Acting Your Wage

It's great to see people using the comm! If anybody has any suggestions or alterations please feel free to make them! I'd love to hear from you.

( An update on my progression to my goals )

Hello, actyourwagers! I'm jame, your friendly mod. Sorry I've been so absent of late, my life kind of exploded a couple of months ago and it took me a while to adjust.

Just a quick modly note before I ramble on: it's great to see so many new people here! There are a couple of people who I haven't approved yet, largely because their journals have no userinfor/public posts, and haven't got an approved email so I can't send them a message. If I haven't approved your membership yet, could you please comment to this post stating you've read the rules (check the comm userinfo) and you'll abide by them? Thanks.

( Cut for rambling about the next steps on my financial journey )

(Yes, I do realise that's the most pretentious subject line ever. Moving on)

I am in an unusual position at the moment. I am two months away from getting out of credit card debt. Easily, with no extra repayments beyond what I'd already budgeted for. My other short-term goal, a yearly train ticket has been achieved. It's sitting in my wallet right now and I've got an automatic debit into an account that I can't touch that empties once a year so I've got next year's ticket set up.

What do I do now?.

I do have longterm goals. Of course I do. But the thing with longterm goals is that I can't concentrate on them too much or I go crazy. They're so far away! My short-term goals are finished, my medium term goals are now short-term goals and they're either achieved or a blink away from being achieved.

I do have another medium-term goal which I'm going to start--building a cushion of three months salary as savings. I think I can make progress on that but it's going to take a while. I could break that down into smaller goals and then look into places where I can shove the money so I can't touch it? Term deposit or the like? Does anyone have any suggestions?

I suppose I could start saving for a computer as I think my laptop is getting to the end of its life? I might also set aside a small amount of money for a celebration of some sort, only I've retrained my brain to such an extent that I don't really WANT anything. Maybe I should save for a good suit.

I don't know! Tell me what to do!

Hello everyone! How did your weeks go? Did you succeed in not eating out?

I didn't. I got sick (again. Or still. Stupid ears) and that led to me just being too damn tired to make the right choices. I did have dinner at home every night but that was mostly cooked for me and sometimes consisted of canned soup.

Lunch was where I really fell over. I am craving take-away food like there's no tomorrow. High fat, high salt, high in chilli. I bought lunch probably six times over the past two weeks.

But, it happens. With the ferocity I was craving stuff, I decided to go with it. It's not the best decision in the world, but it's not the worst either. Stuff happens and you deal the best you can.

I really debated whether to make this a separate post or not, but I guess I'll stick it under a cut tag at the end so as not to spam your reading lists.

( cut for talk of my personal finances )

Today I had a salutory lesson. I was just viewing articles in my local paper online and it had a link: "Compare savings accounts!" kind of thing.

I tend to transfer money that I'm not intending to spend in the next week out of my bank account into a linked internet savings account. It works for me--stops me spending money I need to spend on bills, puts any excess money in a place where I can't get to it easily for impulse spending. I can access it by two business days at the outside and it provides me with a bit of a buffer. So I'm all set, right?

Banks rely to a large extent on both customer loyalty and inertia to keep your business with them. The thing is, switching isn't that hard or stressful. Let me be perfectly clear: banks make money off you. Every account you have with money in it, they're making interest over and on top of any interest they pay to you. They have a perfect right to make money--and you as a customer have a perfect right to assess their services and take your business elsewhere if you can get a better deal. Don't let them rattle you. I can provide a number of helpful links for Aussies, at least, who wish to switch bank accounts (just ask in the comments).

What the hell. I was bored. I clicked on the link to evaluate savings accounts.

( Cut for length )

So, there are things you want to do in life. Get out of Debt. Own a house. Maybe an overseas holiday.

Unless you have really good money management skills already, these things are not easy.

So I want you all to take ten or twenty minutes and think about what you want out of life that money will help you towards. Go on, I'll wait. Write them down.

Now analyse your goals in terms of time. When will you realistically be able to achieve this? Start ranking your goals in terms of short term, medium term, and long term. Put anything you don't think you can ever achieve in long term. (As a guideline, short term is something you can achieve in the next month, medium term is something that will take a couple of months to a year and long term is over a year)

Set them out in a list. Have it written down. Writing things down makes them more concrete, and also helps you keep your priorities on track. For example, have my list.

( cut for burbling about me )

So, I'd like to hear from you! What are your goals?