The Money Door Blog

This week, I received the very informative results of a survey that Ramit Sethi had conducted on his readers. (You will remember Ramit from my previous post on his work and his new book, I Will Teach You to Be Rich).

Hello, Money Door Blog community!

I am back from a wonderful vacation in Spain with my family, and am excited ot be with you again. Being in Europe and watching the way Spain values time so differently than we do in the US (dinner at 10pm, afternoon siesta before going back to work in the evening) got me to thinking about how other countries value money.

I found a fascinating article on England's changing relationship to cash from BBC news from earlier this year and realized its points were mirrored in my own relationship to money. 

Between our conversations about complementary currency and working on the budgeting and projections for my own coaching business, Remabulous, and working on this blog every week, I've been giving quite a lot of thought to the purpose of money lately.

 Many of us look at money as an outcome that we are striving for, as in "If I could just make more money..."

 However, I was talking to a colleague a year or so ago and she replied by saying, "It's just paper." It was a funny way to put it, but I realized that she was right.

Yin and Yang Currency~

Bari here, writing my first blog post. Or rather, my first article. Yeah!  I do not have a current head shot of me so i thought i would include a recent family photo for my first blog article~

The first time I saw Bernard Lietaer's power point presentation on ‘The Role of Complementary Currencies',  I sat back in awe and utter excitement.

One of the most fascinating things that we covered in the Conscious Bookkeeping Level 1 Course was the idea of complementary currency. In fact, an idea that set me on fire was that the most healthy societies have both active currency, or money as we all know it, as well as complementary currency.

 Let's start at the beginning: what is complementary currency? It is defined as any currency that is regulated by those who participate iits exchange, rather than regulated by the government. In other words, it is a system of trade. These systems can become relatively complex, as in local currencies where you have special separate "dollars" that can be exchanged for services and goods within the community of participants. 

How does this support  a society? It keeps local businesses in contact and support oother. If any of you have started your own business, you'll know that there is a lot of benefit from trade to be had in the early stages. I have certainly used trade myself and know that Bari talks quite openly about loving trade as an option in her courses. 

Many thanks to Brent Kessel, author of It's Not About the Money, for generously agreeing to guest post for the Money Door Blog. For any of us who have felt that we need to cut back on saving in this economy, the inspiring story Kessel shares will hopefully help us think twice. And now, I will turn this over to Brent:

 Save 80% of Your Income.

One of the things that people have been hit hard with is the idea of how their personal finances and planning are going to be affected by the current economic climate.

 What does the state of the world mean to your finances right now?

Many people are more scared to deal with money than ever. Bari talks about the urge to shove bank statements into the drawer without looking at what is happening with your money in the Counscious Bookeeping course. 

During these crazy times, many people are feeling grateful to have jobs at all. Every time we turn around, there is a piece on the news about someone who has taken a job as a janitor because their corporate position was downsized. This is a scary thing to think about. When we find a penny, we pick it up.

 Still, I have been reading quite a bit about the concept of underearning lately, and I think it is especially important to address during a period of transition, like the one we are seeing now. 

image: dawnzy58 via flickr.

Greetings, Conscious Bookkeeping community! My name is Caroline Donahue, and I am so excited to be your guide on this fabulous blog. I am a long time student of Bari's and have been so delighted to apply the methods and philosophy of Conscious Bookkeeping in both my personal finances as well as my business. 

 Each week, I will be sharing inspiring and informative discoveries to support your relationship to your finances. I am really excited about this project. Please do share your thoughts in the comments about how this material strikes you, as well as the sorts of things you would love to see here.

This is the second guest post in this series by April Lane Benson.

April Lane Benson, PhD., is a nationally known psychologist who specializes in the treatment of compulsive buying disorder. She has been in private practice in New York City for over 30 years. Dr. Benson is the founder of Stopping Overshopping, LLC (linked to website), and creator of Stopping Overshopping, a comprehensive program to help eliminate compulsive buying. She is the editor of I Shop, Therefore I Am: Compulsive Buying and the Search for Self (linked to page on website about book). Her newest book To Buy Or Not To Buy?: Why We Overshop and How to Stop, is scheduled for publication at the end of 2008.
www.stopingovershopping.com

By now we all know that a transaction need not occur within the walls of a store for it to be titled “shopping. ” And no matter how clearly you know what you’re shopping for, there are always pressures to overshop. Shopping—at a mall, on the Internet, or even from a catalog—is almost guaranteed to stir up feelings and impulses. Mindful shopping can help in all of these cases.