(not the teenage kind)

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Better Than Brad Pitt

The other day my mother was walking behind me and commented that I was looking really good from the back. I like to pass these comments on to our trainer because 99% of the time I'm telling her that (a) I hate her, (b) I'm going to faint, (c) I'm going to barf, or (d) I'm going to die and I want her to have some reason to feel happy about coming to work.

However, a few minutes after passing on the compliment I blurted out "But, wait a minute. What difference does it make what my mother thinks? It's not like Brad Pitt said he liked my backside." After conferring for a bit both don dokken and our trainer agreed that, where Brad Pitt might do the smooth thing, mothers speak the truth so a mother's opinion is way better and more accurate than Brad's.

Then the other night I was paying a parking lot attendant and he said to me, "Wow, what a great smile" and I was all yeah, yeah, I know, whatever. And then he said "Where's your husband tonight?" When I told this story to don dokken his response was "He might have said 'smile' but I'm sure he was talking about your backside." Which was EXACTLY what I was thinking.

Friday, April 04, 2008

Erasing The Whiteboard

I have a whiteboard hanging in my office which has a list entitled "2007/2008 Planning."  It is time to erase the whiteboard and write down some new plans because, as of today, I have completed everything on that list.  Except really I'd rather just sit all day and stare at the check marks next to each item.  I thought it would be nice to document my accomplishments somewhere before letting them go and replacing them with new ones that would have no check marks so would not be fun to look at all day. Here they are:

1.  Create budget
I actually created a budget and have been tracking all my spending against it including cash since January. Though sometimes a pain, I love the process of getting a true understanding of where my money really goes.  And it makes me hesitate before spending because I know I have to write it down (I hear this works with food as well....)  

2.  Lower expenses
Under this category there were two subheadings - Phone bills, Insurance.  I  have three phone numbers:  home, business, cell.  I was successful in getting a better cell phone and land line plan.  I also read the bills in detail and noticed I was billed for things I didn't want (for example, I was being billed a roadside service fee on my cell phone which I didn't need because I have AAA.  It was only 99 cents or something but really.  Gone.)  The insurance stayed the same.  I got other bids and they weren't much better than what I already have.

3.  MMP brochures and website
MMP is Manage My People which is one of my businesses.  I have business cards for that business and a URL but I never developed the website.  A brochure has been written but never printed.  I do have a few clients under that business, as opposed to my compensation consulting business, but after much thought I decided to merge the businesses.  And even though I love the name and my logo I am letting it go.

4.  Meet with insurance agent about long term disability and long term care
My financial planner and I had a meeting with an insurance agent about these issues late last year.  At the time, we decided that it was still too early for long term care insurance but definitely worth purchasing long term disability.  The reason for #1 (create budget) is largely so I can make my final decision on how much income I want to replace when I purchase the long term disability insurance.

5.  Separate business and personal funds
I had been using the same checking account and credit card for both business and personal.  I knew this was wrong but since I am good about tracking the business income and expenses it didn't seem like too big a deal.  But then earlier this year I hired two people to do some work for me and I thought it might be tacky to pay them with a check that had "Pro-Choice" embedded in the background.  So now I have a bona-fide business checking account and a business credit card that gives me cash back on all sorts of stuff including gasoline so now when I go to visit my niece and nephew instead of costing me $12.00 in gasoline, it now costs $12.00 minus 5% and looks much better in my budget (see #1.)

6.  Update business website
And so here we are.  don dokken made some awesome changes to the look of the website and I updated some content and, though I've always liked my website, I am really proud of how quickly we worked this through.  Check it out here.

And stay tuned for planning list 2008/2009.


 
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