HOW TO STILL HAVE MONEY IN YOUR POCKET THE DAY BEFORE PAYDAY

Let's face it: most of us live from hand to mouth, and by the mid-point of our remuneration cycle, that hand is stretched out to friends and passers-by, sometimes elegantly, sometimes not. (Isn't it merciful that borrowing from strangers is so elegantly disguised by the formalities of the banking system)? We know we need to break this cycle. The bewildering question is how, and it is in this direction that I want to offer some pointers that are as practical as they are silly-simple.

The three keys I prescribe, because any and all of us can use them, are: Prioritize, Procrastinate and Paralyze. Let's take the three tricks one by one.



1. PRIORITISE
A day or two before you get your paycheck, sit down (literally) and draw up a list of items on which your life depends, and don't be frivolous about this. Be harsh, and exclude all luxuries. Each one of us lives in a specific context, so the point here is not to give a standard list, but I want to suggest three guidelines for your priority list. The first guideline is that the first allocation on your priority list must be to the overarching item that gives meaning to your life. When your list begins with funding the core value of your life, you are teaching your mind to be rationally consistent with your life goals. After all, the reason why that dollar fails to stretch is that nothing is disciplining it. Next, list survival items in the order of each item's lethality. To be a little melodramatic the better to illustrate the principle, it would be foolish to delay the ambulance that must rush you for the reversal of your cardiac arrest because you want first to pay the landlord his rent. Much as you might detest him, please don't force him to evict a corpse! Fund each item in strict order of real priority, and give each item no more than it requires. Do not "round off" anything, as this promotes a cavalier attitude to accounting, and many of us are in trouble because we are not accounting for every penny. Your survival list must include "savings account", even if only ten dollars goes there at first. It must also include "contingency", which will cover unpleasant surprises. Only after the must-have list is funded can you move to the "Perhaps" and "It Would Be Nice" lists, which you must deprive of-say-twenty dollars before you make allocations to them. Put the twenty dollars in your pocket.



2. PROCRASTINATE.
Most of the spending items we feel an urgency to fund are not items on which our life depends. We can function without them, at least until tomorrow, and that timing goes for tomorrow too. Sit down again if you stood up in the first place, and make a list of the items you will defer. Put them in a queue, with the hungriest of them bringing up the rear. That new, frog green mascara can wait, and wait....On a shopping Saturday, find an activity, perhaps helping a charity or fishing, that puts a distance between you and the shops. Sometimes it is even more constructive to spend the day sleeping. Dreaming about non-essentials is less expensive than acquiring them! Service, fun and rest cost less. A mildly tolerable result of procrastinating on the purchase of these items will be that you will only fund them at a stage in your remuneration cycle where you are sure such purchases will not lead to starvation. The most desirable outcome will be that the longer you ignore them, the less sense it makes to fund these items, and you can put a little more in the savings account.



3. PARALYSE.
Remember the twenty that I asked you to put in your pocket? It's not so good if you do, because I want you to forget it. It's not too late, though. A silly truth that I have discovered in my own experience is that I can't pay for that ice cream cone on a whim if the cash is in the wrong jacket in the closet at home. I did this once or twice by mistake before I realised that doing it on purpose can be so helpful. Even if the ATM card is on you, if you decide to walk all the way to the machine, you most likely will find time to ask your spending conscience why it's letting you make such a fuss over an item that will cause you physical and financial pain in the dentist's rooms. Talking about cards, I am assuming you returned those credit cards to the issuing bank and rescheduled the repayment of any debts you incurred so you could stop spending money you have not earned, and might not earn!

Follow this silly-simple prescription and see if you do not still have a bit of money in your pocket-preferably in the wrong jacket-the day before pay day.

Do you have other tips to add to this, or even to replace these? Please share them by clicking the comment link, because in this area we all can use all the help we can find. Feel free to also just comment on my suggestions, even if you don't wish to add any new ones.

EMBARRASS YOURSELF FOR YOUR OWN GOOD

Many businesses fail, bringing embarrassment and ruin to their owners. A large proportion collapse on account of the careless handling of money. If only more of us would learn to embarrass ourselves now to avoid more painful embarrassment later! WATCH!

SET FIRE TO YOUR COUCH

Recent upheavals in the global economy have sounded the clear warning that individual and family economies can collapse suddenly. Rather than tremble helplessly at the prospect, we can convert the threat into an opportunity by taking advantage of the many opportunities that we have to acquire new skills that will help us should lean times come our way. WATCH!

LESSONS FROM MY SISTER EDNA PART 2

I thought it might be more interesting to put this in a form you can watch

LESSONS FROM MY SISTER EDNA

When my sister Edna was born, I remember that the entire family was excited. Her most obvious mark of uniqueness was that she was the first and only girl in a family dominated by boys, but as time went on, we all realised that her uniqueness did not stop at gender. For one thing, she was gifted with a mighty pair of lungs, which, as an infant, she employed to great advantage. When she was disappointed in any way, you did everything you could to stop her crying; the way we all got destabilized and frantic, you would think world peace was at stake!I think that Edna decided from that early stage to live her life as an accomplisher and an influencer of people. I intend to do three posts on aspects of my sister’s personality that I have found to be worth emulating, and that I believe represent important traits of an effective person. In this post, I shall focus on Edna’s incredible drive.

I was surprised when, at the age of nineteen, Edna announced that she was joining the Police, and was being assigned an entry-level job at the General Headquarters. Naturally, I was happy that she had found employment at that early age, but I was at the same time a little apprehensive about her prospects in a career then largely dominated by males. Elder brothers tend to be protective, sometimes overly so. I was therefore genuinely attentive whenever she talked about what was happening at work. I wasn’t sure, though, if I was hearing right when she briefed me about the rapid progress she was making as a rookie, but it was hard to miss the enthusiasm with which she described details of her training and other aspects of her life in the Police. Edna’s enthusiasm was simply infectious, and I could tell that she was throwing herself into her chosen career without reserve.While kind people have cited us as a family of achievers, I honestly believe that our sister takes pole position where absolute commitment to a chosen course of action is involved. The manner in which she seeks all kinds of skill and knowledge that relates to the pursuit she is engaged in makes the point I try to make in my book on the necessity of empowering oneself with relevant knowledge much more convincingly than my prose does.

In just a few months, Edna was regraded favourably in her job, and there was talk of her pursuing an accelerated and very promising career path. What impressed me was her determination to wring every opportunity for whatever sap it contained, a procedure that entailed taking every training course that dared present itself in her path. She left the organisation she worked with with no option other than to keep upgrading and promoting her. One of the courses she pursued with fervor was secretarial training, and I remember being briefed in detail from the thirty words-per-minute stage, through eighty to one hundred and twenty. As a result of her commitment to higher attainment, Edna quickly became a force to reckon with, and was assigned to high offices. When she announced her intention to move on, Police General Headquarters, I am sure, felt greatly deprived.

Edna’s next stop was the Headquarters of a large telecommunications concern, where, once again, her enthusiasm and drive quickly propelled her to prominence. Like all successful people, she continued to define herself as a thirsty learner, allowing herself considerable lateral vision, which exposed her to several life opportunities. Because I am her brother, I got to meet many people whose resumés were remarkable, and some of them have remained family friends. It fascinated me that my little sister was being cited as a mentor and opinion leader by so many people, some of whom had titles that ranked higher than her own. What an influencer! People who have drive are constantly seeking opportunities that test and exercise that drive, and in that quest, they touch many lives.

A combination of drive, peripheral vision and lateral thinking created an achievement that I marvel at even today. At a time when the real estate market was severely constricted, Edna spotted an opportunity that I must confess I was at first skeptical about. This opportunity involved a rather complex investment scheme that promised high and rapid returns. People who possess Edna’s kind of drive and determination tend to be good at seeing gains where lesser mortals see only risk. Once she committed herself to the scheme, my sister concentrated a phenomenal focus on making it work. Indeed, as I write, it strikes me that Edna is a true illustration of the admonition I put in the chapter of my book where I discuss management: “when you pay money, you had better pay attention.” The outcome of this concentration and unrelenting drive was a very impressive suburban home.

In the next instalment, I intend to spill more beans about my remarkable sister in the hope that readers will profit from this example of how drive, commitment, persistence and application never fail to produce tangible, even bankable, results.

Do please put your valued comment in the comments box that appears when you click on “comments”, and don’t forget to subscribe to this blog to receive notifications of interesting posts that could help you accomplish your life goals.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MAKE IT REAL?

This morning I finally made time and went to see the project that my brother has been pestering me to go and see. I am still in shock as I write. Here is what he did, in his own words, sort of, as I am paraphrasing a much longer account:

• ·        I acquired a moderately sized piece of land after saving for five years. My goal was to rear and sell livestock.
• ·        I had very little money left over from the land purchase, but I had a plan. The plan was to multiply the money I had left by selling livestock products acquired from other people. My first purchase was milk from a farm, which yielded a decent profit when I sold it fresh to city dwellers. By staying in the zone and varying the nature and scale of my farm purchases and resales, I multiplied my initial seed money quite a bit.
• ·        It took me three months to build up enough reserves to purchase two animals, a male and a female. This is two years later, and as you can see, I am now stretching the capacity of this piece of land. Fortunately, my output is in great demand.

I know it to be true that if you approach your project with premeditated method and persistence, it is hard to fail to accomplish your goal; I even highlited this in my book. I still must confess I was astonished by the dramatic manner in which the application of the principle produced results for my brother, who now gets orders from far and wide.

I thank my brother for reconfirming me in my conviction that one does not have to possess a lot of resources to make a success of their project, whatever it might be. What one needs is (a) a wise choice of project, (b) the targeted deployment of what resources one has at one’s disposal and (c) perseverence in pursuing strategies that lead to the accomplishment of the desired goal.

I hope you can take a minute to reflect on your own goals and to list the concrete steps you are taking toward the accomplishment of those goals. If you do not have such a premeditated list, you may be surprised by the implementation power that starting such a list of positive actions will release. Feel free to leave your thoughts on the subject in the comment box. Nothing would delight me more than your decision to subscribe to my blog and to continue to be an active contributor to this forum for the exchange of  life-changing ideas.

DON'T TAKE "NO" FOR AN ANSWER

I was asked recently to contribute a guest post to a blog that serves as a resource for job seekers. I know that the advice I give in that guest post will be found useful by at least some who follow my blog. Do please have a look at the article here, and leave your comments, which will be most useful as feedback that could very well help shape future posts.

Jonathan