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Achieving Your Goals Takes Time: Remember This As We Head Toward the New Year

November 19, 2013 By MelissaB 7 Comments

I loved to bake. Muffins, homemade French bread, homemade sandwich bread, cakes, brownies, you name it, I made it.

And then I found out I was gluten and wheat intolerant. I tried to bake gluten free items, but I didn’t understand how all of the different flours worked, and after making pan after pan of hard, tasteless gluten free baked goods, I gave up.

Just recently I tried again, and this time I hit upon success. I learned how to make my own gluten free all purpose flour (thanks to the Internet), and I found a recipe for gluten free pumpkin bread. I used that recipe and altered it to make a delicious, sugar free, GF banana bread. But my daughter is egg intolerant, so, after I perfected the recipe, I experimented with making it egg free, and again, I came up with a good bread.

My love of baking is returning.

What does this have to do with personal finance?

Actually, quite a bit, especially as we enter the last few weeks of 2013 and head into 2014.

In just a few short weeks you’ll notice blog writers changing their focus from how to save on holiday gifts to setting goals for the new year and steps to achieving your goals, especially financial goals.

Maybe it’s that people drink too much during the holidays, or maybe it’s that people are unbelievably optimistic as they head into the new year, but many of us set ridiculously difficult New Year’s goals. And then we’re disappointed with and hard on ourselves when we fail. (And often we fail the first week of the new year.)

Change takes time

Making any big change doesn’t happen overnight because the calendar turns to a new year and you’ve made a list of things you want to accomplish.

Change is a step-by-step process, and it can be a long, painful journey.

It took me a year to finally learn how to make a good gluten free bread and enjoy cooking again.

Likewise, my husband and I are 25 long months into our debt repayment journey, and we’re only now reaching the halfway point.

In those 25 months, though, we’ve learned how to wait to purchase things we want rather than rushing right out and buying them, and we’ve learned to stay within our budget. Would I like to be debt free now? You bet. But I also appreciate the valuable lessons I’m learning along the way. After all, those lessons will help us stay out of debt forever in the years to come.

As you enter this holiday season, go ahead and think about things in your life that you’d like to change. Maybe you’d like to put more money in an emergency fund or add to your retirement account. Set your financial goals, but don’t expect changes in your behavior to happen automatically. Know that any good change in habit takes months, maybe years, to be cemented in as a permanent part of your fabric. Be patient with yourself and know that each step you make in the right direction is a step that is getting you closer to your goal.

What steps do you take to make sure you are achieving your goals?

All Is Not Lost

November 7, 2013 By Shane Ede 13 Comments

I can’t tell you the number of times that, in our seemingly never-ending struggle with debt, that I’ve seriously contemplated just giving up. Just throwing in the towel and saying f-it. You know it’s bad when you catch yourself fantasizing about it. About how much easier your life would be without the struggle. Just declaring bankruptcy, taking the hit on your credit score, and moving on with your life.

Even now, after having written about personal finance for over five years, I still find myself in that place occasionally. We let our budgeting lapse, and inevitably our spending gets out of whack again. Something happens, and the emergency fund just doesn’t seem to cover it all. Or, worse, doesn’t seem to replenish itself as quickly as it should.

I can try and lay the blame somewhere. That always helps, right? If it isn’t my fault, then I can’t be blamed for it. I can’t be the one that everyone points to as the failure. I can deflect that attention to someone or something else. That helps. Until it doesn’t.

Every single time, it’s really me that deserves the blame. It wasn’t the boss that refused to give me a raise. It wasn’t the heater in the car that needed to be fixed. And it certainly wasn’t the kids that needed to eat. It was me. Every. Single. Time.

I failed to negotiate the raise. I failed to have enough saved up to make that repair. I failed to budget properly to make sure that we wouldn’t have to cut corners at the grocery store. Me. I did that.

I could just give up. I could miss having to work harder to be paid appropriately. I could miss having to pay attention to my budget to save money for car repairs, or to pay for groceries. I could do that. Giving up would be so easy.

Until it isn’t.

A Two-Step Approach to Preparing Kids for a Giving Holiday: Part One

October 10, 2013 By MelissaB 4 Comments

While you may not want to think about it yet, the holidays are right around the corner. The commercial machine is cranking into gear. My local Costco already has rows upon rows of Christmas presents for kids and Christmas trees and wrapping paper. . .Soon, there will be endless Christmas ads on television for all the latest toys and electronics your kids will beg for.

Each year, Christmas seems to become more and more about spending money and over consuming. If you’ve come to dread the holiday season and the gimmes that come with it, now is the time to plan a different type of holiday. Now is the time to plan a giving holiday. Make a plan now, before the holiday is in full swing.

You can take a two part approach to this. Part one is to allow your children to have an opportunity to give. Part two is to reduce your child’s expectations for the gifts they will receive at Christmas.

Today, we’ll be talking about part one.

Strategies to Allow Your Children to Give at Christmas

While it’s nice to get things for Christmas, giving is also nice. Well before Christmas starts, sit down with your kids (if they are old enough) and discuss how you’d like to give of your time. If they’re still young, say under 5, you can just start a new tradition of giving of yourselves during the holidays. You’ll experience very little resistance from the little ones.

Put in time. One way to give, especially if you’re on a tight budget, is to give of your time. You could volunteer to work in a soup kitchen or to help assemble thanksgiving meal baskets at your local church. You could go through your closets and donate excess clothes or other items.

Give your money. If you have more money than time, you can give your money to help make the holidays better for another family. You could pick a name from a giving tree that pops up in December. (The post office often has one as does Whole Foods and other grocery stores.) Take your child with you to buy a present for the child in need.

Or, you could donate to a charitable organization like World Vision. Look through the catalog and either choose to sponsor a child or to make a one-time contribution. Let your child know how the money will be used and help him to realize how much more he has than the family of the child who will be receiving the money.

Another organization, Samaritan’s Purse, has a giving project, Operation Christmas Child. You fill a shoebox with simple toys and school materials for a needy child. This is a nice project to do with your children, and you can give without spending a lot of money, if your money is tight.

If you want to get away from the consumer driven holiday season, know that you CAN have a different kind of holiday this year. However, you’ll need to start now and take the first step–teaching your children the importance of giving at the holidays. Next time we’ll talk about the next step, adjusting expectations.

What’s your favorite way to teach your kids the importance of giving during the holidays?

Original photo credit: Theresa Thompson, on Flickr