The PDQ (Pay Debts Quick) Plan

Because money is a very important topic for me, I have several different financial coaches that I signed up with. Suze Orman seems to be the guru of choice these days, but I don't care much for her. I prefer Mary Hunt of EverydayCheapskate.com, Dave Ramsay and Chellie Campbell of Chellie.com. They all have similar programs with minor variations and the good news is that any one of them will work.

This is some of the info I share in my classes. Especially now that the financial situation is getting worse and worse, this is important info to have. I think this is an important issue for women especially. I think that men tend to spend more on the big ticket items like cars, boats, etc. But I think as far as the overspenders who rack up the big debt, it's mostly women. Because I run a stamping business, I see a lot of this first-hand. I have seen women drop hundreds of dollars on merchandise that they are going to hide from their husbands in a closet somewhere and problem never even use.

That boggles my mind. I don't see how someone justifies spending what is basically imaginary money, especially on things they don't really need and won't actually use. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do plenty of impulse spending, but I never hide it from my husband and I do use everything I buy. Plus I'm allergic to debt and even though I have some, it isn't much and I work really hard to pay it down as fast as I can. I've been in serious debt before and it's NOT a fun place to be and I don't want to go back there ever again.

Anyway, back to the PDQ Plan. It's pretty simple. You take a spreadsheet or a piece of paper and you list all your debts - large or small. Some people like to line them up based on the interest rate, but I prefer to line them up small to large. It gives you more of a psychological boost to see them being paid off bit by bit.

It's a little daunting to see all your debts in one place, but it's time to face facts. The amount of money is going to be any less if you close your eyes to it. It is what it is and you have to come up with a plan for dealing with it.

Here's how the PDQ plan works. Let's say the smallest bill is a $300 debt that you pay $25 a month and the next largest bill is a $500 debt that is $50 a month. First of all, you cut back on things and save money like crazy so you have $100 a month to spend on that little bill. Three months and poof, that little bill is history. Now you take the $100 a month and apply it to bill number 2. At $150 a month, that bill is also gone in just under three months. So in six month's time or less you have eliminated two bills and freed up $150 a month of your income.

Then you just go through the rest of your bills in the same manner. It is hard work, but you'll get excited as you see your debt reducing as if by magic. The average time for a Debt Snowball like this to work is 18 months to two years. That sounds like a lot, but when you look at how long this debt has been following you around, it really isn't too bad. And by the end of the process, you'll have several hundred dollars in extra money every month - some to save for a rainy day and some to spend on all those fun things you've been denying yourself.

The Brat Factory

People often ask me how I thought up the idea to teach these classes. I got it from Pam and Peggy who are two very busy sisters who are in this business. They have both written a number of great books on the subjects and have CD's and videos and other resources - several of them are available for purchase on my sidebar. One of the resources they have is a set of CD's for people like me who want to teach classes and that is how I got started designing this class. They are also the ones who gave Flylady her start. She originally started decluttering and cleaning her house with their card system and now she has over half a million members!

I'm not sure what Peggy is doing. I think I had heard that she had some health problems and retired, but Pam runs a pair of very interesting websites these days. One is called The Brat Factory - Bratfactor.com. You can sign up with her to get tips and surprises every day of the year. I get them and I enjoy them very much.

The Brat Factory is based on a premise that part of the reason we do the things we do is because there is a child-like part of us in our mind, or our heart, or our soul, that isn't being addressed. So it acts out in negative ways like overeating, not cleaning our homes, spending too much time on-line, or overshopping.

If you think about it, this is exactly the way our children would act if we weren't around. Pam deals with this problem by addressing the brat in her life directly. She calls her Nelly for that bratty little girl on The Little House on the Prairie, and she deals with her exactly the way you would a child. Sometimes she will make deals with her - if you'll let me clean up this bathroom in peace, we'll sit down afterwards and watch TV for an hour. Or she'll speak sternly to her - I know you want to go to the mall and buy a new pair of shoes, but we just can't afford it right now. Or she'll be kind to her the way you would to a child - I know you're sad today, so I'm going to let you take a nice bubble bath and then we're going to bed with a good book. It's actually kind of interesting and it seems to work for her very well.

Some of us didn't have ideal childhoods, and I think this is a way of getting the attention and the love that we didn't receive from our parents. I call my brat Trixie, because she tricks me into doing things I shouldn't do sometimes, like hitting the snooze button too many times, overspending or choosing to watch TV when I've set aside time to work on my stamping. It's a free website - you ought to check it out.

The other website Pam runs is called The House Fairy - HouseFairy.com. If you have children under the age of 10, this is definitely the website for you! The House Fairy is supposedly the sister of Santa Claus and she motivates kids in much the same way. The kit comes with letters for you to leave as the House Fairy when your kids have kept their rooms clean or done their chores. There is "Magic Dust" (glitter) that she leaves behind after a visit. They can even post pictures of their sparkling clean rooms on her website. It's a great motivational tool and it costs like $15 for two years, so that's really reasonable.

Everything Needs to have a Home

When you get home from the grocery store, do you just leave the groceries in the bags and just take the food out of them when you need it? Why not? I know a lot of people do that for laundry. They leave it in the basket and just pick out a t-shirt or a pair of socks when they need them. Or the leave a stack of mail on the counter and just pick out a bill or a letter when they need them. Why don't we do that with groceries?

Obviously part of it is that some food will spoil and needs to be stored in the fridge or freezer to protect it. But it's also that we were taught at a very young age that groceries need to be put away right away, every time. Plus there is a clear home for groceries. We have cupboards and pantries and shelves to put our food on.

You can develop these habits for other things as well. What you if treated your mail like you do your groceries and put it away in it's designated spots the moment you came into the house? Same thing with your laundry. Pretend there's a container of milk in there that's going to go sour if you don't get them into drawers right away.

Here's a great tip I picked up somewhere. When you lose something, the minute you find it, take it and put it back in the FIRST place you looked. That is it's natural home and if you keep it there, you'll always be able to find it.

Erase the Evidence

If CSI came into your house, would they be able to tell what you've been doing all day?

If there were crumbs or plates on the table, they'd know what you had for lunch. If there were bill stubs, stamps and envelopes laying around, they'd know you had been paying bills. If you left your craft supplies laying around, they'd know what crafts you'd been doing, what books you'd been reading, what toys your kids have been playing with.

Now, is the point of this that you're hiding a guilty secret and you don't want the FBI to know - no, of course not. But this stuff is also clutter that very subtly creeps into your house throughout the day and makes it look messy.

However, if you get into the habit of tidying things up as you go, it's just like you are erasing the evidence. No crumbs, no bill stubs, no toys lying around (kid's or adults!). Everyone picks up as they go along and the house miraculously stays clean. It really works and this is what the cleanie types do all the time. The beauty of it is that these little minutes here and there probably don't add up to half the time you spend when you are doing a big tidy-up for company.

Why not give it a try for a couple of days and see how much more peaceful and calm it is around your house and how much easier you can find things. I think you'll really like it.

First Impressions

You know the old saying "You never have a second chance to make a first impression". I think this is really a true saying. Psychologists have done tests to show that we make our first impression of a new person within literally a fraction of a second.

The tough thing about that is that you can't control much about what happens in such a brief time frame. If it happens that quickly, it isn't about what you say or what you do particularly. It's entirely based upon your physical appearance - your clothing, your hairstyle or makeup, your posture, and your overall attitude.

Once someone makes this general impression of you, they have decided whether to like you or not and unless you do some pretty drastic to change their mind, that is the way they are always going to think of you. That sounds really harsh, but it seems to be a hardwired thing in the subconscious mind and even if we wanted to behave differently towards people, we probably can't make much of a change in that behavior.

These are pretty much all things you can control to some degree, which means you can have a lot of influence over the way you are perceived and the way people are going to treat you.

I'm sure it's much the same with your house. Your yard, your front door and your entryway are all part of that first impression someone gets when someone comes to your home. Why not go out and look at your house the way a Real Estate agent would look at it? Is there trash in your yard? Do your flower beds need weeding, or your snow and ice need to be removed? Are there kids toys, shoes, or tools by your front door? How long has it been since you swept your front porch?

There are a number of quick and easy fixes you can do to make that first impression a good one, both for your house and for yourself. We just don't think to do them, or we think somehow that people just "won't notice". But I think that's just something we tell ourselves. I think a lot of people do notice, but they are to kind and polite to want to hurt our feelings by telling us.

Sometimes just a few simple changes like a touch of makeup, some inexpensive jewelry, and maybe a slightly nicer top can not only make a difference in the way we look, but also in our attitude and the way we feel about ourselves. I can just hear you now, but I LOVE my comfy sweats, my broken-in jeans and my old worn out shoes. I'm just going to be with the kids all day, why should I bother to put on makeup or jewelry? I know exactly how you feel. I work from home one or two days a week and I know that on those days, I tend to "dress down" a bit from what I would wear into the office.

But wouldn't you know it, those grungy days when you are walking around with unwashed hair, or your husband's old T-shirt on, or pants with a big stain on them, those are the days that you are going to sneak out to the grocery store or the post office and run into someone you weren't expecting to see. Your child's principal, your minister, or someone from your husband's office.

Do you remember Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman? She went into those fancy shops and because she was dressed so poorly, the women felt perfectly entitled to be horribly rude to her. I mean, this is Julia Roberts. Even dressed so poorly, she was a complete knockout with a gorgeous smile and a killer bod, but in the wrong clothes, no one could see her beauty. All they could see was what the clothes were saying.

You just never know. So, even on those stay-at-home days, I still have some minimum standards. I wear a little bit of makeup - at least some mascara and eyeshadow. I may wear more casual clothes, but everything is clean and fits properly. If I notice something is getting too tight, or is too baggy, or needs repairs beyond a safety pin or two out they go. I have a special give-away box in my guest room and they go right in there. Someone else will give them a good home and enjoy them.

So, your challenge today is to take a moment and give a bit of thought to the first impression you would give someone if you just met them today, both for yourself and for your house. Is this an impression you would want to live with, or would you rather make a few quick changes to start off on the right foot?

Upcoming Messy Mom's Classes

For all you New Year's Resolution types, I wanted to announce my next round of Messy Mom's classes. I am going to start off the year with a bang by starting two classes at once. I'm going to start one class on Wednesday nights and the other on Sunday afternoons. These will be taught at my house in Sandy starting on January 14th from 7:00 to 8:30 and the 18th from 3:00 to 4:30 in the afternoon.

To give you a little background on my classes, they are four week sessions that are taught right in my living room. I try to pattern my classes in a way that is similar to the Weight Watcher's format - each week we have a combination of lesson time and time for sharing our experiences. I want to hear what challenges each person has and whether or not they have benefited from the previous week's lessons. That helps me fine-tune the class to provide the most helpful information to you.

The reason I have it as a four week class is to give my students a chance to build on each week's lesson. Let's face it, we've all been down this road before, many of us several times and we have to build up our credibility all over again, both with ourselves and with our families. We've all tried the latest and greatest gimmicks, books, websites, and advice from friends and family to get our darn houses cleaned up! Some methods have been more successful than others, but I don't know many people who have had the opportunity who have been able to attend a live class like this to get ideas from a real person in a way that works for them.

Here is the basic plan for the 4 week class:

Week 1 - Basic daily cleaning routines and your vision for the home you want to create
Week 2 - The easy way to declutter your house and what to get rid of and how
Week 3 - Get your family on board. How to get your family to participate in the daily cleaning process without fussing, arguing and nagging, and how to get them to show more appreciation for your efforts.
Week 4 - Resources to keep you going in the future/Getting your finances in order

The base cost of the class is $50 for the series. I offer small discounts for early payment or for signing up with a friend or relative.

I'm starting a new advertising program, so I am expecting these classes to fill up pretty quickly. If you want to reserve a spot, you'll want to contact me pretty quickly. Click HERE to E-mail me for more info or click the Paypal button to sign up for a class.

Coupon Organization

I have to admit that I've never been a fan of grocery coupons. It seems like every time I've ever used them, I've ended up spending an extra hour and about $50 more than I normally spend. But I know that a lot of people are anxious to save money these days and coupons really are a great time to do that.

But (and this is a BIG but) in order to use coupons effectively, you have to be dedicated and organized about it. I found a fabulous tip today from Mary Hunt at Everyday Cheapskate. I get her newsletter and she always has some great tips to share.

She has a client who uses those plastic sleeves that are designed to hold baseball cards. She has one page for each category of coupons - frozen foods, baby items, etc. And then she just tucks her coupons into the little pockets and carries it in a slim notebook that fits into her grocery basket. Then when she gets to the appropriate section, she can just flip open her notebook and easily see what coupons she has and select the ones she wants to use and transfers those to an envelope at the front of the notebook.

I think that's a fabulous idea. I probably even have some of those sleeves around from when my kids collected baseball cards. Give it a try and let me know how you like it.