Gail Vaz-Oxlade's Blog, page 20

Pork Chops with Cider

Brining has become all the rage. The theory behind it is that soaking leaner meats in brine helps to ensure they remain juicy and moist when they’re cooked. Normally meat loses about thirty percent of its weight during cooking. Brine the meat first and you can cut that back to just 15 percent. How long you brine depends mostly on how big your subject is. A whole turkey takes way longer than these juicy pork chops.

 

Pork Chops with Cider

To brine the pork chops:

Dissolve ½ cup salt and ½ cup brown sugar in 1 cup of boiling water.
 Then add:
2 cups cold water,
2 tbs rosemary
1 tsp wostershire sauce
1 cup boiling water

Put it all in a freezer-bag and add 4-6 pork chops. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

Rinse the pork chops and pat dry.

In a skillette, heat 1 tbs olive oil, add pork chops and brown, about 5-6 minutes.

Add ½ large sweet onion sliced lengthwise, along with 1 apple, sliced. Stir until onions begin to soften.

Add ½ cup of cider sauce.

 

To make cider sauce:

1 litre of cider
4 bay leaves
12 pimento seeds, not cracked
1 cinnamon stick

Simmer until the mixture reduces to 1/2 cup.

Share Your Goals

As I was weeding this morning I looked up and I have to admit I was a bit overwhelmed by the weeds in the garden. I stuck my head back down and focused on the patch I was working on. I have a goal of one bucket of weeds a day. It’s a big bucket; it usually takes me 30-45 minutes to fill it . As I was pulling those little buggers I was think how hard it is sometimes to deal with a goal when the end seems overwhelming difficult to reach. Like getting a huge amount of debt paid off, or saving a whack of money for an emergency fund, or weeding the whole garden, if you let the goal become a monster you’ll just throw in the trowel and run and hide.

Sharing your goals improves your chances of reaching them. Writing down your goals, sharing them with friends, and sending your friends regular updates about your progress can boost your chances of succeeding. Studies show that people who merely thought about their goals and how to reach them succeeded less than fifty percent of the time. People who wrote goals down, and enlisted friends to help them by sending regular progress reports succeeded closer to seventy-five percent of the time.

Giving up a goal takes both a psychological and physical toll. If you begin doubting whether you can reach your goal, you may be on your way to what psychologists call an “action crisis.” This is the crucial point at which you decide whether to keep going or give up. Research shows with an action crisis comes production of the stress hormone cortisol, which is your brain’s way of sounding a body-wide alarm in response to the internal conflict. The problem is, the extra cortisol doesn’t help your performance, and may contribute to giving up sooner.

Your inner voice is a potent goal-achievement tool. Reacting impulsively can get in the way of goal achievement, Your inner voice is an effective way to control impulses. Telling yourself “Keep going, you can do it,” really does help keep you moving, and sidetracks the impulse to give up because the activity is getting harder.

Being specific can help you reach your goal. Research suggests that being more specific and less flexible may be more effective in goal achievement.  Specific steps, accomplished in strict order, seem harder to do at first, but ultimately lead to greater goal achievement than an ambiguous plan.  Flexible plans may seem much more appealing upfront, but specific plans will get you where you want to go.

Clenching helps with physical goals. No, not your teeth, your first! Clenching your left (but not right) fist can prevent you from choking under high-pressure situations. The effect was studied across three experiments with athletes as test subjects, and the results were consistently significant. The researchers believe that left fist clenching primes the right hemisphere of the brain, aiding automatic skill performance.

Slow and steady. Our brains use the neurotransmitter dopamine as an internal guidance system to reach goals and the dopamine signal in the brain gets stronger as the goal gets closer. So breaking big goals down into a series of smaller goals will keep your motivation stronger.

Rushing out of the gates can burn your motivation up too fast. When your brain is in a hyper state of arousal about wanting something, dopamine floods your brain’s reward circuits.  To succeed, find the happy motivation balance that keeps you moving forward without tripping on your brain’s in-built foibles.

 

10 Things to Remember when Teaching Kids about $$$

I’m not sure when parenting became a university course, but it has. Just look at the proliferation of books on the subject – mine included, on how to teach kids about money – and you’ll see that raising kids is a complicated thing. It needn’t be. How about some simple rules, which not only apply to teaching kids about money but also about life.

Rule #1: Remember that they’re always watching you. You know that old say, “Do as I say, not as I do”? Well, kids learn from what you do. Shop without a list and they’ll learn that when you go into a store it’s to impulse shop.

Rule #2: It’s just as easy to learn bad habits as good ones. Browsing serves a purpose. If you never leave a store without buying SOMETHING, your kids will quickly learn that their purpose in going into a store is to find something to buy. You can’t then turn around and say, “Do you think we always have to buy something?” because the answer is, “Yes.”  That’s what you’ve taught them. And all because you don’t follow…

Rule #3: Explain everything you’re doing. Yes, it can become tedious, so it doesn’t have to be EVERYTHING, just most things. You can’t take cash from a ATM without explaining how it works or your kids will think, “the machine just gives you money.” You can’t write a cheque without explaining how it works or kids with think, “cheques are money.” You can’t leave a tip on a table without explaining what you’re doing or your kids will think ,“Mommy forgot money on the table, I better pick it up.”

Rule #4: What goes around, comes around. If you’re truthful with your children, you have the right to expect the same from them. But if you lie, obfuscate, and only tell part of the story, why would you expect any less from them. Remember rules number 1 and 2?

Rule #5: Keep it simple. The more complicated you make something the harder it is to deal with. Complicated outfits mean kids will get it wrong and look dumb. Simple colour combinations help them get it right.  Complicated rules for how kids can get and use their allowance are hard to understand and keep straight.  That why the Magic Jars work so well (for both kids and adults); the system is simple to understand and use.

Rule #6: Don’t try to do too much at once. Over-scheduling kids lives doesn’t make them happier. Kids need down time to just hang, think, imagine, process, cope. And jamming a whole bunch of money lessons into a day, week or month won’t work either since time is important for practicing and processing. This is one of the reasons that moneys lessons are best taught at home, instead of us trying to download the responsibility to the school system.

Rule #7: Prepare your kids. Telling your kids what you’re going to do helps them create a mind-map of what’s going to happen. Ditto teaching them about money.  Lay out what you’ll be teaching them before you get into the actual lesson so they know what to expect. If you’re going to teach about allowances, tell them you’re not going to get into loans, advances, work for pay or all the other stuff that can make the discussion really complicated, you’re just going to be talking about how much, how often, and what they can do with their money.

Rule #8: Be prepared. Just as you wouldn’t dream of heading out without a bag of clean up stuff and a set of nibblies to hold hunger at bay, you also have to be prepared when you’re teaching kids about money. Don’t trying giving a kid her $7 in allowance using a five and two loonies. How will she put away her 70¢ for saving, or divvy up money between her Planned Spending (for that new doll) and her Mad Money?

Rule #9: Routine is your friend. Keep switching the day when you give the allowance and watch your kid eye you suspiciously. Forget to give the allowance and you’ll prove you’re not trustworthy. Change the rules on how the allowance can be used based on every new situation and you’ll teach your kids you’re a scatterbrain.

Rule #10: Know when to let go. It’s not worth all the hassle to get on your kids’ cases about everything. Know when to let things go and just relax. As long as you deliver a consistent message, love them and have their best interest at heart, they’ll turn out fine. If you’re doing anything “because of the principal of the thing”, it’s because you’re too lazy to weigh each decision on its own merit.

 

Be Kind to Yourself

People can be so unkind to themselves. I listen to the way people talk about themselves — even to themselves — and I wish I could help them see how unkind they are being. It’s hard to live with the constant criticism that comes from negative self-talk. It can be just as hard to spot when you’re doing it.

It sounds like this:

“Why can’t you ever…”
“You’re so stupid…”
“Get some control…”
“What the hell were you thinking…”
“Seriously, you think you can do that?”

There are about a b’zillion ways in which we can be unkind to ourselves every day. And yet, if we heard some stranger saying similar things to some other stranger, we would be appalled. Never mind if we watched someone speak as sharply to someone we love; we’d be furious.

Some people are nasty in their self-talk because they genuinely believe they’re giving themselves some tough love. If you think it’s self-indulgent to be compassionate with yourself, that’s a nasty tape you’re running. Get rid of it. You don’t need that inner critic to keep you motivated. And, no, you’re not being selfish if you’re looking out for yourself, making sure you are cared for. In fact, the only way you can really feel compassion for others is to be able to feel compassion for yourself.

Self-compassion isn’t about wimping out. Self-compassion isn’t about taking the easy way. It’s about being kind to yourself.

The next time you hear you being harsh with YOU, imagine how you would speak to someone else you loved. It might be your bestie, it might be your brother, it might be your daughter. Whomever you chose, it has to be someone you love hugely. (As hugely as you should love yourself.) And it has to be someone you would be kind to. (As kind as you need to be to yourself.)

You’ll need to be vigilant to catch that internal dialogue that just seems to happen. Each time you catch your negative self berating beautiful you, smile at how this got away from you and then say something positive or supportive to yourself. It may seem silly at first. You may think something so contrived couldn’t possibly have any power. You’d be wrong.

The things you don’t feel you do well aren’t failures, they’re your opportunity to learn and grow. Focusing on what you do wrong doesn’t teach you how to do it better. Instead focus on what you do right, and what you’ll do differently next time. Instead of castigating yourself for whatever fix you find yourself in, smile. (It’s what you’d do to help a child feel safe.) Then acknowledge the difficulty. (‘Yes, that does seem like a challenge.) And look for a solution. (‘Maybe if we tried…’)

If you’ve been tough-talking to yourself for a long time, being gentle with yourself won’t come naturally. But it’s worth the work if you want to have a life that isn’t distracted by fear. Be kind to yourself. You deserve it.

 

This & That: Intervention Edition

S Wrote: I have been married to my husband since last October. It was always fairly well known that his mother’s small business of now 7 years, was not making any money, but we were at lead to believe it was at least breaking even. We recently were told by his step father (more or less his father) that his mother was not only not making any money, but also in a mountain of debt. I don’t know the specific number, but I know that her interest alone is $25 a day. Over $9,000 a year. The step father and she keeps peerage accounts, as they never married, though have been together 20 years. He has already once given her ten thousand dollars to put towards her debt; he has revealed to us that upon investigation, she did not put that entire amount towards the debt.

I have done some research and know that unless he signed for some of her loans, he is not responsible for her debt, nor would my husband and I if something happened (God forbid) to her. I am just seeking advice on how to tactfully deal with this, as my mother in law is driving herself into a huge amount of debt. It bothers my husband a great deal, as his step dad has done so much financially for him over his years as a child and teenager giving him things that if he had only grown up with his mom, he never would have had. We feel as though she is selfish and irresponsible, and hurting herself and her common law spouse. We know his mother will never give up the business, until someone forces her. Her image in society, even though it is based on a lie as her business is not successful, is very important to her. What should we do?

Gail Says: It’s hard to watch someone you love self-destruct. Ultimately, if a person is determined to destroy themselves financially there isn’t too much you can do about it. How does your FIN feel about giving your MIL an ultimatum about the business; he’s the guy with the most to lose after all. If he’s not going to call her on it, there’s not too much the rest of you can do except make it clear that a) you will not be stepping in to save her later when the caca hits the fan and b) you’re going to distance yourself from her financially so you don’t get hit by the blowback.  

If you haven’t already tried an intervention with your MIL, and you can all get on the same page about what you want to say, sit her down and tell her the God’s honest truth: you’re worried, she’s making a hellovamess; you want to see things get better. Ask her if her “image” is more important that the people she loves.

If she refuses to stop and your FIL continues to bale her out I suggest you gird yourself for the tears and wringing of hands that will eventually come. Your husband will have to come to terms with what he will or won’t do for his mother when it all falls apart.

 

A Wrote: I am 37 and doing kinda fine. It’s my 31 year old sister I am worried about. She has just recently moved in with me rent free. She makes $1345 bi-weekly. She is always broke. I agreed to her living with me as long as she gets out of debt. $13,000 line of credit, $4,000 on her car, and like $2000 outstanding bills. She just told me last night she is going to consolidate her debt for a monthly payment of $500 or so a month to pay it back. I got quit agitated that she can’t do this on her own and pay $1345 to debt every month and forget about a third party because she can do this on her own. I don’t want her living with me forever. She has not paid rent in over 3 years and just spends her money on make up and crap! In those 3 years she had her salary plus $10,000 twice and pissed it all away! She needs a wake up call!!!! Please let me know if she should consolidate or just suck it up like a big girl and get out of debt on her own. I think it will teach her better how to control and appreciate her money…please help desperately seeking something to tell her!

Gail Says: I get quite a few letters like yours. It’s sad when you try to help someone you love and they take advantage of your good nature. You have turned from “helping” to “enabling” and only you can take the steps to fix this problem. This will not be easy.

Sit down with your sister and make it clear that:

a) she will focus all her money (less 10% for her pocket) on debt repayment, or
b) she will start paying rent at $1076 a month to cover her share of housing, utilities and food, or
c) she’ll find somewhere else to live.

Give her one week to make her decision. If she chooses A or B it begins immediately and to prove A she must show you her repayment to her debt every time month. If she fails to make the repayment without a rock-solid reason, she has 30 days’ notice to find a new place to live. If she chooses C she has 30 days to find a new place to live.

I know you love your sister and you’re trying to help. If she follows plan A she’ll be out of debt in less than 8 months. It’ll be tough, but it’ll be done. And she’ll have learned to make careful choices since she’ll only have about $270 a month to spend on her “wants” … remember, all her “needs” are being dealt with (or you’ll adjust what she’s giving you to reflect any needs I may not know about.) As long as you keep on “letting” her take advantage of you, she will.

 

K Wrote: My husband and I have loved all of your shows including The Baby Edition and Prince$$ but most notable the plain and simple Til Debt Do Us Part. I am a high school math teacher. I’m on maternity leave and returning to work for the final 6 days in June. These will be the final days of high school for these students before entering the real world. I could give them a Calculus exam on material I haven’t taught and what they will never use in real life. I want to leave them with 6 days they will never forget. I’m thinking of incorporating your ideas into 6 days of financial planning. It’s not a lot but it’s better than nothing. I was thinking of selecting two shows that would be most applicable to them and showing them the first fifteen minutes (end it right before you do the challenges) so they get the idea of how clueless people are and how much debt people have racked up. I was then thinking of getting them to research a job they would like, calculate their monthly income, divide that money into how much they can afford to spend in each category (6% on savings, 35% on rent, etc…) and finally to determine how much can go in each jar. Separately, I will have them keep track of their spending for the week and have them calculate how much they’d have in retirement if they used that money to invest every month just to accentuate how compound interest will really work in their favour at their age. I’m completely open to suggestions with what I can do regarding financial planning and thought I’d ask for your input.

Gail Says: I applaud you for taking the opportunity to give your students a money boot-camp experience. I would make sure to cover a) what the cost of student loans are if you use only the minimum repayment schedule that the system defaults to and b) how to manage cash flow and lump sum money while at school since this may be the next step for some. Here’s a blog I did with some links to free resources on my website. I created these specifically for students. http://gailvazoxlade.com/blog/?p=192

The tracking spending shouldn’t be linked to ‘spend it or save it’ since that’s not really the choice. Savings needs to be a habit … you just do it … so calculating the compounding on that 6% saved over 40 years is a great exercise. The tracking of spending is more about knowing how much money you have and the conscious decisions you must make. Here’s another blog that explains that: http://gailvazoxlade.com/blog/?p=5335 . Let me know how it turns out.

 

Getting Older

A friend of mine turned 38 last weekend and was complaining about “getting old.” I noticed a shift physically when I turned 40ish. The eyes were worse, the knees and ankles a little more wobbly.

About five years ago the National Institute on Aging published a booklet based on the lessons learned from the Baltimore Longitudinal study of aging. The point was to study the aging processes and look for solutions to reduce the burden of disease and disability on older people. We have a similar study going on here in Canada: the Canadian Logitudianal Study on Aging. Most of what we hear about how to stay healthy has its roots in these types of studies. Y’know, eat well, get some exercise, do things you enjoy, quit smoking and drink only in moderation. And yet, there are still so many things that happen to us as we add on the years that we are ill prepared for.

Take floaters for example. Do you have floaters? Do you even know what floaters are? I remember when I first discovered the wormy little black shadows I was horrified. Licketysplit I was at the optometrist for an exam. She smiled at my panic and then told me to relax.

Have you noticed strange specks drifting about in your field of vision? I see them when I look up at a clear blue sky, or a white ceiling. Apparently they’re experienced by around 70% of people. So why hadn’t I heard about them? Why hadn’t anyone told me these things existed so I wouldn’t worry when they showed up?

Floaters are actually shadows cast by objects suspended in the vitreous humor, which makes up the majority of the eye’s interior and helps your eye keep it’s round shape. Mostly made up of water, the vitreous humor also contains proteins and other substances.

When proteins clump together in the vitreous humour, they block the light and cast a shadow on the retina… they sometimes look like circles, sometimes like tadpoles, and they’re there for good. Floaters can also show up when our vitreous gel shrinks, which happens naturally as we age.

Mostly just an annoyance until you get used to them, if they become more serious, hampering your vision, then you might have to have your vitreous replaced with a saline liquid to get rid of the floaters.

The physical aspects of our aging is only part of the challenge we’ll face as the baby boomers keep racking up the years. There are dire headlines from time to time about the health care system being unprepared for our aging society or how Asia’s pension systems are unprepared for their rapidly aging populations. Harvard University says the US is unprepared to meet the housing needs of its aging population.

This can’t be coming as a surprise to anyone… that we have a massive number of people aging out of work and into the final 1/3 of their lives. Traditional rack ‘em and stack ‘em homes aren’t going to cut it. I’d smoke a lot of dope, drink a lot of booze and consume a lot of pills before I let myself be warehoused in one of those establishments. Hey, I don’t give two hoots about quantity, I’m all about quality of life.

Like just about everything else, we need to be talking about this issue in useful ways… not bemoaning how unprepared we’re going to be, but actually doing something to prepare. Where will you live? How will you get around? Who will do the shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and everything else you’ll need done? Don’t count on your kids for this people? They’ll be busy just trying to get through their own lives. You don’t have the right to plop yourself on their backs as they struggle to make their own lives work now, and prepare for their own futures.

We still have time. I’m born in the year the most baby boomers were born: 1959. At 55 (almost 56), we are a decade away from the traditional retirement age. That’s enough time to make a plan and put it into action. But you’ve got to get a move on.

If you’re counting on the system to take care of you, you’re going to be very disappointed. The only person you can count on is YOU. And unless you want to spend part of your life shoved into diapers, a feedbag hung around your neck you best get moving.

Make a Wish

We are a superstitious lot. Spill salt, and you’ll have to toss some over your shoulder to avoid bad luck. And, for heaven’s sake, don’t break a mirror or open an umbrella indoors. Some of our superstitious are about making wishes come true. You know the one that says, “It’s 11:11, make a wish!” My friend Tina seems to hit the 11:11 wish-making pool a lot if her FB page is anything to go by. But do you know where the superstition comes from? Is it based on anything or just a nod to the symmetry of the numbers? And does sit even matter? Would you pass up an opportunity to make a wish?

We certainly wouldn’t on our birthdays. We laden our cakes with candles, light ‘em up and then blow ‘em out. That wishing tradition goes back to the Ancient Greeks who put candles on the baked goods they took as offerings to the temple of Artemis, goddess of hut and the moon. They believed the smoke would carry their prayers to the gods.

Then there’s the wishbone. This used to be a thing when my family had a roast chicken on Sunday. My dad would hold one side and I the other and we’d snap the wishbone. The person with the longer end would get their wish. This dates back to the Etruscans who believed that chickens held prophetic powers, using the bits of bone like an ancient Ouija board.

Back in the 1800 girls began blowing on dandelions to see if our true loves would return our feelings. The Greco-Egyptian writer and astronomer Ptolemy, believed that shooting stars were a sign that the gods were listening and to wishes. And most of us know the rhyme: Star light, star bright, First star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, Have the wish I wish tonight” which dates back to the late 19th century and was turned into a son when Disney made the move Pinocchio in 1940… When you wish upon a star.

But why the dickens do we wish on eyelashes? When I was growing up, if you found an eyelash you’d put it on the back of your hand and blow it away as you made a wish. If it went, you’d get your wish. If not…. LOSER!

Are ladybugs really lucky? According to farmers if one lands on you make and wish and it’ll come true. These little red gems have long been a symbol of a good harvest. And I’ve been told that they also represent the Virgin Mary.

The one “make a wish” I won’t participate in is throwing money into a well – or today’s idea of a well, the MALL FOUNTAIN. Nope, I just can’t do it. And now with the demise of the penny, those wishes have escalated in price to a nickel so there’s even less chance of me changing my mind.

Do you have things in your culture that you consider to be particularly lucky? Do you think of yourself as superstitious?

I’ve always considered myself a lucky girl. And whenever I get a chance to make a wish I take it, as long as it doesn’t cost me money. I don’t count on those wishes to make me happy though. To be happy I know I have to work hard and be determined to make my own good luck.

How Long Does Stuff Stay on Your Credit File?

Have you checked your credit file recently? You should.

Your credit file contains a listing of debit and credit payments and it includes public record information about how promptly you’ve paid bills, along with all the yucky stuff like collections, judgements and bankruptcies.

Typically credit agencies will keep a record of accounts that were paid and have no negative history for up to 20 years or for as long as you have a relationship with the company with which you did business. If you cancel an account, the credit agency has no way of maintaining a current and accurate credit file so they often delete credit information. That’s why when you cancel a credit card the credit history that goes with it disappears. If you have a long history with a credit card supplier and want to stop using that card, cut it up but don’t cancel the account until you’ve established a credit history on a new card.

Most people don’t realize that when a business makes an inquiry – when it checks your credit – that inquiry not only affects your credit score, but it stay on your file for 1-6 years depending on the type of inquiry.

Some credit-reporting agencies report the lenders’ rating of each of your credit history items on a scale of 1 to 9. A rating of “1? means you pay your bills within 30 days of the due date. A rating of “9? means that you never pay your bills at all or that you have made a consumer debt repayment proposal to the lender. A letter will also appear in front of the number: for example, I2, O2, R2. The letter stands for the type of the credit you are using.

“I” refers to an installment loan, such as for a car loan, where you borrow money once and repay it in fixed amounts, on a regular basis, for a specific period of time until the loan is paid off. “O” refers to open credit such as a line of credit, where you borrow money, as needed, up to a certain limit and the total balance is due at the end of each period. “R” refers to revolving credit, on which you make regular payments in varying amounts depending on the balance of your account, and can then borrow more money up to your credit limit. Credit cards are revolving credit.

If you’ve mucked up your credit, know that the record of your financial indiscretions will remain on your file for all who inquire to see for up to six years after you diddled around and defaulted on the account.

If you go through a debt repayment program, like that offered through credit counseling, the record will be removed from your file two years after you finish paying off your agreed upon amount, or six years after you defaulted on the account, whichever comes first. If you do a consumer proposal, the proposal and all accounts reported as satisfied through the proposal are removed from your file three years from the date you satisfied the proposal.

The amount of time a bankruptcy stays on file is dependent on where you live. Typically, if you live in BC, Yukon, NWT, Nunavut, Albert, Saskatchewan, Manitoba or Nova Scotia, the record will stay in place for six years from the date of discharge. In Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, PEI and Newfoundland and Labrador, it stays on record for seven years from the date of discharge. However, if you’ve gone bankrupt more than once, each will remain on your file for fourteen years from the date of discharge of each bankruptcy

If you get a judgement against you, the same rules apply ass with bankruptcy except for PEI, which keeps the record on file for ten years.

If you’ve been sent to collections, the record will be removed from your file six years after the date you defaulted on the account with the original creditor.??So if some collector calls you up after six years and says they’re trying to collect on the debt, they have no recourse and you can blow ‘em off. Your record is clear.

Check your credit files at least once a year to ensure the information is correct. Send a written request to one of the two major credit bureaus in Canada: Equifax Canada Inc. or Trans Union of Canada Inc. More information can be found online at www.equifax.ca and www.transunion.ca. There is no charge for this service if you ask for your record by mail. If you’re into instant gratification, you’ll have to pay a fee.

The longer you exhibit good credit behavior by paying your bills on time and managing your credit wisely, the more your credit rating will improve, until you once again achieve a favorable credit rating. And if you’ve got a good rating that’s been marred by inaccurate reporting, it’s your job to fix it.

 

 

 

It’s Not You, It’s Your Willpower

Almost everyone I know has suffered the frustration of setting a new goal for themselves only to watch it fizzle out. It ends up turning into a pity party with cries of, “I just don’t have any willpower.”  Maybe. Maybe not.

Kelly McGonigal has been studying willpower a Stanford University for years and she defines willpower as the ability to do what matters most, even when it’s difficult or there’s some part that you don’t want to do it. Constantly torn between doing what’s good for you in the long game, and doing what feels good right now, it is willpower that is gobbled up in the fight to do the right thing.

That battle between what will do you the most good in the end and what will give you the most pleasure in the present is constant and willpower is a human reality. But knowing that your willpower will be drained away by constant testing — today’s needs or tomorrow’s — means recognizing that how you frame your goal is just as important as the goal itself.

So many of us resolve to do stop doing something that’s not good for us, like eating Kit Kat bars by the handful. We resolved because we believe we should. We resolve because each time we look into the mirror we can see those Kit Kat bars looking back at us. I should make a budget. I should clean up my closet. I should really be more organized with my time. So many shoulds getting in the way of real progress, which is deeply dependent and making whatever it is you want to accomplish into a desire.

Push into the future. It’s now the end of this year and you’re looking back over what you’ve done with it. What change did you make that you’re most proud of? What does that sense of accomplishment feel like to you? How glad are you that you made that change?

Whether you’re considering taking up the guitar, committing to walking a mile a day, or eliminating the worst-for-you foods from your diet, seeing it as an accomplished goal and gluing it how it feels will make the end seem more real.

So what really matters to you? Do you wish you were spending more time with your best friend? Would reading more books be something that would bring you great joy? Want to take better care of your money?

Having pictured what you want and how it feels to have accomplished it, know that willpower is an exhaustible resource so you can’t do too many things at the same time or you’ll won’t do anything at all. And if you want to outsource some of your willpower, get a friend or four in on your goal, and ride the tide of their willpower when yours grows thin.

Don’t be above bribing yourself. As long as whatever you’re using as the bribe doesn’t conflict with the goal you’re trying to achieve, there’s nothing wrong with hanging that carrot out there. Take it slowly. Walking a mile the first day may not be how you get to walk a mile every day. Around the block will do if next week you go around the block twice.

I have a girlfriend who has been going to write a novel for EVER. I’ve tried to encourage her, but I think she sees the whole novel as one piece and that has been the barrier for her. I want to tell her that if she would only see the novel as single sentences, maybe paragraphs, the book would already be written!

 

 

This & That: Found Money Edition

A Wrote: My parents recently inherited money and want to gift me $25K. I have paid off my student loans and my only debt is a $200k mortgage. I’m in my 30’s with $50k in retirement savings, make $60k annually and contribute 18% of my salary to retirement savings annually. After buying a BBQ, what would be the best thing to do with this money?

Gail Says: You don’t mention having an emergency fund: cash in the bank equal to six months’ worth of essential expenses so you can have some options if it begins to rain financially. Consider a high interest savings account. As for the rest, do you have a goal or a dream you can turn into a goal?

 

B Wrote: My husband recently received compensation from a settlement, and I’m having a hard time deciding where to place the funds. I currently have a Roth IRA (Active Duty military) and my husband is the stay-at-home Dad. My IRA only has 4K invested currently.

My husband has already deposited an $8,000 check in our liquid savings account as an emergency fund, and has given me the remaining $30K to invest with. I already have an existing 529 account for our two children (age 2 & 4), which I placed $5500 into each account. I am opening an IRA for my husband, and plan on funding it fully.

This leaves me with $13.5K left over – should I fully fund my IRA then put the extra into a brokerage account? I currently have a paycheck allotment that funds my IRA monthly. We have no consumer debt, and I recently re-financed my car lease, so now we owe $16k at 4%. Should I just pay the majority of this off? Pay double each month?

Gail Says: You are doing great. Look at how smart you are at allocating your resources! I would certainly use the remaining money to pay down that car loan. They’ll take the $13.5 and apply it to the principal and you will only $2,500. Your next few payments will take care of that. Once the car payment is gone, take 1/2 the car payment money and add it to your retirement savings. Take the other half and add it back into your budget for fun and frolic, or to achieve a goal you’ve set.

 

L Wrote: My husband is getting a sizeable inheritance soon (around $500,000+). We have a $200,000 mortgage, a LOC sitting at $17,000 and his credit card is at $2,500 (we’ve had a very rough time lately, don’t ask lol). I suggested to him that we pay off our mortgage completely along with LOC and CC. That way we will be able sleep easy knowing we have a paid roof over our heads. He’s against it, says he doesn’t want to pay penalty, but I said he would likely pay more in interest over the next 25 or so years than the penalty would be. So my question is, should we just double up on payments (his suggestion) or pay it right off so we can breathe easy again?

Gail Says: Not only can you double your payments but you can probably also make a principal prepayment of anywhere from 10-20% of your original mortgage amount once a year. You’ll be stunned at what a difference it makes. And, of course, you can pay the whole thing off without penalty when the mortgage comes up for renewal. So that’s question 1: When does the mortgage term end? Q2: How much is our annual prepayment amount? Q3: By how much can I increase my monthly mortgage payment (switch to weekly accelerated if you can to get an extra payment in each year)? Then round the numbers to see how much the penalty would be versus the interest you’d save paying off the whole thing in one shebang.

 

J Wrote: My husband and I love your show and recently heard of your website which has a lot of useful information. We are currently trying to pay down debt-we want to be debt free in 3 years; however we just had our first baby Oct 4, after 11 years of trying and thousands of dollars in fertility treatments. We want to start saving for her education and want to know your thoughts on RESP’s? I think we should do an RESP for her but my husband is worried about what happens to the money if she doesn’t go to college or university. To me it’s an expectation but I guess it is an uncertainty to some extent- she is only 10 weeks old. Should we focus on our debt repayment first and then on her savings or should we try to do both at the same time? Is there any other way you would suggest we save for our child’s education? We owe about $40,000 that we are working on repaying. I am 40 years old and my husband is 42. We both have good paying full-time jobs. I am on mat leave for 6 months (until April 7) and then my husband will be off for 6 months paternity. We would really appreciate your advice. I wish we could go on your show so you could whip us into shape financially, but your advice via e-mail will suffice.

Gail Says: Why would you turn your back on free money? The Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG) is the money the Federal government is giving you to put away for your wee one. If you contribute $100 to an RESP, the government will give you $20 more in savings. The maximum you can get in any one year is $500 in grant money, unless you’re catching up for a year you have claimed in which case you’re entitled to up to one more year ($500) of grant money.

There are three types of RESPs available in the marketplace: individual plans, family plans and group plans. Stay the hell away from Group RESPs – typically called Scholarship Trusts. A study prepared for the federal government found that group plans have a number of drawbacks including enrolment fees and preset contributions, forfeiture of enrolment fees and the inability to transfer plans, no entitlement to investment income if the plan is cancelled, and high fees.

As for if Baby Girl doesn’t go to school, there are options so you don’t just lose all the money. I’ve written a book on RESPs called Saving For School. Go get a copy and have a read. It’s short and sweet.