A personal finance column by Donna

I’m in my mid-40s, a professional with an average income, a single mother with two young kids, and I have a big bond hanging over my head – who doesn’t right? I’m trying to get better at managing and understanding my personal finance; by having less debt and more disposable income – which would be great. I also want to help my children to understand money and to have a healthy attitude towards it – in other words I want them to appreciate money, to think carefully about what to do with their pocket money, to realise they can decide to live within their means, and through doing that their money (or lack thereof) will never control them, and they will not constantly worry about money.

So when JustOneLap approached me to write a bi-weekly blog post I thought – Yes, here is a great opportunity for me to bring more awareness to my own finances, my financial decisions and start making cents of my money. As I write this first column I am wondering – do we all live beyond our means? Is being debt free possible? Is it desirable? (Surely yes?) How does our fast, consumable, disposable world influence our financial decisions? Can we afford to have holidays? What is a healthy attitude to money? Can we all save 10% a month and retire early?

So I hope that through my own reflections and sharing my stories I will become a little bit ‘wiser’ and I hope that some of what I write resonates with you, and that my thoughts and experiences are helpful, or perhaps you will disagree with me, but even that will get you thinking. I hope this short blog post gets us to all think more about our personal finances, and start taking control of our money instead of it controlling us!

Thank you for reading my first post, which was a simple introduction to me. In two weeks time I will reflect on holidays – can we afford them? Can we afford not to have them? How can we plan for them? Do they have to break the bank every time? I’m going to think about how I spent money over this holiday period and why I seem to have spent more than I was planning… and come up with a plan to not do that again!

Donna