Choosing Your Role Models

Role Models. We hear a lot about how children need them. However, as adults we use them to. We have role models we use when parenting. We have role models on the job and just generally for different aspects of our lives. The key is not just acknowledging that we have and need role models but to select effective role models.

Role models should embody the characteristics and behaviors that we want to emulate. They will not ever be perfect people, none of us are; but they should be people who have traits we can model. I, personally don’t ever think that celebrities make good role models. A role model should be someone you see in a variety of situations. It should be someone you can talk to and interact with.

Our first role models are our parents. Sadly, for many of us, these are not effective role models. An effective parental role model should embody characteristics of love, dependability, security to name a few. An absentee parent, an abusive parent, a parent who doesn’t want to be a parent are not good role models. Tragically, we often see people with poor parental role models going on to be poor parental role models.

I work with interns on my job. These interns have to be aware of the people they work with everyday and not just let themselves be influenced just because someone sits in the cube next to them or because they report to that person. I’ve seen enthusiastic kids beaten down by the naysayer who’s negative attitude acts as a poison, slowly changing their outlook and actions for the worst. I’ve seen productive focused kids influenced by the lazy and entitled coworker who thinks that showing up and doing the bare minimum is good enough. It isn’t.

When it  comes to familial role models, we don’t have a choice. We are stuck with the hand we were dealt; but that doesn’t mean we are doomed to repeat their mistakes. We can choose to be and behave differently. Having an absentee father doesn’t mean you have to be an absentee father or choose a man to father your children who won’t be there. You can choose to look at your role model and decide to do thinks differently and consider your parental  role model of what you do not want to be.

As you progress though life, you will choose the people to model. Look at their character and the results they achieve, not just financially, but in terms of the richness of their relationships and the depth of their character and choose accordingly.

Remember when it comes to role models the choice is yours … so choose wisely.

An Ounce of Prevention

Benjamin Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” In the health field, this is fairly obvious. It’s easier to prevent a disease than to cure one. Better to eat right, exercise and keep a decent weight than it is to treat the diabetes or heart disease that comes from a life time of unhealthy choices.

Of course, the ounce of prevention adage works in other areas as well. Ask the renter who lost all of her possessions and didn’t have renters insurance. Ask the worker who made a very good living but chose to spend everything she made, without even thinking about saving, a few weeks after she gets the pink slip. Ask the frustrated mom on the side of the road after her minivan has broken down, the one who didn’t think getting the oil changed was that much of a big deal.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure but (and I’m on a roll with these old sayings) hindsight is also 20/20. As she stands in the ramshackled living room that $20 a month for the renters insurance doesn’t sound too bad. Likewise, saving and getting routine car maintenance would make a lot of sense in the face of the lay-off or an unexpected breakdown.

The trick is to use that ounce of prevention before those bad things happen.

I think we aren’t concerned about prevention because we just don’t think that bad thing (whatever it is) will happen to us. Sure people are losing jobs but you are okay. They need you. Don’t they? And your car, it’s just fine. Isn’t it?

When that dreaded event happens, we are blindsided. I was one of those people I didn’t have renters insurance. I never saved for a rainy day and I let my car go without maintenance for far too long. Yet after years of being hardheaded, I learned to look for the ounces of prevention because a pound of cure can be expensive!

The ounce of prevention can cost too – in both time and money. Insurance isn’t free and car maintenance certainly isn’t. It does take time to locate and compare policies and to take the car to be serviced. Saving some money isn’t nearly as much fun as spending (at least to me) but these are small costs when you consider the alternative.

Look for areas where you can find those ounces of prevention and when you find them, take action. Because an ounce of prevention won’t do you any good once you need a pound (or more) of cure.

Three from Me!

For the month of June, we'll be looking at what we can do to be financially fit!

Right now I'm working on my Fourth Get It Together Girl! workbook. This one is all about money-saving tips. It isn't about investing or budgeting, it's about little things you can do to make sure you have enough money at the end of your month. Most of these are things I do myself, so I wanted to share my three favorite tips with you.

1. The Gift that Keeps Giving

We all know that gift cards make good gifts but did you know they make good budgeting tools as well? A while back things were really tight and I would be stuck on the day before payday with an empty tank and no money to fill it up. When I tried to put aside a $20 for gas, I’d inevitably end up spending it on something else. The solution: I found agas station chain that had stations near my house and my job. When I got paid, I would fill up my tank and get a $25 gas gift card. The gas gcard can’t be spent for dinners out or movies. So it gets used for it’s intended purpose: gas.

This was so successful that I started using it for movies, a my favorite stores. Instead of walking into a store with my debit card, I can purchase a gift card for the exact amount I want to spend. If I want to spend $100 a month on clothes, I purchase a $100 gift card from a store I want to shop in. If I budget so much for the movies, I buy a gift card once a month to cover all of those movies. This way I am never caught without.

2. Levelize

In the winter, gas bills can climb to astronomical heights and the electric can do the same thing in the summer. When you levelize, or enter an equal payment plan, you pay for your service at a consistent rate year-round. This way there are no surprises when you open your bill

3. Find Your Triggers

Money and food are often hard to manage because we overlook the emotional component. Yet, spending can be very addicting and like most addictive behaviors you need to know what your triggers are. Do you shop when stressed or unhappy? Maybe you spend to retaliate against the spouse? You could associate shopping and spending money with feeling good and hanging out with friends. Know what your triggers are and plan accordingly.

What else can you do when you are feeling those feelings. Who’s help can you enlist. Ask your girlfriends to rein you in when you start on a binger. Acknowledging the emotion behind your actions is half of the battle. As long as acknowledgment is followed by action, you’ll know you are on the right course!

Want more tips? Buy the book when it comes out! LOL!

Stop Tolerating Your Tolerations

What are you tolerating? In other words, what do you have in your environment that you can change but haven’t. In coaching school, we called these things tolerations. If you wear a size 11 shoe, you might not be happy with that, but there is nothing you can do about your shoe size. This would not be a toleration. However, if you have a lot of shoes you never wear and should be donated, you have a toleration. If you need to buy a good pair of basic black pumps but you’ve put it off, you have toleration.

The problem with tolerations is that they zap your energy. They nag at you. I’ll give you an example. When I pulled into the driveway, I would see the tall shrubs lining one side of my driveway. Every day I would think about how much I needed to trim them. When I would get out of the car, I would think about how much I needed to sweep out the garage. Finally, I’d walk into the house and see the spots over the security system panel that I needed to touch up with paint. These little things nagged at me on a daily basis.

Recently, I decided to take a look at my tolerations. I sat down one Saturday morning and made a list. Before long, I had over 20 tolerations … including the ones I just mentioned. I had nothing planned for the day so I decided to knock out a few. Before the weekend was over, I’d knocked out about 20 of the tolerations on my list! Most were minor, not time-consuming and just needed to be done. So I took some time and did them.

Now, when I pull up in the driveway, I am not besotted with nagging feelings of the things I need to do … they are done! It’s a great feeling.

Tolerations aren’t a new concept. When most people think of the ancient Chinese practice of Feng Shui, they think of moving furniture. However, students of Feng Shui know that the first steps of Feng Shui involve clearing clutter, fixing things that are broken and handling all of those nagging things that are around all of us every day. Students of Feng Shui do this to improve the flow of energy through the house. In other words, they handle their tolerations!

Make your list and begin handling them. You might not have a full day but you can tackle them one at a time. The great thing is that once you start, you’ll feel the difference and have the momentum to keep it going!

Trust Me, You Need This

Take today's blog photo, print it and keep it with you at all times. Feel free to make copies for kids, co-workers, friends or spouses.

You see, this a rare find - something often heard but almost never seen. It is the ever-elusive Round To It. You hear a lot about Round To Its but its nearly impossible to find one, yet here it is.

The next time you find yourself or someone else saying that they'll do something when they get a Round To It, hand them this uncommon excuse eliminator.

• Your co-worker says she'll review your report when she gets "around to it." Hand it to her.
• Your kids swear that they'll get "around to" cleaning their room. Hand it to them.
• The hubs says he'll get "around to" mowing the lawn. Hand it to him.
• "I'll get around to scheduling that doctor's appointment, you say." Hand it to yourself!

People who are waiting for the opportunities to get a Round to It, no longer have that as an excuse because her it is!

Money Management Resourses

For the month of June, we'll be looking at what we can do to be financially fit!

There are a number of resources you can use to make money management a bit easier. Here are the tools that I personally use.

Mobile Checkbook: This app is a simple checkbook register for your phone. Before Mobile Checkbook, it was difficult for me to keep track of receipts and try to remember to log everything. With Mobile Checkbook, I have my expenses entered immediately. If I am shopping or eating out then I have that expense recorded before I leave the parking lot. My checkbook is now accurate down to the penny, and that rarely happen before!

Mint.com: I mentioned this one last week. It's great for setting up budgets and tracking expenses. It is a free site and you can link your bank account to it so it is tracking all of your debits, checks and electronic transactions. You can go in and determine what your budget categories are and which expenses go where. This sounds time-intensive but once you have it set up, it doesn't take a lot of time at all.

Credit Karma.com: This is another free site that monitors your credit. It doesn't use the actual credit reports (from the Big Three) but it has its own algorithm that will help you monitor your general credit rating. It also links you to offers for credit cards, online bank accounts and other financial products for people with similar Credit Karma ratings.

Annual Credit Report: This is the government sponsored site where you are entitled to one free credit report per year. Free Credit Report dot com and other sites will charge you for something. This site will not. You can get online copies of your credit report. However, be prepared to print them as it is difficult to save them!

Additionally, you should have your bank's app on your phone. I also have apps on my phone for my credit card accounts as well. This way I can always quickly get your account balances.

Taking a Technological Time Out

Cell phones, email, text messaging, status updates, tweeting, for many of us, from the moment we awake until we go to sleep, we are ‘connected’. On an episode of Dr. Phil, one woman was so addicted to texting that she stopped in the middle of intimate relations with her husband to read and respond to a text. Don’t even get me started on all of the near-miss accidents I have had because someone couldn’t be bothered to look away from the phone and actually watch the road! It’s getting to be a little much.

These technological wonders have become a part of our lives, mostly for the better, but still, our dependence is a little bit scary. So many churches and other organizations have started what they call technology fasts. The most practical ones for me are evening fasts. If you need emails and cell phones for work or to track the kids down, that’s one thing.

Yet the idea of an evening fast intrigued me. An evening fast starts when you get home from work, and ends the next morning. For those hours, there is no:

• Television
• Internet
• Phone usage (land line or cell)
• Texting
• Video Games
• GPS Systems

For an evening, you are technologically free. You can read. You can meditate. You can talk to your family members. You can take a walk. You can play with the kids. You can write in a journal. You can paint, sing, draw … but you can’t utilize technology.

Of course this does take some planning. You won’t want to do it when you have a project due or a test scheduled for the next day, but you do want to find some time to do it.

I did it for several days during a recent vacation. I found it to be liberating and calming. Perfect for a vacation! Yet, I decided to do it one evening a week when I returned home – that has proved a little more challenging.

Try it just for one evening and let me know how it goes.