Financial Friday

Financial Friday: Where do I start? Tips for recovery

I am passionate about leaving a legacy for my children. What does legacy mean to me? It means a rich inheritance of both material and non-material wealth. I don’t want to delve too much into this, but I want to leave this Earth better than it was while I was here and it starts with my children (well it starts with the belief in a Greater Power than yourself and for me, that’s Jesus Christ). For a long time, I thought it started with my talents and my degrees, but it starts from the heart. What’s in your heart?

Now, if you want some book suggestions, practical steps and tools for debt recovery, it’s in here, but please don’t ignore this little tidbit that I gathered/researched. I heard something while preparing this new book that I am writing on your credit score and how it shouldn’t determine your character, your employability or your self-worth. I decided to do an informal credit score survey and track emotional stability and credit incline/decline. And guess what? A quote that I heard somewhere applies, “Debt is related to lack or broken-ness, low self-worth or ignorance of self and its relationship to the world. ” Sounds crazy/deep/spooky/unrelated? Think about it.

• Young family, decided that a parent (usually a mom) stays at home. Family/friends associates that with some form of affluence and in order to keep that up, mom goes shopping, travels for weekend getaways–all the while not realizing that there should have been some adjustments in lifestyle since there were some adjustments in income.
• Because of the challenges in our economy, we live with very little savings (if any) and unprepared for the reality that we may be without work or underemployed, the LACK of knowledge on investing or the LACK of trust in stocks or even banks (yes, my grandmother preferred Bible Banking…”My money is safe and protected by the Almighty. No crooks gone get it there.” Can I get an Amen?).
• Divorce is a leading cause of financial challenges for women and credit cards tend to be the only available resource for the family to maintain some sense of normalcy (brokenness at work here)
• Recent graduates, not making enough money to pay off the student loan debt/too proud to go back home and make arrangements with their parents (parents don’t want them anyway), disappointed at where they’ve ended up/frustrated and impatient with the situation…low self-worth/self-doubt (why did I get that stupid degree? take that job? move into this apartment?) and emotional instability.
• Check your heart. Are you harboring some feeling from your childhood that you weren’t loved, so you go overboard with material things to prove that you are special, well taken care of? Are you mad at your parents for being poor, so you live LARGE because you don’t want to feel LACK again? Were your siblings treated better than you and you are buying your way to acceptance or to prove a point?

The first step to financial breakthrough is forgiveness. I harbored resentment and rebellion in my house because I couldn’t accept the traditional view (really the ignorant view) of a stay at home mother. I knew it was the right thing, the best thing, but I felt less-than my calling, my self-worth was miniscule and since I had never felt that way before, I made some dumb mistakes. And we’re paying because of them.

Another reality we must face is that we may be the only people around us who want to change their minds about money, debt and wealth. I don’t have room to discuss the countless times that I’ve heard: “Debt is just a part of life. It’s not that big of a deal.” I beg to differ, so for that reason, I’m going on a crusade and I would like to hear from all of you. From today until the Lord tells me to get off of this subject, I will be covering books, news, articles regarding women, family and finances, specifically debt recovery and legacy building.

Now, if you have your money together, you know where it’s going, you have your will, your legacy plan all written and distributed to the VIPs in your life. We love you and want to hear from you. Where did you start? Did you ever get off track? How did you rebound/recover?

But, if you really need to get it together, check in here at dahgurl every Friday (well every day would be nice. ) for info that you can use immediately.

Ready to get on the road to recovery? Great! First stop? The library. Check out the list of the following books that I will be reviewing next week here on Financial Friday. Now, if you just have to buy them, like I do, please consider buying them right here at Dahgurl. Just click on the book title in the sidebar and you will be headed over to Amazon.

Here are websites of my favorite authors as well as some great financial advice for FREE:

• Glinda Bridgforth, author of “Girl, Get Your Credit Straight” and others
• Dave Ramsey, author of”Total Money Makeover,” and you can read about his Financial Peace University course here.
• Suze Orman, author of “Women and Money”
• Jean Chatzky, author of “No More Excuses”
• Janet Bodnar, “Money Smart Kids” columnist, Kiplinger’s

Now, I chose these authors for many reasons, but there are many others. Subscribe to Black Enterprise, Money and Kiplinger’s. Black Enterprise does a real family (not the hypothetical–husband/wife/1.8 kids deal) financial makeover in every issue. If you don’t feel like you have the time to read, might I suggest getting up an hour earlier, staying up an hour later or recording your favorite show and just watch it all on the weekends? We all have just 24 hours, remember? Make the best of yours!

© 2007 DahGurl.