SmartCents, Inc.

Lose 200 Pounds in 48 Hours!

Subject:

Lose 200 Pounds in 48 Hours!

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2007-01-13 15:10:01

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3

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	My 2Cents! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Newsletter all about Living with Abundance, Ditching Debt and Collecting Cash. Welcome to the Frugal Friends Network where We turn the Middle Class into Millionaires. Sponsored by SmartCents, Inc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Janine Bolon, Editor janine@smartcentsinc.com [NAME] Welcome to MY 2Cents! You are receiving this newsletter compliment of SmartCents, Inc. To opt out, please scroll down to the bottom of this newsletter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In this issue -- Note From The Editor -- Lose 200 Pounds in 48 Hours! -- Creating Tangible Targets: How to Aim and Hit your Goals -- Reader Question: Where to put extra money? Into the house or investing? -- WHO WE ARE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note from the Editor ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dear Frugal Friend, Now that January is officially here and the New Year’s Resolutions have been made, let’s talk about getting rid of your unwanted stuff. I know that for many Americans, weight loss is a major resolution every year. Well, I can help you with that when it comes to your house and I can guarantee you will feel lighter and happier after you have taken a few days to rid yourself of unwanted stuff. In the article, “Loose 200 Pounds in 48 Hours!” We will take on the challenging subject of clutter and how to get rid of it! “Creating Tangible Targets” will be hitting the highlights of goal setting and how to get back on track to those resolutions you set up on January 1st. I also have a reader’s question to share with you regarding investing. For those of you who now find yourself with a savings account (Hooray!) and want to know what to do with all the cash, take a look at this tip! Wishing you warm abundance, Janine Lose 200 Pounds in 48 Hours! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You may think it odd that a mommy millionaire would bring up the subject of Clutter. I mean, what does clutter have to do with your checkbook, anyway? A lot more than you realize. It is the clutter in your closets, drawers and rooms that is keeping you from living the simple life. Yes, it is true! As weird as it may seem the connection does exist between the two, finances and clutter. Here is the deal. In order for the Universe to bless you with the resources, money and opportunities that you want in life, you first have to have room for them. You may be saying to me right now, “Hey, Janine, I’ve got PLENTY of room in my checking account for an extra few thousand dollars right now! Where is it?” As I chuckle at your all too appropriate request, I also know that the problem is not the low balance in your check book; it is the over stuffed closet next to your bedroom. Americans, Canadians and Britons on average buy more stuff than they have room. The quantity of You-Store-It warehouses is testimony to that! It is a problem of our capitalistic economies. It is very easy for us to “get” stuff. It is easily accessible and for the most part we pay less for “stuff” than most of the world. Because of this cargo and our high standards of living, we have a tendency to really get ourselves over stuffed on “things.” When you start out to create your financial plan I ask you this question, What do you really want out of life? Once this question has been answered people tell me what amazing transformations occur. They stop impulse buying, their expenses drop almost magically and they realize that many of the shopping habits they had in the past were due to their lack of understanding. They didn’t know what they really wanted in life so they fixed their lives by buying more stuff! Well, you now have an opportunity to align your home as well as your finances. In order to have space and time to take the opportunities that will come to you as you lower your debt and become more financially stable, you now need to purge your home of its unnecessary stuff! Does this cause you to recoil! Do you suddenly start to hyperventilate and feel yourself hugging your precious stuff in fear that Janine is going to make you give up something priceless? Look closely at yourself and your emotions during this trip of thinning your things. You know you have more stuff in your life than you can possibly use. Why do you hang onto it? Why do you allow it to take up your time, money and energy as you move it, store it and haul it around? It is crazy! Does this stuff love you? Then why do you love it back? Here is a quick list of things to do over the weekend to get you started on your Decluttering campaign. 1) Start small when you decide to Declutter. Don’t tackle a HUGE project like the garage right off the bat. Do something really easy, like, your wallet or purse. Dump everything out of it onto the table and throw away, put away or file all the little pieces of paper that you’ve been carrying around for weeks. Then decide what REALLY needs to go back into the purse or wallet and return them. Isn’t that wonderful! Don’t you already feel like you’ve lost weight? Don’t you feel lighter on your toes? I mean, you can actually sit down now with your wallet in your back pocket, right? When was the last time that happened? 2) After you’ve finished with your purse or wallet and now have a sense of accomplishment move on to the next item. The bathroom medicine cabinet. This is a small enclosed space that will take you very little time. Even if this is the first time in 5 years that you’ve actually cleaned it out. Take all the items out of the cabinet and decide which ones really belong in there. I mean, do you really want that old razor to continue sitting on shelf #2 leaving a rust mark? Look at all the medicines you have in there. Are the expired? If they are, pitch them in the trash. Don’t let them take up any more space! They’ve served there time in your washroom, throw them out! 3) After the medicine chest, dig out all the stuff that is under your sink in your bathroom. This place is usually loaded with 15 bars of travelers soap and itty, bitty bottles of shampoo that have never been used along with mounds and mounds of out dated cleaners, dispensers and soap dishes. I mean, really, do you need that electric blue eye shadow that you used in the 70s? No kidding, I had a client once tell me that she found 5 different bottles of foundation that she never used. Throw it out! 4) After you’ve attacked your wallet, purse and bathroom it is time to move on to the closets in your house. Whatever you do DON’T attack the biggest one first. If you haven’t cleaned out the master closet since you moved in, wait on that one. Do the smaller ones first. Get some successes behind you and have the adrenalin rush working for you before you move on. Pull out everything in the closet and lay it out on the floor. You will be amazed at what you find no matter how small the closet is. I continually startle myself with the amount of “stuff” I can pack into small spaces. I think you have the idea now. You start to Declutter your abode by working with manageable tasks and then moving to the bigger ones. When you decide that it is time to get more space in your life start small and work up. Eventually you will be able to take each evening for a week to Declutter the garage. It is amazing how fanatical you become as you move from closet to closet. AS you find the 6th pair of leather gloves and vacuum parts from an appliance you haven’t owned in 15 years. Have no fear or hesitation. Pitch it in the trash, give it to a thrift store or find a friend who can use it. The main point here is to remove it from your house! After you’ve taken a weekend to start this process, you may want to then consider moving to different rooms of the house for Decluttering. Try attacking the kitchen. Do you need 4 pancake turners, 3 coffee makers (2 by the way are broken) and 6 bread pans when you only use 2 at a time? Figure out what it is you truly need and then make room for it by removing the rest from your home. Creating Tangible Targets: How to Aim and Hit your Goals ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Many of my friends tell me they don’t bother with New Year’s Resolutions because nobody ever keeps them so why worry with them at all? Amazing, that’s like saying why bother cooking, I’ll eat it and only get hungry again, so why cook at all? The point is you have to set targets in your life or you’ll just be like a leaf on the wind blowing from place to place without any sense of where you’re going or how far you’re going to travel. The major issue most people have with setting goals is that they aim too high, too far and expect WAY too much from themselves all in one lump. Here are a few tips that I’ve learned over the years when it comes to setting goals. 1) I don’t call them goals. I call them targets. I learned this in 1989 from a guy named Brian Tracy. Brian is a motivational speaker that was a salesman who learned how to make his goals a reality. He became financially independent and started traveling around the country giving seminars on how to create the life you want. He was the guy who first taught me that if you call goals “targets” you’ll win an internal battle every time. With targets you get “points” for getting close! With goals, just like in football, you only get “points” if you make it. You get a goose egg for missing. If you set a “target” for yourself and slip up, that’s not a bad thing because you’ll try again, you didn’t fail. Just by changing the name in my mind from goals to targets, I found myself celebrating every time I took a baby step toward my targets rather than getting all frustrated because I wasn’t moving fast enough toward a goal. 2) After calling them targets, I then made a hierarchy of my targets and all the ways that I could move slowly to my ultimate goals. Let’s take my latest target of “exercise.” I wanted to eventually get to the point of lifting weights and doing aerobics for an hour a day. Well, since I haven’t done anything but walk and move around the house for 4 months, I knew that target was going to take some “building up” on my part. So, I sketched out a plan where I walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes a day for a week, then I added sit ups and push ups the second week while continuing to walk the treadmill. By the third week, I would be ready for some aerobic work…and so on. Instead of going for the big “goal” up front, create a target and then work out the levels of tiny steps toward the target to give you a better chance of success. 3) Now that you have targets in mind as well as little steps toward them, write these things down. If you don’t bring these targets out of your head and post them on paper somewhere, they don’t really exist in our 4-dimnesional world. It is a requirement that you write or type or paint a picture of your targets and post them where you see them every day! 4) Don’t give up. When you slip up and miss a step (and we ALL do!) Don’t hang up your hat and call it quits! Keep at it. Maybe you tried to move to quick to your target. Step back a bit and take it slower. Maybe you had your steps out of sequence on the way to your target. Reevaluate your targets and steps and see if you’re trying to do too much in too many areas of your life. I suggest that you make no more than three major targets at anyone time. I usually only have one or two that I work on at once, but for you type-A personalities, feel free to go as high as three! As you move through January and look at your targets for 2007, know that many of us are right there with you working on improving ourselves and trying to make this year a better year than 2006. This is not an easy road, but it is simple and as long as you keep giving yourself a pat on the back with each step, you’ll eventually find yourself celebrating the fact that you hit the bull’s-eye! Reader Question: Where to put extra money? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dear Janine: “Is it better to put any extra money towards long term investing or paying down the house? Our house is on a 15-year loan at 5.25 interest. The balance is 90,000 and will be paid off in 11 years if we just pay the regular payment. This is our only debt.” The answer I have to this is going to appear like I’m weaseling out of it-and I am! This is a question only you and your husband can decide. However, I will be happy to guide you in your decision making process. It all boils down to what are you comfortable with? Do you want to own your house? Do you prefer to own what you use or are you happier investing the money and hope that the return is better then the interest you pay on your home? These are the types of questions to ask. It also is very wise to consult an accountant or financial planner on this matter (since I am a neither.) Your accountant will inform you of various tax advantages and strategies to use as you accrue more and more savings and a financial planner can guide you on what makes sense for your risk tolerance: invest or pay off the home. I have heard two different schools of thought on this: 1) Pay off the house so you no longer have a mortgage over your head and all you have to worry with is paying property taxes on the place. Some accountants cringe at this because you do loose some tax benefits. It is up to you to decide if those tax benefits out way the relief you get from retiring that debt. 2) Invest the money wisely and work at getting a return on your investment larger than the interest rate of your house. Some of my clients prefer this philosophy because they are savvy investors and have no problem keeping a mortgage. It is a personal choice. However, 5.25 percent interest is an incredibly low rate. You may want to consider making 13 payments a year on the house and take the rest of the money and investing it. Educate yourself, chat with your accountant and read the advice scattered throughout the web on investment strategies. That is the key to investing and decision making when it comes to finances: education and risk management! Do You Have a Question for the Next Newsletter? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you've got a question you want me to address in the next newsletter, type it up and please send it to janine@smartcentsinc.com with the subject line "My 2Cents Question." My 2Cents will feature a question each issue from the Frugal Friends Network. If you wish to remain anonymous, not a problem! Just state that in your email. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHO ARE WE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SmartCents, Inc. is a company dedicated to bringing the systems of debt-free living to as many people as possible. We wish our students to go out and make their communities stronger by building financial security within their personal lives first and then demonstrating the conserver lifestyle to others. To schedule a seminar or consultation, send your e-mail to themoneymuse@gmail.com with the subject line "Financial Services Info." You can also visit our Web site at www.smartcentsinc.com. Reprint permission ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You are welcome to reprint any items from "My 2Cents Newsletter." However, please credit us as a source with the following paragraph: Reprinted from "My 2Cents newsletter," a free ezine offering financial systems for debt reduction, wealth accumulation and the conserver lifestyle. http://www.smartcentsinc.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Like this newsletter? Pass it on! We never rent or sell subscriber lists to any third party. Your privacy is very important to us. Always. To subscribe to this newsletter, click here: www.smartcentsinc.com. ----------------------------Copyright 2006 SmartCents, Inc.---------------------------- Contact Information ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ email: Janine@smartcentsinc.com web: http://www.smartcentsinc.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Your Subscription: