That's what my grandmother would say if I were able to talk to her and tell her how confused I am about this whole debt situation. I'm one of those people who will read and research, read some more, and do a little more research before I decide to actually do something. And, sometimes, in the midst of all that reading and research, I get bored and move on to something else.
I bought Dave Ramsey's book about 6 weeks ago and have just skipped through some of the stories. I WANT to want to get out of debt, but it takes a lot more than that. My confusion comes in having believed most of what I heard Suze Orman say in the past (yep, I have her book, too).
Maybe it's not so much who's recommendation I follow, as long as I commit to a process and get started. My grandmother didn't have a library of financial books, nor did she listen to every business podcast out there or search the internet for the perfect answer. She just did. You know, just make a choice and do. If it isn't the perfect choice, at least I started and I'd have to be closer than further away.
Showing posts with label Financial Counseling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Financial Counseling. Show all posts
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Dave Ramsey: How to get the right mortgage
If you're not familiar with Dave Ramsey and his gazelle-like-intensity for everyone to live debt free, you will hear some of his basic approaches to debt in this video.
My grandmother would have liked him a lot; I'm still trying to grab a hold of his concepts and figure out how to incorporate them into my life. He keeps popping up in my life. That must mean I need to listen.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Money Managment: It's in My Blood
honestly, I don't know why money matters are so difficult for me to get a grasp on. Not only was my Grandmother able to make lemonade out of the seeds of a lemon (and yes, I exaggerate purposely to make my point that this woman MAXIMIZED her dollars to the utmost), but my Mother was, and still is, able to the do the same thing.
You see, I come from a great lineage. Women who had to learn to take the dollars they were given and raise a family -- quite well, I might add. My family history is filled with women who were incredibly resiliant and outperformed for what they were given an opportunity to work with. My Grandmother had two sisters, both of whom were taken from the farm to be college educated. My Grandmother had to stay behind to keep the farm in order, but she never, never complained about it and if you ask me, she had the best life of them all -- she had me and my cousins as grandchildren! Ha!
I'm going to have to figure out how to apply their consistency and determination to my own financial matters. I have so much more to work with then either my Grandmother or Mother were ever given to work with. Even though I was raised in a two parent family (and yes, my Father was wonderful, too -- he just didn't handle the money in our house), I make more, and have for years, then my parents made together and they raised me, and my siblings, in a wonderful, middle class environment. We not only had the things we needed, for the most part, we had a lot of the things we wanted.
From this day forward, following the footsteps of great examples, I'm going to commit to doing something different. What, for sure? I don't know yet, but by golly, what I've been doing has not been working. I am in DEBT and they never were. My journey begins now!
You see, I come from a great lineage. Women who had to learn to take the dollars they were given and raise a family -- quite well, I might add. My family history is filled with women who were incredibly resiliant and outperformed for what they were given an opportunity to work with. My Grandmother had two sisters, both of whom were taken from the farm to be college educated. My Grandmother had to stay behind to keep the farm in order, but she never, never complained about it and if you ask me, she had the best life of them all -- she had me and my cousins as grandchildren! Ha!
I'm going to have to figure out how to apply their consistency and determination to my own financial matters. I have so much more to work with then either my Grandmother or Mother were ever given to work with. Even though I was raised in a two parent family (and yes, my Father was wonderful, too -- he just didn't handle the money in our house), I make more, and have for years, then my parents made together and they raised me, and my siblings, in a wonderful, middle class environment. We not only had the things we needed, for the most part, we had a lot of the things we wanted.
From this day forward, following the footsteps of great examples, I'm going to commit to doing something different. What, for sure? I don't know yet, but by golly, what I've been doing has not been working. I am in DEBT and they never were. My journey begins now!
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Personal finance and debt at my grandmother's knee
Everything I know (or should know) about money, personal finance, and debt I learned just from being at my Grandmother's side and watching her live her life. The problem exists in that I wasn't serious about applying the life lessons she taught me to all of my life. Especially when it came to money management.
You see, it was easy to dismiss what she did with her money as something "she had to do" because of her generation. Credit cards were not prevalent (although, in retrospect, I had a credit card when my Grandmother was still alive and she did not -- ever), she was content with not having a huge house and fancy cars. As a matter of fact, my Grandmother didn't even own a car, nor did she have a driver's license.
But what she did own was a common sense approach to money and all that that entails. She was living debt free before being debt free was fashionable. She managed her personal finances out of envelopes and handkerchiefs. Oh, she had money in the bank and actually knew the banker and they knew her. What they didn't know was she probably had just as much money in the back of her top drawer chest at home as she had in the bank. She had investments long before employers were offering matching 401k's. I figured that out upon her death when the U.S. Savings Bonds she had been purchasing and saving for all her children and grandchildren returned more than double on most of her investment.
If I had to guess what my Grandmother made per year it would be less than $15,000. I'm serious, but what she was able to do better than me, better than my siblings who make 3 times more than me, was maximize her income.
She taught me many lessons about money, lessons I didn't even know she was teaching, but the biggest lesson she taught me? She never spent a dime. Literally, when she received change back, and especially dimes, she'd carry them home in her coin purse or wrap them carefully in a handkerchief and store them away in that top dresser drawer. Once a year, usually before Christmas, she would take them to the bank to cash them in. I never even considered how she could get me all those wonderful Christmas gifts, along with my cousins and our parents. Other than thinking she was rich somehow. The truth is, even though she wasn't rich monetarily, she was rich in knowledge and determination and shear will. She just refused to spend more than she made and she refused to spend all that she did make.
Over the course of this blog as I try to get a handle on my own finances and get to the point where I'm debt free, I'll share all those grains of wisdom my Grandmother passed along to me. Many of which I didn't recognize at the time, but know now what a great guru she was.
You see, it was easy to dismiss what she did with her money as something "she had to do" because of her generation. Credit cards were not prevalent (although, in retrospect, I had a credit card when my Grandmother was still alive and she did not -- ever), she was content with not having a huge house and fancy cars. As a matter of fact, my Grandmother didn't even own a car, nor did she have a driver's license.
But what she did own was a common sense approach to money and all that that entails. She was living debt free before being debt free was fashionable. She managed her personal finances out of envelopes and handkerchiefs. Oh, she had money in the bank and actually knew the banker and they knew her. What they didn't know was she probably had just as much money in the back of her top drawer chest at home as she had in the bank. She had investments long before employers were offering matching 401k's. I figured that out upon her death when the U.S. Savings Bonds she had been purchasing and saving for all her children and grandchildren returned more than double on most of her investment.
If I had to guess what my Grandmother made per year it would be less than $15,000. I'm serious, but what she was able to do better than me, better than my siblings who make 3 times more than me, was maximize her income.
She taught me many lessons about money, lessons I didn't even know she was teaching, but the biggest lesson she taught me? She never spent a dime. Literally, when she received change back, and especially dimes, she'd carry them home in her coin purse or wrap them carefully in a handkerchief and store them away in that top dresser drawer. Once a year, usually before Christmas, she would take them to the bank to cash them in. I never even considered how she could get me all those wonderful Christmas gifts, along with my cousins and our parents. Other than thinking she was rich somehow. The truth is, even though she wasn't rich monetarily, she was rich in knowledge and determination and shear will. She just refused to spend more than she made and she refused to spend all that she did make.
Over the course of this blog as I try to get a handle on my own finances and get to the point where I'm debt free, I'll share all those grains of wisdom my Grandmother passed along to me. Many of which I didn't recognize at the time, but know now what a great guru she was.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
