Below you will find my Ezine that was sent out on July 8th, 2010. If you find this ezine helpful, please remember to signup to get my biweekly ezine delivered directly to your inbox!

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well and are having a great summer. I’m certainly enjoying summertime—barbecuing, cycling through the countryside, and just soaking up the sunshine!

Are you planning your summertime fun, or are you just letting the days pass you by without taking any control? Planning is the key to getting to where you want to be–in all areas of your life. This week I talk about planning and how important it is in your financial success. Do you want to be worry-free about money? Check out this week’s feature article below. Learn how to create and commit to a Money Plan!

Please check out my newly created business Facebook page to keep up with me. I’ll also be sharing tips & tools that help you live the financial life you desire!

If you have any questions, please e-mail me at cindy@spendingplan.biz. I am always here to help you in creating a financial life of peace and abundance!
5 Most Important Steps to Your Financial Freedom!

In this FREE pdf download, you will learn what the “5 Most Important Steps to Your Financial Freedom” are and how to begin to apply them to:

  • Take control of your financial life.
  • Create new and positive money behaviors.
  • Create the financial life you desire.
  • Determine how you want to spend your money.
  • Understand how to stay on financial track.
  • Learn how to live in financial peace and abundance!

Get your complimentary copy today here!

“Do You Have a Money Plan?”

Are you tired of worrying about money? Are you hiding when it comes to money issues? Do you do the same things week in and week out when it comes to money, even though it doesn’t feel good? So many people worry about money and just continue with the same pattern of haphazardly spending because they somehow become familiar with it. This can often feel like an endless cycle. I am here to tell you that the money madness can stop here and now!

Having a money plan will help keep you focused and relaxed. Planning is merely deciding in advance. It’s the same as planning your workday, or planning when you will pick up your child after school. Planning helps you know where you need to go and will completely take the guess work out of any in the moment financial decisions, because you will already know what you will and won’t do regarding your spending. You will have decided, “in advance.” It is true that you can go through life without worrying about money.

Here are four tips to help get you started on creating your Money Plan:

1. Get real about your money behaviors. Over the next two weeks, observe your actions around money. Be honest. Do you go the ATM several times a week and feel stressed every time you do? Do you spend money on lunch every day and then justify why you do it? Write down your observations in a notebook. Be sure not to judge yourself here, but to merely look at your relationship with money. At the end of the two weeks, review your list, and decide what behaviors aren’t serving you. Which ones don’t feel good? Let those negative money behaviors go, and decide now to focus only on those that take you exactly to where you want to go. Commit to behaving only in ways that will bring you financial success.

2. Know your life goals and things you love. Do you want to take an art or dance class, or do you love nature walking? Your goals may or may not cost anything. Sometimes the best things in life are free! Decide on what is important to you in your life. Take some quiet time to think about what really fuels you and brings you joy and write them down.

3. Know how much you will spend, in advance! Take a look first at where you currently spend your money. It’s great if you can look back at three month’s of expenses. Now, take a look at where you really want to spend your money, and then determine where you’ll work in some of your life goals. For example, if your life goal is to spend more time with family or to work on a project that’s been awaiting attention, you might decide that it can be accomplished by reducing time in front of the television, so basic cable instead of the deluxe cable package will become part of your Money Plan—a big savings. If you know that you love to splurge on shoes a few times a year, work that into your Money Plan. If you have to make some sacrifices to make that happen, then you may decide that it’s worth packing your work lunch three days a week so that you can buy those rockin hot shoes! After you have determined how much you will spend on all your categories, write them down on a spreadsheet. If you need to keep a postcard in your purse or wallet to remind yourself of how much you can spend monthly on certain items, then do so until it becomes second nature to you. This will greatly contribute to your financial success.

4. Say Yes. This might just be the most important tip! Saying yes to your Money Plan is saying yes to YOU! When a friend at work asks you to lunch, and it’s your “Eat Your Own Lunch Day,” say “Yes” to your Money Plan, and let you’re friend know when you can go to lunch with her. When you see the new spring dresses for sale in your favorite store, and it’s part of your Money Plan, then most certainly you will say, “Yes,” and wear it proudly!

If you want to find out more, be sure to read my 5 Most Important Steps to Your Financial Freedom. Let nothing detract you from staying on track with your Money Plan. It will be your road to Financial Success!

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEBSITE? Please do! Just be sure to include this complete blurb with it: Financial Organizer, Cindy Parran Brochu, publishes her “Simplify Your Financial Life” weekly ezine. If you want special tips to live a peaceful and successful financial life, you can sign up for a FREE subscription to Simplify Your Financial Life at www.spendingplan.biz
Cindy Parran Brochu is a Financial Organizer, and her mission is to empower people and to teach them how to achieve financial success. She believes that when people are financially organized in their lives, they have more time to focus on their true passions, free of worry and stress.

She offers dynamic programs and products that show her clients how to become financially organized. Cindy will teach you how to take control of your financial life. She helps her clients create new and positive money behaviors, and she provides support and guidance they need to build confidence in managing their financial lives.

Cindy’s experience is personal and professional. After her husband passed in 1998, and having a son to raise, it became a priority to manage her finances, with great detail. Over the years since then, she streamlined the process and became very proficient at being financially organized, which led to her financial success and freedom. Her professional experience includes managing a non-profit corporation with a $3.85m budget, where she was responsible for all aspects of running the business. She left that work to focus on her true passion of educating people on how to take control of their own financial lives and achieve financial success. She is a proponent of practicing what she preaches in her own financial life.

She lives in Saco, Maine, with her husband, son, pet cockatiel bird and Spanish mustang horse. She loves nature and staying active.