Becoming Financially Independent: A How To

Yesterday I wrote My Life's Purpose: A Revelation. Part two of this is the how I am going to do it inspiration I received from "Your Money or Your Life" by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin.

Here is a summary of their steps that I am following and am getting great benefit and goal-setting in place for my husband and I to acquire financial independence in the near future. You may want to check out the book (I got my copy from the local library) to get more details on the steps.

Step 1
Summary of lifetime earnings
Current list of assets, liabilities and net worth

Step 2
Calculate real hourly wage
Track the money coming in or going out of your life

Step 3
Monthly tabulation ~ convert money spent in each category to hours of life energy using real hourly wage (see Step 2)

Step 4
Three questions that will transform your life to evaluate where and how you spend your money

• Did I receive fulfillment, satisfaction and value in proportion to life energy spent?
• Is this expenditure of life energy in alignment with my values and life purpose?
• How might this expenditure change if I didn't have to work for a living?
  

Step 5
Create Wall Chart plotting total monthly income and expenses where you can see it daily

Step 6
Minimize Spending

Step 7
Maximize Income

Step 8
Capital and the Crossover

Step 9
Manage Finances

My Life's Purpose: A Revelation

After a few weeks of an increasing feeling unease and distance from my life (that I am normally very passionate about), I got my joy of life back.

I'm finishing reading "Your Money or Your Life" by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. The book is being ready by the Woman's Money Group I meet with monthly. This was the same group that I read Suze Orman's "Women and Money" book with. I give both these books my gratitude for educating me on personal finance as well as to live and work smarter.

If you follow my blog, you understand that I've had a hard time transitioning from a good-paying job that also represented my identity. I believe the position as Campaign Director illustrated my intelligence and capabilities. When I mentioned that I was part of a team that fundraised hundreds of millions of dollars, I felt awe for what I helped achieve. And then I became a stay-at-home mom.

This new mom role was my dream life since forever. Yet it didn't have the same glamour or respect that I believed my other J-O-B gave me. Even recently I found myself referencing "who I once once" versus my new role as "just a housewife". And then I read "Your Money or Your Life". I honestly don't think I am going to be disappointed or feel redundant in my present life again.

Dominguez and Robin write "when you break the conceptual link between work and money, you give yourself the opportunity to discover what your true work is. ...You may experience a moment (or 3.5 years as in my case) a panic at the emptiness left by even this temporary suspension as your identity-as-your-job. But there are other you's ... of your own life's work." (page 246). I don't know how they pegged it so well, but somebody understands and has made clear to me what has been going on with my identity shift these past few years. Thank you!

With my home daycare, I have been adding more kids to the mix up to the legal maximum because I liked the "I don't know how you do it" statements; not reverently stated, more like "I am so glad that isn't me". I knew I was doing it to be able to afford to stay home to raise our children with our morals and values, but once again Dominguez and Robin gave it more exactly!. "If you chose to work more ...at your paid employment, you would do it only for good reason, since you place a high value on your life energy" (page 247-248). I am doing it to support our values, to get out of debt and develop savings so we can be secure no matter the economic climate plus to become financially independent.

Since I was a little girl, I have always wanted to be a teacher. I now realise that working with the extra children in the home daycare is my "connection to serve my (financial and life's) purpose" (page 248). I want "more money so that I can have more freedom to be (my)self without worrying about money" (page 249).

I am embracing more clients (and more money), "not out of greed or competition but out of self respect and an appreciation of life" to find myself with less debt, more savings, a more satisfied family and more peace of mind" (page 258).

My life, once again, feels purposeful.

Menu Plan Monday ~ Sep 27-Oct3

Join this week's Menu Plan Monday movement at I'm an Organizing Junkie! Also check out the link for more menu ideas.

28 Small Peach ~0p Slim Fast Shake ~5p Oatmeal Shake ~1.75p Apple Squash Soup ~3p Large salad with dressing ~2p 10 Baby Carrots ~0p Greek Yogurt with Berries, Nuts & Honey ~4.5pt Broccoli & Cheese Chicken ~3.25p Zucchini & Plum Tomatoes ~2p ½ cup Frozen Yogurt ~2p =23.5pts

29 Small Orange ~0p 2 packs plain Oatmeal ~2p 250 mL Skim Milk ~2p 1½ c Strawberries ~ 1p Herb Tea ~0p Roasted Autumn Vegetable Soup ~2p Large salad with dressing ~2p 2 pc WW bread ~2p Small Peach ~ 0p 2 Waffles ~4p Chicken Taco Chili ~4p Baked Potatoes (no skin) ~2p ½ cup Frozen Yogurt ~2p =23pts

30 Small Peach ~0p Slim Fast Shake ~5p Oatmeal Shake ~1.75p 1c Crock Pot Macaroni ~4p Large salad with dressing ~2p Herbal Tea ~0p Multigrain Tortillas ~3p Salsa ~0p Split Pea Soup ~3.5p 2 Corn on the Cob ~2p ½ cup Frozen Yogurt ~2p =23.25pts

1 Small Orange ~0p 2 packs plain Oatmeal ~2p 250 mL Skim Milk ~2p 1½ c Strawberries ~ 1p Herb Tea ~0p Barbecue Chicken Wrap ~6p Large salad with dressing ~2p Microwave Potato Chips ~1p Crystal Lite & Water ~ 0p Baked Chicken Parmesan ~5.5p Baby Red Potato Salad ~2p ½ cup Frozen Yogurt ~2p =23.5pts

2 Small Peach ~0p 2 packs plain Oatmeal ~2p 250 mL Skim Milk ~2p Oatmeal Shake ~1.75p Roasted Vegetable Lasagna ~ 5p Large salad with dressing ~ 2p Herbal Tea ~0p 1½ c Strawberries ~ 1p Herb Tea ~0p Tortilla Pizza ~5p Southwestern Black Bean Salad ~2.5p ½ cup Frozen Yogurt ~2p =23.25pts

I've got that feeling again ...

I've got that feeling again ... the restless feeling.

I need to do or be something. I am considering an online store but am not sure exactly how much work it involves.

I want it to make money or cost nothing but what could it be?

Anyone have any ideas as to what I could do?

The Mess with the House Cleaner

I feel ill. I have been going through a "he said, she said" negotiation with our cleaning company. The guy I have been dealing with is not very business-minded. We are in a current agreement and have pre-paid for a certain number of house cleaning sessions. Suddenly he claims we have used up hours when I am sure we agreed to weekly flat rate sessions. I even have the receipt that states the $ per cleaning. This has been such a frustrating experience and he has canceled a negotiations meeting and has failed to deliver a proposal for moving forward. He has also been so sneaky as to send a cleaner and then email me suggesting that if I let her clean that this will provide consent for a new agreement. Good thing I checked my emails and didn't get caught in his trap. What a goof.

I am reading "Your Money or Your Life : Transforming your relationship with money and achieving financial independence" by Joseph Dominguez and Vicki Robin. The book discusses life energy and how we choose to spend it. Basically, how many hours of your life remain? Is it worth it to spend my precious life energy making myself sick with anxiety over the cleaning guy? I know the answer but I need to tell my churning gut the answer ... Honestly, I just want it to all go away and have a clean house!

Works For Me Wednesday

Today I am going to jump in on the Works-For-Me Wednesday band wagon. I LOVE my rubber gloves. Sounds silly enough, however, these babies have saved my hands. I have a home daycare with 5 children PLUS my own two. That is 7 kids under the age of three. By the time I serve lunch, clean hands and wipe down the high chairs and surrounding floor area, my hands are raw from all the washing. Never mind diaper changes and other miscellaneous messes.

So ... Rubber Gloves work for me this Wednesday!

On My Way to Being a Sewer!

Here is the Christmas apron. I am super excited. It took me a few hours (having to start and stop plus work around the kiddies).

Ava is my model. Keep in mind that she is 3 years old so it would obviously be longer on a "regular sized person". And don't you love her matching pj's? LOL

Visual Chore Chart

I'm having a hard time getting into the whole "brushing the teeth" thing with the kids. I'm so tired of fighting that I'm lucky to get clean bums, hands and faces plus pjs on before bed.

The traditional chore chart of words and me remembering what everything is seemed too daunting. And then I saw it ... the image chore chart at The Idea Room. Perhaps to many of you this isn't a huge leap of comprehension, but for me it's ingenious.

Friday Fill-Ins: #142

This week's Friday Fill-Ins:

1. My car has been sitting in my driveway lately since I have too many kids in my daycare to drive anywhere.

2. My husband's birthday is coming up next (today in fact!).

3. Lately, things seem to not be as important as they used to (material things, that is).

4.The gym is one of my favorite 'hiding' places.

5. What happened to non-reality television?

6. Being a M-I-L-F (mom-I'd-like to-fool around with) is not impossible!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to celebrating the big guy's birthday, tomorrow my plans include sleeping in, going to my Women & Money group meeting, and going to the library and Sunday, I want to relax and enjoy time with my in-laws!

The New Crafter Is Here! Sort of ...

I have been so inspired by the blogs that I read. There are so many talented and creative women out there! (Men I am sure too but in this case I follow the women and their blogs).

Lately it has been the sewing and home decorating blog projects that are grabbing my attention. So ... last Sunday I went to Fabric Land to search for a simple sewing project. I do enjoy sewing, however, the projects must be easy enough to be completed in an afternoon or less.

I was fortunate to find the following projects ...

1. Two pre-designed Christmas aprons (the ones you just have to cut and sew). I'm planning to make them for Christmas gifts.
2. Buy 1 Get 2 FREE Butterick patterns (aprons, living room sofa and pillow shams and other accessories, window shade/blinds)
3. Fabric for an apron ~ I want to wear this daily over my jeans and tee shirt as a "uniform" for the daycare. It will make me feel more into the role and hopefully will get my clothes to last longer than an hour before getting dirty with little hand prints
4. Two different fabric for four pillow shams and piping for the edges ~ we just repainted the house and now the couch is looking sort of drab. Although ... I am now considering them as window coverings/headings since they are raw silk (wasn't thinking on that part with little dirty heads on the pillows). I'll let you know what I decide.
   

It's the #1 aprons first since they are the easiest. I'll post pictures with my finished products. I'm SUPER excited. Now I just need to find an afternoon, which can be tricky with little helpers! How do these other ladies do it with youngsters around?

Oh! And I was super proud of myself for having purchased everything at 50% off! (Although it was still $100. More reason to get these projects "sewn up" so that I can justify it to the hubby).

Searching For Contentment

Mandi at Simple Nest hit the nail on the head with her post about Being Content with our Homes.

I too have been struggling with being content with what I have, often viewing the grass on the other side as greener. This is not only limited to my home but to myself in general. I'm working on it. When I read this post I realized I am not the only one who gets such feelings.

I know that I am blessed with what I have and try not to take it for granted. Working out of my home with a daycare of five kids plus my own two puts the house's function in a different need category than when it was just our family.

I read all of these blogs about home decorating and thrifty chic trends on low budgets that I would LOVE to apply to our home but let's face it, there are only so many hours in a day and I would rather spend them with the family versus stressing over yet another self-imposed project deadline.

Mandi "came across this blurb on Gidget Goes Home from a book called Calm My Anxious Heart: A Woman’s Guide to Finding Contentment by Linda Dillow. Nicole shared these five principles of contentment from the first chapter, which have been hanging on the bulletin board in my laundry room ever since.

• Never allow yourself to complain about anything — not even the weather.
• Never picture yourself in any other circumstance or someplace else.
• Never compare your lot with another’s.
• Never allow yourself to wish this or that had been otherwise.
• Never dwell on tomorrow — remember that tomorrow is God’s, not ours."

As Mandi has asked, I too want to know ...Is contentment something you struggle with when it comes to your home? Do you tend to focus more on what isn’t done than what is done?

Glee

I have finally found a show that I am excited about. Glee.

"GLEE is a one-hour comedy series with biting humour that features a soundtrack of hit music from past to present. The show follows an optimistic high school teacher as he tries to refuel his own passion while reinventing the high school's glee club and challenging a group of outcasts to realize their star potential." GlobalTV.com

Since where I live I have not heard of a glee club, I Googled it. According to Wikipedia, "a glee club is a musical group, historically of male voices but also of women's or mixed voices, which traditionally specializes in the singing of short songs—glees—by trios or quartets. The first named Glee Club was founded in London, England, in 1787. Glee clubs were very popular in the UK from then until the mid 1850s but by then they were gradually being superseded by choral societies. By the mid-20th century, proper glee clubs were no longer common. However the term remained (and remains) in use, primarily for choirs found in North American and Japanese colleges and universities despite the fact that most American glee clubs are choruses in the standard sense and no longer perform glees. Glee in this context does not refer to the mood of the music or of its singers, but to a specific form of English part song popular between 1650 and 1900, the glee."

Guess you will know where I am on Wednesday's at 9PM.

What shows are you looking forward to this season?

I Organized the Clothes

I posted the other day about organizing the kids clothes. Tonight I got a bug in me that would not let it go. I transferred Ava's size 3 wardrobe to size 4. I have a HUGE bag of size 3 items to sell on the local Kijiji site. I am so proud of me!

The Art of Listening in Relationships

Thanks again to Simple Mom for a great post on The Art of Listening in Relationships (click this blog title for the full article).

Following is a summary of the article and the parts that spoke to me ...

1. The quality of our lives depends largely on the quality of our relationships.
2. To a large extent, the quality of our relationships depend on the quality of our communication.

The real issue is — how do you handle the messages sent between you? Especially the ones involving messages you don’t like, or ones with which you disagree.

It’s through speaking and listening that you can dramatically improve the quality of your relationships, and your life.

• See the payoffs in listening well

• Remember – communication at best is difficult

• Listen to yourself listen

• Use silence and postpone your response

• Remember that understanding is not agreeing

Organizing Your Children's Clothes

Thanks to Small Notebook for a Simple Home for this fantastic article on Organizing Your Children's Clothes.

Like the Small Notebook experience, I have found that the children's clothing is quite a time and space consuming ordeal. I dread it when the kids grow and I have to reorganize closets and drawers yet again. Some of the clothes still fit but they are clearly ready for the next size. Do I just haul out the whole current sized wardrobe and move to the next?

We also have been blessed with hand-me-downs in very good condition up to size 6 for Ava and are now starting to get hand me downs for Travis (going on size 2).

What I have been doing is having a tote per size, regardless or season or gender. When it is time to move the child's wardrobe to that size I move the entire tote into their drawers and closet and then sub-sort into seasonal piles (shorts, tee shirts, long sleeves, pants, Capri's, jackets/sweaters). They grow fast enough, I don't want to do this every 3 months for crying out loud!

"Generally, getting organized is not about finding the ideal storage container. Donating and sorting always comes first, and the times that you need to buy something new to store something else should be few and far between." (Small Notebook)

Our friend at Small Notebook (SN) switched when SN found the amount of clothes suddenly doubled, to tote boxes. They’re sweater-box size, and they stack at the top of the closet. However, SN finds the amount overwhelming.

SN's advice on how to keep the clothes storage from taking over your space:

1. Have a limit. The totes limit how much storage space we can fill. Each size has to fit in only one box.

2. Limit the keepsakes. For each kid I have one tote of sentimental clothes to keep, so I won’t accidentally give away the hospital hat or heirloom sweater. Anything else not in that tote can be freely given away when I’m ready.

3. Keep the best stuff. Don’t keep anything worn out or stained. Nicer clothes show less wear, and play clothes can be easily replaced.

4. Don’t accept extra handed-down clothes, just because they’re free. When we were offered all of these little boy clothes, I only took home a small portion of them, although I could have taken more. There was enough clothing for several families, so I got to be selective and pick out my favorites, the things I knew we would use.

This is the question I have to deal with each and every time I pull out the current and next size totes ... What’s a reasonable amount of clothes for children?

SN's "preference is to have one week’s worth of clothes in the current size and season for each child, so that I can go a week before doing laundry. Sometimes we have a little more, but that’s my preferred amount so that everything can be fully used." I like this idea - a lot. I mean, how many tee shirts can one little kid go through any way?

The timing of this article is perfect as I need to go through Ava's wardrobe. She's grown almost 2 inches since February and it seems like it all happened in the last month!

What have you done with your children’s clothes?

Experience with Mom Dating

Today's assignment that I chose to accept from Mama's Losin' It's assignment desk is to "mommy play dates? What's your experience with mom dating?".

I have a home daycare. Other mother's often leave my house grateful for only having one (or two) children. They also "don't know how I can do it with so many toddlers under 3". Stop telling me that, please, people! It is my J-O-B for crying out loud. Don't sit there and pity me because I have to make money to feed my children! This is the best compromise I could think up to stay home with my children while working. I'm open to other ideas that let me play all day and enjoy a quiet time afternoon. That said, I'm a bachelorette when it comes to Mom dating.

Martha Stewart Halloween Workshop 2009 Shopping List

Ooh! I just got the Martha Stewart Halloween Workshop 2009 Shopping List!

Ms Stewart is going to have a workshop over eight weeks of really cool ways to get your house all ghouled up for Halloween!

Let me know if you are going to do any of the items ... I am so tempted to go crazy with Martha (and you, if you are up for it!).