All Shook Up!

I have been thinking about snow globes.  Sometimes they just sit there so pretty on the shelf and then someone comes by and shakes them and the snow falls softly until it settles again.  Other times someone comes by and really, really shakes them up.  You wonder how the little figurines inside don’t fall out of place.  At times my home finances feel like a snow globe – sometimes calm and settled and then sometimes something happens and it feels like our finances have been shaken up again.  The vehicle breaks down, someone needs surgery, there is a job change … it often doesn’t take much for serenity to be turned upside down!  

If you’d like to take control of your finances, MSU Extension has great resources in our Solid Finances series.  The Solid Finances program was started in 2013 and includes weekly financial webinars.  This year’s series includes topics such as health care insurance options for those nearing retirement, avoiding financial scams, Banking 101, and estate planning and family legacies.  Each webinar can be joined live on Wednesdays at noon.  This year’s webinars started on October 5, but the great news is that all webinars are recorded.  In fact, you can listen to any of the 50 webinars that are posted on the MSU Extension Solid Finances webpage.  Some of the recorded webinars include topics such as understanding credit scores, teens and money and how to reduce debt.  

There are topics for every stage of life. If your financial world is pretty settled, like a snow globe on shelf, it doesn’t hurt to dust it off every once in a while and take a look at it to be sure.  If your financial world is a little shaky, it might just do to take advantage of the free resources to establish Solid Finances.  

Solid Finances

When I was growing up, my mom used to say, “It’s just as easy to love a rich man as a poor one.”   I don’t really know whether or not that is true.   While it may be just as easy to love a rich man, in the dating years of my life it wasn’t just as easy to find one.  My husband was told growing up that you can “Marry more money in twenty minutes than you can make in a lifetime.” Apparently there wasn’t a line of wealthy women waiting to date him. Rest assured, we both married for love. 

I suppose those oft repeated quotes are well-meaning.  Parents advising their children often equate wealth with security.  As well, money is one of the top reasons for discord in a marriage.  Any time a resource is limited, it can be a source of conflict.  Rather than marrying money, it might be better if we advised young people how to equip themselves with the skills to earn and manage their own money.

I’ve read that if you want to improve your skills in any area, you have to study or practice daily.  A financial advisor coached that you should read, learn or do something about money each day. I’ve heard it said, “Where your attention goes, your energy flows.”  If you are interested in improving your skills in the area of finances, MSU Extension and Extension partners in South Dakota and Idaho have devised a way for you to learn about finances from the comfort of your computer.

The Solid Finances series, taught by webinar, starts October 7.  The series covers Managing Your Money with topics on plugging spending leaks, emergency savings, home buying and organizing records; Retirement Planning with the top ten need-to-know items, getting started late, and a retirement question and answer session;  Investor Protection and Student Loans with topics from predatory lenders, identity theft, applying for federal student aid and student loan consolidation; and Montana-specific classes including estate planning and your rights over your remains.   You can listen and interact with these sessions live or listen to recorded sessions.

The Solid Finances webinar information can be found at www.msuextension.org/solidfinances. The website contains information on how to register for the free classes.  Be sure to check out past recordings and resources from previous years of Solid Finances classes as another free resource to become educated about money. 

There could be better advice given than to marry for money.  We could start using this adage instead, “Make your own money and manage it well.”  Besides, I’ve heard that people who marry for money earn every penny!

Cooking Up a Better Attitude ...

Sometimes I fail to appreciate what I have.  I see the 53-year-old cabinets, counter tops and stove in my house and think it is time for an update.  I crawl into my 20-year-old vehicle that I drive daily and wonder if I wouldn’t look a lot better in a race red 2013 Mustang.  However, I don’t suppose updating those items would improve my cooking or my driving.  And, spending money I don’t have on things I don’t truly need, would definitely eliminate my ability to meet other future goals.  But sometimes I just need a reminder that everyone out there doesn’t have newer, more, better and that it is still good to keep my eye on important things that are down the road, like braces for my kids, college and retirement savings. 

Sometimes in our consumer economy it is easy to lose sight of our true goals and to get sidetracked. If you sometimes have trouble keeping your focus on your savings goals, too, I encourage you to check out www.americasaves.org and www.montanasaves.org.   I’ve been receiving correspondence from the organizations and it helps me feel better and stay focused.  I enjoy reading the “saver stories” that are featured.  One of the stories is about a woman who was making little more than minimum wage, had lost her home because of a family crisis and was living in a rundown hotel.  But, through education and effort, she started putting away $10 a week in an emergency fund.  It was money she didn’t think she could really do without, but nonetheless, she kept her focus and continued to save.  When she got a raise, she put the amount of the raise into her savings, along with her tax refund.  Within a few years, through staying diligent to her goals, she was able to purchase a home. 

It is all too easy to compare yourself to people who seem to have more, but you also should stop to think that they might have more debt, too.  Debbie Matz, National Credit Union Administration Board Chairman says, “A savings account is very important to a household’s financial stability.  We should be seriously concerned that nearly 44% of American households have almost no savings for emergencies.”  She goes on to mention that the America Saves campaign is a great educational tool for people learning how to balance household budgets, build a cushion for financial problems or putt money aside for a new home, retirement needs or education.

For me, sometimes it helps to compare myself to people who have less, rather than people who have more to know how truly great I have it.  One of the stories that always helps me gain perspective was written by my great-grandmother, Blanche Wolery.  In the story she tells how she met my great-grandpa and about their first years of married life.  She recalls, “In our 14 x 18 [foot tar-paper shack], our bed was a spring hinged to the 2x4s that had to be raised and fastened upon the side of the wall each day. Two improvised legs were on the front corners that folded down while the bed was against the wall.  Our furniture was very meager – a cupboard, trunk, homemade washstand for the wash pan and water pail and a small cook stove with a real oven.  I couldn’t help but think my oven was something extra but I did need to learn to use it.  Guy had a lot of stomach trouble during the first years. I am sure now that my cooking had something to do with that.  Our home was covered with tar paper and Ladies Home Journals because it was printed on better paper.”  From the story she wrote, I gather they got their first car in 1924, several years into their marriage.  She ends by writing, “We do know that each generation will be better off in many ways than when we started married life, but none will be happier.”

I guess a new stove probably won’t improve my cooking and since my old car gets me where I want to go, I might as well keep driving it.  A new home or car might be a great status symbol, but they probably do little to alter the status that really counts – your happiness. 


The evening that I wrote the post above, I was given a fortune cookie.  Know what it said?  Reaffirm your faith in financial plans -- make a budget.  Coincidence?  

Websites to visit:

America Saves  

Montana Saves
Small Steps to Health and Wealth
MSU Extension's Solid Finances Web Classes