I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Make Money Not Excuses Review: Husbands, Organization, and Time

For the foreseeable future, every Friday afternoon I will be reviewing a section of Jean Chatzky’s Make Money Not Excuses and how it relates to me and my financial situation and outlook. The first review is here, Chapter 1 is here, Chapter 2 is here.

The next three chapters of Make Money Not Excuses are all inter-related to me, so I’ve grouped them together in one review. My husband does that, I’m too disorganized, and I don’t have enough time all boil down to one common thing to me - blaming some external factor that you think is out of your control for your lack of involvement in your financial situation.

First off, But My Husband Does That. I am the opposite side of the coin, in that I do all the money-management and my spouse probably would say “But my wife does that”. Chatzky says that it basically boils down to two big reasons - either he wants control, and/or you want him to have control. I know that is true in our case - I want to control our finances and my spouse does not, so I do. I have slowly been getting him more involved and aware, but it is an uphill battle for both of us.

If you see yourself in this, let go of what you were taught. The man doesn’t genetically have the right to handle the money. And honestly, for me I don’t think it matters at all who makes more. I usually make substantially less than my spouse, and yet I handle the money.

Chatzky gives some suggestions for helping you to take control of your money, including separate bank accounts (at least, in part), which isn’t ideal for us I don’t think but can work for many people, and then goes through strategies to deal with common money battles, including:

• You Spend Too Much
• You’re Too Cheap
• You’re Too Controlling
• You Don’t Tell Me Anything

If one or more of those is a common refrain in your house, this chapter is worth a read!

The next chapter is I’m Too Disorganized To Deal With My Money. I can relate to this because I am a very disorganized person who has deluded herself for many years into thinking (and believing) she is organized. I do believe that there are inherent tendencies towards disorganization some of us have more than others. However, that is no excuse for letting your finances fall by the wayside.

Chatzky says the first step is understanding the comfort of clutter. And for me, she’s right. Even though I think in my brain that the clutter drives me crazy, in many ways it is comforting to feel like you have anything you might need (even if that isn’t true). And from that comes the best part of the book (for me), Find Your Urge To Purge. This shows a lot of common excuses for keeping clutter, what you really mean when you say it, and how to turn it on its head and think of the flip side of the argument instead. It is brilliant, and motivated me to purge a bunch of clutter all at once. For example:

• You Say: “I might need it someday.”
• You Mean: “I’m afraid to give it up.”
• Think Instead: “How many other things do I have I can use instead?”

The other common excuses turned on their head include but it might come in handy someday, but it still works (a huge one for me), and but it cost a lot of money.

The rest of the chapter looks at strategies to get more organized, and stay that way, including cutting down on the amount of paper than comes into your life and having a place for financial information to live. The average woman spends 55 minutes a day searching for things (I think I probably spend double…) so getting things under control will save you tons of time, which leads to…

I Don’t Have Any Time. This is the next chapter of the book, and Chatzky begins it with reasons that we feel like we have less time. The one that really surprised me was multi-tasking. I am one of the few people who still thought multi-tasking was a useful skill. But multi-tasking, or starting and stopping tasks constantly, actually wastes time because it takes your brain time to get back to the point you were at when you stopped doing the first thing when you go back to it.  So what should we do?  Chatzky outlines four simple steps to take control of our time, and by extension, our money:

1. Know what’s important
2. Prioritize
3. Accomplish well what you need to, in as little time as possible
4. Prevent things from slipping through the cracks

There are tools and tips galore for each of these steps, and by taking control of our time, we take control of our lives, including money.

Next week we’ll look at But I Have Nothing To Wear, which isn’t really me but I cannot resist a sale, so the chapter really does apply to me in a lot of ways.  We’re taking control!  We are taking charge!  And our finances will reflect it, bit by bit.

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