Today marks the first of 9 whole days in a row that I don’t have to go in to my job. There’s the weekend (of course), and then I took a few days vacation, and then comes Thanksgiving and another weekend.

For me this is a luxury, and I’m very happy to be able to get vacation time that I can use, etc. Of course my plan is to get as much done as possible during the first part of the week, and then relax on Thanksgiving.

What are your plans for the week? Anything interesting going on?

You can always do some reading…

Tough Money Love provides a holiday spending guide for a new economy.

20 Something Finance offers up commentary on why the English are more frugal than Americans.

Wealth Pilgrim suggests fighting for your right to really feel your feelings.

Tight Fisted Miser discusses Zvi Bodie’s idea that if you need to invest in stocks, then you can’t afford them.

Moolanomy urges us to help ourselves, not the economy (viewing money as capital, what a concept).

Sometimes making more progress financially (whether it’s getting out of debt, saving money, or just plain staying organized) is a matter of making things easier on yourself.

This is because little obstacles can prevent you from doing the things you need to do in order to make progress. Eliminating those little obstacles can make a big difference.

What kind of obstacles do I mean? In my case recently it was something a simple as not having a pen handy. That’s right, a pen!

I actually put off reconciling my credit card statement because I couldn’t find a pen the other day. I looked for one for a little while, and then gave up and went and did something else, leaving paperwork piled on my desk. (And we all know how paperwork multiplies the minute you glance away.)

So having the items I need to get organized makes it easier for me to do so. This could include things like having file folders & labels handy too. Or it could mean things like taking a few minutes now to download a spreadsheet program (so that you’ll have the first step done in setting up a spending plan) or getting your bills in order so that you know what to pay when.

The easier the better. Make things easy as pie and you’ll eliminate nagging little obstacles to progress.

I was at the Motor Vehicle Department recently and happened to use their restroom. That’s when I discovered that their toilet paper roll only (easily) dispensed two squares at a time.

That’s right, two squares.

I’d pull on the roll, it’d flip over, and two little squares would tear off. Now you can’t do much of anything with two squares of toilet paper, so of course I pulled on it again.

And again.

I ended up pulling on it a few more times just because it didn’t seem like much. Then I realized I actually had a lot more toilet paper than I would have if I’d been using a non-stingy roll.

Where’s the financial lesson in all of this, you ask? It’s this: Sometimes when we deprive ourselves, we end up in worse shape than if we hadn’t tried to deprive ourselves in the first place.

For example, have you ever decided to cut back on spending, and then gone too far? What usually happens is that suddenly there are temptations everywhere you look. But you’re being good, and limiting yourself, so you make sure that you don’t spend very much when you buy something.

The problem is that you spend that small amount on a whole bunch of little items instead, not realizing how much it all adds up to. When the end of the week comes, you’re surprised to discover that you’ve spent even more than you used to when you weren’t trying to cut back.

It’s hard to judge how much you’re really spending when you’re doling it out in little amounts. You don’t give it the same kind of thought that you would if you planned to buy something pricey.

It helps to keep a running total of what you’re spending when you’re trying to cut back, but what’s even more effective is to think about what makes you feel good and continue some of the spending on that. Don’t be too extreme.

If retirement seems like a distant, not-very-pressing event, chances are you haven’t given a whole lot of thought to what you’ll actually do when you’re retired.

But the kinds of things you hope to do during retirement will impact your planning.

So, what do you want to do? Work as a greeter? Volunteer at the art museum? Lounge on the beach? Travel the world? Or something else? And what kinds of things would your spouse like to do, if you are married?

Keep in mind that not only will the kinds of things you want to do in retirement impact your planning, how you hope to carry out those plans will too. For example, if you want to travel the world, you could do so by working on organic farms, or by staying at 5-star resorts, and the costs would vary significantly.

If you have no idea of what you might like to do during retirement, start by thinking of the kinds of things you like to do now. You might also try out some of the things that you believe might interest you on a smaller scale — volunteer a few times a month somewhere, take a small trip, get a part time job at a coffee shop, etc — to see how you like them.

Once you have a better idea of the kinds of things you might enjoy doing, you can begin to plan accordingly. I intend to plan for both a minimal retirement and our dream retirement (once we figure out what that might be). That way we’ll have a better idea of what to set as goals.

Have you ever thought about what makes a person successful?

I imagine most people would agree that success is having a happy personal life, doing well at a job, and making at least enough money that you don’t have to stress.

I think that hard work and determination are a couple of success factors, but lately I’ve noticed something else about the people I know who seem to be successful: They’re filled with enthusiasm and confidence.

Of course they make mistakes just like the rest of us, but they don’t spend their time moaning about how they have to work so hard to pay their mortgage bill or how it’s not fair that the person in front of them at the grocery store got a discount when they didn’t.

Nope, they’re people you just plain want to be around.

They put a positive spin on things, no matter how mundane.

They got a great deal on their mortgage and are excited to watch the balance drop as they pay it down. They buy one of those “donate $2 toward the food bank” cards while the other person is getting their discount at the grocery store, and count themselves lucky to be able to do so.

They’re confident that they can handle things, and they’re friendly and willing to help out others.

When people want to be around you, good things happen.

I’m not one to spend hours figuring out exactly which product is best when I go to buy something.

If I’m looking to make a particular purchase, I’ll take a look at two or three similar items and then pick one. I’m more of a go-with-my-gut kind of person, and that’s served me pretty well for the most part.

But…sometimes a little research goes a long way in saving you money on an item you’re planning to buy.

Price research, that is. And it’s super easy to do with the internet. I like to use Google Product Search (which used to be called the much fun-er name of Froogle).

You can plop in the name & details of the item you’re thinking of buying, and then sort the results by relevance, price, product rating, or seller rating. Anyone have other sites that you like to check?

I also like to search for discounts and coupons for the products & services I’m looking at buying. I figure if I’m going to buy it anyway, I may as well spend a little less.

The bus test is usually used for business purposes, but it can be applied to your personal life as well. It goes like this: Imagine you got hit by a bus right now. Where would your business (and/or your personal life) be?

Would someone be able to step in so that things could continue to run smoothly while you recovered? (We’ll assume the accident wasn’t fatal.) Or would things be an enormous mess, or somewhere in between?

The point of the exercise isn’t to scare you. It’s to make sure that others know the things they would need to know to keep things running when or if you can’t.

Financially, this means making sure that your significant other knows where things stand. They should know about things like:

• Your investments
• Your bill paying schedule/your normal operating procedures
• When, where and how your income comes in
• How your business, blog, etc. runs
• Your insurance information, medical requests, and will

I realized recently that while I have a good start on many of these things, my system leaves quite a bit to be desired. I may know how and where things are done, but I’ve kind of dropped the ball on communicating it to others. So that’s one thing that I’ll be working on remedying.