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

Getting Organised

Discipline, focus, and concentration !!

The Deep Tidy was the essential foundation and it has to go on - and I am not as tidy as I would like to be and I have a dip at the moment. But fundamentally, if it is not beautiful or useful it has to go. A bit like people, - they must be entertaining or useful or you need to get them out of your life. There are enough sinks, drains and sewers in the world without making a personal collection.

A business is only as good as its systems.

A place for everything and everything in its place.

At the moment I am attacking my money and it is an attack. I have to maintain focus, drive and motivation. Thank goodness I have a brother and that he is in a position to help me. How do people without a brother get back on their feet?

This is not about getting accounts right, this is about getting yourself right first. It is only when a person can step back, observe what he or she is doing, review, and plan, is it possible to fight. It is a hard and disciplined road to storm their citadels and raze their temples to the ground.


Copyright Dr Liz Miller 2008

Getting organised - Finding the Inner Bean Counter

This is for my brother, and if everyone had a brother like mine all kid sisters would have enough pocket money. Not to say he is an unfettered delight all of the time but he is helping me sort out my money. And this is what is needed.

There is no way that anyone can run a business until they have their eye on the bottom line and that does come down to money - to being a bean counter. No one can make bean stew until they have awakened their Inner Bean Counter.

My brother is visiting on an almost weekly basis at the moment. He wants to get my finances set up efficiently so that not a penny is wasted and not a penny more than necessary is given to the government to spend on the War in Iraq and arresting MPs. This means developing three key identities

Liz the company director of Well and Working Ltd
from Liz, the self employed writer and journalist
and Liz, the spendthrift, head in the clouds, daydreaming clown

These identities are powerful - not least because they are tax efficient! -
The only one that has to pay standard tax is the spendthrift clown - and this is the one that should not be trusted with anything more than a sixpence.

Most of all, Chris - thanks for being patient, while I act out my two year old toddler neuroticisms and anxieties over money - I will do my best to grow and develop a mature persona regarding money so that you and I, Salma and Martin can get rich together. In the meantime, we will keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.

This weeks lesson - Organisation gets the money organised!

This weeks targets:

1) Each set of bank statements in their own ring binder (see 3)
2) Find Well & Working's missing statements (I hope the bank doesn't have my attitude to paperwork and has kept copies)
3) 12 red ring binders - (the shop - easy)
4) Bank statements for income tax return 2007 / 8
5) Phone Inland revenue help desk 0845 6055999 to get the information to submit my income tax returns on line as it is now too late to send off the form
6) Start keeping some kind of record of the money I spend

Copyright Dr Liz Miller 2008

The Beginning of the Business - Getting the systems in place

The Deep Tidy is complete - I have a house that I can tidy in under an hour, which feels good. But it is not enough to be tidy, it is also necessary to be organised, and being organised is a different process from tidying up. Yes, my house is on the whole tidy, so tidy that last night I managed to find a variable output transformer. And did not have to pull the place apart to do so.

Clutter is the bane of the age - too much cheap tat! in our minds, in our houses, and everywhere around. There was a good reason that monks and prophets did not bother with worldly goods. It is difficult to commune with god and have visions if you are constantly interupted by a mobile phone ringing.

Get the business going

I have a bank account and some money in the bank, although at the moment work seems to have dried up. Hopefully that will be temporary. Everyone needs a business, and the clever bit is to build the business before you get the idea. It is a lot harder when you are trying to build a business and develop an idea!

I went on a course called "Getting Paid" courtesy of Clearlearning and my new Barclays Bank Account. FANTASTIC!! - even better because I was the only person on it - thanks Hannah. Getting paid is what business is about. Simple high quality information about how not to get stung! I wish I had been on it last year before I set up the business. It ought part of the sixth form national curriculum. Part of citizenship studies. Lets teach young people something they can use in later life - (I feel a rant coming on). We all have to get paid, Wimps wait around for a monthly pay slip! - learn to go out and fight for your money. Better still learn how to get your money, on your terms and for yourself, without the state taking its share first

Accounts scare me to death. This is not good. My brother came over to give me a head start with the book keeping. If you haven't got a brother, get a book keeper! These systems should have been in place long before I opened the doors. However, there is hope - because a) my brother is efficient and b) I am entering a quiet spell which will give me a chance to get the systems up and ready. So I need to make sure everything is well organised, and that keeps changing as the system of organisation adapts to what I will need as I develop the Systems to make this a world class business.

Organising is harder than tidying. Setting up Robust Systems is harder still! Systems need to reflect the way you do things and be effective and efficient way for your business does business

The strength of a business is in its Systems, and in its People. Good Systems will guide the people using them and good people will make the systems work. Good Systems and Good People together make a Good Living, recession or no recession!

Recap on Making your Living

1) Dont wait for the Genius Idea

2) Get started with the Acquiring, Perfecting and Exploiting skills - the APE cycle

3) Do the Deep Tidy



4) Get organised

5) Start the Business

6) Get Systems in place


Copyright Dr Liz Miller 2008