0286-01 Onliner "yes" Bookkeeper "no"--- 03-22-07

RE: "Yes" I am an "Onliner", but "No" I am NOT a good "Money Record Keeper" (Bookkeeper)　

    An "Onliner" is one who daily goes to the Internet for email, research or for whatever other purposes. To some degree you as an "Onliner" are also comfortable using the Internet to efficiently do buying and/or paying your bills. Please Click Here for a list of vendors types and how you might buy Online therefrom, etc. You could be comfortable, at any time, using the Internet to do such things as the following:

>> You online buy using your Debit or Credit Cards
>> You online pay as many of your other bills as possible
>> You access/view your Bank Statements equivalent
>> You access/view your Credit Card Statements equivalent

    But most significantly , you are an "Onliner" and you do NOT do well at doing your "Money Record Keeping", or "Bookkeeping," either manually or using such computer systems as QuickBooks or Quicken.
    But you are convinced that it is

                 "ESSENTIAL THAT I KNOW WEEKLY IF I HAVE APPLICABLE MONEY TO SPEND."

    Within this "must do" context, we recommend something like the following method to weekly control your righteous spending.

A METHOD OF "PERSONAL SPENDING CONTROLS"
"WHAT' and "HOW" TO ACCOMPLISH SAID OBJECTIVES

    01 – WHAT:   You determine at least the spending limit for your “Life Style’s Discretionary Purposes” for the upcoming week.    This is defined as the amount that has “not” already been committed for applicable “Life Style” purposes. Examples of such type of commitments include: 1> Promises to the Lord, 2> Monthly payments for House/Vehicles; 3> Periodic payments for Insurance and/or Taxes 4> Plus other commitments like Retirement of Old Debt, etc. Please Click Here for more information about Life Style categories, etc. Lets suppose that this weekly 'Discretionary" amount is $250.00.
            HOW:     Since it is this area of your "Life Style" that needs the most discipline, you go to your spending (or disbursement) history of at least the past three months and come up with a weekly Life Style’s Discretionary Purposes spending limit. Remember, you do your spending where you easily have records via Checks, and Credit (Debit) Cards --- and you use Green Stuff as little as possible.

    02 - WHAT: You NEVER spend more that the above “Life Style’s Discretionary Purposes $250.00 weekly limit.
           HOW:     All of your money is placed into the Bank and it is ESSENTIAL that you to do "some" money record keeping as explained below. It is generally desirable to know in advance how you plan to use the dollars that you deposit.

   03 - WHAT: You use some type of Personal Depository device (like a letter envelope) where you do most of your money record keeping on it’s face so you can readily determine throughout the week just how much of the $250.00 limit is yet available, etc. Or you might use adder tapes during the week and you hand write on the face of the Personal Depository, plus share with other family buyers, etc.
            HOW: This Personal Depository contains hard copies of Checks, ATM Slips, Credit (Debit) Card Slips so you can ultimately prove the accuracy of this vital “yet to spend this week” information per step 06 Purpose below.

   04 -   WHAT:   You NEVER pay Credit Card “Interest Charges” since you timely pay off the account balance.
            HOW:     Obviously, you accomplish this by paying on time. To initially get your affairs in order, you might want to make weekly payments to the Credit Card Company, but since this process defeats the DIBS objective in the 05 Purpose below, you will want to make only monthly payments ASAP.

   05 -   WHAT:   You make every effort to earn as much money (Interest Income) as possible on your Bank Account balances;
            HOW:   Please go to the Daily Interest Bearing Savings (DIBS) publication for more details about this. You place ALL of your deposits originally into your DIBS Bank account and you electronically transfer to the Checking Account only the amounts needed to pay your bills.

   06 -   WHAT:   You make maximum use of free/available “Online Bank” and “Online Credit Card” info, etc.
            HOW:     After you initialize these Internet resources, you go there weekly and print out the equivalent of a weekly Bank Statement plus you do the same thing for a Credit Card Statement. As mentioned in the 03 Purpose above, you weekly prove such buying as you check off the items on these print outs against your buying copies/slips, etc. Then these print outs would be placed into the Depository mentioned in the 03 Purpose above. You might want a weekly Personal Depository.

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By: Jim Bramer                                                                                    March 22, 2007
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