Fall garage and Mom 2 Mom sales in Monroe MI
I haven’t done a garage sale roundup in a long time. I spent many Saturday mornings last year checking out the sales and posted links every week. It just wasn’t possible for me to do that this summer. But I want to give my local readers in Monroe County, Mich., a reminder that the fall [...]
Continue reading Fall garage and Mom 2 Mom sales in Monroe MI …
From Monroe on a Budget.
When Partners Don’t Cooperate With Setting Goals
Yesterday, I posted an article about setting goals with your partner. In the comments, Brittany left a wonderful question that I felt deserved a post all its own:
What if you have your shared goals, but one partner doesn’t have the financial gumption to see it through? I’m not married, not even engaged, but I’m in a relationship that looks like it might be heading for the long term. But my partner is awful with money and even worse with savings. We have a few shared long/medium-term goals (and one is a life goal of his, so I’m positive it’s not my goal I’m just calling “ours”), but my partner isn’t making any progress towards the goal. He’s far more likely to make a bunch of little frivolous purchases now (”Eh, it’s just $10… its just $20… I’ll save when I have a reasonable amount to save.”)
Normally I try not to push the “gospel of frugality” on anyone, just live my example and take satisfaction from people’s faces and questions when I get to say things like, “Yeah, I know my car (a PT cruiser) is a bit silly-looking, but I paid cash for it when I was still working for minimum wage, so…” But I also don’t have a vested interest in others’ financial futures.
Everything else in the relationship is great, but I can’t see myself becoming financially involved with someone who doesn’t share my financial views (even though this seems like a silly reason to break things off). How do others handle their partners not being on the same financial page as them?
First of all, I would move forward very slow in this relationship. Clearly, the values you have and the values your boyfriend has are in signficant conflict – and if you’re seeing this that early in the relationship, you need to move forward slowly and not jump into anything. I would also, for a very long time, keep your finances as separate as possible.
Value conflicts are the core of virtually every relationship problem out there. Value conflicts are actually resolvable, but they require a willingness by both partners to work through that value conflict, compromise on a solution, and work together to make sure the solution holds.
It sounds as though your partner is not interested in or engaged in long term goals or puts a much higher priority on his own goals than any shared ones you have. That’s in direct conflict with where you’re standing – it sounds like you’re goal-oriented (at least to some significant degree) and are also willing to compromise on the goals you’re both working for.
The only way to resolve this, then, is to simply do what I mentioned above: work through the value conflict, compromise on a solution, and work together to keep that solution in place.
The first part is working through the value conflict. A big part of that is trying to make sure you both understand what each of you value, and how you each act is a very big part of that understanding. By his actions, he seems to put value on short-term rewards for himself.
You can’t really be judgmental here. We all think our values are the best way of doing things or else they wouldn’t be our values (the DINK post from last week is an example of that). The trick is to recognize that not everyone shares our values – and no one likely shares your exact set of values.
Discussions like this are usually painful because when someone you care about says that they don’t share your values, it often feels judgmental no matter how you word it. You have to make it clear that you want to understand what he values and you want him to understand what you value, no judgments or anything.
This requires the ability and willingness to communicate. If you can’t get to this point in the process, then there’s a communication breakdown in a way that will make this relationship very difficult going forward. It will likely require one of you subjugating what you value to the other one, and that’s an unhealthy relationship that either ends up in therapy, an explosion, or with someone in misery for a long time.
The only way relationships work is through compromise – you agree to certain arrangements that allow you both some freedom to retain your values but also respects the values of your partner.
My wife and I compromise on a lot of things. For example, Sarah likes the television series Bones – and I can’t stand it. Sometimes, when I go downstairs after putting the kids to bed, she’s watching an episode of it. Our compromise is that I can just go read a book or something if she’s in the middle of an episode.
However, if I’m doing something similarly engaging that she’s not interested in – say, playing an online game with some friends or something like that – she’ll do the same. She’ll go read a book or something like that.
She doesn’t demand that I stop playing so we can watch Bones. I don’t demand that she stop watching Bones so we can do something more interesting together. We compromise.
Here’s another example that’s money related. Sarah is very, very conservative with investment choices. She does not like her retirement savings to be at risk, even if that means earning less. She would far rather put away more for retirement now and have it be at less risk than put away a little less now and have to take on risk to reach her retirement goals.
I feel differently. I don’t mind some investment risk if the term is really long. Since I’m in my early thirties and don’t intend to touch any of that money for at least thirty years, I have no objection to putting a hefty portion of my retirement into stocks – even foreign stock indexes.
Our compromise? It’s a simple one, actually. She handles her retirement accounts as if I didn’t exist and she was solely responsible for her own retirement. I handle my retirement accounts as if she didn’t exist and I was solely responsible for my own retirement. She has her money in some pretty conservative stuff. I have a target 2045 retirement fund (2045 is a bit past when I actually expect to retire). Add the two together and we have a mix – the majority of the money is pretty conservative (all of hers and a slice of mine) and some of it is in high-risk high-gain areas.
In none of these cases are Sarah and I getting exactly what we individually want. What we do have, though, is respect for what we value and some ability to express that value.
That’s exactly what you guys need to strive for if you want to make this work: respect for what you each value and some ability to express that value. That’s compromise.
So, if you’re a long-term planner and he’s a short-term person who aims to live life fully now, one thing you might want to consider is a “free” account – an amount of money set aside each week/month that he can do whatever he wants with. Perhaps you can even have a small account like this for yourself, if you wish.
That account, though, is the limit of what you can spend frivolously. The money beyond that is set aside for the long-term goals that you guys share.
If your partner rejects such a conversation or any such attempt at a compromise, your relationship is not on a good foundation. If you’re willing to accept his values and bend on yours, then he should be willing to do the same. If he won’t, then he’s requiring you to subjugate your values to what he wants – and as I said above, that won’t end well.
Where can you start? Sit down and talk about this. Try to really figure out what he values. Suggest a good compromise that allows you to keep some significant degree of what you both value. Keep your end of the bargain and live up to the compromise – and see if he’s doing the same. If he’s not, then I would back away slowly from the relationship.
Continue reading When Partners Don’t Cooperate With Setting Goals …
From The Simple Dollar.
Review: The Smartest Retirement Book You’ll Ever Read
Every Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance book or other book of interest.
Daniel Solin’s series of The Smartest X Book You’ll Ever Read have turned me off for their title alone, and thus, to this point, I’ve not read them. The title set off a big “questionable investment planning” warning light inside my mind and, with a lot of other options to choose from, I just kept passing on books in this series.
As is often the case, though, a long-time reader emailed me and strongly encouraged me to give this specific book a shot, mostly because he felt it addressed retirement savings from new angles that he hadn’t considered before.
I do enjoy reading personal finance books, particularly ones that add new ideas to familiar topics, so I headed out to my local library and picked this one up. I do have to say that it did include some ideas and angles on retirement savings that were certainly intriguing and provided food for thought.
Let’s dig in.
One | Rethink Retirement Investing
Right off the bat, Solin makes the vital point that if you don’t protect your portfolio against inflation, you’re going to run out of money much sooner than you would like. Inflation is a force that constantly pushes against your retirement savings, making every dollar you save today worth less when you retire. This is a particular problem for conservative investors who would like to keep their money low risk and “safe” – they won’t lose money, but they’ll often earn at a rate lower than inflation, which means the real value of their money is actually decreasing over time. The best solution, then, is to balance the two – keep a healthy portion of your money in stable things (like cash or CDs or savings accounts or treasury notes), but put some of it into other things with more growth potential that can keep your overall portfolio ahead of inflation.
Two | Stocks Made Simple
Individual investors shouldn’t invest in individual stocks (unless it’s just for fun) because the risk is just too great. You don’t want to bet your retirement on one company lest it turn out to be the next Enron. Instead, you want to mix it up: invest in broad-based index funds, some of them with lower risk and some of them with higher risk. So, for example, your overall portfolio might be 1/3 in cash or treasury notes, 1/3 in a total stock index, and 1/3 in an international total stock index. The key is to buy index funds for your investments – they spread out your risk while also keeping the fees very low. (I do this myself – I have my money with Vanguard.) Obviously, as you move closer to retirement, you’re going to want less of your money at risk, so over time you’ll migrate more and more to cash and treasury notes and less and less in stocks. One easy way to do that is to just buy “target retirement funds” which automatically handle that transition for you (again, making sure that these “target retirement funds” are made up of low cost index funds).
Three | Bonds Made Simple
Bonds are a great way to get solid returns in your portfolio with relatively low risk. Solin recommends that most investors should have at least some of their retirement money in a broadly diversified, low-cost bond index fund. It’s important to remember, though, that bonds aren’t riskless. They have less risk than stocks, but they’re not entirely free of risk. Solin also suggests that investors worried about inflation should not buy TIPS (Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities) because they’re very volatile and they earn very poorly in times of low inflation (like right now, for example).
Four | Cash Made Simple
You should never keep cash in a bank that doesn’t have FDIC insurance, and you should make sure that your cash savings never exceeds the FDIC insurance cap (currently $250,000). Solin encourages searching around for banks if you’re just looking for a place to sock away your cash savings (I suggest using BankRate).
Five | Annuities Made Simple
Solin is a big fan of immediate annuities – annuities in which you give a cash sum to an investment house and receive payments for the rest of your life from them. He argues that they greatly reduce the risk of outliving your money, even if the returns aren’t stellar. Another option is a charitable annuity, where you give a lump sum to a charity and they issue you payments for the rest of your life – this ensures that your annuity lump sum winds up in the hands of a charity you care about instead of a business. If you do get an annuity, though, Solin recommends a fixed rate annuity, not a variable rate one – they carry too much risk. Your annuity should have a fixed rate, period.
Six | Mining Your Money
Do not trust historical returns when you’re trying to figure out how much you can safely withdraw from your retirement each year. Instead, you should simply focus on withdrawing as little as you can get away with each year. Solin suggests aiming to withdraw between 2% and 4% of the total each year – I think that’s a great target (he offers some more math-intensive guidelines as well). He also offers a few exceptions to that “2-4%” rule that involve market timing, a subject that I don’t agree with him on (I don’t think market timing is usually a good move).
Seven | Simple Steps to Stretch Your Money
When you start taking withdrawals, withdraw from your taxed accounts first (like any ordinary savings or investment accounts), then deferred retirement savings accounts (like a 401(k)), then Roth IRAs last. Why? The longer money stays in a tax-deferred account, the longer it has to grow in value without Uncle Sam feeding off of it. If you have a 401(k), Solin recommends rolling it over into an IRA if you can because this gives you more control and the ability to utilize lower-cost investments. He also thinks converting your IRA to a Roth IRA (and everyone with an IRA can do this in 2010) is a good move for almost everyone, but particularly high income earners.
Eight | Social Security and Pensions: Critical Choices
If there is any possible way to delay taking Social Security, do it. If you can wait until you’re older, you’ll get higher payments for life. It can also adversely affect the quality of life of a spouse that survives you. Also, don’t bank everything on a pension because, as we’ve seen recently, companies sometimes aren’t 100% reliable in paying out the pensions they’ve promised. If you do have a pension, avoid taking the lump sum option (if you have it) and take monthly payments instead.
Nine | Is Sixty-Five the New Fifty?
People are living longer lives and staying healthy much longer. What this means, to put it simply, is that if you retire at the traditional retirement age, you’re going to have to cover many more years than the generations before you had to cover for themselves. The solution, of course, is a simple one: work longer. Turn your early “retirement” years into a continuation of your career or the crest of a second one. Don’t rely on age discrimination laws to help you, either – everyone is responsible for keeping their skills up and building their own paths.
Ten | Financial Lifelines for Desperate Times
What if you’re running out of money? A reverse mortgage (meaning you give your home’s deed to someone else and in exchange you receive regular payments) is an option, but it should be your absolute last one. Why? They’re expensive – they’re loaded down with tons of fees and you’ll get nothing close to what your home is actually worth out of it. Instead, seek other options. The AARP is a spectacular resource for the elderly, as are local churches and civic organizations.
Eleven | Care Costs
One of the major costs a person often has in retirement is medical care. Before you even consider retirement, you’ve got to know what your medical care options are when you retire. Is there any continuing coverage from your current job? Can you make ends meet with Medicare? Do you need long term care insurance? Solin spends quite a few pages on long term care insurance and basically argues that the lower your net worth is at retirement, the better an idea long term care insurance is (because if you have more money, you can pay for more care out of pocket).
Twelve | The State of Your Estate
Everyone needs a will, but a will has severe limitations that can hurt you if you’ve spent a lifetime building wealth. A better option for people with a high net worth that wish to pass on their money is to set up a living trust, assign their assets to that trust, and receive payments from that trust until they pass away, at which point their instructions for further management of the trust (i.e., who gets the money) is followed. Also, older couples are very well served by having prenupital agreements that specify that some assets get left to children when one member of the marriage dies.
Thirteen | Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing
If you need financial advice, be careful – there are a lot of sharks in the water. Avoid people who are offering you free things (like lunch) to listen to their pitch. Instead, seek out assistance on your own terms. Look for financial advisors who are fee-based, can explain things clearly, and aren’t seeking to constantly beat the market (such people often wind up way over their heads and you’re left holding the bag).
The book closes with a large handful of appendices and additional documentation for many of the points made in the book.
Is The Smartest Retirement Book You’ll Ever Read Worth Reading?
I think The Smartest Retirement Book You’ll Ever Read is a very strong retirement book for high income earners – the people who aren’t having to make hard decisions about whether to save for retirement or accomplish other life goals. It pretty much assumes you’re going to be socking away plenty and that your questions revolve around where to put it.
If you’re in that group, The Smartest Retirement Book You’ll Ever Read is a very worthwhile read. Solin keeps an eye on the real world (inflation, business failure, etc.) and explains the logic behind every move he recommends in a very clear and straightforward fashion.
If you’re really hitting your income stride and are looking for some sound advice on what investments to put your retirement money in, The Smartest Retirement Book You’ll Ever Read is a pretty strong choice for a good read, in my opinion.
Continue reading Review: The Smartest Retirement Book You’ll Ever Read …
From The Simple Dollar.
Slow the Spending
Yesterday I read a GREAT post from the Frugal Dad that got me to really thinking about finances. I have always done our finances on the computer and sometimes, things get omitted or I forget to write them down.
After reading his post yesterday on using a ledger, I think I am gonna go back to the “old school” way for a month and see what happens. It has been a very long time since I have written everything down that we spend and I know that by not doing that, we have been spending above our budget on certain things.
For instance:
My husband loves chocolate shakes from Sonic. During the month of June, they have BOGO shakes. We have been three times already this past week and he gets the large ($2.99). That is already $9.00! If we do that all month long, we will have spent right at $30 on ice cream. This is something that I have not written down and it is about $15 over our budget for this area.
So for the next month, I am committing to getting me a ledger and writing down every single dime we spend. I need to get our finances refocused and this seems to be the way to do so.
What about you? What do you use and how do you keep track of it all?
Continue reading Slow the Spending …
From Econobusters.
Review: The New Frugality
Every Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance book or other book of interest.
The title of this book hooked me from the start. What am I writing about at The Simple Dollar if I’m not writing about “the new frugality”?
Chris Farrell, the author of the book, is a name I’m familiar with having been a long-time faithful listener of Marketplace Money (and it’s other Marketplace brethren) on NPR. I expected a well-written book that offered lots of insightful thoughts on the “new frugality” along with some practical tips.
That’s precisely what I got. Let’s dig in.
1 | The Rise of the New Frugality
Farrell opens the book by making a strong effort at defining what “new frugality” means. I think it’s best summed up as “seeking the best value, not the lowest price.” Quite often, frugality has meant the same thing as cheap, but the “new frugality” means something different entirely. It means finding ways to preserve exactly what’s important to you while minimizing the costs, with costs going far beyond just dollars and cents. The cost is about the environmental impact. It’s about the time impact. It’s about even the emotional impact. Really, the new frugality is simply being mindful of the many ramifications of the purchasing decisions we make.
2 | The Great Transformation
How did we get here? This chapter is basically a history of modern consumerism, particularly focusing on the housing bubble of 2008 and the rise in environmental and social awareness of people over the past decade. Farrell’s argument seems to be that the current economic stagnation along with a growing sense that our actions have ramifications far beyond ourselves add up to a new attraction to frugal, simple living for people. I can’t argue – I largely feel the same way.
3 | A Margin of Safety
What’s the result of all of that uncertain feeling? People have begun to desire a margin of safety – something many of us felt naturally until the events of the past decade have shaken that sense of a margin of safety right to our core. How do we get back that sense of a margin of safety? By living within our means and preserving the resources we have – but without abandoning many of the enjoyable perks of today’s life. We seek a balance that wasn’t there in the Depression and wasn’t there in the spend-spend-spend 80s and 90s.
4 | The New Frugality Rules
Keep it simple. Pay yourself first. Invest in yourself. Worry about the downside. Borrow rarely and wisely. Give back. These are the new frugality rules that Farrell proposes – and they pretty much describe a financially stable way of life that maintains that balance we all strive to have. I think the first one is key – keep it simple. The best way to do that is to make all of your saving as automated and straightforward as you possibly can, making it easy for you to make do with what’s left.
5 | Make Frugality a Habit
One big way to make all of this work is to simply make frugality a part of your everyday life. The best way to do that is to simply start being mindful of every dollar you spend. It’s fine if you want to splurge on yourself sometimes – that’s not the point. The point is to think about it first. At the same time, think about what you’re buying at the grocery store or when you go out to eat or anywhere else. Farrell offers tons of ideas on reducing your spending in sensible ways, but they all boil down to this one basic idea: think about what you’re spending and why every time a dollar leaves your account. The more you think about it, the more you’ll likely realize there are better ways of doing it that achieve the same result for lower cost. When you find those routes, that’s nothing but a big victory for you.
6 | Borrow Wisely
The best debt is no debt, of course. When you do borrow, however, make sure you’re borrowing to pay for something that will generate value (like an education) or will at least retain it (a sensible home purchase – meaning not a McMansion in a large metro area). Also, always borrow only when you have a margin of safety – in other words, don’t borrow money when you’re already hurting to pay your own bills and you don’t have any savings in the bank. There’s also a discussion about setting up your own debt repayment plan if you’re already under a heap of debt.
7 | Investing the Simple Way
The investment advice here is pretty straightforward. If you have a 401(k) available to you that offers a company match, jump onto that and get every drop of that match. If you don’t, get a Roth IRA. Put at least some of your money into something safe, like CDs or possibly treasury notes. If you want to take on more risk, buy some index funds – they’re low cost and help you to diversify your money very widely. Use dollar cost averaging – in other words, set up a regular automated investment plan that puts a certain amount into your investment every month.
8 | Live Long and Prosper
This chapter has the most honest answers about retirement I’ve ever read in a personal finance book. Farrell simply says that there’s no way to know if you have enough set back for retirement – and you don’t. No one knows when or how their number will be up. How can you save, then? Your best bet is to save as much as you possibly can. Then, when you retire, rediscover the simple pleasures in life. It’s a lot easier to cook yourself an inexpensive but amazingly delicious meal at home if you’re not running back and forth to an all-encompassing career.
9 | Home, Sweet Home
Should you rent or buy? Much of this chapter focuses on this question. Farrell seems to point people towards the P/R ratio, which is the price of a home you would buy versus the cost to rent similar housing for a year. That ratio should be somewhere around 16 – if it’s higher, you’re probably better off renting. Most of the actual advice on mortgages is very solid – only buy when you have 20% down (unless you want to be hammered on the mortgage(s)), make a “thirteenth” payment each year by making half of a monthly payment every two weeks, and don’t worry about the myth of maintaining a mortgage for a tax writeoff.
10 | The College Sheepskin
What about paying for college? Farrell argues that an education is very worthwhile, but the premium paid for a degree from a prestigious school rarely makes up for the huge difference in tuition costs. In other words, the huge additional cost for a typical student to go to Harvard versus their local four year state school will likely not be made up for after graduation. Your best strategy, actually, is to control costs (unless you get very lucky with a scholarship). He also recommends using a 529 savings plan if you’re saving for your child’s future education.
11 | Generosity and Gratitude
The book closes with a look at charity and the “keep it simple” mantra applies here. Identify charities that match your values. That takes time, because for many of us, a lot of charities sound good. What’s important is to figure out our true purpose in giving. What is our mission with the money we give? Let that specific mission lead your giving and you’ll find that you’re truly building a better world.
Is The New Frugality Worth Reading?
What makes The New Frugality stand out isn’t the advice. For the most part, the advice in this book is the standard personal finance stuff that you can find all over the place. What makes The New Frugality stand out is the broader awareness of the writing, which brings the book to life in a unique way.
I enjoyed reading this book for many of the same reasons that I enjoy listening to Marketplace on NPR. It takes information that I could get anywhere and places it in a social and cultural context that not only brings the ideas into a new light, but also makes clear the connections between our money and the broader world around us in ways that aren’t always obvious.
I enjoyed it if for no other reason than it cast some new lights and angles on a lot of the ideas I already knew. That type of book is always a refreshing read.
Continue reading Review: The New Frugality …
From The Simple Dollar.
Make Each Day Your Masterpiece
Those who have followed this blog for a long time know that I don’t have many personal heroes. There are a lot of people who have valuable things to say, but there are very few people who have reached such a trusted level with me that I tend to put extra value on the things they say just because that person said them.
One of those few people was John Wooden, who passed away this past week (I mentioned it briefly in my reader mailbag on Monday). A few years ago, I wrote about how John Wooden had taught me a lot about personal finance and over the years, I’ve read his books and a big pile of interviews he’d given.
Of all of the things I’ve taken away from the things he’s said, one stands out above all others.
Make each day your masterpiece.
In other words, how would you spend today if it were the one day by which your entire life would be judged?
This is something I make a genuine effort to keep in mind every single day of my life.
What would I write if I knew I only had one shot at making a difference in someone’s life?
How would I spend the next hour with my four year old son if I knew it was the only hour he’d remember from his childhood when he was an adult?
How would I spend this evening with my wife if it were the last evening we would spend together?
How would I spend my money today if I knew that today spoke financially for the rest of my days?
Would I hold my temper? Would I stop being such a slob? Would I set a good example? Would I not worry what the neighbors thought and just run through the sprinkler in my clothes, laughing with my children? Would I make a perfectly delicious, tasty meal and smile at my daughter across the dinner table – or would I just throw a box of Tuna Helper out there?
Every single day, we’re making an impact on the people around us. The people we love. The people we merely like. The people we will never directly know. Even on ourselves – our future health and happiness and relationships and skills and finances.
Every single day, we have a chance to really make all of those things shine – or we can buy a sack full of double cheeseburgers and sit in the basement all evening watching Seinfeld reruns.
Today is really the only day that matters. You can’t make your past self do anything. You can’t make your future self do anything, either. Your only freedom of choice is right now, and thus today is your one chance to paint your masterpiece.
What are you going to do today to make it your masterpiece?
Continue reading Make Each Day Your Masterpiece …
From The Simple Dollar.
Frugal Villagers discuss: Is healthy food more expensive
One of the best discussions I’ve seen in a long time on the Frugal Village forums is this one: Is healthy food more expensive than junk food?
The points that are made include:
Contrary Housewife: “If they have nothing at home they have to start with the basics, and stocking even a simple pantry can cost [...]
Continue reading Frugal Villagers discuss: Is healthy food more expensive …
From Monroe on a Budget.
Chicken Coop Guide- Learn to Build Cheap Chicken Coops
Chicken Coop Guide- Learn to Build Cheap Chicken Coops
For a long time, people who wanted to start a chicken coop had to renovate an old shed or buy a pre-built one. A pre-built coop costs $500 upwards and this does not include the cost of installation. The cost of a pre- built chicken coop [...]
Continue reading Chicken Coop Guide- Learn to Build Cheap Chicken Coops …
From Frugal Simplicity.
Chicken Coop Guide- Learn to Build Cheap Chicken Coops
Chicken Coop Guide- Learn to Build Cheap Chicken Coops
For a long time, people who wanted to start a chicken coop had to renovate an old shed or buy a pre-built one. A pre-built coop costs $500 upwards and this does not include the cost of installation. The cost of a pre- built chicken coop [...]
Continue reading Chicken Coop Guide- Learn to Build Cheap Chicken Coops …
From Frugal Simplicity.
What Day Is It?
It would be easy for me to write some nice platitudes today about my wife (the mother of my children) or my own mother. I could go on for a long time about how wonderful these two women are, the most important two women in my life.
But I really don’t need to.
We don’t need a special day to celebrate the genuinely important things in our lives.
If something is truly important in your life, then it deserves value and care and love and attention every day. It should be the centerpiece and the focus of your life.
That focus is represented not in money but in time.
If you find yourself feeling guilty about things left undone and want to use material gifts bought on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day or Christmas, then you have a choice – and it requires some honesty with yourself.
Is this relationship really important to you or do you just feel like it’s supposed to be important to you?
If it’s truly important to you, then every day is Mother’s Day (or Father’s Day or so on). The gift that really matters – the gift of time – is something that you can constantly share throughout the year. Calling your mother on Mother’s Day is great, but if the relationship is really important to you, what about the other 51 Sundays out of the year? And what about the other days, too?
If it’s not truly important to you yet you feel the need to keep up some sort of appearance, then you’ve got a weight on your life, a relationship with uneven obligations and feelings that need to be dealt with so that you can lead a more focused life. Something is missing in that relationship and if it causes guilt, then you need to spend the time and the energy it takes to fix it, for better or for worse. It’s not only hugely beneficial for you, but it’s also good for the other person you care about.
When your life revolves around what’s truly important to you, financial decisions become easier. Time management choices become easier. Emotional decisions become easier. Goal setting becomes easier. Problem resolution becomes easier.
Why? Because it’s very clear to you what actually is important and what’s not.
Remember, the truest way to invest in the things that are really important to you is time, not money. If your mother is genuinely important to you, give her a call today. But give her a call regularly as well. Visit her. Drop by and do an errand for her. If you do that, then finding some “perfect” gift for Mother’s Day becomes a whole lot less important. The same principle is true for anything else that’s truly important to you, from your career to your money and your hobbies.
It’s all about the time and energy, consistently spent.
Continue reading What Day Is It? …
From The Simple Dollar.