MoneyWiseWomen

Welcome to Money Wise Women Blog

I created the Money Wise Women Blog to educate and empower women to live financially healthy. We are now partnering with Forbes.com to reach more women. Money Wise Women also offers free monthly teleseminars with professional experts on a variety of topics. Learn more and listen to the teleseminars online at www.moneywisewomengetsmart.com . We host Money Wise Women Conferences in Washington state. The next conference is at Universtiy of Puget Sound this Fall (date to be announced). 

Our annual fundraiser -- Girl's Day Out is on Saturday, March 10, 2012 at the Kitsap Golf and Country Club. Sunny Kobe Cook, Founder of Sleep Country USA will share her Egyptian travel adventures complete with photos. If you're ready to spend time with your girlfriends while enjoying lunch, yummy desserts and lots of great live and silent auctions items, call your girlfriends and REGISTER NOW .

If you're ready to live financially healthy, you must take action. Money Wise Women offers you a variety of methods to help you get educated and empowered.

Feedback from Money Wise Women participants: 

• Money Wise Women is one of the most valuable resources I have found for educating women about the fundamentals and psychology of finances.Small steps can be significant and have an impact. 
• I thought I was attending a workshop with great financial information. This was so much more -- you should rename it -- Wise Women's Network.
• It opened my eyes to know that I can get my finances in order and be confident that I can reach my goals. Be realistic.
• The conference taught me many ways to save, empower myself and most of all look deep within myself.
• I feel empowered to create positive change in my life and now realize I cannot afford to wait any longer.
• I had not made financial awareness a priority. I had no idea why I should make it a priority. Now I know. And, I feel I have been give enough information to continue my education and manage my finances.

Save Money When You Leave Behind these 6 Travel Unnecessary Items

When you pack for a trip to the city, keep it light and leave plenty of room for the souvenirs you'll want to buy once you get there. Here are some things you can leave at home on your next city trip.

1. Your Own Towels - A good towel is soft and fluffy and can take up more space in a travel bag than two days' worth of clothes. Trust that your hotel will have decent towels available and save the suitcase space for more important items. You'll avoid extra bag fees.

Money and the Blame Game

Lots of people play the blame game with money—you blame the person who “owed” you because you worked so hard, or tolerated something else that you thought would bring a greater payoff—but whenever you play the blame game, you miss the opportunity to gain more power, control and peace over your money. And when you don’t recognize the dynamic you’re engaging in, you’re doomed to repeat it.

 

Blaming someone else (or blaming yourself) about any frustrations over money has to do with the basic thought that your survival is being compromised. The perception is that this other person has the power to make or break your financial life, depending on what they do. It’s very difficult to like, much less love, someone on whom you believe that your survival depends. So when you are engaged in the blame game, you may forget that you are every bit as responsible for the relationship dynamic as the other person.

 

Maintain Your Car Without Destroying Your Monthly Budget

Owning a car means a lot more than forking over the cash for each monthly payment. The cost of gas alone will throw some of us over budget each month. When you add in oil changes, washing and detailing and other maintenance, you're probably spending a pretty penny each month just to get from Point A to Point B safely. If all this vehicle maintenance has you feeling down, you might consider cutting a few corners to lower the cost of owning a vehicle.

Things to Do On a “Snow Day”

By the time this blog is read, the Washington State “snow days” of January 2012 may be long behind us. Still, the concepts can be applied to when you encounter airport closures, canceled conferences/meetings/concerts or when someone gets cold feet and pulls out of a wedding. The intent of this is not to suggest you micromanage your time to the degree of being inflexible, but to help you gain control over your time and make better choices when unplanned events create havoc.

The notion came to me when I was forced to reschedule presentations, workshops and meetings over the course of four days due to our city being almost paralyzed by snow and ice this week. (Ok, I’ll have to insert this bit of info: Seattleites are light weights. We rarely have snow or sub freezing temperatures, have lots of hills and pretty much can’t drive safely under extreme conditions. The result is that many people become housebound and services often come to a screeching halt).

How To Improve Your Wealth Creation Competence

If one of your New Year's resolutions was to improve your wealth creation process, you have to approach it as if you were developing a brand new skill set, such as learning a sport or a game. If you want to continually improve your ability to create wealth, you need to keep in mind these 4 stages of awareness:

 

Unconsciously Incompetent. This is the stage where you don’t know what you don’t know. This skill or thing isn’t even on your radar; like before you were interested in learning to drive, you didn’t even think about it, right? Learning to drive was a non-issue. Many people are unconsciously incompetent with wealth creation because while growing up, it wasn’t an issue for them. Things got bought and paid for and no one ever talked about money. However, there usually comes a time when you have a use for the specific skill and then you become . . .

 

 

Look Into Your 2012 Crystal Ball

A couple of Saturdays ago, I finally sat down with my magic crystal ball. I was ready to create my personal 2012 spending and income plan. I was a bit nervous this year about what I would see in the ball. I really need to convert my house to gas, or at least replace my dinosaur of a furnace. Yikes. And I’ve been asked to join some friends on a big out of country trip. I would like to go! And since I already did my business annual plan, so I know what income I have this year.

So I sat down with a cup of Starbucks coffee, called up The Crystal Ball and set to work.

(Lights darken, crystal ball begins to glow, getting brighter and brighter, mists swirl in its depth and begin to part, and I lean forward, peering into the future….)

Two hours later, I had all my answers. Well, I had a lot of answers and I wanted time to think. To feel. To journal.  To digest the future I had just seen. This future seemed to have several scenarios and I was going to have to make some choices. I am reminded of that saying, “You can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want.” Rats.

Get Back On Track With Your Personal Budget

No one can ever be perfect with their personal budget; there will always be moments when you choose to overspend in a certain area, because something holds a higher priority for you than sticking to your budget. This can be either a conscious or unconscious decision. But getting back on track doesn't have to be difficult if you keep in mind 6 simple steps.

For employed people, I advocate the Zero-Based Personal Budget method, which means money in equals money out, every month. Since you can reasonably predict what you’ll be receiving, there are rarely surprises with this method.

For self-employed business owners, like myself, I try to apply the Zero-Base Personal Budget using an average income from the prior 6 months; if income goes down, you have to adjust your personal budget down as well. If income goes up, you hold the excess until you have another 6 months of evidence that your income has stabilized upwards. It can get more complicated, but you get the gist.

Some of you know that I use Mint to track if I am going over in one of the areas of my personal budget. I have alerts for my overspending “danger zones” which are eating out, coffee, coffee and coffee. I think I have finally conquered books as an overspending item! But because some months I have extra cash above my personal budget, I know that I have a little breathing room if I want to spend extra on something.

So, this last month I did. I had WAY too many meals out, in addition to special holiday grocery purchases. And somehow, I was so hypnotized by Starbucks pretty red holiday cups that I had a Peppermint Mocha in my hand more times than not.

The Next Generation of Women in Politics

If the current trends continue, the next generation of women in politics in the United States could be substantially weaker than previous generations. Sure, a few famous female politicians grab the spotlight every chance they get, but on the whole women are losing ground when it comes to politics. The reasons for the dwindling number of women seeking and winning office range from a culture that is still dominated by men to the fact that most qualified women don't have time to think about politics between taking care of the home and keeping up with their day jobs.

Huge Gap in Representation

The United States population is 51% female, but the US Congress is only 17% female. That means that men continue to dominate discussions over laws that might benefit from a female point of view. Women in the US still perform most of the healthcare work, but they had very little say in the recent health care bill that was passed by Congress. The 51% female population relies on 17% of Congress to represent their views on intrinsically female issues such as abortion, as well.

Budgeting Software Options

Researching your budgeting software options can be overwhelming if you’re just getting started. I believe that whatever is the most easily executable option—meaning that you can get set up and manage it consistently—wins out over anything else. The point is to get started, because that is the hardest part (or should be).

When it comes to tracking your spending, my goal is that everyone does it, regardless of their financial situation. You can’t make conscious decisions without that data. My personal favorite budgeting software option is Mint. I recommend it to everyone I work with, because it fit my personal criteria:

• Simple to use. From the moment I started setting up Mint, I could intuitively click and get to where I needed to go. I never was stuck trying to understand what report I needed to run, like some other programs I have used in the past.
• Minimal set up time. Setting up my bank accounts in Mint the first time took all of 30 minutes. I have a different way of doing things than a lot of people when it comes to budgeting, so it might take some as much as an hour. Still would be a record for me at an hour!
• Minimal maintenance. I can stay up-to-date with Mint using their iPhone app, but mostly I just check in every 10 days or so to monitor trends and check categorization.
• Free to use. Mint has affiliate partners making offers—which is what keeps it free—but it’s easy to ignore them and focus on your finances. I have never been irritated or distracted by an offer.

How Committed Are You To Getting The Results You Seek?

Many people start off the New Year with good intentions for fulfilling resolutions, but their interest and enthusiasm often wanes away by the end of February. This year, make a difference in your life. Review your habits and past behaviors that have previously not produced the results you desire. Be honest with yourself. Examine your circumstances carefully to determine what part you have played in the outcomes you have experienced. Don’t rely on your employer, market conditions, or your family obligations to dictate what happens to you (or doesn’t) this year. Make a commitment to reach your goals by outlining specific actions to accomplish them.

It seems the elements I observe that contribute more frequently than not to a stalled job search or poor results are associated with three elements: lack of commitment, failure to plan and unwillingness to change.  The following questions might help you to determine if you are setting yourself up for success, or more of the same this year.