Broke in Burketsville ~ Ask Tiamat 8/11/15

Another week gone by - seriously, where is the time going? I am working on staying on track while getting ready to go back to school in a couple days.  I'm a day late with the Ask Tiamat column, but here we go:

Dear Tiamat -

I have reached my wits end. It seems like I can never get ahead no matter what I do. Is there anything that can be done to change my financial situation? I am drowning here!

Signed,
Broke in Burketsville

Well Broke, I can certainly feel for you. Having money issues is rough, and can be really exhausting. Let's take a look and see what the cards have to say for you. I have drawn 4 cards for you - the first two to examine the current situation/ how you got there and the second two on how we can get you out!

Our first two cards are the Knight of Coins and the 4 of Coins - interesting since our question was about money! Funny how that works sometimes...  The Knight tells us that you were counting your chickens before they were hatched - counting on money that should have come in, or that you were hoping was going to come in and then it didn't. Yikes! Then if we look at the 4 of Coins and see that ou have made your money desicions based on fear and anxiety. Instead of having any kind of plan, you panicked and tried to grasp at every straw possible. So how can we get you out of this? First we need to examine your reaction to money issues. The 10 of Swords warns of beating yourself up and to open yourself up to trusting that everything happens for a reason. The Knight of Wands tells you to have a plan in place. It may sound really hard to do when the money is tight, but commit yourself to setting aside SOMETHING every week (or payday) into savings. Having a safety net for those rainy days will really help to take some of the stress off. Even if you don't need it right off, just knowing it is there is a weight off your shoulders. Then sit down and make a plan - and make sure it is reasonable.  It can be prety amazing once you start analyzing where you spend your money the amount of expenses you can cut down. When we started cutting costs here in our house the firs tthings we did were things like shut off the cable tv. Who needs 250 channels, when we are so busy with everything that we never even watch stuff when it airs? So instead of $135/mo for TV no one was watching we went to Netflix and Hulu instead - we can watch all our favorites, on our schedule and we saved over $100/month. But it isn't always the big stuff. I was buying one 20 oz bottle of Coke per day. Not a big deal at the time, but if ou look at $1.79 per bottle, that was around $12.50/week and $50/month! Over the course of the year I was spending $600 on my daily caffine habit! It is the little things like this that have a big impact in the long run!

If you are looking for an easy way to save I HIGHLY recommend DIGIT. They are a savings account that analyzes your spending habits, checking activity, etc and then saves automatically based on what you can realistically afford. Check them out here: https://digit.co/r/W1gYh?wn