Money-related new year's resolutions?

[all_adream]

I can suggest a couple of books that might be really helpful for folks interested in cleaning up their financial situation, and I figured some of us may be looking at the subject again now with the new year.

My all-time favourite right now is Feng Shui and Money, by Eric Shaffert. It's humane, intelligent, readable, enough and not too much woowoo to interest me as a spiritual sort of person, and enough self-examination and basic "move this stick there and clear out your clutter there" to be feng shui. There are a lot of copies for sale cheap online, and I have bought a few extra and given them as gifts.

A more mainstream, but also socially-conscious, one is One Year To An Organized Financial Life, by Regina Leeds. This gives a "think about this concept for the whole month", and then says things like "Week one", and presents a basic lesson and suggestions for actions etc.

The good part about each of them is that even doing a little bit, cleaning a little bit of crap or going through one pile of papers etc., helps and can get you started on more success. No effort, even browsing through it, goes to waste.

I hope these are of some use to someone! Good luck to us all!

Comments

Book recommendation

[alphaviolet]

I liked "Get A Financial Life," too.

My resolutions

[vass]

Track my spending.
Save $100/month into ING savings account.
Throw any leftover money at the end of the month into savings too.

Re: My resolutions

[all_adream]

Yeah, I've been pretty good with putting $100.00 a month into a Roth IRA, and letting leftover money sort of build up in a savings account as an emergency fund. In my mind, though, if I hit a certain amount, like maybe a thousand dollars, my mind tells me that that's enough and I should start giving it away, so I genuinely send some to charities and actual good causes and the occasional buddy in need, and so I have had to simply put money in it and not check the balance, since maybe it's "having enough for a month's rent" or whatever that tells me to go ahead and blow the rest.

[vass]

Another good book is Dominguez and Robin's Your Money Or Your Life, about bringing your spending in line with your life values, whatever they aare.

[all_adream]

I found that one to be going over ground I already knew, but I know a ton of people have found it really helpful. The Feng Shui and Money one is all about that too.

[alphaviolet]

+1.

[dorothean]

Thanks for those recommendations. I've resolved to increase my savings to a certain amount.

I'll also (as with last year) be tracking my spending and income and establishing a budget at the beginning of each month. I've been having some difficulty finding a framework for my budget - last year I used a book with pre-printed categories (for groceries, electricity, entertainment, and so on) which was overall pretty good, but the categories weren't as tailored as they could have been, and I would have liked a way to keep track of the running totals of expenditures in each category, rather than just adding up each day's at the end of the month.

I've been thinking about buying budgeting software or using Mint.com, but everything I've found seems like overkill for what I have in mind, and seems to center around importing data from online banking, which I like to track manually. So I think I may be creating an Excel spreadsheet instead.

[all_adream]

I read something that said there were some considerable security concerns about mint.com and a similar other, because *you actually give them access to your bank account transactions and all*. I would never in a million years do that, and I don't even tend to bank online, but maybe it's because I am older than some people and grew up when no one in the world would consider doing something so risky-sounding. I haven't been using software, but I just got an email from Daily Worth (which probably has a .com site) which included a free spreadsheet/budget tracking thingie for the new year. Maybe that would be helpful to you--I haven't seen it yet.