About two months ago, I let my family and friends know that I decided to do a "giftless" Christmas this year. My thinking was, if the entire nation is struggling financially, there is no point in making things any worse than what they already were. And as hard as it has been, because I love Christmas time and shopping for the most "thoughtful" gift I can find, I have been successfully been able to stay my course. I have made every effort to avoid the dreaded trap of "oh it's on sale" and even though my head keeps saying "wow, this person would love that, or that person could really use this", I am pretty proud of my ability to control myself and keep the idea of the "giftless" Christmas in full effect.
Now what I noticed is this: during the Holidays friends and family ask a lot of questions.....and come to think of it, so do strangers. It's usually "Happy Holidays, are you done with your shopping yet?' or "Merry Christmas, only 5 more days left, did you get everything you wanted yet?" And this year, I have made it my mission to pass on the idea of the "Giftless" Christmas.... So everytime I get one of these questions, I explain that "I'm not doing gifts this year" and usually I get this look of "how could you?" or the usual comment is "oh, my kids would be so mad at me if I did that". And the more and more I got these types of looks or comments the more I thought about what Christmas has become.
Christmas isn't "Christmas" anymore. It's the "shopping time" or "sale holiday" or "gift giving or getting time". We as a people have lost so much perspective about what the holidays are supposed to mean. So as a result of my little experiement, I have decided to change my mentality. Because this year and every year before this, has been a GIFT, regardless of what was in that box that was wrapped so nicely. I don't mean the gadgets and the gizmos (everyone who knows me, knows I love my techy stuff), I truly mean the time you spend with your loved ones.
I was looking through pictures of last years Christmas and I was remembering my sister laughing because she had Plantains under the tree by accident, and my niece singing to music, and my nephew goofing around with my other half. I remember my dad showing up at some point, asking for his usual cup of soda, everyone telling him it's bad for him and my mom bringing her awesome food to the table as we enjoyed a little cocito that was my cousins recipe. What I remember most of last year, was the time we spent together as we walked around Rockefeller center, which happened to be the first time my brother in law had ever been there during the holidays. I also remember that my younger sister and her fiance weren't there and how we all felt their absence.
My point is this. This Christmas season for us is so much more about family and friends than anything else. And, honestly, it took, this idea of not buying gifts to make me really realize it, and also as I write this, to realize that it was never about the gifts anyway. Yes it's fun to see their faces when they open something that you know they really wanted, and it's great to feel that other people took the time to do something thoughtful for you in return but I think we have lost the true meaning of Christmas.
In the end, I have found it again and in the process, have saved myself and my little family even tougher financial times this coming year. When I open my credit card statements, the balance will have decreased for the first time in years and when i look at our bank statements, I will not see extra gas purchases for trips to the mall. And I am hopeful that this little idea of "RE-GIFTING" Christmas back to ourselves will catch on, so that others may truly experience the feeling of satisfaction I have right now, as well as in the future.
Happy Holidays to everyone, and a VERY Happy New Year.
Irene M Cruz
Paycheck Distribution Coaching....
Please follow us at www.facebook.com/paycheckdistributioncoach
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Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
Organization of Receipts-Paycheck Distribution Coaching Style!
Anytime you purchase a product or service your bound to get a receipt right? Well most people just throw them away (especially if they are for small items) and a lot of the time the big ticket item receipts get lost in the shuffle. Now I know there are those of you out there who are organzied enough to keep your receipts and use them to your benefit (for budgeting purposes), if this includes you, keep reading you might find a simple tip that can help you further. So lets start with the simple stuff:
1. ASK for a receipt! Every time you purchase something! There are many places that don't automatically give you a receipt so you need to ask. EVERY TIME!
2. KEEP ALL OF YOUR RECIEPTS! This includes ALL of the small ticket items too. I don't care if it's for $1.00 or $10,000.00. If you pay cash, check, credit card, or debit doesn't matter. KEEP them all.
3. Put a note on the receipt at the register!- This is handy because you know why your buying the item at the time you bought it. A lot of times, you can get home, and weeks later when your organizing of just cleaning off your night stand, you can look at a receipt and wonder.....what did I buy and why? There are basically 5 different categories for your receipts. Food, Entertainment, Everyday (like Gas or tolls), Education, and Debt. See a detailed explanation below:
a. Food- now this can be groceries or it can be eating out so make sure you specify. Any time you don't cook at home it's considered eating out so they need to be counted seperately. Oh and don't forget your daily coffee in this equation. This category includes anything that you drink or eat when your NOT at a bar or at the movies.
b. Entertainment- this is play time. So if you like to go to the bar on thursdays, the movies on fridays, bowling on saturdays or anything else that would cost you money for fun, that's what this category is for.
c. Everyday- this is the necessities category. Like gas for your car, the bus or train pass, taxi fare, tolls to get to and from work. It also includes the bigger things like Mortgage/rent, car payments, utilities, cable, internet, phone, and other things that are needed for everyday living. If you utilize interent banking, print out the receipt that you get for paying your bill online! You will understand why soon.
d. Education- now wether your paying for your childs education or your own, don't forget to include any books, cd's, or dvd's that you use for that purpose....and NO the latest Harry Potter book doesn't qualify. If you take seminars or webinars....don't forget to include these too.
e. Debt-this would include any debt payments (don't include your car payment or your mortgage in here). This would be credit card debt or line of credits that you are paying.
Now that we have our categories figured out for each receipt let's move on to how to organize them. Some of you have heard of the 6 jar method for your money. Well after much consideration and a bit of personal troubleshooting of this method, I realized that the jars are more useful for receipts instead of money. And I'm sure you will understand why in a moment.
Once you have saved all of your receipts....and categorized them as you get them by putting your little note on them at the register....now it's time to seperate them into your 5 categories. But where do you put them? Some use file folders, other use accordian style folders. I suggest you use Jars. Jars are easier to fill and with them being out in the open, it keeps your goals fresh in your mind.
So, if you like the dollar store, go pick up 5 Generic Jars that you can put a sticker on (just make sure it's big enough to hold your receipts for a while). It is preferred that they are clear and see through so you can see your progress! Take each sticker and mark it with a category and stick it on the jar (make sure it's nice BIG lettering so you can't mistake each jar when you come home). And take another bigger sticker (white) and put it on the back of the jar with each month and a line....So if you start in November, put November ___________ then December ____________ and so on....if you move into another year, make sure you mark it for that year (this is for tax purposes later)
Now that you have kept all of your receipts, you have categorized them, AND you have your jars to store them it's time for the next step. EVERY DAY that you come home, I want you take out all of your receipts from your pockets or your purse, where ever you keep them and place each receipt into it's jar. Easy enough so far right?
Now here comes the bigger work. On the last day of every month, once all of your receipts have been collected for the day, I want you to take one jar at a time and add up all of the receipts for that category and put that total $ amount on the back of the jar for that month. Once all of your receipts for that jar have been added up, take a stapler and staple them together at the TOP of the receipt (this will make it easy for you to go through them later if need be and it will keep your next months receipts seperate from the old ones so you can keep using the jar efficiently).
You may be asking yourself, What is this going to do for you?...Well, it's going to give you a BIG picture of where EVERY penny of your money is going. For a lot of you , it WILL be a HUGE eye opener! Some of you may see that $400 every month is going towards entertainment, or your paying $600 a month towards debt....or that your everyday expenses are more than 60% of your total income. The point of this system is to make you more aware of where your money is being spent and hopefully help you make wiser choices in the future.
I know some of you are saying "I can use a program do that or that's what Quickbooks" is for." this may be the case for some of you, but most people don't really use these programs because they are not easy to follow and they take too much time. And what happens is, 6 months pass and then you have to sit down and input EVERYTHING for the last 6 months....and frankly, from my experience, most people don't bother.
This system is created SPECIFICALLY to keep you on track and mindful of your expenses while keeping it simple and efficient.
Paycheck Distribution Coaching helps make your money work harder for you than you do for it! I hope this helps you achieve at least a little bit of financial success!
Please follow me at... http://www.irenemcruz.com/ or www.facebook.com/paycheckdistributioncoach
Linkedin or Twitter (irenemcruz)
1. ASK for a receipt! Every time you purchase something! There are many places that don't automatically give you a receipt so you need to ask. EVERY TIME!
2. KEEP ALL OF YOUR RECIEPTS! This includes ALL of the small ticket items too. I don't care if it's for $1.00 or $10,000.00. If you pay cash, check, credit card, or debit doesn't matter. KEEP them all.
3. Put a note on the receipt at the register!- This is handy because you know why your buying the item at the time you bought it. A lot of times, you can get home, and weeks later when your organizing of just cleaning off your night stand, you can look at a receipt and wonder.....what did I buy and why? There are basically 5 different categories for your receipts. Food, Entertainment, Everyday (like Gas or tolls), Education, and Debt. See a detailed explanation below:
a. Food- now this can be groceries or it can be eating out so make sure you specify. Any time you don't cook at home it's considered eating out so they need to be counted seperately. Oh and don't forget your daily coffee in this equation. This category includes anything that you drink or eat when your NOT at a bar or at the movies.
b. Entertainment- this is play time. So if you like to go to the bar on thursdays, the movies on fridays, bowling on saturdays or anything else that would cost you money for fun, that's what this category is for.
c. Everyday- this is the necessities category. Like gas for your car, the bus or train pass, taxi fare, tolls to get to and from work. It also includes the bigger things like Mortgage/rent, car payments, utilities, cable, internet, phone, and other things that are needed for everyday living. If you utilize interent banking, print out the receipt that you get for paying your bill online! You will understand why soon.
d. Education- now wether your paying for your childs education or your own, don't forget to include any books, cd's, or dvd's that you use for that purpose....and NO the latest Harry Potter book doesn't qualify. If you take seminars or webinars....don't forget to include these too.
e. Debt-this would include any debt payments (don't include your car payment or your mortgage in here). This would be credit card debt or line of credits that you are paying.
Now that we have our categories figured out for each receipt let's move on to how to organize them. Some of you have heard of the 6 jar method for your money. Well after much consideration and a bit of personal troubleshooting of this method, I realized that the jars are more useful for receipts instead of money. And I'm sure you will understand why in a moment.
Once you have saved all of your receipts....and categorized them as you get them by putting your little note on them at the register....now it's time to seperate them into your 5 categories. But where do you put them? Some use file folders, other use accordian style folders. I suggest you use Jars. Jars are easier to fill and with them being out in the open, it keeps your goals fresh in your mind.
So, if you like the dollar store, go pick up 5 Generic Jars that you can put a sticker on (just make sure it's big enough to hold your receipts for a while). It is preferred that they are clear and see through so you can see your progress! Take each sticker and mark it with a category and stick it on the jar (make sure it's nice BIG lettering so you can't mistake each jar when you come home). And take another bigger sticker (white) and put it on the back of the jar with each month and a line....So if you start in November, put November ___________ then December ____________ and so on....if you move into another year, make sure you mark it for that year (this is for tax purposes later)
Now that you have kept all of your receipts, you have categorized them, AND you have your jars to store them it's time for the next step. EVERY DAY that you come home, I want you take out all of your receipts from your pockets or your purse, where ever you keep them and place each receipt into it's jar. Easy enough so far right?
Now here comes the bigger work. On the last day of every month, once all of your receipts have been collected for the day, I want you to take one jar at a time and add up all of the receipts for that category and put that total $ amount on the back of the jar for that month. Once all of your receipts for that jar have been added up, take a stapler and staple them together at the TOP of the receipt (this will make it easy for you to go through them later if need be and it will keep your next months receipts seperate from the old ones so you can keep using the jar efficiently).
You may be asking yourself, What is this going to do for you?...Well, it's going to give you a BIG picture of where EVERY penny of your money is going. For a lot of you , it WILL be a HUGE eye opener! Some of you may see that $400 every month is going towards entertainment, or your paying $600 a month towards debt....or that your everyday expenses are more than 60% of your total income. The point of this system is to make you more aware of where your money is being spent and hopefully help you make wiser choices in the future.
I know some of you are saying "I can use a program do that or that's what Quickbooks" is for." this may be the case for some of you, but most people don't really use these programs because they are not easy to follow and they take too much time. And what happens is, 6 months pass and then you have to sit down and input EVERYTHING for the last 6 months....and frankly, from my experience, most people don't bother.
This system is created SPECIFICALLY to keep you on track and mindful of your expenses while keeping it simple and efficient.
Paycheck Distribution Coaching helps make your money work harder for you than you do for it! I hope this helps you achieve at least a little bit of financial success!
Please follow me at... http://www.irenemcruz.com/ or www.facebook.com/paycheckdistributioncoach
Linkedin or Twitter (irenemcruz)
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