Cheryl Richardson asked a big question in regards to dealing with money issues and it was this:

“What is the one thing you know you need to do to handle

your money better that you keep putting off?”

The Answer to that question was easy: Keep money in my bank account, no more expensive nights out with friends and stay out of the Casinos.

As a single male in Vegas who always has a few bucks in his pocket, this town is designed against me. Every time I get bored or have nothing important to do for a while I hit the strip, which ends up costing me dearly.  So I have to create a way to prevent my money from making it to the Casino floor.

The solution I’ve decided to try is to take all my money (which happens to be all cash and in white envelopes stashed around my house) and put it in the bank. That way I won’t  have cash at my finger tips all the time. Next thing, with all my cash in the bank, I’m going to leave my bank card at home. That way I won’t be tempted to visit expensive casino ATM’s when deciding to hit up a club or throw down some cash at a hot table on a whim. The Whims are what destroy my finances.

The Clubs and the Tables aren’t the main things that get me in trouble, thou. It’s the overdraft fees. I’m willing to bet that last year I must have shelled out over $3000 in overdraft fees alone. I didn’t know this at the time, but there is something called ‘overdraft protection’ that I could sign up for. That means I’d have to open up a new savings account because I currently have a savings account at a different bank. Definitely something to look into.

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Detour…

After looking at my room with no desk, I saw the filthiness of the walls. The walls actually looked like the walls in a frat house. If my room is going to be the home base for starting my Abundant Life, then that was going to have to change. If my living space is a reflection of my life, then I want it to be interesting. At 3pm Saturday afternoon I made the Executive Decision to repaint the whole damn thing.

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Time and Money are the first areas that need to be dealt with, but it would be better for me to start with Energy. She talks about Energy Drains, things in our life that we have to get done which we put off. Also, or physical space acts as an Energy Drain. Is it cluttered or is it organized? Your mind and your physical space are the same thing. A cluttered space relates to a cluttered mind. My physical space is cluttered, which leads to procrastination and laziness.

So my first task in creating my Abundant Life is to de-clutter my Living Space. Since I share a house, my bedroom is the first place I need to start. In my room there is an old desk that was here when I moved in. I wanted to get rid of it before I moved in, but never did. It takes up a lot of space and is ugly. I’ve been using it to store all kinds of junk, the junk that is my life. Well it’s time for that junk to go. It’s amazing the type of crap I have in there. Old Las Vegas Weekly’s that I never read, Matchbooks from the different clubs I’ve been to, 3 old iPod boxes, a cell phone that I had since 2002 and doesn’t even work, napkins from Subway (WTF?), the Sports Page from the Las Vegas Review Journal from May with nothing important on it, a granola bar I never opened, old copies of Men’s Health, A few old boarding passes, My Rose Bowl Ticket Holder (Hurray, I found It!), Business cards from clients who wanted to give me a job and never did, pens and note pads from the different conventions I like to visit here in Vegas just to get the free stuff… All kinds of junk, 2 trash bags worth.

After hauling the large bags of crap out of my room I looked at the desk to see if there was any other function it could serve, like if I painted it or only used the bottom half as a table. I found no reason to keep the desk and began to dismantle it, which was a bitch to take apart. Whoever designed this desk had no concept of ‘light construction.’ I didn’t go after the desk with a hammer; I just removed all the screws and let it fall apart.

When the desk was gone I felt the room totally open up. I see what Cheryl Richardson meant by de cluttering your living space to help clear your mind.  And it’s refreshing to throw that stuff away. It was like I was surrounding myself with unwanted useless junk and because of that all I was producing for my life was unwanted useless junk.

De-cluttering is Awesome!

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I’m putting my faith in a video I rented off of NetFlix called Cheryl Richardson: Create an Abundant Life. In her seminar video she says the Key to creating an Abundant life is 3 things:

1. Figure Out What’s Great About Your Life
2. Have a Strong Belief that there is a Higher Power out there Providing us with Abundance
3. Marry Belief with Action

She then goes on to explain the areas in a person’s life that need to be cleaned up in order to put yourself in a receiving space. Those areas are: Time, Money, Energy and Passion.

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On Monday, Feb 15^th, I went to put a deposit in the bank and found that my checking account had been over drafted with a remaining balance of -$297. “Not again,” I thought to myself. I thought something was wrong, like someone got a hold of my Check Card number and was using it at their leisure. After contacting the Bank on Tuesday I discovered that the overdraft was my Own Damn Fault. This is becoming a regular problem for me, Money mis-management. Obviously my job is a cash-only industry and doing regular banking is not something I engage in often, so my checking account is constantly being over drafted. I thought I finally got a handle on all of this back in December, but that was not the case. Something had to change… Fast!

I hired a Life-Coach back in September of 2009 to help me make my dreams come to fruition. He charged a lot and had lots of success with other people. I didn’t have the success others had attained, but then again I only put in half the effort. He was a Guru Type, all about Visualization, Meditation, and Morning Spiritual Ritual… very good stuff; and working with him I noticed my fears of money, relationships, family, etc… all drifted away. I also landed big-money clients that I actually got along with, visited some pretty cool places and even got to go to the Rose Bowl and watch my Buckeye’s Win! (It was the greatest day of my life). But while the big-fun-stuff was entering my life, the mechanics of my life were still being mis-managed and overlooked. Now I’m back to where I was in September and I’m ready to fix it, only this time doing it better.

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