Zen Wallet

Hey, what a good looking purse! (UK English lesson for my Canadian buds - "purse" != handbag, "purse" == wallet)

I've just cleared out all the coppers, receipts and expired loyalty cards in an effort to achieve what my money coach Nancy Zimmerman calls "Zen Wallet".

Backing up, in 2011 I won a blog contest to get free financial coaching through a program call Your Money, By Design. I've never been good with money. Despite earning a lot of it, and being ostensibly good at maths (I have a degree in theoretical computer science), most of the time I have literally no idea how much is in my bank and no concept of the relative cost of anything - is £50 a lot for dinner? A little? How much is a pint of milk?!

The Your Money, By Design course is designed for people like me, getting their personal finances on track - creating a budget for the first time, making a plan for paying down debt and starting to save. This may sound like basic bitch shit to a lot of people with investments and mortgages, but for the rest of us lazy 20-somethings (hehe, gonna refer to myself as a 20-something as many times as possible in this final year of my twenties) just having a realistic picture of how much is coming in and going out is a big step.

I made it halfway through the course back in 2011, but then, in early 2012, I moved to London - rendering all my pretty new spreadsheets obsolete.

It's a bit of a travesty that it's taken this long for me to revisit my budget, but in my defence, moving is hard! You try juggling international bills and bank accounts, okay! (Not you, Dad - I know...) I've changed jobs and houses a few times and my finances have been continuously in flux.

That said, things have stabilized a lot for us since moving to our new place in May (I even changed the label on the buzzer, 3 months in...)

So I've decided to start the course over, beginning with the first step - Zen Purse/Wallet! Nancy calls this a "super-simple, introductory step that sets the stage for how you will improve your financial life." Ok cool, what do I do?

1. It should be orderly

Straightforward enough - got cash on one side, cards on the other. I hardly have any loyalty cards (Nancy recommends hole-punching them and twist-tying them together if you have an unwieldy bunch, and leaving them at home as a rule, but I'm cool for this one. Boots card and a couple of salon stamp cards only)

2. It should contain your essential items, but no more

Essential items - do my membership cards for both Arsenal and Aston Villa count? It's too hilarious to take them out and the purse is quite roomy, so I've left them in there side by side for a laugh.
I've emptied out all of the change - Gracie is pretty adamant that I do this regularly because it weighs a tonne, not that he ever offers to carry my handbag - except for pounds and 50p coins. Would likely be loonies and toonies if I were in Canada.
Other than money and cards, I use my purse to hold my pills and HSBC e-banking fob. I think being able to pay my bills and not getting pregnant are pretty essential.

3. It should be in excellent repair.

Not a problemo - I just bought this Deena and Ozzy fox purse from Urban (cough) before Christmas and it doubles as a cute clutch when I'm not carrying a bag. My BFF Melissa and I have had identical best friend wallets for at least 7 years, and even though we now live on opposite sides of the globe and can't go shopping together, she just bought the same one so I think we're set for a while.


Next up is gathering my financial info to tackle the actual budget spreadsheet, which takes a long time to do but is pretty worth it. YMBD has a great template - I went through about 3 or 4 on my own before starting the course the first time around, and Nancy's is rather superior.

Do you have a preferred budget spreadsheet template solution? I'm looking forward to the data nerdery of it all - wish me luck.