Well it is already 13 days into the new year and I am now only making the first post of 2008. I have been doing a lot of analysing and trying to determine the lesson that I should be learning through the situation I mentioned in previous posts. Let me just say that there is a bundle of lessons that I have learned. I am coming back on track with my recovering introvert status but I still have to work on some areas which are taking longer to sort out.
Anyway since this is the first post of the new year I would like to give you a few tips to handle your money bette. Everyone knows these three easy steps but very few people actually put them into action. With prices increasing all the time, saving money can be harder and harder to do.
1. BUDGET – Get one and stick with it! And set aside at least a small portion for savings while you’re at it; savings for your future, your retirement, your education, your vacation, whatever. Head to your local office supply store for planning workbooks or budget sheets to use. Or head to your favorite search engine and type in, “budget planning” for hundreds of sites with articles, free downloads, tips, ebooks and other resources to help with your budget setup and follow up.
2. PLAN AHEAD – Make sure to plan for emergencies and the unexpected, like an appliance break down or garage door malfunction. Even if you can only set aside $50 or so each monthly, place it in an account and earmark it for this “Miscellaneous” fund. Then when things go wrong, and they will – nothing’s perfect – you’ll be better prepared.
3. NON-MONTHLY ITEMS – Work out a monthly payment for items that you don’t pay monthly and set this up in your regular monthly budget. For example, for items like annual home owner or renter insurance, quarterly water bills and automobile insurance payments and annual trash bills, take the amounts and determine what they would be monthly. Then list the items on your budget log and pull these amounts aside, saving them in your account for those purposes. This way, when the bills hit, you won’t be caught off guard and have to scrounge for the payments.
What works well, instead of handling multiple savings accounts for each company owed, is to use index cards and one savings account. Create one index card for each bill. Then simply log the amount you’re setting aside on the card and deposit it into your savings account. Keep the index cards with your savings passbook to remind you what the balance covers. The total of all your index cards should equal the balance in your savings account. (Make sure to create an index card for your regular funds that you are saving each month in step one above and a card for your Miscellaneous fund in step two above).
So next time you get paid, take three giant steps forward. Grab your index cards, follow your budget and invest in yourself and your future. Get a grip on your money handling.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
Wow what a Christmas to remember. I hope all my readers had a great one and a happy upcoming new year too.
My Christmas unfortunately is not one which I really care to remember but it will probably stay with me forever, I placed myself in a situation in which the end result bounced me back a few steps in my recovering introvert status. I think it zapped me back by about a year so there is a lot of ground to cover to try and catch up.
Anyway I think I need to keep this short as I do not feel comfortable really talking about the situation. I will say this though, anyone who thinks life is easy is going to come in for a landing soon and will realise that life doesn’t issue any landing gear so get ready for a real bumpy landing.
I have been scarce to say the least. I really enjoy blogging but have been sick a couple of weeks ago and I guess I have still coming out of it slowly and just needed to recharge my batteries so to speak. I am an introvert after all and although I call myself a recovering introvert, it is not really something I can change.
I will always be an introvert and still require some withdrawal for good old fashioned R&R…Alone. I am simply working on being more sociable and learning to enjoy being with people (for a little while )
If you came to this page looking to figure out the differences between an introvert and an extrovert, or even if you are an extrovert and someone recently “introvert” and “back off” in the same sentence and you wondered what this introvert sickness is, then read this article entitled “Caring for your introvert“. It is a brilliant piece of writing explaining why introverts seem to be withdrawn all the time.
I do not regret that I am an introvert. I love who I am, I enjoy “my time”, but I really enjoy the transformation that I am working on. I love to spend time with friends lately whereas before I would not have friends. I would endure the minimum amount of exposure to people that I can get away with. I used to budget for speeding fines, because I liked to put as much distance between me and other drivers as possible. (I have never told anyone that so this blog is really helping me get these things out )
I would lock myself in my room and read on the internet, or simply write computer programs, which I never released or used for anything once they were done.
Well I guess that about all I can say for now, starting to get tired and still have lots of studying to do.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
Well I have been calling myself a recovering Introvert for quite a while now and this week I experienced a sort of a milestone in that recovery. I started feeling a little unwell on about Tuesday and through Wednesday I felt it getting worse. I spent some time with some friends on Sunday and one of them had been diagnosed with bronchitis so I was pretty sure I had picked that up.
So Thursday I took myself off to the doctor in the morning as I felt a sort of gurgling in my lungs, he said it was definitely the start of bronchitis. Well Friday I decided, as I was coughing my lungs out, it was best not to go to work. So I sent my boss an sms, cancelled my lunch appointment with the pastor and emailed the AWANA commander that I wasn’t going to make it for AWANA.
Now normally I would thrive in that situation. As an introvert I live to spend time alone and even though I was sick, I would feel great being alone. Friday though, I was bored out of my skull. I missed talking to people at work, missed the kids at AWANA. I horribly missed my interaction with people.
Definitely a milestone as a recovering introvert if you ask me
Scribefire Today I am trying out a firefox extension called Scribefire. It allows me to hit a button directly in my browser and post to my blog in a real short amount of time. I learned about this extension and a few more really useful extensions on this year’s Thirty Day Challenge. I will see how it works over the next few days and maybe do a review of it later.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
Well I found a personality test on the internet. Now I don’t have much faith in the accuracy of these things but this might be something which I can use to measure my recovery
Below are my results, and the link if you want to get your own test.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
ISTP - “Engineer”. Values freedom of action and following interests and impulses. Independent, concise in speech, master of tools. 5.4% of total population.
Well no I haven’t been climbing real mountains, but it sounds like fun
While my mom was still living with me I never went to the shops really unless she was with me and she used to drag me around from shop to shop which I quickly learned was not something I would call a hobby. Well this week I got a message from the domestic that I need new “sleeping shirts” as my pajama tops had kind of disintegrated. I first thought that it was impossible but quickly realised that they were about 3 or 4 years old and the washing machine was just too much for the poor things to bare and they shredded.
In search of “sleeping shirts”
So monday I started looking for these elusive things. The whole set of pajamas were not broken just the top half so buying an entire set would be wasting money so no luck Monday as they only had sets. Tuesday I went down to a mall during lunchtime and spent an hour walking in and out of shops (including about 20 minutes standing in the queue at the bank), but alas I was just not cut out for this shopping thing.
Today I set out with the mission of getting this horrid task completed, alas it is month-endso I waited out the hordes of month-end shoppers till the afternoon.
I didn’t steal it honest Well to cut a long story short, I managed to find something after spending an hour in the store wandering hopelessly around until I finally found someone to ask. Alas I was not to escape the store as easily as I may have hoped because as soon as I walked out of the store (after paying I might add) the exit alarm went off. Here I am a Recovering Introvert, the recovering part missing at that very moment, standing there with a shopping bag stuffed with a couple of pajama tops, with an alarm blaring, red lights flashing and security heading rapidly in my direction. Oh and EVERYONE staring at me. All I could think of saying to the security guard is, “That’s strange”. Luckily he skipped the strip search and let me go through the sensor without the bag of purchases, again the alarm went off, so he handed me my bag and said that it must be something in my pocket setting the alarm off, letting me go on my way without questioning my pocket contents. (I still don’t know what set it off)
Teeny, Tiny, Beetle Bits If any one has wondered what a VW Beetle would look like in a million tiny pieces, wonder no more as you watch this video.
And just for good measure, the only way to stop the FBI getting hold of your data from your Hard Disk Drives (Of course you wouldn’t be able to read them either )
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
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