I will be on the RADIO on WVON 1690AM
I am so excited to tell you that I will be on the radio, Jan 3rd at 11:30 am on WVON 1690AM. I will be a guest on HER Wintrust, empowering Black women in finances with host Ms. Perri Small.
"For more than 50 years, WVON has been and remains the drum major for the African-American community of Chicago. It continues to provide a platform on which Black Chicago can air its concerns, voice its differences, and discuss the issues that affect our society." -- wvon.com
Change Takes Time
Do you have that friend or relative that thinks all problems can be solved in 30min. as if life was a sitcom? I truly believe you can have a great financial life, but it's going to require some changes, and lifelong changes takes time. Permanent change takes persistence, and even some trial and error. You don't know which financial tool you like until you've taken a look and test drove a few.
Set yourself up for success – January
I was sitting here feeling quite overwhelmed. I’m looking at a long list of incomplete task for 2016 and yet I know if I don’t prepare for 2017 I’ll end up with a mess and extra work. Building a stable life takes diligence and some work. Included in that stability is your financial life. Remember you are CEO of your life and finances. To make sure you’re on the right path I suggest you work on your budget in the month of January.
Budget - an estimate of income and expenditure for a set period of time.
Synonyms: financial plan, forecast; accounts, statements
You should be getting those credit card summary emails about now. Take advantage and use them for your budget work. Here are your budget steps:
Why Your Budget Doesn't Work: Reason #1
Rule #1 when creating a budget - MAKE IT SIMPLE. There’s a term accountants use, “substance over form.” Simply put, make sure what you’re doing is meaningful and not just pretty or impressive looking. If you are spending hours on the form of your budget, it’s time wasted. When you complete it, the thought in the back of your mind will be, “Wow! It looks great! But there’s no way I have this much time to maintain such a monstrosity every month.”
It doesn’t matter if you’re a lifelong budget keeper or you’re starting new, you can fall into this trap of over complicating your budget. Here’s my story. Like you, I read the financial advice from the pros and try to apply it. The other month, I spent 2 hours trying to get my financial software to work the way I wanted it to work. It didn’t help that my software was 3 years old. I have friends who love financial software and they do their budgets within minutes. I should be able to this, right? Ah... nope. I spent an hour just fixing or reclassifying the categories. Once I ran the budget, I determined it was showing items I had already accounted for. I couldn’t even remember what payees were in some of the categories. There was no way I could maintain that budget. Don’t get me wrong, I love financial software when it comes to analyzing my debt and balancing my accounts. I love the way it pulls from all of my accounts, but my budget was a disaster.
How To Create a Budget That Works For You
Last year was an awesome year. I had the opportunity to teach budgeting and estate planning at my local church. I didn’t tweet, Facebook, or Instagram about it. I just let the minister announce it and let God do the rest. I actually had over 50 people sign up. I’m truly grateful for the opportunity. I pray the students got what they needed, but I also came away with a few questions.
A few people in my class had previous budget knowledge, but from the questions I received, I got the impression they were not working their budget. So I did as I tell everyone to do. I went back into prayer and discovered that the mechanics of doing a budget were missing. I covered it during the class, but for the folks who missed the class, I wanted to do a quick review.