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

Money is stored work

Money is stored work. Probably Marx was the first person in recent times to notice it. However that was in the mid 19th century before rampant inflation took hold of our economies.

Inflation is rising prices where too much money chases too few goods. Prices rise when there are more pounds or dollars than goods and there is a shortage of goods. Scarcity economics. When there are plenty of goods, prices drop.

In Zimbabwe, a real life laboratory of inflation, the shelves are empty. When there is only one loaf of bread, it goes to the highest bidder. If only two people able to bid, the rest starve. Prices rise because there are not enough goods and the government is printing dollars. If there were lots of food on the shelves, food would have to sell more cheaply or not sell. Shopkeepers pitch their prices high, because they can and because there are food shortages.

Deflation, falling prices, too little money chases too many goods. The price of goods falls. IT costs are deflationary. A new well appointed computer costs under a thousand pounds. In 1976, my first double floppy disc drive cost £940. Nowadays there are too many computers and too little money for them, most people can only use one computer at once. Similarly, in the High Street, too many clothes chase too few buyers. Despite the Sales, the High Street stores overstocked because they thought wholesale prices were too good to miss. They bought everything on credit, and now the price is dropping.

In the UK there are also areas of inflation - for example food and fuel. We may be able to live with an extra set of clothes, but we cannot live without food and fuel. There is not enough food and fuel on the market to lower prices. For people who can afford neither computers, clothes, nor food or fuel. Life is tough.

People charge what they can get away with. Where there is plenty of competition and plenty of goods, the price is close to the cost of production, or what the goods cost to make. Where there is a monopoly, a shortage of goods and plenty of money, the price becomes speculative and reaches what the shopkeeper thinks he or she can get away with charging.

How to get out of this spiral? These are the principles of a good citizen of MatrixEconomics.

Principles of good citizenship

Tell the truth and obey the law where it does not oppress another human being or animal
Pay as little tax as legally possible
Work and provide for yourselves, your family and your friends
Stay healthy
Be self sufficient
Do not use credit - ever, unless you are starving or homeless
Owing money is the first step to twenty first century slavery



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