I was visiting a good friend for coffee and comfort cake the other day and she was complaining about how she was short of cash AGAIN and had the car rego due next week. So I asked that awful question: ‘How’s your budget?’

‘Look in the tea pot.’ I did, and found there was a $10 note, a used train ticket and some bits of Lego. That was all she had until next Thursday, and today was Friday afternoon.

The credit cards were both maxed out, plus she had used up all the $500 emergency overdraft the bank offered last year when she overdrew the spendings account.

It seems to me that with all the easy credit and ATMs available today, that having a household budget is a thing of the past.

What I do know is that, after having spent many years without one, having a budget is the best thing to help me sleep at night, and not fret during the day about unpaid – and unpayable – bills.

There is a simple bit of math that happens when you have a budget. It helps you to spend less than you earn. Doesn’t that sound like a good thing?

Keeping track of where and when the money flows in and out of your life is vital. A household budget will help you to spot where the spending is not going to plan.

It will also keep you accountable for every dollar spent, and allow you to answer that most despairing of questions – ‘Where has all my money gone?’

A budget is not something to be used as a control device, to deprive or to punish. IT is there to give you freedom in the long term, and to avoid short term pain.

A budget will help to to make sure that what is spent is less than what is earned. Once you understand that idea, the rest is easy. When it’s up and running, you will wonder why you didn’t sort out a household budget years ago.

A budget will allow you to know exactly where your cash is going, and will help you to put an end to impulse spendings that fritter away your money. This way there will be more cash available for vacations and investments.

A budget will help you to stop depending on your credit card – and even the best of all situations – have you get rid of the credit card altogether.

A budget will also allow you to plan your debt repayments, so that you can pay more than just the minimum monthly balance each month. A budget will show you how to get out of debt.

The best thing about my household budget is that it helped to to grow up financially, and to be more responsible with my income, my spendings and my debt level.

It gave me back control of my finances, so that I was no longer a victim of money, but someone who has a grip on it all.

It also showed me that it might take just 10 minutes to make a purchase, but if it’s not in the budget and goes on the credit card, it takes 10 years to pay it back.

There are a few rules about the household budget.

Rule One: Track every cent spent. EVERY cent. Do this for one month so you know where all your money goes. Keep a note book and get a receipt for everything and note it all down, even the little stuff like that packet of crisps, or that chewing gum.

At the end of the month, work out how much that is a year = x 12. Then divide by 52 to work out how much you spend a week.

Here is my monthly spending:

$5,742.72 per month

multiply by 12 = $68,912.64

divide by 52 = $1,235.24

That includes everything – direct debits, mortgage, gym fees, entertainment, groceries, clothing, and pet food. Also I included a 1/12th cost of the yearly things, like car rego, car servicing, pet vaccinations, and a small monthly amount for a cheap, stay at home, 2 week vacation break.

Keep all receipts, especially for things like household bills. Don’t toss them out after you have paid them because you will never remember how much you paid last time. Keep them in a ring-binder in plastic sleeve, one sleeve for each provider.

Rule Two: spend less than you earn. This took me a long while to realise, but it is the key to a happy household budget.

Quit spending the cash just because the money is there in your account. Grow up and only buy those things that are in your household budget. Make sure each person has some personal spend money, to do with as they choose. No one is allowed to go to the spendings account and just help themselves. No is anyone allowed to go use the credit card without checking in on the budget.

Rule Three: get everyone involved. If you are the person who has control of the money in the household, make sure that everyone else knows what is going on. Don’t use this as a way to beat them over the head to get them to change some spending habits. Be gentle! Show the budget, show the money in and the money out and if they don’t balance out, talk about what each of you can do to make sure the spendings are less than the earnings.

Rule Four: check in regularly. Make sure that this is a well working budget. No point doing it once and never looking at it again. It is now the hardest working member of your household, the one who will help you the most – if you will work with it. The household budget is your new best friend, love it, play with it and bring it out into the open often.

To get really well organised, I highly recommend a software program from a mob called You Need a Budget. I use this program and it works really well for us, it is straight forward and easy to understand with clear rules and online support (the program is based on the 4 rules above).

www.youneedabudget.com

Developing and nurturing your household budget will bring you a whole new world of happiness, and a way out of the cash flow woes.

Have you spent much time thinking about what you want to do with your life? Or are you too busy doing your life to think much about it?

The first time most people start thinking about what they’ll do with their lives is towards the end of high school years, when decisions need to be made about long term future activities, like uni or career paths.

I reckon 17 is way too young to have to make a decision that will affect the course of one’s life. I would like to suggest instead that people at 17 be given the chance to make a Life List, and then encouraged to seek out and do all the stuff on that list.

I imagine this young-age Life List would be full of all sorts of wonderful, adventurous ideas, that would be scoffed at as impossible by an older, more world-weary lister.

The more cautious amongst us would recommend that we keep the list achievable, so as not to be open to disappointment should you not achieve, for example, item number 4 of abseiling from the top of a 43 floor hotel building.

When you do make your Life List, do it with the enthusiasm of that 17 year old you once were, when the whole world was at your feet. At 17 you were immortal and invincible. At 47 things may have changed somewhat, you may not feel quite so immortal. Each year goes by without a Life List increases the importance of having one. What ever age you come to your Life List, create it with a sense of excitement and invincibility.

Put some over the top ideas on your Life List, just to get the blood running, and charge up your excitement button. Having a Life List with some outrageous ideas will stir your imagination and cause you to operate at a higher level more often, perhaps even help to push you out of that Life Lethargy.

A Life List with only basic, obviously achievable items will be of little use to you. Of course you can read all of Charles Dickens, that’s not too hard at all. While it might be entertaining, do you think it would really get you pumped and excited just thinking about it?

While a Life List is meant to have a good portion of those long term achievable things, like reading all of Dickens, it also needs to have the really out there items, those things where you say – I can’t see how this is going to happen. Add it to the list anyway.

One of mine is to feed sharks from inside a cage. I can’t see how this can happen. I don’t know anyone who is doing this. But it’s on my list and I will make this happen one day. The important thing is that I have put it out there, and written it down and remind myself of it regularly, so my radar is open to seeing anything to do with sharks. I reckon it’s a great idea and someone will come up with it for me one day.

It’s like when you buy a different model car to your old one. You may never have noticed that sort of car on the road before, but once you buy one, you notice them everywhere.

The same with the items on your Life List. Keep the list in the fore front of your attention, look over it every few days, and you will notice that opportunities to check those things off your Life List will just pop out at you.

And in case you were wondering, I did abseil off the top of a 43 floor hotel building. I thought it was a dumb idea when I first wrote it down years and years ago, shortly after I finished high school in 1981. But the idea made me laugh, and also had a huge dose of excitement about it. Actually the idea scared me silly.

The opportunity came up as a charity event, for Sydney City Mission in 2001, fully 20 years later. It scared me stupid, and I still did it. It was so fabulous to get my feet back on the ground after that abseil, I nearly made like the Pope and kissed the pavement. I kissed my abseil guide instead.

And then I went home and checked off one more thing from my Life List. What a buzz.

To get you started, here is a great website that is offering some free help to get your Life List up and running. Enjoy!

www.superviva.com

I have found that because I am doing so much, those activities are controlling me, instead of the other way around. This is where the stress kicks in big time, and all the health reports feature research done on the effects of stress – it has been found to be directly responsible for up to 80% of diseases.

When we are busy, most of us tend to skip the home cooked meals, and go for fast food. Also we will stay up late to get things done, therefore compromising our sleep time. And how important is exercise when we’re busy? It’s not, because we’re too tired rushing around to even think about heading to the gym. I get enough of a work out worrying and coping with everything else!

Occasionally I think about what it’s like to be peaceful, to be quiet. To sit and contemplate the universe. Meditation and soul searching are two things I would love to take up, instead of mediating in squabbles and searching for car keys.

I am beginning to wonder if all this is worth the effort. What would happen if I just stopped doing all this stuff? Then the guilt hits – all those people I would be letting down if I didn’t do all this. Sometimes I find I can’t keep it up, and fail to get things done on time. Then I really beat my self up, and throw my efforts into it even more.

How tiring this is! I often don’t have the time or energy to spend just being with my kids or friends. All the important things are shoved to one side in order to do the immediate things, which may not be all that important but they are there, shouting for attention.

The urgent, demanding things and people get more time than the important. I’m reacting rather than making clear headed decisions on how I want to truly live my life.

To make matters worse, people who are able to handle a bigger load than most are admired. Being able to do more in less time is a virtue. We are all in such a rush, hurrying from here to there, trying to have it all. All at once.

We have added to our busy lives all those time saving conveniences, like microwaves, instant coffee, the Internet and mobile phones. All this so we can cram even more into the little time we have. All this technology is allowing us to do something busy every tick of the clock.

It’s not the fault of technology, or our jobs, or our families. The real problem lies with ourselves. We just haven’t said no often enough. We each expect so much from ourselves, and give so much to others. We do this in exchange for the emotional boost we receive when we are openly admired and praised by others for being so busy, so productive. To some people, being so busy means they are wanted and needed, that they are making a difference.

Being busy could mean that you are happy – if I have a lot on my plate, that means I must be worthwhile and popular. I feel more secure if I have a lot to get through.

When I asked my associates and friends about slowing down, most of them said they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if they weren’t so busy all the time. Many agreed they feel important if they can show others how much in demand they are.

I know I am a perfectionist. I feel if I say no to something that others would think I can’t cope. So I keep saying yes, and forcing my already busy schedule to squeeze in another important commitment. Why is it that, even though I’m exhausted from all this running around, the more I do the better I feel about myself?

I often catch myself thinking that I’m the only one who can save the world – that if it wasn’t for me then everything would come to a grinding halt – nothing of any worth would ever get done if I took a day off. I often want to say no, but then I think that if I didn’t offer to help I would be seen as a lazy person who just doesn’t care.

I need to remember that I have choices, and that next time when I am asked to be involved in something, to stop and think FIRST, before I say yes. I have decided that I am going to practise this line whenever someone asks me to help out or do something new: Oh, that’s interesting. Let me think about it for a while.

Next time when anything is offered, or when a request is made, I can just take a breath, and think before committing without a thought, just to keep someone happy in that moment. I know I have a choice. I will make sure I exercise my choices carefully from now on.

Along with this I know I need to organise my life in a better, more useful manner. And this doesn’t mean I am just going to sort out my appointments diary. It means I will focus my energy and attention on the things I value most in my life, and not to work myself up into a guilt trip about stepping away from current commitments.

I have to keep telling myself that the world will still go on without me at the helm of everything. The things I value most are: my husband, my children, my wider family, my friends, my hobbies. Then in order of importance would come: my home, my job (hasn’t that taken a low peg on the list!) my community groups and charity work.

What ever I have forgotten to include on this list isn’t that important, so I can afford to leave it off.

The next big question is how to tell all those groups and people that I am off to live a life fulfilling my self with those people and activities that are of value to me.

I’m going to write down this list of VITALs (Very Important Things About Life) and keep it on the bedside table to remind me of where I want my life focus to be. That my spouse and offspring are the ones who deserve more of my time and energy than anything else.

I may also add to this list some goals – things I have been wanting to achieve over the past few years but have found my self too busy to get to. Like finishing my accountancy studies, travelling, reading more books for pleasure.

I’m sure that if I can keep these VITALs as my focus, then I will always know when I need to say sorry, can’t help this time. I will know that this new cry for help can go to someone else. If it’s not part of my core list of VITALs then I can say no.

Does this sound a bit selfish? If you call looking after your health and sanity, and looking after family peace and harmony, then I suppose it is selfish to plan to say no to a need for help.

I don’t think this is selfish at all. I can be of no help to those who mean the most to me if I run myself ragged trying to help everyone else. My health, my family and my home are more important than anything else. I’m so glad I have finally established these things as my key priorities now, before it’s too late.

Saying no isn’t that big a thing. The last time I said no was last week when my daughter’s gymnastics coach asked me to go to the gym camp as a supervising parent. 3 days of trying to keep 30 girls in hand. I said no thanks, I wont be able to do that. I smiled and walked off.

Important thing to note here: when I said no, the sky did not fall down on my head, the earth did not open up and swallow me whole, and the coach is still being pleasant to me when I drop my daughter off at training.

My instant reaction was – of course I’ll go! But I stopped for a moment and had a quick think and realised what a huge upheaval it would make to my family and to me to go away for 3 days.

I thought, I wish I could say no to this – so I did. I knew I had a choice and I chose the option that suits me and my priorities best. I know that maybe it wont be so easy every time I am asked to do something and I want to.

I want to enjoy my life, I want to be sure that what I am doing I am giving my full attention to, that I will only hand over cake ingredients rather than risking handing over trash.

I know the only thing that stays the same is change – things and situations are always changing. I know I always have a choice to say no. I’m going to enjoy the times where I am free to stand still and watch the flowers, instead of being is such a rush that I never even notice they have grown.

Having laughed to myself about Vicki and how silly busy she is, I began to think about my own busy life.

Wednesday last week I decided I had to do a list of errands – buy a gift then get to the post office and send a parcel to my nephew for his birthday, collect my husband’s shirts from the cleaners, return some long overdue library books, and get to the newsagents to buy the lotto tickets which May, my elderly neighbour, had asked me to get for her.

That was nearly it for my lunch hour, and I hadn’t had anything to eat yet! In the queue for the lotto tickets at the newsagents, I went to pull out my purse from my handbag – and the purse wasn’t there. I hurriedly backtracked to every store I had been to, panicking more with each store that said sorry, no purse here. In the rush to get into the post office, back where I had started my lunch hour, I bumped my shopping bags against the door way.
A hard lump from inside one of the bags told me – there was my purse. I had completely forgotten that in my rush I had just shoved my purse into a shopping bag instead of my handbag. My lunch hour was up, I was nowhere near the office, I hadn’t bought the lotto tickets and I still hadn’t eaten.

All of this, not getting things done, making mistakes, panicking, skipping meals – all because both Vicki & I were trying to do too much in not enough time.

A quick straw poll at the office tells me that nearly every woman I work with has the same, complex life. The only one who doesn’t is Natalie, the office junior, and she is only 16. She hasn’t had time to let her life get complex yet.

The rest of us all try to cram too much in. We have busy jobs to go to each day, houses to keep, kids to chase after, husbands to pacify, family & friends to enjoy, committees and community groups which we support.

The first thing most of us say when we finally get a chance to chat and catch up is: I am sooooo busy!

Now, there is nothing wrong with having a full and busy life, being open to new opportunities and activities. But sometimes it gets to be too much. With so much busy-ness, we often forget that it’s time to say no. In our rush to get everything done we overlook the opportunities to not be involved.

Different things keep us busy in different ways. I know that when the winter sports season starts, my household experiences a high level of perpetual chaos. With 2 older boys doing different sports: one at basketball and one at golf, the 2 younger boys trying out for every sport they come across, plus our young daughter doing gymnastics and ballet – the weekends are manic. Plus weeknights all involve training and classes for their activities – it’s almost impossible to keep up.

In the midst of this, my husband is often away on business, and all his needs must be attended to as well. And would someone please remind me again why I decided to resume my accountancy studies this year?

There is also our dear grandma who needs and enjoys having us keep an eye on her. She needs help with shopping, plus likes to sit and chat over a cuppa several times a week. Then there are her doctor appointments, and she is much happier if one of us is available to sit and wait for her, then drive her home.

This kind of busyness is something we have to just get on with, coping any way we can. I keep telling myself it can’t always be this busy. But it is – I am now experiencing a life where I am perpetually busy, rushing from one thing to the next with hardly taking a breath in between. It’s getting to the point where I am not having a life, my busy lifestyle is controlling who I am and how I think.

I am beginning to realise that with my being so busy, with so many things on the go at once, I am not doing a great of those activites. Rushing around like a headless chook means things are missed and not completed.

Click on the link below to go to Part 3 of Doing Too Much, which will deal with the attitudes to develop and steps to take to sort this out.

The other day, my friend Vicki & I met for a coffee. We hadn’t caught up for a while, and both miraculously managed to cram this coffee into two super busy schedules. We spent most of the time laughing at ourselves for being too busy, and the things which happen when our busy lives start to give us signals to slow down.

Vicki’s story first – of course, she had a super busy day. It involved the usual events of getting her youngest son to kindy and the 2 older boys to high school. Then she raced off to inspect the repairs on a broken window in an investment property. Then off to the shops before heading home to whip the house into shape before collecting her youngest from kindy.

This was all the usual stuff, which normally takes 39 hours a day to complete. While at the shops Vicki remembered she had volunteered to pick up all the ingredients needed for 3 dozen cup cakes which the children at her son’s kindy would bake the next day.

Rushing home with the groceries for dinner and the cup cakes, she fixed a quick sandwich and hurriedly munched while she vacuumed. After a quick swish of the dishes from breakfast Vicki was collecting her things to get out the door again to kindy. On the way out, she grabbed the baking ingredients and shoved them into a shopping bag. She grabbed another bag and emptied the cat’s litter tray into it and headed out to the garbage bin on the way to the car.

Of course, the phone rang just before she shut the back door. So Vicki juggled bags and phone and keys while dealing with further questions from the agent managing the investment property.

Hurriedly she scrawled a note to herself about the phone call, grabbed the bags and rushed out the door, paused long enough to toss the garbage in the bin, leaped into the car and arrived at kindy with seconds to spare.

Recalling how close she came to completely forgetting to buy them, it was with great relief that she was able to hand over the shopping bag of cup cake ingredients to the pre-school teacher, only to find, to her horror that she had handed over a bag of what the cat had left behind. The flour, milk butter and eggs doubtless lay in the garbage bin at home.

This in anyone’s book, is a tale of a woman who does too much. Surely the world is crying out for Vicki to slow down? Taken on their own, none of the things which Vicki does could be termed as hard or time consuming. It’s only when she tries to do them all at once does she run into trouble.

So is your life something like Vicki’s? Take stock of what you are doing to yourself and those around you when you do too much.

Are you afraid of change? Are you afraid of making changes in your life because it might mean that this new way will be expected of you all the time? Are you afraid that you can’t live up to these new expectations?

Moreover, are you afraid of what will happen in this new environment, one in which you may not know what will happen next?

Many people thrive on messy lives and feel more comfortable with chaos than with peace and order, because that is the only way they know. While they may want to change the way they are do things, actually making those changes and getting order to their lives is difficult.

They are used to the safe, familiar environment of rush, mess and chaos.

If you have had enough of this frantic, living in the last minute lifestyle then keep reading. You probably think there is no way you can fix this mess, it’s just too huge a job to tackle all at once.

Relax – the good news is you can change the way you live your life and it won’t hurt. It won’t cause any upheaval because you don’t have to do it all at once. In fact, you shouldn’t try and change everything all at once.

Your life didn’t become this hectic and complicated overnight, so you don’t have to run yourself ragged trying to fix it all in one day.

Have you ever tried to loose a lot of weight all at once? IT didn’t work, right? And I bet you found that if you did lose some weight, a little while later it all came back again – and brought it’s fat little friends too.

The same applies to making changes about how you live your life. Dont’ try to do it all at once. It doesn’t work in the long run.

Take one small step at a time. Just pick one thing, give yourself the chance to take small steps and make small changes. This gives your mind and body the chance to adjust to a new way of doing things. Trying to do it all at once is a sure-fire way to crash and burn, and you’ll wind up in an even bigger mess with a liberal sprinkling of guilt at failure just for good measure.

Giving yourself a chance to get used to each change as it occurs, one at a time, is the best way to make sure these changes stick and become part of your new habit, your new routine for how you live your life.

Pick one thing, and step out boldly with a brave face and you’ll be delighted with the subtle difference that occurs. Gently, gently making positive changes to help you get on top of your struggles wears them down into stress free events.

Once you have one thing sorted and are able to deal with it in a balanced and sane manner, then you can work on the next. Only choose one thing at a time. The rest can wait. You don’t even have to choose the most pressing, annoying issue to deal with first. Make a change to one thing which is not too big.

Very quickly that aspect of your life will be running smoothly, then you can move on to the next, then the next. Always just one small baby step at a time. Never bite off more than you can comfortably spit out.

Once you get a grip on one thing, other things your life will run more smoothly, and then you will feel confident enough to tackle the bigger issues – and you will know how to tackle them by having practised on some smaller issues.

Now that you know how to start to make the changes to straighten out your chaotic life, let’s tackle this issue about expectation.

What are your expectations like? Are they high or low? Are they your expectations of yourself, or the expectations of others around you? Make sure that you have this one sorted.

Are you afraid to change because you don’t think you can keep up the high level of management you imagine having an orderly life to need? Are your standards too high? Do you expect too much of you?

If it’s been a long time since you can remember being organised, do you now think that it is all too much, too hard, and will take too much effort to even begin?

If so, then I you are probably trying to do too much at once. Taking one thing and making one small change is so much easier and less overwhelming than trying to do it all at once.

If you are you afraid that any changes you make will become hard to keep up , and that others will always expect this from you – then think again. Carrying around the perceived expectations of others is a heavy burden, and always an unnecessary one.

Get used to this line of thought when other try and give you their opinions of you: what you think of me is none of my business. Often times what we imagine others are thinking of us is just that – imagination only.

Let go of what others might say and think of you, in every aspect of your life. Realise that nothing you can do can change the way they think, and I would bet that what you imagine others think of you is wildly inaccurate.

Most people are too busy thinking of themselves and their own issues to worry too much about thinking badly of others.

Anyone who is ill-mannered enough to actually let you know what they think of you aren’t worth the time of day. If you have people in your life who give you grief over the way you manage your own personal business, then maybe there is another aspect of your stressful life that needs some attention.

Get a grip on those things that make you frown – relationships and too-full diaries for a start. Free yourself from the stress that comes with the burden of the good opinion of others. It’s not good for your sate of mind or your health. Nor does it help you to live you life in the happiest manner possible.

Most of us have already made some attempts to sort our lives, with varying levels of success. We go along for a few weeks with things in good working order, only to find that all too soon, somehow, we loose the plot and it all falls apart, back to the same hectic, over-booked, messy situations we had before.

Think about why you are in this round of success and failure of 2 steps forward and 4 steps back. Are you afraid that you will have nothing to do if everything runs smoothly? Are you afraid that people will think you don’t do much if they see that everything is in order?

Would you feel guilty or be afraid of free time? Have you got a bit of a martyr deal going here, which allows you to complain about how busy you are and how no one helps you?

Are you afraid that being organised and living an orderly life will make you feel that you have no purpose, nothing to work towards?

These are some of the big reasons why many people do not commit to making changes in their lives. We allow ourselves to be sidetracked and cave in at the first glitch, deciding it is all too hard.

When this happens, just stop, and look at what you are doing to yourself. Often you are doing one – or more – of the following: trying to do it all at once, forgetting about the baby steps or letting what you imagine others think of you to bring you down.

One of the hardest things you will ever have to deal with is making changes in your life, and it’s only hard if you try and do it all at once. Stop, step back and do one thing at a time. Get it sorted and settled then move on to the next one thing. Face your problems one at a time and stop hiding from them.

Once you get started, the rest is easy. So start with one easy issue, sort it, celebrate, then move on to the next. Keep your problems on a list, but you don’t have to tackle the hardest stuff first. Choose one that is not too huge, get it done then move on.

Refuse to ignore the hard things. Get a Grip and make a difference to your life.