Life is a risk in many ways

I am now in my early forties with two small children and a teenage step-daughter.  I am married, educated and own a home.  I feel like I’ve spent the first twenty years of my adult life building the life that I wanted.  Now I need to work on solidifying the foundation.  It took a great deal of effort to achieve these very basic things.  I adopted my children from the state and bought the home when I was single.  I have managed to eliminate all of my non-secured debt and am starting to look towards the future.

As far as debt, I have a mortgage, a student loan and a car loan and exactly the job I want.  I work out of my home doing a variety of things, but primarily teaching college online. I am therefore available to volunteer in my children’s school and elsewhere and build a writing career.  Financially, though, since my life is not focused on earning a great deal of money I need to make sure that I am working to build my foundation for my future.

The elements of creating the most sounds foundation are as follows:

Build:

Set up a retirement IRA through a big online place such as Vanguard or Fidelity. Don’t worry too much about the details just pick a targeted account (which means you pick an account that has the name that is closest to your retirement date.  Mine might be something like VT2045 from Vanguard).  Then have $10 per week transferred automatically from your checking account to that IRA.  It sounds ridiculously small, but don’t worry about that right now.  It doesn’t matter if you’re 22 or 55, if you are not already contributing to an IRA just do it right now.

If your job has matching funds for an 401 or some other retirement device, put in enough money to get all of the matching funds.

Next, set up a savings account anywhere, at your local bank or at ING Direct.  Do pretty much the same thing as you did above, have $10 (or more if you can) a week transferred there every week.  That’s for your emergency fund.

Then consider if there’s some other large item you want in your life. If you haven’t yet bought a house, put another $10 a week away in a separate account for that.  It may not end up being enough to buy a house, but it will help.

Live on the money that’s left over. If you can increase your savings to all of these places, do so.  Don’t look at this money, don’t worry about it.  You don’t need to make huge returns on it. You just need to get used to always putting this money away for most of your life.

After I was funding my retirement funds, bought a house, had an emergency fund and was saving regularly, I also started 529s for my two first graders.  It’s true that I am not fully financing my retirement and could be putting the money there, but I am putting away 14% of my income for my retirement and want some money to be going specifically for tax-free money for my kids’ education. It’s a bit of a psychological thing for me. When I pay for their college with it I won’t feel like I’m taking any money from my future.  I still expect both myself and my children to have some college debt, but it won’t be as much as it would have been without my savings.

Reduce:

Get, and stay out of consumer/non-collateral-based debt. Although it’s not great to be in collateral-based debt (like a boat or a house), at least if something goes very wrong in your life or in the economy, the place that you owe money to can come take your collateral and call it a day.  Anything else, like credit card debt will just make your life more difficult. It will tie you to earning more money than you might be interested in making.

Get out of collateral-based debt.  My student loan is at 2% interest, is only $13,000 and I get a tax credit on it so I don’t consider it important to retire it. My car loan on the other hand just costs me money.  I owe $265 per month so I’m paying $400 every month, plus whatever money I earn on a very unpredictable job that I get one to two thousand dollars from every year.  The car should then be paid off by the time it is 7 years old.  I heard once, perhaps on Car Talk, that a new car can last well from 8 to 11 years.  My car is a 2003 so I might need to sell it starting in 2011 if it becomes too unreliable.  So, for the amount of time that my car is paid off until I feel the need to buy another used car I will continue to put away the $400/month.  By the time I need another car I should have a good deal of money socked away, in addition to the money that I get from selling a fully paid off car outright.  I’m hoping to be able to buy my next car with cash or close to it. After that I will continue to put away some amount of money every month to pay for repairs and maintenance for the car as well as the cash necessary to buy the next one.

After car debt I will pay extra on my home, but I probably won’t focus on that.  The house is a bit too small for our family of five so I expect to buy a new home before this one is paid off.

With as little debt as possible and money being put away for savings, I am able to live a more flexible life. I’m not tied to money-making ventures as much as other people. It’s true that I have less discretionary money, but I have a great deal more discretionary time.  I am able to cook a lot more so we can have some pretty fancy meals right here at home.  I’m able to take part in all my hobbies regularly so I don’t feel the need for so much vacation. I’m even more relaxed and have more free time to take the kids camping instead of sending them to summer camp for the whole summer.

Building a foundation, little by little, of savings for the future and freedom from debt will feel painful at times.  There will be times that you’ll look at all the money that you’re putting away or putting towards debt and think that instead you could buy a nice car or a nicer house or go on vacation, but a solid foundation will give you the freedom to do more of what you want in your life earlier than you thought.

One of the biggest obstacles I face is the recurring thought that there are so many other people who are trying to do what I am and there’s no space left for me

What I realize, though, is that the same ideas are generally out in the world over and over again.  They’re rehashed and re-framed and rethought of in many ways and that’s the way we, as humans, grow and evolve and communicate.  What works to communicate with one person may not work for another.

A story: recently my mother was talking about writing a small book in a very niche topic, EMDR therapy.  She wanted to self-publish and self-distribute.  I told her I thought it was a great idea and she shouldn’t have much difficulty at all since she already knew her audience and wasn’t trying to make lots of money from it.  A few months later I asked her how that was coming along and she said that someone she knew talked her out of it.  The person told her that someone else she knew was already writing a book on the subject and that was all that was needed.  My mother thought that maybe she was right so she stopped moving ahead on her idea.  When I heard this, I explained that there are always other people writing or even having published similar books or ideas, but that doesn’t mean that hers wouldn’t do well.  Perhaps she’d explain things differently than the other person, maybe the other person wasn’t actually more of an expert.  Maybe the other person didn’t know how to market as well.

Who knows why some things become popular and others don’t Everyone in business has been trying to figure this out for the past bunch of years. It’s the key to earning money.  No one really knows all the answers. It seems that it’s a combination of things like timing and what else is going on in the world and luck and quality and so on and  so forth.  We shouldn’t set up obstacles in front of ourselves deciding we can’t do something just because others have already done it. It’s better to go ahead and fail (or succeed).  perhaps what works is just a little bit different from what others have done.

Recently, I’ve been trying not to overextend.  I used to be the type of person who wanted to get involved and work on every activity that anyone mentioned.  Then I burned out.  I couldn’t get everything done and felt like I was disappointing people. I withdrew quite a bit, especially to focus on my children.  Now, I see that choosing places to get involved in is important to my career growth and my growth as a person.  I am trying to keep my involvements to activities that really interest me and that I can find enough time for.

The interesting things about this concept of getting involved is that I can’t necessarily see the end goal when I start.  There is nothing I’m really trying to get out of my involvement when I volunteer, but I can see how the group connections make my life richer and make me aware of more things in the world that I may be interested in.

Getting involved, in the best way, is relatively un-goal related.  You join a group to accomplish a specific goal, generally not something that is specifically personal.  What it does, though, is keep you aware of other goals in the world and how to get them. Often, working in groups can help you learn more about how other active people achieve things and get what they want.  In the meantime you work with other interesting people and get things done.

Step one (Me): think about what’s going on with you. What is making you feel particularly upset? What is your child or children doing that’s driving you crazy? Has there been some change in yours or the children’s schedule? What do you feel like you want to do to the kids that you know you shouldn’t? How do you want their behavior to change? How do you want your behavior to change?

Step two (You): What are the kids doing that is making you crazy? What are they specifically doing? What do they say they want? What do you think they want? What is their behavior trying to achieve? Put yourself in their shoes and think of what you would want.

Step three (Us): What can you do to give the child(ren) what they need? If there’s a transition occurring can you find a way to discuss it and come up with ways to help everyone relax. What can you do for yourself? Is there a way you could get a break? Is there something you could do to help make yourself feel better and more able to give your kids what they need?

I find that when life is hectic and/or in transition none of us behave well. I find myself unable to respond to my children in a kind and respectful way. When my kids are overtired they do a variety of annoying things and seem out of control. I try to give them space and not get too upset about annoying behaviors.

Some people feel the need to try to correct every problematic behavior their children have, but children don’t yet know how to deal with every difficult and uncomfortable feeling they have. Sometimes sitting down and talking to them about what these feelings are and how they can be miserable, but manageable.

For example, I want to be taking some supplements every day.  Some calcium and a multi-vitamin would be good for me, but I hate swallowing pills.  I had previously tried to just take the pills as often as I could.  I decided, though, that it was very important and I was going to put it on my “must-do” list.  Once I did that, I was able to take them every day no matter what.

This “must-d0″ list seems to vary among people.  Things that I think are mandatory in life, others feel are optional.  Some things that I think are optional, others feel are a requirement.  What seems to be clear, though, is that things that truly get put on a person’s “must-do” list, get done.

The issue, though, is that they really have to be psychologically put on that “must-do” list.  It can’t be faked.  You have to find the thing that works to tell your psyche that this is truly something that must be done. For some it’s an external looming deadline and for others it’s the expectations of others.

The problem is that , past childhood, there are really not that many externally imposed deadlines or expectations.  Of course your mother expects you to have a good job and your work can provide some deadlines, but those don’t cover all of the things that you really need to be doing in your life to keep yourself healthy for the long run and achieve distant goals.

So how do you get tasks onto your “must-do” list?  What could you do to improve getting things onto that list?

Jobs encompass a great deal of who a person is and how they’re living. If they are loving, hating or fine with their job, if they get status from their job.  Some people have most of their friends and acquaintances through a job.  A job is a way of getting what a person wants in life.  There are so many needs that a job fulfills that it can be difficult for some people to pull away for a while to look at it to see if there are other options for getting some of these needs fulfilled.

Sometimes jobs are the problem that people want to solve and often they’re the solution to other problems.  As an exercise think about the perfect job; the one that gives you all the status and social benefits and money that you want. Sometimes imagining something you want without putting limits on it can help you get where you want to go.

When I was in a job that I liked, but was too overwhelming for me I took some time to imagine what I wanted. I didn’t think I could swing it becasue it would mean a reduction of salary.  What I did, though, is create a budget based on the lower salary and more freedom and was very surprised to find out that it was far more workable that I had thought.

Creating fantasies of what you want even when you think it isn’t possible is part of what I call “creative living.”  It seems that there’s just a few paths to take for career fulfillment, but perhaps with some creative thinking, you can make just what you want happen.

I was honestly never much help to the publishing industry because I don’t buy books.  I read them too quickly and in too great numbers to be willing to pay for them continuously, or more importantly, to try to find space for them in my already cramped house.  Instead, I use the inter-library loan through my local library.  Every time I see a book I want I request it and then wait for the library to call me.

Then, though, I bought a new iPhone.  I’m certainly not the first to do so, nor nearly the last.  One of the first things I did was to go to the app store and look  up the different book readers I could find.  Then yesterday the kindle software became available  for free for the iPhone.  All of the sudden, I am back in the book-buying public.  I will still use the library, but now I feel like if I’m somewhere where I have little to do and would like a book I could browse Amazon or one of the other providers and buy myself exactly what I want to read without cluttering up my house.

What this teaches me is that there are often different ways to solve problems.  Perhaps it will take a while for the bulk of the public to get interested in buying ebooks and books online for electronic reading.  Many people will resist, but it is the wave of the future.  It’s cheaper and greener without all the paper waste, not to mention the easier storage and access.

Many industries right now are in a time of crisis.  Things are changing fast and the ones that can think ahead and move ahead without keeping their eyes glued to the past will be the winners. This holds true for individuals as well.

There are always the people who decide that the past is best, the way things used to be is the way things should always be. History has proven, though, that these people generally get left behind.  Their clench on what was may seem laudable in the beginning, but then starts to seem quaint and a bit pathetic as the world moves on.

Learning the new things that come out as often as they do is difficult.  The younger generations seem to always come up with new things that may even seem beneath us as we get older, but since they may be the path to the future, it’s important that we work to keep up.

As you get older, try not to grip the past too hard.  Enjoy the past, remember it, but remember that many of the things that you’re going to need to solve your future problems are being invented all the time.  Make sure you keep an eye on what is going on in the world, even if they’re not things you’re interested in.  Facebook, Twitter, blogging and iPhones may hold no interest to you whatsoever, but it’s important to know about them whether you choose to use them or not.

If you’re young and all of these things are a central part of your lives, remember that you too will get older and harken back to when Facebook had all the friends you needed.  Make a commitment to yourself right now to keep up with the new technologies of the future.

First

Second, do a search on the Internet and read up on the different methods that are used for organizing both space and time.  There are many out there. Just because the whole idea of organizing may be uncomfortable doesn’t mean you hereto pick just any method.  Read through the methods and see which one might fit with you.  For the papers that continuously sneak into my house, I like to have a central bin that I put all the papers I want to keep in.  I recycle anything I don’t want pretty quickly, but other stuff I just put in the bin.  About once a year I go through the bin and file the important papers in my file cabinet. Until then, though, if someone asks for a paper or I need a paper for something I just sift through the bin of papers to find it.

Third, learn the method you chose and start using it.  It will probably feel awkward and like you’re spending a lot of extra time organizing instead of gaining extra time. Remember that there is a learning curve with anything and the organizing will take a while to seem second nature.  Give yourself a couple of months to see if the method makes your life a bit easier and less filled with anxiety.  If it doesn’t then try a different method.

Fourth, once you have some organization going, evaluate and make sure it’s working for you. Are you gaining more time to be productive? Are there any problems left?  If there are still problems work to see what you can do about them.  As I mentioned, I have a paper bin for important papers that I want to keep. I recycle the ones that aren’t important and I don’t want to keep, but there was one pile left, papers I need to do something with soon.  Those kept ending up in a pile next to my computer which is on the kitchen table.  To solve this problem, I found a wall hanging that was meant for magazines and put it on the wall next to my computer. It has 8 or so pockets, the right size for papers.  I put all actionable papers in there and then when it gets too filled I go through the papers and either recycle them, do what needs to be done or move them to the “file-later” bin.

Part of my evaluation of my organization method also involved giving myself a break. I do a good job with time and space organization. I do better with time than space.  I’ve had to give myself some leeway on space.  My papers are now in acceptable places, but the rest of the house is not that clean.  I have a small house with five residents, three of whom cause more mess than clean.  I have had to give myself a break and realize that I’m never going to be able to keep the house clean at all times when I have three children who put real effort into messing it up each day. I’m just not a person who can clean every night. I strive for "good enough."

Fifth and last, try to enjoy the extra time, productivity and calm that comes with having a firm structure to your time and space.  It’s hard to achieve and may never feel all that comfortable, but the benefits good organizing procedures provide, are well worth the effort.

There are many people who, intelligently, take the next right step in their lives over and over again and get reasonable places. When they graduate from high school they go to college, when they meet someone they like they get married, when they’re offered a job they take it. They keep building on this series of nexts and arrive at a nice place.

Sometimes, though, it’s hard to tell what the next step should be without some kind of eye on the future.  If there’s a decision to be made, should I take this job or that one, it’s hard to decide without some larger ideal driving you.  I find that every time I start wondering if I should be out there getting a higher paying job, I can appease myself by remembering that my goal is not more money, but more free time.

What I’ve found is that a passionless passion is just fine. A passionless passion is a goal that you are happy and comfortable with, but perhaps not completely insane about.  I might want to do something in particular or achieve something, but if I ran into a big obstacle I’d be fine with changing or altering my plans.  Having a goal, though, with or without deep passion for it, gives me some kind of guide to work with. I can attempt to reach my goal and along the way I’ll learn more about myself and what I want.  If need be I’ll switch my goal to something else entirely.

Currently, I’m working on saving money for the down payment on another house.  I’d like another, bigger house, but I’ll survive without it.  Keeping my mind set on the goal, though, cannot hurt at all.  If I achieve my dream of another house I’ll be happy, if I don’t and my goals change then I’ll just have a bunch of money in the bank.  I can live with that.

If you’re having a difficult time coming up with a true, deep passion for some goal, try to develop some passionless passions.  Come up with things that you think you’d like and work towards those.  The practice of working towards a goal is always helpful, if even just for the practice of working slowly towards a goal.

What are your goals for your children?

We want clearly delineated goals for ourselves because we know that they help you achieve what you want, so why not for our children.  In this case, I don’t mean having our children make their own goals, but our goals as parents. What are we trying to give our children on their way to grown-uphood?

Many parents just try to provide their children with every single positive thing they think there is out there. The children should have every lesson, should get the most from school, should have lots of educational experiences and so on and so forth.  Without goals, though, it’s hard to figure out what is really necessary and what just makes us feel like we’re doing our best.

For my children, I want them to learn many skills. For example, I want them to be able to get themselves out of bed and ready for school on their own without anyone. I want them to pay attention to other people, their peers and the adults around them. I want them to be able to figure out how to deal in social situations and feel confident about their needs.  I want my children to be able to figure out what they want and break those goals down into smaller, doable tasks.  I want my children to understand that there is a lot of help available in the world for whatever questions they might have and they should ask for it.  I want my children to be self-sufficient without necessarily being overstressed.

Having my goals written out helps me remember what is important to me. Then when something happens like my son wants to quit soccer, I can look back and think about the fact that I want my children to try new things, but that means letting them quit them if they turn out not to be interested in them.  It helps me realize that it’s more important for me to encourage my children to try new things, with the promise they can quit if they’re not interested, than it is for me to teach them not to quit.

What are your goals for your kids?  Can you spell them out clearly and specifically?  Don’t consider them in terms of “I don’t want…”  I will talk about fears for your kids in a later post.  What concrete types of things do you want for your kids? When they’re adults what do you want them to be capable of?

These are your goals, even though they’re for your kids.  Parenting can be overwhelming without an idea of where we’re going.  Most people’s goals will be reasonable and probably mirror their own life in some way.  I like having a laid-back life, earning about as much money as I need, instead of lots extra.  I would like to pass that value onto my children, but other people may have other, very reasonable, goals for their children.  What do you want to achieve as a parent?