Money Money Money

The Abba song Money Money Money always made me laugh with the words "It's not funny - in a rich man's world" Is money ever funny?  Not when you haven't got a lot of it or lose it. With the credit crunch as it is, we need to look closely at our finances.

Money was once one of my biggest bugbears the more I ignored the fact bills were coming in, the more bills seemed to come my way.  I was made redundant and contrary to popular belief, I didn’t get a big redundancy I couldn’t face the letters that came in until the phone calls started. I was actually forced to sort out my finances. 

It was a rotten feeling, scarey and totally out of my comfort zone.  At that time I beli

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d if I didn’t deal with it, it would go away – wrong.

So I started opening letters, contacting debtors, talking to my bank and realised that things weren’t as bad as I had imagined, they weren’t good but my finances hadn’t actually fallen into the black hole my mind had put them in.

This was a long time ago and I am better at that now, someone told me not to spend one penny until I had two of them.

So what should we do, well to quote Susan Jeffers, Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway.  The fear is before the action. Once we action, the fear goes away.

Now I can’t give financial advice but I can share with you tips that I have been given over the years:

1. Move your credit card debt to one that doesn’t charge interest there are a lot of sites that you can get comparatives on.
2. Change your attitude towards money – make a conscious decision to sort out your finances – don’t bury your head in the sand
3. Write a sheet of your incomings and outgoings and see where the money is going and where you can save
4. Start saving a tiny bit of money, as you see that grow you will find it feels really good.  I save my 20ps
5. If you are really in debt, don’t leave anything, contact your debtors and explain the situation before things get out of hand.  You can always contact the Citizens Advice Bureau who are used to dealing with such matters.  There are other organisations but you don’t need to pay for any help in these matters so steer away from those that charge.

Everything will sort itself out.  I would love to hear from anyone who has been in a similar situation and what advice you can give to others.