Sorting out expenditure

I do not know where other people are in life, but I wish I had been able to handle my money years ago - I still can't but I am finally angry enough to make sure I do it.

Again - ripped off by PC World, who sold me the wrong piece of kit. It would not matter if I could find the receipt, I could go back and give them a bollocking! but I can't because I can't find the receipt.

The reason - I have not kept my system for receipts up to date.

This is what my brother suggested I do three months ago, and I have done it a little bit, but not well enough
1 - set up an expenses system
2 - keep all receipts - not difficult, just put them in my purse when I collect my shopping
3 - Every now and again, enter them on an Expenses Sheet
4 - Each week I can see what I have spent - roughly, then I can cross reference it to bank statements etc and always have the receipts.

This is what it looks like when I have done it - it gives me a set of tables from which I can work out, at least some of the places my money goes. Just glancing at a bank statement is not good enough for the Inland Revenue and in the next few years, in Bankrupt Britain, it is going to be a battle between you and the Government as to how much exactly of their money they get! - this is the only way to win!!! know your figures better than they ever could!!

The picture is an Expense sheet






I have scanned in a completed sheet - so you can see how it works. It almost works at the moment and this is the only system that I have still be working at 3 months after I started.
Mainly I think because it tolerates my fits and starts of activity. It also looks after the receipts, which you staple to the side of the expense sheet.

Somewhere along the line, - a - I have not been disciplined enough about collecting the receipts and b - as I discovered today, I have not been keeping my cash book up to date. I am six weeks behind. It does not matter, as I can still catch up. But I seem to have terminally lost my PC World receipt

It may seem like a lot of extra work - and why not just spend and not worry about the consequences??

Lots of reason

Just spending - is a waste of mine and the planet's resources. Instead of getting a refund, I will have to sell the bit of kit on ebay - without the packaging because of course, that went out with the rubbish. I cant keep my house clean but my cleaning lady has a robust approach to rubbish and so gets rid of it. If she didn't the house would drown, and because she does, I lose things

Anyway - most people cannot afford a cleaning lady, so its irrelevant. She is excellent by the way, and looking for work!

No one said it was easy to be rich, if it was, we would all be. Nonetheless, there is no reason why more of us cannot be self supporting.

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Rambling ideas

In my ideal world, we will all be our own businesses. Jobs will be an apprenticeship to learn tasks which you then sell to employers. In turn you employ other people to do your tasks.

People bank with each other, not with major banks. We have trust accounts with each other - each of us only pays another when he or she needs money for some reason or other. The rest of the time we work on trust. It works as long as everyone is trustworthy!! and does things properly! I have no doubt that out of this banking crisis will come many new ways of doing business. It is the monetary equivalent of Windows getting a virus that crashes every computer that uses it. A few people using a different operating system will look smug (those whose assets are in Land or Gold) Everyone else will have their work cut out, rescuing their data and then they will think of other ways to do things - partly back to pen and paper, and partly forward with new ideas.

Copyright Dr Liz Miller 2008