Money Matters

The title has a two-fold meaning.

First, my mindset has always been that money doesn’t matter. At least not much. I will never feel that a financial bottom line is indicative of a person’s value. There are some very wise and very happy people who have little in the way of money. True contentment comes from within, not from a dollar sign.

I have never had the goal to be rich. Don’t get me wrong—if someone handed me a million tomorrow I’d take it. But I doubt seriously I’d want the huge house and the posh car and designer clothes. They just don’t mean anything. Who wants rooms they don’t use, or a car you’re deathly afraid to scratch. Give me a comfortable place to sleep out of the rain and cold and a car that gets me from point A to point B without being a hazard to myself or anyone else on the road and I’m a happy camper.

That being said, the Scriptures do say that money is a protection. (Ecclesiastes 7:12). There is no point squandering what you’ve worked hard to earn. And there’s no harm in making the money you have work hard for you. Having a keener sense of money management could make my other more important life goals reachable sooner. I want to find a better balance between keeping money in its place and using it to the best advantage.

My largest overall financial goal this year is to be ready to hand my books over to an accountant on December 31 and let someone else do my taxes. That not only means having everything in order, the top priority of this goal, but also having the funds to pay for the accountant rather than paying for the aspirin to handle the headaches it causes me.

Just within the last week it dawned on me—I know better late than early, right?—that I am now officially a small business owner. Unlike most businesses, ours has consistently made a profit from the start, long before we became an LLC. Still, that profit gets lost somewhere because by the end of the year when the taxes are due, I’m always holding my breath, wondering if we’ll squeak through without my business partner (my dh) having a coronary.

I was so thrilled to find the Small Business Development Center of Kutztown University in Pennsylvania (http://www.kutztownsbdc.org/). What a fantastic resource. Who knows, maybe I’ll learn so much over the course of the year that the accountant I’ll hire for the taxes will be myself.

I’m convinced that with better planning our business can offer us the tools we need so that it can become our full-time income, and my dh can once again call his time his own. That is my dream. In the meantime I will settle for becoming a better accountant. For all the bookkeeping I do for our family and business, I have never taken any accounting or finance classes. That should change.

Here are my Money Matters goals for 2008:

1. Develop a weekly routine for dealing with financial issues for both the family and the LLC.
2. Take Small Business Development classes both online and locally.

Sub-goals for #1:
a. Run balances on all accounts
b. Prepare deposits if any
c. Pay bills
d. Update all activity on financial software
e. Punch holes and file receipts in 2008 book
f. Celebrate!

Sub-goals for #2:
a. Finish Small Biz U Accounting 101 class
b. Research online savings accounts
c. Research local Small Business classes and/or assistance programs at Rose State
d. Celebrate!
e. Decide on the next class to take