative atomsphere.

To combat that you need knowledge and you need to let go of what happened yesterday and beyond. Today is today -- start fresh and take control.

Harder than I thought....

OK, OK, so this is going to be much harder than I thought. And yes, for those interested, I am admitting that it will take a truck load of courage.

Courage to see how in debt, or how well off you are. Courage to balance your checkbook. Courage to track your spending for a month -- go ahead -- if you think that's easy, try it. I challenge you. How much do you spend on beauty products each month? Bath and kitchen paper goods? How much do you really spend on clothes?

I have a bad habit of lumping everything into a Wal-Mart trip -- there fore it goes into the grocery category. I can spend $100 easily in Wal-Mart and never go into the grocery section! So that was a major wake-up for me.

And to be honest, as of right now, I have no idea how much is in our checking account!! August was a very bad month in that I overspent, and now I don't want to reconcile our accounts.

COURAGE!!!

So, yes, now I am understanding more of the title, "The Courage to be Rich".

Oh-- this was only the first chapter or so!!!!
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Side note -- Family in Louisiana are all OK with minimal property damage.