I was in no mood last night for either Breezy Dunleavey or Latte FactorTM Bach.
They insist on outlining your values and goals before you do anything else. When I am in the right mood, this is fun. When I’m staring at our checking balance, which is in the double-digits right now, on its way to zero, it seems futile.
Oh hey, our overdraft protection is kicking in right now as I write this.
There’s a great line I think about all the time from “The Year of Magical Thinking,” where Joan Didion talks about planning, or planning to plan, with her husband — a goal with its own empty folder.
(Apologies to Didion for getting her mixed up in this.)
I believe it’s time to check out the goal-setting social networking site, 43 Things. Which I was calling “41 Folders” ’til I looked it up just now.
Jabbering away about goals and planning the other day with my husband, he said:
“Riiiiight, but how do we save when we spend more than we make every month?”
Short answer: I don’t know.
A bit longer:
- I know that getting our values and goals in sync should help us identify what to cut out.
- I know that the amounts we start putting away in savings don’t have to be large to start making a difference. (This seems counterintuitive, and my husband frankly does not believe this right now. He has not been reading about personal finance, so I don’t blame him.)
- I know that we might also have to figure out how to boost our income.
Even no-nonsense Barbara O’Neill says do the big picture first.
So I guess it’s off to the values circle for the happiness hoedown.
No related posts.
I just want your readers to know that I fully support your (our) larger planning effort. I am not pooh-poohing. Nor am I dismissing, pish-poshing, tsk-tsking or making that “old man says feh” gesture with my hands. And I believe saving small amounts can add up. I also believe we are in for some hard choices if we really want to start saving. (Stares fretfully at satellite dish.)
Very nice blog — K and I are also trying to save up, as we should anyway. Budgets and figures make more sense to her. All I see are preamps, microphones, and computers I’d like to buy but probably never will (those Sweetwater catalogs make for great bathroom reading by the way). Thanks for sharing your experiences — we are bound to learn something and apply it to the rest of our immediate to-dos monetarily…
You just reminded me to check my balance – a daily occurance!