I’ve been going under a drastic reformation these last few months. I started the 365 series, which I haven’t been posting on anymore, but I’m continuing to blog so I’m not too worried about it. Especially since Mondays are dedicated to much the same material, but in a more cohesive and coherent format. And hopefully people get something out of it.

The biggest part of my reformation has been financial. I’ve been living well out of my means and suffering through anemic bank accounts for a long time now, close to three years. So I’m going to talk about money for a few weeks. Basically, I want to help people not get to the point I was at, and realize that a little budgeting goes a long way. Now, I’m nowhere near financial stable yet, but I’m better.

I’ve been doing Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover the last few months. It’s been frustrating, because it’s not a quick fix. It’s a gradual process, so slow I didn’t realize things were changing.

So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to be making a budget and sticking to it. We’re going to be organizing our lives so it’s not a huge mess anymore. And by we, I mean me, but it’s always nicer to include folks. Feel free to follow along on your own blog too. Just stop by and let me know, because I might learn something too.

The first thing we have to do is get organized. As soon as I have my Home Management Binder all situated, I’ll do a post on that, but right now, it’s still in the learning phase. I haven’t figured out what I need and what I don’t need yet. So I’m gonna use it and play with it over the next six months until I feel like it’s been tweaked and is working the best for me. In the meantime, I suggest checking out A Bowl of Lemons’ blog post on the home management binder.

The first thing we have to do is get all our things together in one spot. This may include:

Pay stubs or royalty statements
Receipts
Bills (including the paperless billing info)
Debt information (credit cards, loans, ect.)
Bank statements

Now find yourself a nice little workspace. Putting my binder together took about four hours to do. I have the following tabs on my Binder:

Calendar
Schedule
Finances
Blogging
Writing
Graphic Design
Cleaning
Menu Plans

You might have others. You might not have the same as I do. I wanted an all in one place for my life management. This means, my home life, my graphic design business, my publishing business, my blogging, budgets, everything is all in one spot to make it easier for me. And I do need easy. If it’s not easy, I run the risk of losing interest in it and I just can’t afford that anymore.

Image Copyright 2012 Suzan Butler

Next week, now that we’ve got our Home Management Binder under control, we will delve a little deeper into organizing our lives.

We’ll start with financials, because that’s where I’m weakest. We’re going to work with something called a “zero balance budget.” It means that every penny on that paycheck is allocated toward something, whether it be bills, gas money, groceries, or movie night. It’s all accounted for.

But more on that next week.

What’s your weakness in organization? Do you live with a budget or fly by the seat of your bills? What advice would you give a person new to organization or budgeting?