In my previous post I offered an exercise — sorry, you have do the exercises if you want to get in shape — which elicited from you the values you currently hold about your family. By ranking those values, you should have a conscious sense (perhaps for the first time) of what’s at stake as you interact as a family.
BTW, it’s extremely helpful if both spouses do the exercises together. By doing the exercise together and comparing results you will see any potential conflicts. For example, if “togetherness” is number one on your list and your spouse says that number one is “education”, you will probably have to do some negotiating. BUT at least you’ll know where you stand.
Why is this important?
Simply put, your values are what’s important to you. They control what you do and the way you act – even if you haven’t consciously thought about them. So often we go through our daily routines completely unaware of the values that are shaping our behavior. By getting them down on paper and ranking them you have a map of what makes you tick in this area of life.
Once you see the framework that you are acting from you can take satisfaction from knowing that you being consistent to your values OR you may find that the values you are enacting are not working for you and you are free to change them.
Hint: This value ranking technique is very helpful in all areas of life including health, career, personal development, and spiritual development.
Go here for a shortcut for dealing with day-to-day stress.
In the present economic climate there are many challenges to family life. 
One challenge is that if you have a job these days, your employer is probably demanding more and more time from you, leaving you with less time for your family. The kids want to see more of you and you’re simply not available to them.
Conversely, if you don’t have a job, then you may well be spending more time with the family than you ever thought you would. If you’re not prepared to do it, you may well feel overwhelmed.
There are as many family challenges as there are families. The economy has exacerbated some already keen problems. Money problems, health problems, and relationship problems seem to compound in a weak economy.
The first thing to do is to get absolutely clear on what’s important to you. In other words, what are your values? Here’s a good exercise for figuring this out:
- Ask yourself aloud, “What’s important to me about my family?”
- Answer aloud and write down whatever comes out of your mouth.
- Repeat this over and over again until the “well runs dry.”
- When the well runs dry, go back and do the steps 1 to 3 again until the well runs dry again.
- Then do steps 1 to 3 a third time.
Each time the well runs dry, you’re going a bit deeper into your unconscious mind.
Now look at your list and prioritize it. Voila. You have your family values.
See my next post for what to do with your family values.
Feeling stressed? Have a look here for ways to cope.
So, by now you have looked at where the money comes from and where the money goes. AND you have enlightened yourself as to what is important to you. (I hope all of you figured out that food, water and shelter are high priority items.) If you haven’t done the prioritization, you’re missing out on the main benefit of this exercise. Where you put your money is an indicator of your values. Your values are really what make you tick and the purpose of this post is to align your values to your income and to give you a strategy for doing that on an ongoing basis.
One of my favorite books about money is called The Richest Man in Babylon. It is a wonderful allegory wrapped up like a Biblical epic. The story follows the life of a young poor man who rises (with the advice of many smart people) to great wealth. I’m not going to recount it here, but I am going to give the magic formula to wealth and financial security so you can live your life as you want it.
(Spoilers ahead!) If you’ll forgive the prosaic condensation of the book, the magic formula is this: 10% + 20% +70% = 100%
What does this mean?
- Pay yourself first. The first 10% of your net income goes directly into savings. Do not pass Go. Take it straight off the top.
- Pay others next. If you have debts (consumer debts, personal debts, or other) pay them out of the next 20%. Commit this 20% to the elimination of debt. The lion’s share of this money goes to the one with the highest interest rate. Apply minimum payments to the others. When the first one is paid off, pay off the next highest interest debt, and apply minimum payments to the remainder. And so on until all the debts are gone.
- Live on 70% of your income. OUCH! I know it hurts, but in time, you’ll get used to it. And, hey, at least you have an income. Some people in this economy don’t!
Following this formula, once you pay off your debts and are used to living on 70%, you’re now able to save 30%. Isn’t that amazing?
More next time.
In my last post about finances, I suggested the relatively straightforward task of doing an inventory of your finances. This included listing all forms of income and all forms of expense. (You did do it, didn’t you? After all, the only way you’re going to have your life as you want it is if you take action on the things that are actionable.)
Okay, so let’s say for argument’s sake that you did list out everything and that you have a pretty good idea of your cash flow picture. How much goes to paying for essentials like food, water, clothing, utilities, prescriptions, rent/mortgage? How much of your cash flow is devoted to paying back consumer debt? How much goes to on-going service contracts like cell phones, water purification, pest extermination, gardener, pool maintenance, internet connection, cable television, subscriptions to magazines and online services (like games and portals), etc.? How much goes to “shopping”? How much goes to entertainment?
Now here comes the challenging part: prioritize your spending. I’m thinking that for most of you essentials will be number one. Be specific. Be detailed. Rank the costs for gardener and the pool guy separately. For bundled things (e.g. cable and internet) rank them separately.
For example, how important to you is internet access from your phone? I know that you get great deals from the phone companies if you take family plans. Just remember that the phone companies and the cable companies are not particularly interested if you can pay your other bills. They only want to know if you can pay theirs. I’m asking that you do it consciously. Does that make sense?
Look at everything! Prioritize every expense. Sadly, your consumer debt must be a high priority item. Make this list a priority NOW. The sooner you do, the sooner you’ll be able to make necessary changes.
In the next post, I’ll talk about some goals.
If you want to know how many British pounds you can buy for a US dollar, you can simply type ” dollars in British Pounds” in the Google Search Bar.
Today I typed “1000 dollars in British Pounds” and it gave me back:
1000 U.S. dollars = 600.096015 British pounds
I didn’t check all the combinations. Play around with it. See if you can get zlotys in rials.
