Managing Your Money

Introduction

Have you ever been stuck in a hotel because you didn’t have enough money on your debit card to cover your room? Ever used online banking to pay a bill only to find that you didn’t have enough to cover it? Ever make a lot of money and never save. I have done all of these things and more. I have even had a car repossessed a week before Christmas and filed bankruptcy a few days after the New Years Day. So, I mean it when I say “my money has been funny.” My money has been so funny that it has laughed at me instead of filling up my wallet.

My childhold experiences with money, my bad habits and my general dislike for balancing my checkbook colored my financial self esteem and caused me to stay paralyzed with fear regarding my finances. However, through trial and error I learned how to steer my way to a better path. I am not walking on streets of gold yet, but I am now accustomed to balancing my checkbook and I don’t cringe when I hand over my credit card to check into a hotel.

As a person who has had funny money, I will tell you the things I wish someone had told me. The things I learned allowed me to get real with myself and recognize the patterns that I continued to use to build the same financial disasters. In this course, Improving Your Financial Self Esteem, you will get the truth.

You will hear my story and I give you permission to laugh at my mistakes. In the process, you will learn from my mistakes and hopefully make better money decisions.

Since I have a lot of experience with financial mistakes I can tell you what NOT to do. If you do the opposite of what I have done in many cases you will be better off. With out of control interest rates on credit cards, high balances on student loans, tax penalties for early 401K withdrawals and an addiction to using my debit card, I probably broke every financial rule in the book..

With a history of Chapter 7 bankruptcy while in my mid twenties, I believed I had ruined my life. I felt like I was living undercover. While I had a Master’s Degree, I still lived in fear that someone would find out I was broke. Three years into my bankruptcy, I was still shadowed by thoughts of my failure, including tax bills, credit card maxes and underemployment. I was as far from financial success as one could be. My financial self esteem went lower as I refused to spend money on myself. I never saved money and I never gave thought to what financial goals I wanted to achieve. Ironically, at one point in my career, I made over $75,000 but I didn’t have a plan to save and when I was laid off 4 years later, I didn’t have enough money saved to last 2 months without a job.

I have to admit filing bankruptcy was easy. Improving my financial habits and recognizing my limiting behavior patterns has been more difficult to overcome. In this course, “Improving Your Financial Self Esteem”, I will use my life to share lessons with you. Whether you filed bankruptcy or are one paycheck away from being in financial ruins, you will benefit from this course. I will talk about the days of being stuck in a hotel and spending Christmas crying in my cranberry sauce to show you that your finances don’t have to be a mystery if you decide to look at your behavior and recognize patterns that cause you to keep building the same failures.

My money has been funny, but through my walk towards improving my financial self esteem I have learned that I have the ability to make my tomorrow look better than today. I can’t tell you which bonds to buy or which stock will send your portfolio soaring to outerspace, but if you are willing to laugh a little and take a close look at yourself and your habits, you too will recognize your ability to improve your financial self esteem. It’s in your hands.

I look forward to learning sharing my life lessons with you. Sincerely Taura Lynn Colbert

Taura Lynn Colbert openly shares her story of her own personal money problems and her eventual courage to tackle her own situation, piece by piece, day by day. Jill Florio