Working with money

First I'd like to talk about money. People are often not that good or rational about money, even though might they think they are. Me neither. But I decided to change this.

I've started to take control over my personal finances and plan them years forward. First I started collecting notes and writing down how much I spend on what. I analyzed this information and started to think where I could save money. Then I made a decision to not use cash on my personal spending like books, clothes, restaurant visits and so on. However, I actually made about three purchases with my card before I remembered this decision... It is not easy to change such a deep habit of showing the card. I wrote "ONLY CASH" on my debit card so that I wouldn't do this mistake again. I strongly encourage you to take these two steps - you might be surprised. Even though you would think have enough money, I suggest this, since it is in any case interesting if nothing else.

Secondly I started to think more deeply my relationship with money. What worries me about money? What decisions am I not making regarding money? And so on. I found two things to change and I'm working on them. This kind of changes are big and one can only start with realising ones problems and then taking the initial steps to change things. It doesn't happen in a few weeks, on contrary to the first point.

My third initiative was to start thinking how I would be able to make MORE money. Obviosly this isn't easy. Making more money means that you have to have more information and action compared to the current situation. But first it means changing your attitude. To do this I started reading. I can recommend Joe Vitale's free book Attract Money Now, because it is very inspiring (and because it's free). For Finnish speaking women I'd recommend Leila Simonen's Naiset ja raha and for women in general Lois P. Frankel's Nice girls don't get rich: 75 avoidable mistakes women make with money, which is available in English and Finnish. It seems that women in particular have issues with money and they're not using it the way they would like to, for example they may let their husbands do all the financial decisions in the family. There are many good books to read on the subject, but don't get stuck on just reading.

The fourth thing I did was a major change in my life, but I'm not going to tell you about it just yet. I'll get to this in a few weeks or months.