I hope you enjoyed your holiday season. I know I'm always a little relieved when it's over and everything gets back to normal.

 

My holiday season was a little different than I had planned, however. A Chinese spammer hi-jacked my website and sent 52,000 emails (in Chinese) in two days. I knew this because I was getting over 600 emails per hour of "mail undeliverable" messages.

 

Because I'm not of a technological bent, I called my consultants and my web hosting service and they helped me solve the problem. In the meantime, the volume of emails crashed my cell phone and eventually it worked out that I needed to get a new one.

 

This meant several trips to the phone store to try to rescue the old phone, and the unexpected expense of a new phone (and the hassle of re-programming it). As I said, not a part of my original holiday plan.

 

[An unexpected side effect of this hi-jacking is that more of the spam filters are throwing emails from me into people's spam or junk files because my site is showing as a "high volume" site. So if I haven't responded to an email you've sent within 24 hours, please check your spam/junk folder.]

 

This experience got me thinking about unexpected expenses, though. It seems that Murphy's Law has expenses bunch up into certain months. December is a month like that, with Christmas/Hanukkah, property taxes, the added expenses that happen when the kids are out of school, and (often) travel. And then truly unexpected expenses jump in there, like replacing a phone that was working just fine when the month began.

 

Do you have a plan for unexpected expenses? When you do, the world won't seem as scary anymore. January is a great time of year to put a plan in place for the unexpected in your financial life. This January, I am offering something I almost never do - a special package just for readers of this newsletter. You can find out more at the end of my feature article "There is Already Enough"

 

I wish you financial peace for the coming year.

 

Susan

 

A special welcome to my new subscribers! I sincerely hope you will appreciate my articles and insights!

sb  

There Already Is Enough. It's the Choices That We Make.

by Susan Bross, Financial Counselor and Money Coach

The most common thing I experience with my clients is the belief that there isn't enough money - that if they just made more money, their money problems would disappear.

 

That seems logical. If there isn't enough and you add more, then there should be enough, right?

 

I know it's counterintuitive, but that formula doesn't work very often. If you think back, you probably make more money now than you did when you were first starting out. Has making more money really taken away your financial stress?

 

How does that happen? How does making more money not solve the problem? The problem actually lies in the choices we make with our money. We are deciding how to spend our money. The good news is that it's within our control, which isn't always true about being able to make more money. The bad news is that the decisions are influenced by many unconscious factors that we carry around with us. Emotions, attitudes, beliefs, and habits.

 

When something has been added to our lives, it doesn't take long for it to feel "normal" and "needed." Then we stop remembering that decision we made, and see it as a part of our lifestyle and therefore beyond our choice.

 

To change this, you need to review and remake all the decisions that created your lifestyle. And this isn't a yes-no process. This isn't about having or not having. It is literally about reviewing all your options.

 

You originally chose to have something in your life because it added value. For instance, perhaps you have shoulder strain, and start to have a massage twice a month to relieve the muscle tension. The relief of the tension is wonderful, so the massages take on a permanent position.

 

So let's look at that one decision so you can get a sense of what I mean by options. If you think of it as a ladder, you can build a progression of possibilities. For instance, you can continue what you're currently doing because it is a high priority. You can do it less often (once a month) and supplement with a yoga class to learn to relieve your muscle strain and improve your posture yourself. You can find a less expensive masseur. You can get massages at a massage school for greatly reduced cost. You can take a yoga class exclusively. You can trade massages with your partner or friend.

 

You notice I didn't mention eliminating the tension relief. Having less muscle tension is a plus for any of us. There are simply more options than your original twice monthly massage.

 

Let's take entertainment, as another example. This is one you've thought through in the past, I'm sure. You want to see a certain movie. You could go to an evening movie and get goodies to eat at the theater. You could go to an evening movie without the goodies. You could go to a bargain matinee and get goodies. You could go to a bargain matinee without the goodies. You could buy it when it's on DVD. You could order it from a provider like Netflix or your cable provider when it's out on DVD. You could borrow it from a friend when it's on DVD. You could borrow it from your library when it's on DVD. You could wait until it's on a TV station in the future. The end result in all of these ideas is that you will see the movie that you wanted to see.

 

What about going out to dinner with friends? You could go out to expensive restaurants and order wine with the meal, splitting the bill. You could go out to expensive restaurants, not drink, choose from the menu carefully, and not split the bill (agreeing to that prior to the meal). You could go out to less expensive restaurants. You could make a game of finding the least expensive restaurants that you all enjoy. You could have potlucks. You could make dinner together as a group. You could meet them for a picnic. You could meet them for coffee. You could meet them for a hike. The value here is time with your friends, not in the cost of a meal.

 

When I've introduced this 'ladder' concept to clients, it's opened their eyes to the freedom of choice. Choice can feel threatening when you're looking at each option as only "I can have it" or "I can't have it." That is very limiting. If you have no more than two options, then you are continually facing that "rock or a hard place" dilemma. Who wants that?

 

The trick is to figure out the "real" value that something brings to your life. Then build the ladder of options that is possible for that expenditure. The reduction of stress and addition of money in your savings account will make it all worthwhile.

 

January is the perfect time to review your choices over the past year or two and re-think them for the next year. One thing I have found is it can be hard to reconsider your choices when you are the one who made them. When you're ready for an unbiased and caring 'lifestyle second opinion' or when you are ready once and for all to give up holiday sticker shock, email me or pick up the phone and give me a call.

 

This month, although I almost never do this, I am offering a special package - just for my newsletter readers. When you register for any of my programs during the month of January you get 13% off  - in honor of 2013.   

 

So contact me to get started! I am sure it's just what 2013 ordered! I look forward to walking with you to the road to your stress free, savings filled money life.