For this payday I went back to direct deposit. After my experience with a paper check this is definitely worth it. I have access to my money right away without waiting for days or having enough funds to cover the check “if it were to bounce”. I still like the idea of having a paycheck that does not say void but I now have cash in hand on payday not days later.

After work I went to get my cash and went to a national department store to pay off a credit card bill. It was so nice handing them cash and knowing that as of that moment I now owed them $0.00. One less card to think about. Yes!

Tomorrow I have to pay more bills. We will see how that goes.

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

© 2009 ChangeJarSavings.com

It has been a busy week with work and home; I was finally able to get some cash. I have been able to discover some benefits already. I have been only using my local bank to do transactions. This effectively brought my accounts from 5 down to one. By working with cash means less even time spent balancing and reconciling the checkbook. This in itself is a godsend.

The second benefit is that we are spending less. It was too easy to pull out the checkbook or one of the cards to pay for something. We are now looking at whether we really need something or if it can wait. Most things we were buying on the cards were more impulse items.

I had always thought I was good with impulse buying. I knew from working in the grocery industry how strong the marketing is to get you to impulse buy. I knew how the stores were going after those extra dollars. But I have come to realize that while I was good at the checkout and the junk that they try to sell you there, the fact is that the more you even go into a store the more you impulse buy.

My daughter is good at dragging me to the store to get diapers, clothes for the grandkids, etc. Then once in there she finds all these thing that my wife and I should buy. Most of them are not needed. The first step was telling her I have no cash. I purposely left the cards and checkbook at home. So I couldn’t buy her or the grandkids things if I wanted too. This in itself has saved me money.

But where the impulse buying was really hitting me is going to the grocery store because we are out of… (fill in the blank). We would rarely buy just that item. It seemed that you cannot walk out of a Wal-Mart without dropping $100.00, even if you were just picking up milk. Or going into the grocery store, the milk became a loaf of bread, cereal, something for supper… Realizing how many extra trips are going to get these stray items has controlled spending.

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

© 2009 ChangeJarSavings.com

I don’t have any cash yet as it takes 3 days for a paper check to clear the bank. Somehow I forgot the days like today. Knowing you have money but cannot access it while watching the gas gauge getting closer to empty. I do not normally carry cash with me so I have nothing from last month. I will have to scrape together some change for gas tonight. I have not done that in years.

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

© 2009 ChangeJarSavings.com

I used Quicken from about 1995 through 2001. Starting out with a version that came with a Macintosh, I then bought a PC and bought a PC version. I even upgraded once or twice.

Then I started having troubles. My kids were teenagers and on the computer all the time. I saw a Pocket PC. I thought I would switch to MS Money. Money for Pocket PC was free, Quicken was not.

I justified the Pocket PC by saying I could balance the checkbook when the kids were on the computer. Just sync it up later. I also would not be spending $50.00 a year buying day planning calendars every year. So I bought it for $250.00. I still have it 7 years later. So I did save money but it did not help.

The problem that I was experiencing is that as good as all of the off the shelf programs are they have become too bloated and more cumbersome to use. Back when I first started using Quicken it was basic checkbook program. It offered some loan tracking and reports. Every upgrade added cool new features. Downloading data seemed great but it never worked quite the way I expected it to. I would have to edit the data every time.  I gave up downloading. Then it seemed to reach a point that you had to be an expert to decipher everything available in home financial packages.

Frustrated by bloat I decided to use a spreadsheet on my thumb drive. I created a basic checking sheet. It worked but was still difficult to get the data entry required. I tried sophisticated formulas that would create a budget. My own worksheets were getting to be too much too. 

Computer time, having receipts/checkbook when I needed was still a problem. I would have the checkbook and my wife would need to write a check and would grab another book of checks. So now I was missing transactions entirely. (I was guilty of this too.)

Then about two years ago, our finances fell apart. I cannot pin point what went wrong. Last year I started using GNU Cash on a thumb drive. I liked it because it was free. It is a pretty basic program and not bloated. I still do not download any thing from the bank. But it still is not perfect. Time is still the main issue. The secondary issue is too many bank accounts with debit/credit cards.

What I am releasing that simplicity is what is missing. I am more likely to balance one checkbook than five. Then add in credit cards and there are even more accounts to reconcile.

Last summer we had an experiment. We were going to be using only cash. I loved it but the cash was in an envelope in a drawer at home and not with us when we needed it. While it did cut down on impulse shopping, it was a problem when you forgot to grab gas money as you were heading out of town. We also did not like the idea of all that cash sitting around. To this day, we think a $20 was stolen by someone that was at our house but cannot prove it as we were missing receipts.

With the simplicity of cash with no receipts to enter, the idea that if the power would go out for a day or two, we would have cash. ATMs do not work without power. Bank failure is another reason to keep some cash on hand.

There is no great system that I have found. It is a matter of how much detail and how much time you want to spend with a finance tracking system. For us, less is what we are leaning towards. I would love to be able to close all of our accounts and just use cash. But this will not happen in today’s cashless society. All we can do is minimize and simplify. This is my goal.

How do you track your finances?

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

© 2009 ChangeJarSavings.com

That question and the comments that followed started my brain working. What is it to save money? Money saved is money you don’t spend or is it money you actually put in a savings account? If it is in a savings account what are you saving for? Is investing saving?

She followed up the article today with Saving the Enron Way

It really depend on how you think about money.

I save money when I don’t use it.
I save money when I invest money to buy stock.
When I save it to look at it, I am a numismatist.
When I spend less at the store they tell me I have saved money.

The thought process change needs to comes in to play. It also depends on my purpose. My purpose is to have more money to use as I see fit. I am not a numismatist because I do not have it to look at. I may be an investor. I may have it in a savings account. I may have it in my sock drawer or in a cookie jar. It is reserved for future use.

Yes I save money when I don’t spend it. Thanks to marketers and stores. When I take a lunch to work instead of going out, a conscious decision to cut spending.

The thought process change.
So call me a collector. I have a collection of money. As Sally from the Peanuts would say, “Preferably tens and twenties.”

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

© 2008 ChangeJarSavings.com

I was not planning on posting today but the powerful message this delivers inspired me. I would, however, change only one thing, the word “CAN” should be “WILL”.

“The way you act today” WILL “affect the way you are tomorrow.”

This is true of most things in life and especially in your financial life. Let’s change some more words to see the affect.

The way you SPEND today WILL affect the way you are tomorrow.
WHAT you BUY today WILL affect your finances are tomorrow.
How you SAVE today WILL affect your RETIREMENT tomorrow.
The way you HANDLE YOUR FINANCIAL LIFE today WILL affect YOUR DEBT tomorrow.

Powerful words. Every decision you make today affects your finances and your ability to do things later. Whether it is 5 minutes, a day, a week, months or years later.

- Buying a new car means you will have to make $x00.00 payments for the next 60 months.
- Having that latte may mean you cannot go to the movie with friends this weekend.
- Buying dvds, clothes, cigarettes today means you have less money to save for your emergency fund, retirement, kids education.
- USING your credit card today means you will have less money tomorrow to use.

The purpose of this quote is to stop us and make us think of the results of our decisions. Add to this the time value of money, “a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow due to inflation.”

Incurring debt today when we do not have the cash causes us to pay more later. Not only in interest and inflation but also less ability to do things later.

I know this is where I am right now. My wife and I made decisions that we thought we could afford with two incomes. Then my wife was no longer able to work. Now we are using one income to pay for things we bought a while ago. We sacrificed our savings. We sacrificed our enjoyment now for what was in the past. Yes you can say we enjoyed it then. But now we are paying for it.

So before you buy, think about this quote.

“The way you act today” WILL “affect the way you are tomorrow.”

Does this fit in with your plans? Will it make you better or worse off? What are the affects this will have? What if you become unemployed? Ill?

Are you willing to trade the long term goals/plans/dreams for the short term satisfaction?

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

© 2007 ChangeJarSavings.com

Let me tell you there is a lot of advice out there. —Save your money. Establish an emergency fund. Pay off debt. Snowball debt. Highest interest first. Live frugally. — But very little is written as a how to. And what should be done first?

So it comes to “What’s the Plan?” Do I keep searching for answers or do I start doing? You can look and look and look and be no further along than you started. The question that came to my mind is “What’s the Plan?”

Wanting to achieve anything starts with a dream. However this is where most people stop. A few will look around and say they just don’t know how to do it. Or it is just too big to accomplish. But a life of just dreams is not much of a life. And a life without dreams is giving up.

Here are my personal finance dreams:
• Get out of debt
• Get more income
• Save for an emergency
• Stop overspending
• Stop overdraft fees

So how do you take a dream and make it a reality? How do you start to dream even? With an overwhelming feelings and debt hanging over you, all you see is gray clouds. The first thing we need to do is to start to plan.

“PLAN? Plan what? If I do not have a dream what do I plan?”

Yes that is the point. Even if you don’t have a dream, you need to plan. I did not have a plan on what to write. While my head had ideas, the plan was not there. So I was stuck. Well you already have an idea. You would not be reading this if you were not looking for an answer. The dream or idea can be found by asking what is the problem you are looking to solve? Do you want to stop living payday to payday? Do you want to get out of debt? Answer this and now you know you have a dream.

“But I have many dreams. I want to do what you said but I need a new car. I want a better place to live that costs more. I want my kids to have a great Christmas.”

Just like I was sitting trying to figure out what to write, I was stuck because there were too many conflicts. My head was awash with ideas but not a clue about how to accomplish them. The next step is to start to record them. Write them down. Type them up.

But now you have conflicts. Which dream do you work on?

“Wait I can’t have it all? I want to accomplish all of them!”

Yes you can have it all but you have to decide which gets priority. Which idea or dream is more important to you? Which can have the fastest impact to change your life? Start prioritizing your ideas or dreams.

Here are my priorities.
1. Stop overspending
2. Stop overdraft fees
3. Save for an emergency
4. Get out of debt
5. Get more income

I will explain more about my priorities in a future post. My reasons may be different than yours and I want you to decide based on your reasons not mine. By the way – priorities can and do change. So do not be disappointed when you need to buy car tires rather than save for an emergency.

So “What’s the Plan?” Start working on it. If you want share your plan here in the comments.

Just my 2 cents. Jim @ ChangeJarSavings.com

© 2007 ChangeJarSavings.com