Here’s a few ideas to help you have more of it.

The first step is to get an accurate picture of your financial situation as it is now.  Know exactly what income you have, how much you spend and on what.  If you are like most people and have no idea where it all goes, keep a diary for at least a week, or ideally a month and keep track of what gets spent where.  You may be surprised! 

Now, obviously if you want more money you will need to either make more or spend less. Spending less may not sound like much fun but it’s all about your mindset.  If you think of it as changing your spending so you can have even more money, or spend it on things that you really want rather than things you don’t even notice, it has more appeal.

Look at your spending diary and see what things you could happily do without or cut down on.  How much are you spending on coffees, cigarettes, alcohol, car parking, bank fees, credit card interest?  Going without that second latte, saves you about $20 per week, giving up smoking could save you $70 per week, taking a bottle of wine around to a friends place instead of having drinks in town could save you $100!  The secret is to keep it fun.  You don’t want to become so frugal that you don’t have any enjoyment left, simply make good choices, and watch the extra dollars you save stack up.

Next, look at reducing your debt.  Credit cards, store cards and hire purchases, can seem like a wonderful idea at the time but if you can’t afford to pay them off, you spend huge amounts on fees and interest.  Get out your credit card statements and see how much you have been paying the bank for the privilege of using their money.  See how it all adds up.  Isn’t there something you would rather have used that money for?  Use the money you’re saving from cutting down on your spending to pay the debt off for once and for all and then get rid of your card or at least try and save it for emergencies. 

Also, shop around to make sure you’re getting the best deal on bank fees and charges.  Know what your fees entitle you too and what gets charged as an extra.  Make the effort to use ATM’s less if you get charged per transaction, and use your own bank’s ATM machine, rather than other banks.  The same goes for service charges such as phone, mobile and internet usage.

Some Ideas to Save Money and Still Have a Life:

• Take your lunch to work

• Stop or reduce the amount of coffee you buy

• Pay off your debts so you don’t pay interest

• Shop around for the best bank deal and reduce your bank charges

• Take public transport or walk instead of paying for petrol and car parking

• Have friends around for dinner, BBQ’s, DVD’s, instead of going out to restaurants, bars and movies

• Quit smoking

• Only buy as much fresh food as you know you will eat

• Start growing your own vegetables, and trade the extra supplies with friends

• Make sure you have the best mobile phone, internet and toll call plans for your usage.

• Cancel subscriptions for newspapers, magazines and Pay TV and make the most of free information

• Enjoy the outdoors for some free entertainment – go to the beach, go for a walk, go fishing, take a book to the park.

• Swap babysitting services with other parents.

• Join the local library

© Jacqui Thomas, 2010 All rights reserved

Feeling stuck, being stuck in a rut, groundhog day, going through the motions…. they’re all euphemisms for the same phenomena, and often stem from needing to do something different and making a change, but not doing it.  It could also be thought of as resisting the flow of life.

Change can be scary, even when we want to change, and/or know we need to change… even when we realise the benefits of change will leave us in a much better space.  Because of fear we try and prepare ourselves well in order to ensure the change is successful.  Such preparation is useful to a point, but it is easy to overdo it and end up stuck in the no-man’s land known as ‘paralysis by analysis’.   Spending too much time preparing for every possible outcome and trying to get all your ducks in a row, is actually a pointless exercise – the ducks always move. 

And so it is with life.  Everything is dynamic, constantly moving.  Like a game of chess, every move has the potential to completely change the game.  To plan all your moves at the beginning of the game would make it necessary to play entirely by yourself and control all the conditions.  Not only would this be boring and lonely, but you may miss out on better opportunities that are only made possible by another player’s moves.

So all you need to know is the first move.  Then you assess the best move to make next once it is your turn to move again.  The possible moves change all the time and can’t necessarily be planned in advance.  If you don’t know what the first move should be, or feel like you can’t make a good move, then just make any move.  This is kind of like a reshuffle.  Sometimes there are no great moves to be made, as in any game.  But by at least making a move, even if it is sideways, then you keep the game moving and change the dynamics which may open up a better move for the next turn.

So if you’re stuck, move!  Any move is better than staying stuck.  Take a leap of faith and do something.  Movement builds momentum.  The first step is often the hardest and requires the most energy.  Once you are moving it is easier to keep going.

© Jacqui Thomas 2010, All rights reserved.

But why do we put off doing the things that we DO want to do?

Generally, this type of procrastination is linked to our attachment to a desired outcome. The fear of getting something wrong, or not achieving our desired outcome, can stop us from taking any action at all. As long as we do nothing, our desired outcome is still a maybe, it’s possible. The fear of that ‘maybe’ becoming a ‘no’, prevents us from taking the action that could turn the ‘maybe’ into a ‘yes’.

We place too much value on how we think things need to pan out, in order to get ‘where’ we want to go, or ‘what’ we want. We micro manage our actions to the point where we stall, we get stuck, we’re too scared to move, in case we make a mistake.

The trick is to trust in the process. Trust that any action is a step in the right direction – even if it doesn’t seem so at the time. Trust that you are heading to your desired outcome, even if it seems like you’re given a U-turn, a detour, or even a dead end.

Getting somewhere requires movement. And each movement changes the state of play. You literally need to move one step at a time, and each step will be subject to factors and variables that you may be aware of, but that are outside your control. Pre-planning all the steps to your desired outcome is a waste of time and energy as the best steps may not even be apparent yet.

If you’re clear on your desired outcome / your end result, don’t put off taking a step towards it. Any movement is positive, even if it doesn’t seem so at the time – it may just be shaking things up to make the next step possible.

© Jacqui Thomas, 2010 All rights reserved.

Knowing what you want and where you are heading is half the battle won, but in order to actually get there, you have to take some action!  You must take the first step and get started, not only to move closer towards your goal, but also to really commit to your intentions and to let the world know that you are serious about this.  The first step can be the hardest but once you’ve done it, it’s easier to keep moving.

If you are having trouble taking the first step, ask yourself why?  Is the first step too daunting?  If so, break it down into smaller, more manageable steps.  Keep breaking it down until the first step is easily doable so you can get started and then build on the momentum you have created from there.

A common stumbling block is fear – fear of failure, fear of the unknown, even fear of success.  A certain amount of fear is perfectly normal – accept that this is a natural response and do it anyway.

Another obstacle can be that you don’t have all the steps worked out yet.  Ie, you don’t have all the “how” figured out.  You may not know how you are possibly going to achieve your outcome, or you may have most of it figured out with a few fuzzy areas that aren’t clear.  Don’t let this stop you!  As long as you know where you want to go (can see your intended outcome clearly) and can identify the first step required, then you have enough information to get started.  Trust that the next steps will become clear along the way.  Think of it as a journey- there will be signposts along the way and if you get stuck you can always stop and ask for directions!

 A great analogy of this is driving a car.  When we drive at night we can only see as far as our headlights shine, maybe 100 metres max.  We trust that by the time we have reached the end of that 100 metres, we will be able to see the following 100 metres, and so on.  If we need to drive from Auckland to Invercargill, we don’t need to know every single road, stop sign, intersection, along the way.  We know how to leave Auckland.  We know that we need to be on State Highway One and which direction we need to go.  We trust that there will be signposts along the way to help us get to our final destination.  We also have resources we can use for help such as maps, and we can ask other people for assistance if we get stuck.

If you are clear on “What” you are trying to achieve and “Why”, then the “How” will take care of itself.  You just have to make a start.

If you still haven’t moved, you need to ask yourself “is this something I really want for myself?”  If you can’t wholeheartedly say yes, then go back and choose something that is honest and real for you.

It’s not rocket science but as Albert Einstein once said, “Nothing happens until something moves.” 

Written by Jacqui Thomas

All rights reserved

© Jacqui Thomas, 2010

Lynette, known as Polly to her friends, is a vibrant Maori woman successfully operating several Harcourts real estate offices in the Christchurch area.  A working class background hasn’t stopped her from becoming one of Christchurch’s hottest businesswomen.  Not content with her own success, she shares her positive energy with all around her, inspiring others to succeed and grow into whatever they wish to become.

I come from a family background that is absolutely not business aware.  My family doesn’t have a single business brain among them.  My parents are very traditional Maori, working class folks.  They are very loving but traditional role models.  Mum was at home looking after the kids, while Dad went out to work.  They had us when they were about twenty, so they were quite young and carefree, and probably didn’t really settle until they were much older.  By that time I was about twenty and needed some guidance a bit earlier than that.  I had a real issue with achieving but looking back I think I was just trying to get my parents to notice me.  They were just drifting along in life and I wanted more, I never wanted to drift.

I was very driven at school.  With the absence of role models I wasn’t really sure where I was going, so I went nursing after I finished school.  I did really well in my school exams and retrospectively I would have preferred law, but that just seemed far too outrageous to even be considered.  It probably still would be quite unheard of for someone from our family to do law.  So I went nursing, which was deemed very good and special.  I enjoyed my nursing and made some special friends but eventually I got tired of it.  After twelve years of nursing, I was away with my husband and said to him “I don’t wish to go back nursing.  I wish to do something else”.  We’d been married ten years and had our first son, Harry.  He thought I’d be good at real estate.  We’d always bought and sold properties, done them up as investments.  It seemed like a natural progression.

It was 1994 when I started to sell real estate.  Harry was only little, he wasn’t even walking or talking, and I was deciding to work fulltime.  In my first year in real estate, I was among the top Canterbury salespeople and had a six figure income.  I also had a change of office in my first year, which didn’t really work out.  I looked across the road and thought I saw something better, but it wasn’t, so I had to go back to my old boss with my tail between my legs, and he kindly took me back.  I had a couple of years of good sales and then John, my husband, decided he was sick of plumbing and he wanted to join me in real estate.  He came and worked with me for a while which was really hard because I was used to doing my own thing, and had been for a couple of years.  I had systems and routines established and he was coming in and mucking it all up.  He’d constantly be asking me what I was doing and where I was going.  It was pretty tough initially, until he got on his feet, which he did quite quickly, thankfully!

After three years selling, I reached a point where I was dissatisfied.  I felt there was something lacking in the business we were working in.  I guess I got to a point where I felt I could do it better, and I felt my boss was taking me for granted.  I left and so did my husband and two colleagues.  We left our businesses, the people we were working for, which was huge for them because big agents walking out the door is tough on a business.

We bought a business that was vacant, the Papanui Harcourts office.  It was vacant because the previous owner had killed himself, and the owner before that had run it down.  We inherited a business that was very rough around the edges but we believed we could make a go of it.  It was difficult and extraordinarily expensive.  It took every last resource we had.  We bought the office and walked into a meeting with about ten sales people.  Three of those got up and left.  We’d paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for this office with a history where someone had just killed himself, three of the staff just walked out the door, and a total of seventeen listings.  What had we done?  I remember going into my office and crying, thinking we’d made a dreadful mistake.

Excerpt from Lynette “Polly” McFadden’s story

Go Girl Go! – Real Stories of New Zealand Women in Business

By Jacqui Thomas

Published 2001, JT Publishing Ltd

No matter how bad things seem, it is never forever, it always gets better.  Sometimes you just have to trust the process, and focus on your intended outcome, and remember that the rough patch will pass. 

Change, and/or the need for change, can often be uncomfortable, but this discomfort is useful.  Often it is a signal that changes need to be made and if they’re not made, the discomfort will increase until you do.  At some point, the choice may no longer even be yours to make, and change will just happen with or without you.  They say the Universe sends you messages, and if you don’t listen it turns up the volume!

The uncomfortable part can also come in the midst of change.  You can ride this out, knowing that the discomfort is a natural part of the reshuffle forwards onto better things.  Again focus on your intended outcome, trust the process, and know that the rough patch is part of working towards the better place at the end.

I’ve had two examples of this myself recently.  One being a flatmate situation that was no longer working.  I knew I needed to make a change but kept putting it off (avoiding confrontation perhaps?) until eventually the messages were getting so loud that I absolutely had to do something about it.  The process was uncomfortable, but by focussing on my intended outcome, I knew I could ride it out and in the end, it would all be alright.

A second example is a new website I’ve been working on.  There have been moments when I could very easily get bogged down in all the glitches and hiccups in the development process, and think it’s never going to work, that it’s all gone wrong.  But by remembering the Dalai Lama, trusting the process, and focussing on the desired end result, the challenges and issues have been worked through and we’re on track to get to the intended outcome.

This is true of any situation.  Change is the one true constant.  Learn to work with it and you can save yourself a lot of stress.

Written by Jacqui Thomas

All rights reserved

What do you worry about?  Some common concerns are loss of income, your house burning down, losing your children, getting sick and not being able to pay for your medical expenses, not being able to afford to retire, having your home broken into, children getting run over, your car being stolen.

The first step in protecting yourself, so you never have to waste any more energy worrying about these things again, is to define what you have to lose and how it could be lost.  Then you can work out what strategies you can put into place to protect yourself against these possibilities.

One method of protection, which covers many of the main concerns, is insurance.  There are many different types of insurance to meet different people’s needs but most people should have some insurance cover of some sort.  There are general insurances that cover things like your house, your contents and your car.  Then there is personal insurance such as life insurance and income protection insurance that covers loss of income through illness or death.  Other insurance such as medical insurance covers medical costs when you need it.  See an expert to find out what best suits your needs and budget, because when you need it, it’s too late.

As well as the financial side of being well protected there are many simple things you can do to protect yourself.  Set up family systems so everyone knows what to do if there is a fire, or someone gets lost when you’re out and about.  Set clear rules about wearing seatbelts and not playing on the road.  Install smoke alarms and adequate locks on doors and windows.  Always lock your car and don’t leave anything valuable in view.  Start a savings plan so you have an emergency fund if you need it.  Pay your bills on time and minimise debt.  Have a current will that clearly states who will care for your children and who gets what if you die.

Being well protected doesn’t mean focussing on the doom and gloom and all possible disasters.  It means never having to worry about the “what-ifs’ ever again because you know that you have the systems in place to deal with anything that could happen.  This leaves you free to get on with enjoying life today!

By Jacqui Thomas

All rights reserved

I have to admit to having a bit of a soft spot for George Clooney, so any movie with him in it has a head start in my book.  An interesting, and I guess timely, look at issues of company restructuring and redundancy.  The makers of the film took  interviews of Americans who have been made redundant in the last year, which gave the movie genuine authenticity.  It also takes a look at individuals who bury themselves in their work at the cost of having real relationships.  I’ve made it sound like an intense documentary, but it still falls in the light entertainment category, albeit touching on real issues.

This project started back in 1999 through my own frustrations as a newly self-employed writer.  After completing a journalism course by correspondence I’d decided I didn’t want to go and work for a newspaper or a magazine - I wanted to freelance.  This seemed easy enough and I was sure it was the answer to my dreams of freedom.  I started writing and soon I had a few regular contracts and I was surviving, but only just.  The hardest part was not the writing but the business side of it - knowing what to charge for my work, getting agreements from people, sorting out taxes and accounting procedures.  I bluffed my way through blindly for months not wanting to ask anybody for help for fear of confirming to them that I really didnít know what I was doing!

One day I came home to my partner frustrated and upset.  I felt I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing and said to him ”It’s so hard.  You can’t just go into Whitcoulls and buy a book on it.”  “That’s your answer,” he said.  ”Write a book for women about getting started in business.”  That upset me even more, how was I supposed to write a book for the rest of the world when I didnít know what I was doing myself?  “That’s easy,” he said.  ”Go and talk to successful businesswomen and ask them how they got started.” My initial reaction was ‘what a cheek!’  How rude to ask these successful women to share their secrets!  But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea.

When I first sent twenty letters out to successful business women I knew of in my area, I expected about five to be interested in my project.  I hoped for ten.  Eighteen of those women were happy to be interviewed - the response was overwhelming!  The first thing I learned through this project is that most people are happy to help you - you just have to be brave enough to ask!  I took my search nationwide and was met with the same enthusiasm.  After interviewing about sixty amazing women, all with fantastic stories to tell, I realised I had to stop, it was getting harder and harder to choose which stories to include in this book.

I have endeavoured to select fifteen stories as vastly different from one another as possible, incorporating different types of businesses, age groups, ethnic groups, geographical locations and personal circumstances.  A big thank you to all the women who took the time to share their experiences with me.  I learned from each and every one of you.  Now I hope others will be inspired and motivated and learn from the stories shared in this book.

Enjoy!

Jacqui

Excerpt from the book – Go Girl Go! – Real Stories of New Zealand Women

By Jacqui Thomas

Published 2001, JT Publishing Ltd

And that is the same for each of us.  No matter what happens to us on the outside, even if our face value appears crumpled, worn out or dirty, our true value comes from within.  Our true value does not come from the car that we drive, the clothes that we wear, whether or not we are having a bad hair day.  If we make a mistake in business, or can’t meet a deadline at work, or don’t organise the most fabulous birthday party for our kids, even though we did our best, this does not affect our true value.  If you are going through a rough patch your face value may well be looking a little worse for wear, but your true value holds it’s worth.

Most people don’t really know their true value.  Instead they judge their worth by other people’s response to their face value.  Taking the time to make a list of what makes you valuable is a hugely empowering exercise.  List what you know you are good at, what you contribute to others, all of your positive qualities.  It could be things like making people laugh, spending quality time with your children, being organised and efficient, a creative talent, whatever it is that makes you the person you are, and is inherently valuable.  When you know your worth it is easier to believe in yourself, and when you have self -belief, anything is possible.

By Jacqui Thomas

All rights reserved