Love More. Live Better. A Southern Couple's Guide to Successful Living

So, we’ve had a couple of people ask why we chose to make SCG Checkbook a desktop application, and not a web-based application. Allow me to tell you why this is a FEATURE!

A little back story:

My husband is in the security industry, and so he knows the value of keeping things safe. A desktop program can be a safer choice than a web-based program, and therefore, we chose the desktop version as our initial product. We do plan to offer a web-based version of the software in the future, but we want it to be a very secure product. YOUR FINANCIAL INFORMATION should be secured above and beyond anything else! You don’t want someone stealing your personal banking information! Instances like the recent hack attacks on Cloud systems and the Playstation Network are prime examples of why web-based programs have to be secure. That’s why we feel confident that SCG Checkbook for your PC is a great choice to keep your finances secure.

Not sure what I’m talking about? Want more opinions than just mine? Check out this article , and this article, and this article and this article. And check out SCG Checkbook here!

Well, I’d first like to start off by sharing (in case you missed the banners or announcements on Facebook, Twitter etc.) that we have our checkbook and budgeting software up for sale! Yay! I know you all want to go buy it right now! Right?

Why am I so certain you want or need to buy it? Well, an article in the Wall Street Journal (which you can read here) shares a study in which people were asked if they “had to come up with $2000 in 30 days, how would they do it?”. HALF of Americans said they probably or definitely couldn’t come up with that money for an emergency, and are therefore, financially fragile. That is code for paycheck to paycheck, or, as we southerners like to call it, broke. So, if half of us are broke, then I know at least half of us could use a tool that not only helps us balance our checkbooks, but also gives us basic guidelines on creating a budget, which is how you REALLY learn to save money!

Check out the article, it’s worth the read, and if you’d be the person struggling to come up with the money for an emergency, go check out (purchase??) our software!

Have a great week all!

You know, your favorite Southern Couple just wants to go on the record as stating that we have the best friends in the world! They are always forwarding us so many great articles that are worth sharing that sometimes we have too many to share! It’s a good problem to have!

This week we are focusing more on the emotional and relational side of living better, thanks to this (admittedly lengthy) article sent to me by one of the aforementioned friends. It focuses on a sample of 111 life lessons from the website community Everyday Life Lessons. Check out the article to get this weeks dose of morals and feel good quotes, or maybe use them as a way to get yourself back on track, if you’ve veered from who you want to be.

Some of my favorites:

Spend more time with those who make you smile and less time with those who you feel pressured to impress.

Laugh at stupid jokes. Apologize. Tell someone how much they mean to you. It’s the small moments that make life grand.

Life is way more enjoyable when you stop trying to be cool and simply focus on being yourself.

Negativity breeds more negativity. When you focus only on the negative, obviously that’s all you will see. You will not seek out positivity, and even when positivity comes into your life, you’ll look for the negative side of things.

If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting.

And last but not least;

A hero is someone who makes a positive difference in someone else’s life – even if it’s only one other person’s life.

Incidentally, my hero is my husband. Everyone have a great day!

While checking out the news this morning, I saw this article on CNN Money about how long we’ve been in a debt rut and the problem with trusting statistics. The main problem, according to the article, is that the GDP tracks consumption, not wealth generation. What does that mean? It means it tracks all your stuff without recognizing if you paid for it with a credit card or with CASH! This is the wrong way to track our economy, because it skews the data and keeps us from making the hard decisions and being responsible. We need to spend less. The government needs to spend less. We ALL need to quit taking on so much debt, and, as much as I hate to say this, everyones taxes probably need to be raised a little.

Check out the article, and, leave some feedback or ask a question if you’d like to! We’d love to hear from you!

Since it’s graduation season, I thought it appropriate to share this article from The Huffington Post, with tips and advice for college grads. My favorite? Lower your expectations of what real life is. Why is that my favorite? Because as much as I believe that we should take charge and have the life we want to have, I also believe when we fail to meet our big dreams (and there will always be one we fail to achieve), we shouldn’t beat ourselves up about it, but instead, should focus our efforts on other goals and dreams!

Remember, don’t let your life happen to you; happen to your life! And when that just won’t work, accept it and go attack something else!

We all know that I’m a big supporter of delayed gratification and saving your money, but, are there better ways to spend your blow money to make you happy? According to this article on the Wall Street Journal’s website, there definitely are!

Check out the descriptions in the article(they are worth the read) but here’s the short list:

1) Buy experiences, not things.
2) Help others. It makes you feel good about you.
3) Upgrade several small items, not the big ones (cause honestly, can you tell a HUGE difference between the 47″ and 50″ tv?)
4) Buying the protection plan is not worth it. Great line from the story:”Think of it as the penalty you pay for not having enough savings to cover a catastrophic loss, and buy only what you need.”. Love that!
5) Save for an experience (or anything for that matter), then pay cash! Duh, this is what I always say! You get just as much feel good feelings when you wait and buy when you have the cash without getting a credit card hangover!
6) Think about all the other stuff involved in your purchase! Want to buy a boat? Who’s going to take care of it when it’s docked, etc.?
7) Don’t obsess and buy it already.
Mimic. If simple things make others happy, they should you too. Don’t think buying more makes you happy. If a picnic in the park sounds silly, I suggest you try it before pronouncing it worthless.

This morning while reading some news, I ran across this article on CNN Money about the correlation between rises and falls in the number of renters in the market and the number of storage spaces rented at a time. Not surprising, they rise and fall together, since when you rent a space you typically need to store some of your stuff. This article got me thinking though, and, I wanted to share it and some insights with our readers.

First, nobody needs that much stuff. If you have so much stuff that it won’t fit in your apartment, then you need to have a yard sale. I’m not suggesting you get rid of everything you own, but perhaps you could get rid of the stuff you aren’t using and haven’t used in the last year.

Moving on to renting. Let me just say that I have a problem with the notion that owning a home is “the American dream”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for owning your own home if you gave a down payment, can finance it for less than 20 years (preferably 15) and still keep your payment at less than 25% of your annual income. If this scenario doesn’t describe your current situation, however, then I don’t think you have any business owning a home and it shouldn’t be your end all be all goal. Why not have a goal of being debt free? You and your friends can’t see it, it’s not tangible, but it IS a direction toward wealth, and, home ownership is not always headed that way. Think about all the people whose homes lost value in the last few years. They didn’t BUILD any wealth and they LOST any gains they might have made. Renting might not be glamorous, but at least you can live cheaply to pay down debt. I suggest your new American dream be to be debt free, not to owe your bank for a mortgage.

Just some thoughts! We’d love to hear your feedback!

This morning while reading some news, I ran across this article on CNN Money about the correlation between rises and falls in the number of renters in the market and the number of storage spaces rented at a time. Not surprising, they rise and fall together, since when you rent a space you typically need to store some of your stuff. This article got me thinking though, and, I wanted to share it and some insights with our readers.

First, nobody needs that much stuff. If you have so much stuff that it won’t fit in your apartment, then you need to have a yard sale. I’m not suggesting you get rid of everything you own, but perhaps you could get rid of the stuff you aren’t using and haven’t used in the last year.

Moving on to renting. Let me just say that I have a problem with the notion that owning a home is “the American dream”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for owning your own home if you gave a down payment, can finance it for less than 20 years (preferably 15) and still keep your payment at less than 25% of your annual income. If this scenario doesn’t describe your current situation, however, then I don’t think you have any business owning a home and it shouldn’t be your end all be all goal. Why not have a goal of being debt free? You and your friends can’t see it, it’s not tangible, but it IS a direction toward wealth, and, home ownership is not always headed that way. Think about all the people whose homes lost value in the last few years. They didn’t BUILD any wealth and they LOST any gains they might have made. Renting might not be glamorous, but at least you can live cheaply to pay down debt. I suggest your new American dream be to be debt free, not to owe your bank for a mortgage.

Just some thoughts! We’d love to hear your feedback!

As many of you know, along with our Southern Couple’s Guide company, I am a stay at home mom. What some of you may not know is that I watch the Real Housewives shows on Bravo TV. Now, before most of you decide I’m nuts, let me tell you why.

I watch it like I watch a train wreck. It’s awful and it’s unnerving, but I can’t take my eyes off of it. These people (for the most part) are so out of touch with reality I just can’t believe it. They may appear wealthy but most spend money they don’t have. I feel sorry for them. I watch them making mistakes and wonder at what point they lost touch with the real world and their actions became normal. I worry that they are teaching their kids to make the same bad choices. But mostly, I think they’re ridiculous and they make me angry.

Why do they make me angry you ask? Because the uninformed may believe that the average housewife actually has a lifestyle like THAT! Trust me when I say it’s nothing like! I do not have a nanny (can you really be a stay at home mom if you have a nanny? I think you’re a stay at home wife then, which is fine, but tell it like it is), I do not have a maid or cleaning service, we don’t eat out every night and I certainly don’t get manicures, pedicures, fancy material items etc. every day of the week. Thinking back on it, I think I had 3 pedicures TOTAL in 2010 that were done professionally. I did the rest myself. Yesterday I was up to my elbows in soft scrub cleaning the shower…yeah, real glamorous.

So, why am I telling you all of this? Money management is all about realistic expectations and delayed gratification. Neither of which are displayed in the Real Housewives TV shows. They are entertaining (in a ridiculous kind of way), but they are not a model to go by. Keep your lifestyle realistic and you’ll have something one day. By the way, every pedicure I skip is money in the bank when I retire…now that’s glamorous!

Also wanna give a shout out to a couple of friends who made great strides toward becoming debt free! Way to go guys!

With my birthday fast approaching, it got me thinking about how we handle special occasions, and I thought I’d pass it along, in case it inspired you to get a grip on your budget!

With our budget, we have bi-annual budget committee meetings; one in the summer and one at the beginning of the year. All yearly special occasions (birthdays, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, anniversary etc.) are a continuous part of our budget and were added in the beginning when we created it. So, what do you do about baby showers, bridal showers, weddings etc? They get budgeted too! Just because you can’t call them fixed expenses doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t put it in the budget asap!

So, where does the money come from to fund the occasion? Well, if you’re broke, you shouldn’t be buying gifts anyway (other than a card…they’ll understand)! If you’ve paid off your debt and are saving, then you can feel ok about gift giving. How do you pay for it? Simple; you can either pay for a reasonably priced gift out of your saving envelope, make a little extra cash or cut your expenses temporarily to pay for it!

Here’s an example:

At the beginning of this year, we knew that we had a good friend having a baby(whose shower I wanted to help with) and 2 good friends getting married(1 of them being a very close friend, we are both in the wedding and I wanted to throw her bachelorette party on top of it all)! We knew better than to wait and try and fund it on the fly, so we adjusted our budget to pay for each! Now, when each event rolls around, we easily have the cash without worrying, and, isn’t the point of budgeting to get control of your money and stop worrying?!?

Take it from me and budget a special occasion when you find out about it! You don’t want to worry about money while you watch a best friend walk down the aisle!