Jana Says

How to Raise Your Children to be Financial Disasters

April 20, 2012 by Jana 34 Comments

This is a guest post from Andrea, a 29 year-old Licensed Clinical Social Worker, full-time freelancer and single mom paying off over $60,000 in debt. Visit So Over Debt to follow her journey out of financial chaos.

Like any parent, I work hard every day to make sure my son is growing up with the tools he needs to become successful. I make sure his basic needs are met, along with some of his wants, and that he learns to treat others with kindness and respect. I help him with homework and try to make sure his diet is balanced (which is difficult, since he’s the pickiest eater on the planet). One of my constant worries, though, is that I will fail to prepare him to deal with money responsibly.

My concern for my son’s financial future has roots in my own childhood. I grew up lower middle class, with a father who worked a blue collar job (and always had at least one business on the side) and a mother who stayed at home with my sister and me. Looking back, I see all the ways that my parents’ financial choices affected how I would view money as an adult. Despite the fact that my mom and dad were excellent savers and frugal spenders, I ended up with an addiction to shopping and spending that will take many years to overcome.

Wait a minute, you may be thinking. If your parents did such great things with their money, how did you turn out to be so irresponsible? That’s a good question, and one I have spent a LOT of time pondering myself. While I don’t blame my parents for my choices, I do recognize the opportunities they missed to prepare me for survival in the world of first, last, and security.

Here are the top 3 ways my parents raised me to be a financial disaster:

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What to do when you just do not have enough income?

April 18, 2012 by Jana 7 Comments

The following is a guest post from Kylie Ofiu who shares real ways to make and save money on her blog. She also discusses her journey and goal to become a millionaire by 30 (which is 2015), while being an at home mom in Australia. She is the author of 365 Ways To Make Money, a freelance writer, owner of various blogs and an international public speaker.

We went through almost a year of no permanent work. My husband was signed up with a couple of agencies who got him work here and there and he was looking for a job. We had a little bit of savings and some money in our mortgage we were able to redraw but it took 12 months for him to get a full time, permanent job which is not something we expected.

We had 2 daughters to provide for and needed to cover all our expenses such as the mortgage, food, petrol, water, electricity, insurance, land rates and so on. Sometimes, even with an emergency fund, you do not have enough money.

So what do you do?

There were a few things we did. Firstly we looked at ways we could cut back.

FOOD: I sourced as much food as possible for free by learning where wild foods grew in my area that were safe to eat, joining a food co-op, letting friends and family know about our situation (we had a few friends who had friends who got large amounts of free food to share out to people who needed it, and we needed it.) I already menu planned, but I did it more carefully and truly watched what we bought and ate.

I made lots of our food from scratch and stretched things as far as I could. We don’t have coupons where I live, so instead I looked for reduced items when I had to buy food.

MORTGAGE: Once we were close to exhausting our funds I contacted our bank and discussed out situation with them. They gave us 5 months of no payments. Of course the interest would still accrue, but we didn’t have to worry about paying. If we happened to have extra cash we could pay to reduce the interest, which we did, but the pressure was off for a while. This is obviously a short term solution, but the bank was happy to help us since we spoke to them before we missed a payment.

BILLS: I called our electricity, gas and water providers to negotiate. We were now classed as low income which meant we would be entitled to a discount so I made sure we were getting it. I also researched everything on ways to save money on these bills such as uplugging things not in use, shorter showers etc.

We also dropped all unnecessary expenses, I entered a lot of competitions and giveaways so we cold use any winnings for gifts and we kept our eyes peeled for free entertainment in our area. We learned to barter a lot and do many things ourselves.

Reducing expenses will only take you so far though. We needed to find ways to increase our income. We were both looking for work, but nothing was forthcoming, so we had to think outside the box and find ways to make money.

Ways to make money

I needed ways to make money from home that were flexible because a couple of the casual jobs my husband had (and I mean very casual, as in no work some weeks) had the potential to go permanent so we didn’t want to say no when they called him for work.

Garage sale: This was one of our first moves. We went through everything we owned and looked at what we could sell. I listed things online and we had a garage sale at our house. It took a bit of work but was worth it.
Resell things: I looked for items to buy and resell. At second hand shops and garage sales I kept my eye out for books I know sell well here, Tupperware, brand name clothing and other things which were small, easy to post and I could purchase cheaply.
Writing: I was already blogging, which during this time saw me go from a small blogger to the owner of a couple of sites, an author, freelance writer and public speaker. Most of this happened about 8 months after my husband ceased permanent work and none of it was reliable, but it was something I could do which brought in a little extra money. The more I did, the more confident I became which lead to me seeking out more work.
Haircuts: I am a hairdresser and beautician by trade so was able to fall back on this a little and do friends and family. It is not something I enjoy, but it is a skill I have. Look at the skills you have and how you can make money with them.
Mending, ironing, lawn mowing, cleaning, baby sitting, paper deliveries, pizza delivery and other services were all things we considered doing as well. Actually the more we looked the more opportunities like that we found which were flexible and many able to be done from home.

It is not easy when your expenses outweigh your income but by being positive, keeping your mind and eyes open to possibilities and letting people know you are looking for work, happy to barter and so on you can relieve some of the pressure and get back on your feet.

Money Tune Tuesday: Deathbed

April 17, 2012 by Jana 2 Comments

This week’s song, “Deathbed”, has absolutely nothing to do with money. At all. Not even one remote iota. But that doesn’t mean it’s not relevant. And it’s probably a song you’ve never heard.

There is so much I love about this song. It’s upbeat, it’s kick ass and it’s performed by a band that almost no one outside the Philadelphia area has heard of (the band? Ike). It’s this last point that I need to focus on. I have been feeling really…down lately, specifically about my blogging efforts. I have been feeling like my sites will never measure up to the bigger kids out there and that what I have to say isn’t significant or meaningful or even important. It’s pretty awful to think about and many days, I feel like quitting. But then I think about bands like Ike.

Ike freaking rocks. They have a loyal, if small, fan base. They keep evolving and putting out good, quality music. They work hard, don’t quit, and do whatever they need to do to promote themselves when no one else will do it for them. They don’t give up just because another band is more successful. And that’s exactly the kind of inspiration I need.

This is the first Ike song I heard and after the first listen, I was hooked. My favorite lyric? I can’t even pick a favorite because I love them all. And if the song isn’t for you, just fast forward to around minute 3 and look for the dancing snowman. It’s totally worth it.

What’s up?

April 16, 2012 by Jana 19 Comments

It’s not just a bad 90s song.

The last few weeks have been ridiculously exhausting for me. It started with the whole depression thing rearing its ugly head. Then the dog got sick. And if you were on Twitter around 5:30PM my time (EST) on Saturday, you saw this:

Car just got rear ended with me and the family inside. Yay Saturday!

— Jana(@dailymoneypf) April 14, 2012

That’s right. The family and I were in a car accident on Saturday while we were on our way to dinner. Fortunately no one is hurt and there is minimal damage to the car, but we have to buy a new car seat (for those of you who don’t know, if a car seat is in an accident, it is deemed “not safe” or something like that and it needs to be replaced. And car seats are not cheap) and my husband has to take a day off of work to get estimates. Good stuff.

There have been some other goings on as well. For starters, I’m taking a leave of absence from my job, beginning next week (I promise to talk about this soon). I cannot get better if I continue to work at my job right now (here’s a bit of an explanation as to why). Then there’s the fact that we’re moving. Well, planning on moving. Our house, which was supposed to go up for sale last month, is now slated to go on the market at the beginning of May. And last but not least, our finances have become a slight trainwreck lately. We’re not back in debt or anything but our budget and I have not been getting along.

So it’s time to reevaluate some things.

If I am going to get better, I need to make some changes. So that’s what I’m going to do. And I think these changes are going to help get me refocused, healthier, and hopefully eliminate some of the dark clouds that seem to be following me around lately.

As part of my therapy, I’m required to exercise and meditate regularly; since I have a membership at the local YMCA, it’s time to start using that. I’m thinking about adding a personal trainer once a week as well. But that’s a bit expensive and I can’t do that unless I…
…get my budget back on track. My husband and I are planning on having a budget meeting to discuss expenses, especially with the change in my pay over the next few months. It’s essential that are finances are as perfect as they can be or we could take a really awful financial turn.
The blog. Oh, the blog. Well, I should say blogs. The Jealousy Files is progressing nicely and I have big plans for that site. And I’m working on a top secret photo blog project that should launch in early May. But where does that leave Daily Money Shot? Well, there’s no way I’m forgetting about my firstborn. However, I’m going to have to reduce my posting schedule from 6 days per week to 5 (and, if I have to, I’ll go down to 4 by cutting out Money Tune Tuesday). I’m planning on going on a M, T, W, F, Sat schedule. I’m leaving Thursday open for any guest posts and Sundays are just a day off. I also have some special features planned, like wedding week.
The rest. I have always wanted to be a writer. Since 2nd grade, it’s the only job I’ve ever truly wanted to have. This is my opportunity to try to make that happen. I have significant doubts about my skills and creativity and ability to make a living as a writer but at least I can say I tried. Because I’m going to write a book. Maybe 2! I don’t want to give too many details but rest assured, when they’re done, I’ll let you know.

So that’s it. That’s what’s going on. I don’t know if I’ll be able to conquer this demon but if nothing else, I can make him shut the hell up. I’m hoping that the changes and plans I have in place will help that happen.

My financial horror

April 13, 2012 by Jana 22 Comments

In case you haven’t noticed, today is Friday the 13th. It’s not a day that bothers me because, some years, my daughter’s birthday will fall on Friday the 13th and I will never be afraid of celebrating the best day of my life. I think it’s weird that some people are afraid of the day yet others celebrate it with horror movies. Not me. I don’t watch horror movies. I’ve never seen any Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Saw or any other horror movies (well, I’ve seen whichever version of Halloween had LL Cool J. And the first Scream. And that’s it.) But that doesn’t stop me from imagining horror. A different kind of horror.

A financial horror.

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of the most horrible financial event that could occur in my life. One that would wreck me on every level. I want to say that there’s nothing so financially awful that I couldn’t recover from it but there is one thing. And it’s so awful it makes me shudder to think about it. What is it?

Moving back in with my parents.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my parents. I really do. But there is no possible way I could ever live with them ever again. We have completely different styles of…pretty much everything (which makes for some interesting family visits). Without going into too much detail (because I can’t. Long story as to why), let’s just say it would get really ugly really quickly. It would be living in my own horror movie that I could not escape from. Like The Shining mixed with Hostel mixed with Amityville Horror (you know, because it’s on Long Island and so are my parents). Except worse. And it wouldn’t be much better for them.

So there you have it. The one financial thing that would make me cower in a corner, praying for a safe room.

What’s your biggest financial horror?