A year without lattes - October

3 months and my debt is now 8,926 usd.

I have continued to bring lunch to work, and I have completely skipped the lattes. But I still find it difficult to say NO to social events, so again I went out to dinner couple of times. This month I didn't buy any books or any clothes but I did buy couple of gifts for friends' birthdays.

According to the app on my phone "Debt Strategy," my expected debt free date has moved forward to April 2016;) Some days I can really be furious with myself for getting into this mess. But what's done is done. And it is time to move forward and learn from my mistakes.

a year without lattes - September

It has been 2 months since I made the decision to get out of debt by July 2014. My debt is now down to 9,343 usd from 10,000.

I have been successful in cutting out the lattes and the lunches at work (I bring my own now from home). This alone should save me around 300 usd per month. I have also changed my mobile phone plan, so I now pay 10 usd per month instead of 40. And finally I decided to cut out one of the two charities I have been making monthly payments to (about 20 usd per month). All together this should make it possible for me to pay at least 350 usd towards my debt every month.

Although I have cut out most of the non-essentials, I have had my weak moments. I did buy two kindle books AND I have been out to dinner with friends a couple of times. I had already planned these dinners before I started this project, and I did buy the cheapest thing on the menu, but still....dinners can be expensive and those dollars count.

I also downloaded an app on my phone called "Debt Strategy" to help me keep track of my debts. According to the app I will pay off my debt by December 2016! This takes into account my monthly payments, but not the extra income that I anticipate in the beginning of 2014. While this date scares me, it is also nice to have this as a reference point. And it will be my goal to move this date forward each month, by paying as much extra as I can. Before I started my "year without lattes" my debt had almost stayed the same for about 3 years, so without this effort my debt free date would probably be close to NEVER. But now I am determined to become free asap.

a year without lattes?

I love my lattes. And I love going to nice cafes, alone, with a book, newspaper or a magazine. On the other hand, I hate my credit card debt, which is almost 10,000 usd.

My bank is a bit like a leaky bucket. I put something in, and without spending anything the money is very soon gone. I am not blaming my debt entirely on the lattes, but they definitely contribute to this "leaky bucket" situation.

So, can I give my dear lattes up for a year?
And can I get rid of 10,000 usd debt (+ interests) within that year?

some fuzzy math.

I mostly got into this financial mess on my own, and I want to get rid of it on my own. I.e. I don't want the household budget to suffer for it. I also think it is healthy and necessary for me to take responsibility for getting myself into this trouble. While my husband and I mostly have joint finances, we have always kept some of our salary in our personal accounts. At this point, each of us keeps around 450 usd as our personal spending money each month. I use this money to buy the lattes, for food at work, train tickets, clothes, mobile phone, to pay the minimum on my credit card, and then some other miscellaneous things. As it is, this money is always gone before the end of the month.

Now, if I skip everything except the essentials, such as the train and the mobile phone, I should be able to use about 350 usd to pay down my debt each month. This requires no lattes, no clothes, no cinema tickets, and bringing my own lunch to work every day. This should give me about 4200 within the year. So not quite enough to wipe out the 10,000.

As I got inspired to get rid of this consumer debt asap I asked whether I could get some extra projects at work...and it looks like I will have some projects in the spring, that will pay about 4,500 usd.

So with no frivolous spending for a whole year, and by doing some extra work, I am almost there, but still missing some.

I need to figure out how to get these extra dollars, and will keep my eyes (and mind) open for opportunities to save, or earn, an extra buck. But I am determined that by 1st of July 2014, my consumer debt will be zero.

meditation on 2 dollars

As I walked out one morning earlier this week I found 10 krones on the pave walk. That is about 2 us dollars. I decided to take it as a signal. Abundance is coming, soon money will flow into my life, and all my financial worries will disappear...

As I walked to work, I caught myself thinking that now, with these 10 krones in my pocket, I could treat myself to a latte without feeling guilty...., and I realized how typcial this is for my relationship with money. As soon as it flows in, I find a way to throw it out. Everything I earn, is immediately spent. Actually, as I found out yesterday, it is even worse than that. In every dollar earned I find justification for spending a dollar and a half. In the case of the 10 krones and the latte....a latte costs anywhere between 20 and 40 krones. Finding 10 krones in the street does not equal a free latte.

So I took the 10 krones with me to work, put it on my desk, and it is still there, as a reminder that it is possible to have a different kind of relationship with money. A penny saved, is a penny earned.

I am going on vacation, so for the next two weeks I will not worry about weekly planners, and I will probably not blog much either....but I will be back:)

Have a great weekend! /D

Money: Making peace with the past

The first step in the program introduced in YMOYL involves the following:

A. Find out how much money you have earned in your lifetime-the sum total of your gross income, from the very first penny you ever earned to your most recent paycheck

B. Find out your net worth by creating a personal balance sheet of your assets and liabilities

The purpose of this exercise is to get you to ground zero, to locate you in time and space. The authors emphasize that this should be done as accurately as possible, preferably to the penny….or at least to the dollar. In step B, you are supposed to add the value all of your assets that you could possible sell (craigslist, amazon, ebay). It took me some time to gather all this information. And I was definitely not able to count every cent that I have earned, or to put an accurate price tag on everything I own. But I did my best.

Here is what I found:

Total Money earned: 326,000 USD
My Net worth: -128,000 USD (my student loan is the biggest culprit for this insane number)
My Consumer Debt: 9,858 USD

After going through step A, adding together all of the money I have earned through my life, I wasn’t sure what to think. I have no sense of whether this number is small or big. Actually it is a bit more than I expected, but still it is kind of abstract to me. If I had every cent that I ever earned in a saving account, I would be able to pay off my student loan. On the other hand, I would barely be able to buy a decent home for my family without a loan. It is perhaps shocking how much time and energy the average person spends in the labor market just to afford their house/apartment. I also can't help thinking about whether it was rational of me to spend all this money on my education.... I guess time will tell.

Doing step B, at first I was a bit shocked how little I have to show for my paychecks. I don’t really have any big assets. I don’t own an apartment, or a car…where has all the money gone? (well I guess food, rent, education, books, travels, clothes, too many cafe lattes....). On the other hand, going through every shelf and every drawer I was still amazed by the abundance in my life. So much stuff. So much luxary and convenience really, when you stop to think about it...

Not surprisingly I found my net worth to be negative (I thought it was nice of the authors to point that net worth does not equal self worth;)). I have managed to spend more than I have earned. In some sense this represents lack of freedom. Because borrowed money, is borrowed time. I owe many working days, in order to pay off my loans and credit card debts.

I have been super bothered by my credit card debt. Although when I look at the consumer debt next to these other 2 numbers, it doesn't look as overwhelming as it used to. But in any case. That is my first goal, to get rid of that consumer debt. At this point I am not sure how long it will take....a year? 5 years? but to start with this number should go down by some number of dollars every single month.

So the fog is cleared. I've stepped on the scale. No shame, no blame. This is where I am at.

And now I can start building up a healthier relationship with money.

money

I have never thought too much about money. In fact I have probably given too little attention to money in the past. But as I am trying to move forward towards the calmer, simpler, and happier life, I have come to the conclusion that money is an issue that needs to be dealt with. Gaining control over my financial issues will give me peace and space to focus on other more exciting aspects of life. As it is, the stress that money gives me is contaminating other parts of my life.

Money seems to be a “blind spot” in my brain. I spend money without thinking. I buy without looking at the price tag. I think everything will somehow work out fine. Except when I get panick attacks where I think there is no way I can work out this mess. Over time my increasing overdraft and credit card debt have increasingly been causing me to feel helpless and out of control.

So it is time to tackle the problem: get out of debt, accumulate savings, and hopefully one day become financially independent. To help me “face my finances”, I am reading Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence. The book outlines a program to become “financially healthy” in 9 steps:

1) Find out how much you have earned in your life, how much you presently own, and how much you presently owe
2) Calculate your real hourly wage, and keep track of every cent that comes in or goes out of your life
3) Create a montly tablulation of all income and all expenses, convert dollars to "hours of life energy"
4) Look at your expenditures in terms of life energy, are they in alignment with your values and goals?
5) Plot your total monthly income and total monthly expenses
6) Minimize spening
7) Maximize income
8) Calculate your "cross-over point" (if you have savings and investments, when will the returns be enough to cover your monthly expenses)
9) Manage your finances

I am going to tackle these steps and will keep you posted on the progress.

Have a great weekend! /D

next project

It's been almost a year since I started the "happiness project". The project has brought many good things to my life. I feel happier, more positive, stronger, even a little bit healthier. On the other hand I am still chaotic, I still have problems with time management, with procrastination, and with completing tasks and projects.

There are many things that I would like to achieve in life. In my ideal world there would be no stress. I would have enough time to enjoy being with my kids, to do yoga, meditate, draw, paint, read. I would be near nature, climb mountains and swim in the ocean. I would be a vegeterian, grow my own food, make everything from scratch. I would give to others and find a way to help others improving their quality of life.

As I look back on the last 12 months, I realize that I was trying to do everything at the same time. When you try to do everything at the same time, the changes in each area can be so incremental that it can be a bit discouraging. So perhaps it is more effective to tackle one thing in you life, before moving to the next? So where to start?

Well after some consideration, I decided to start with money. Not because I think money is the most important thing in my life, but because I think it is necessary to get my finances under control. My debt, and perhaps more so my inability to get rid of it, causes me stress, sense of failure and imprisonment.

My consumer debt is about 10 thousand usd. About the same as it was a year ago! The main focus for the next few months is to improve my relationship with money, improve my financial skills, and find ways to spend less and/or earn more.

But I still want to focus on happiness, positivity, peace of mind etc. So here is an idea that I think will not take my focus too much away from my financial goal. I recently watched the Ted talk below: Fake it until you Become it. And was very inspired. So I thought that each month I could focus on a quality that I would like to possess, and focus on "becoming it". E.g. as I want to be more confident (energetic, positive, healthy, etc.) I will take a few minutes in the morning to pose as confident person, and think about how I can go through my day as a confident human being.

So this is what I am thinking, although I am still figuring out the details.

I would also love to hear about your own experience with doing a happiness project:) What has worked for you? And what has not?
cheers, Di.

November: back to basics

November is the sixth month of my impeccable project. I feel like now is the time to sit down, take a breath and evaluate the progress I've made so far. I want to use this month to reestablish and reinforce some of my earlier resolutions. Moreover, I want to take time to finish some unfinished projects...making space for new, more exciting ones:)

For the last couple of months I also feel like my resolution charts have grown out of control, and I have been slacking on some of my more important habits, such as my meditation practice, my gratitude journal and I've also found it difficult to find the time to sit down and write posts for this blog. However, these resolutions are the foundation to my project. The feeling of balance and happiness that comes with meditating and focusing on gratitude is truly amazing. And this blog has been so valuable to me. Writing the posts helps to keep me on track, but more importantly it has given me the opportunity to interact with and get inspiration from other bloggers on a similar journey. So...

Resolutions that I want to reiterate this month:

• meditate
• write in my gratitude jorunal
• blog at least 2x a week
• be present
• bring lunch to work (healthier and saves money)
• be proactive: focus on voice, posture, and excuses

Tasks that I want to finish in November:

• empty my email inboxes (there are currently 3756 emails that need to be processed)
• finish the blanket I'm knitting
• Christmas presents (part of my impeccable time/stop doing things last minute resolution;))

Looking back:

• June *Mind and Positivity*: In June I started meditating, writing in my gratitude journal, exercising on regular basis, and I also started this blog. I focused on happiness, and read several books on the topic. This month really was a success, and a great way to start the project. I think of this as the basis for everything, and want to continue focusing as much as I can on positivity and happiness. In the last couple of months I have been slacking in this area, and it is very important to me to get back on track...
• July *Home*: In July I focused on my home, both the apartment we live in, but also on getting to know Copenhagen a little bit better. I bought flowers, lit candles, made the bed every day, decluttered...and walked a lot arount the city. Many of the habits from this month have really stuck. I wish I was better at keeping the clutter away...but there is definitely an improvement. After some delays, I painted my children's room, and gave away four or five boxes of toys. That room looks so much better now, and the children are actually much better at playing in their room now when they have fewer toys:)
• August *Family*: This month was really important to me, as I worked on my relationship with my children. To lighten up, be more patient, be better at talking and listening. This was super successful, and our communications have really transformed. This alone has made the project worthwhile:)
• September *Work*: I wanted to use September to decrease stress, and to become more organized at work. This was not a very successful month. But hopefully some of the work I did that month will prove to be useful for progressing in the future.
• October *Time and Money*: Unfortunately I did not address my money issues at all that month. I did continue working on my relationship with time, and made some improvements. But apparently this is not an easy task for me...so this will continue to be on my agenda. In October, I also started reading the 7 habits of highly effective people. The first habit is to be more proactive, and I have been working on that with some success. That alone makes me feel like I achieved something of imporatance in October:)

Looking forward:

I've rearranged the rest of my project a bit and now the calander looks like this:
• December: Impeccable Fun and Friendship - be there, reach out, lighten up and have fun
• January: Impeccable Health and Beauty - find ways to treat myself and my body better and with more respect
• February: Impeccable Love and Marriage - be kind, have fun, love infinitely and unconditionally
• March: Impeccable Passion and Meaning - Find my passion, work on independence, and "being me", make time time for what is important
• April: Environment and Nature - find ways to enjoy nature and be kinder to the environment
• May: Bootcamp Impeccable

luv, Di.

October: Impeccable Time and Money

Taking responsibility

Time is money.
-Benjamin Franklin

Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back.
-Harvey MacKay

I decided to tackle time and money in the same month, as I have a very similar relationship to both. I often become stressed and anxious about the lack of time or the lack of money. I do not feel in control over my schedule or my finances. Time and money seem to disappear, and I don't know where it's going. I never have a buffer. I spend out the first days after I get paid, and by the end of the month I usually have zero money, or worse...negative money. In a similar way, I do not have a time-buffer. When I have deadlines, I am working until last minute.

Moreover, there is of course a very close relationship between time and money. We exchange one for the other. We give our time to our employers, instead we get money to buy food, clothes and other stuff. And some of that stuff, when you come to think about it may really not be worth your time...

My October Resolutions

• Wake up 6:20
• Be present
• Monitor/log every penny
• Take a few days where I log my time, minute from minute
• Be proactive
• Make weekly plans
• No non-essential spending
• Bring lunch to work
• Say positive affirmations about abundance (in terms of both time and money)
• Do not stress about time or money

My October Goals

• Read: Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century and the first two chapters in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Finish my tasks at least a day before their deadline
• Have at least 300 dkk (approx. 50 usd) in my bank account at the end of the month