Wealthy Wilma's & The Smart Cookies

Wealthy Wilma's & Smart Cookies are financial groups, for women by women.

They make understanding your finances easier, and teach you in layman's terms how to manage your finances like the big boys. But in Pink!!! ;-)

My friend Kim introduced me to the Wealthy Wilma's book club a year or so ago as a close friend of hers started this group after the unfortunate and sudden passing of her father. Read that story (under WHY?), seriously, it will set a fire under your butt and for the ever simplest reasons. Be your own provider.
I never attended cos I was, well, intimidated to attend with women who I already found to be successful. What did they need help with? Making MORE money? ptfff.

I listen to Kim tell me all sort of success stories that these ladies were accomplishing from the tools they received from these book clubs.  I still felt the anxieties of having to read a book in a certain amount of time then sit around and talk about it? No thanks! I imagine a scene from Jerry McGuire. His g/f's  living room being full of angry, miserable women, bitching about their lives. The look on his face upon entering is the same look I have at the mere thought of attending one of these book meetings.

So I decided last year to take some of the tools I learned from Kim, the website and the other finance groups for women, by women. Slowly reading the websites, taking bits and pieces of infor I knew I could apply to my life and see how it works. Then apply the next phase etc. 

I obtained an accountant through H/R Blk who has been an amazing help with little things to write off. Clothes bought for work, transit passes, glasses as a medical expense on taxes, continuing education for books and tuition etc. Things I never knew about. Or previous tax places have not advised me of. 
She suggested that I take any income return I do get and start a no touch savings account with that. 

Nice thought, did I do it? No. I spent it. Won't do that twice. Next time it goes towards aggressively paying down more debt and the rest goes back into savings. In the last 4 years, I've been out of debt 3 times. But would like to remain out of debt.

Tired of being broke and having no emergency fund (a to do on my 40 before 40) nor a retirement plan.  I set up a small amount of money to be withdrawn from one account into another every month, twice a month. An account that in high insight, I wouldn't touch.  I did great at first. Super easy to save money.  Until you dip into it.  So I went back to the websites.  More tools brought forward.

Learned little things like:
If you intended to spend say $150 on boots, and managed to get them on sale for $75.
You saved $75 dollars, right? WRONG! 
You only saved that $75 dollars if you don't spend it on something else. That savings you earned on that sale, should go right back into your savings. Otherwise, you did not save a penny.  That is where I found a lot of people, including myself, and btw, not just women...get into trouble.

Pay yourself first. Golden rule, so I'm told. 
I'm doing it now. It's only 13% of my monthly income, but it's better than nothing.

What I'm learning is;
There is no wrong way to start saving money as long as you start, try, & experiment what works best for you. The only wrong way to do it, is to not do anything at all.

Today I was playing with my online banking options and laid out a plan.

*X* amount of money would automatically go into another account the second I got paid.
Scheduled the move of the monies so it happens instantly. I do not have to think about it.
*Y* amount of money was set up monthly to go towards a very high interest credit card. One that is not only killing me with the interest rates, its penalties for being over limit and late with payments. Holy shit.
- in addition to this, Saturday I will be calling this card company, advising them of my payment plan (with proof) and asking them to lower the interest rates. In addition, I think I might cancel this particular card.
*Z* I have to tell my brain I'm not bringing home a monthly amount of $$$ and readjust my thinking to that I only bring home $ now. That is minus the amounts that are now on an automatic schedule payment.

On paper this all looks good. I SHOULD, read SHOULD be able to pay all my other bills on time and slightly over the minimum amount due. Have the same amount of play money to spend every month etc.
Thank fully the savings account transfer is movable should I have to use it. But I tell myself, that is not an option.  

It's going to be a tight year, in a different kind of way. But I'll have something to show for it at the end of the year. As I move forward and get the hang of this, I'll be speaking with an financial advisor at my bank and learn what I need to retire by a certain age.  I do not like the idea of working til I'm old, but that is the sad reality for some. What if my health fails me and I'm unable to work? Then what?

These are all tools "they" should be teaching us in school. Not relying on parents to teach it, cos lets face it, how many parents out there think kids under the age of 18 should have to worry about stuff like this etc.
I was fortunate enough to have an Uncle that taught me a little about this stuff. I had savings. Enough for a large down payment on a house at the age of 22.  Then I was audited.

As it turns out, my sister who was a self taught accountant had been doing my taxes since I was 17 etc. Instead of something going on line 14, it was on line 17.
How, HOW I ask you, did the government miss that error for 6 years? 

Well they eventually caught it, and I had to pay back everything. EVERYTHING.
That took an additional 4 years. All my RSP,Saving Bonds, and GST for all those years.
Now I'm Broke. Then my mum passed away.



Needless to say, I never bounced back from that. And that sister does NOT do my taxes anymore.

Wish me luck and do yourself a favour and take control over your own fiances. Never think you can fall back on parents or family or that it will just all work out etc,  cos like Bernadette you just never know.