#1) I went to Umpqua Bank. (www.umpquabank.com)  It took over an hour to complete the paperwork for seven accounts (one joint with mom, one checking for business, a joint savings, two kids accounts, an overdraft acct and a credit card.   I could have gone with the credit union, but they don’t download to Quickbooks and if I give that up then I give up keeping track of my expenses and until I figure out something as doable a Quickbooks, I need to stick with it. Plus I like the idea of a middle road. I may wind up at the credit union in a year’s time, but for now it’s  Umpqua. Because of its size, it can offer this Green Street program which makes loans for the various “go green” entrepreneurial endeavors. I want to see where it goes.

#2) Brought Mom to Umpqua bank to sign the papers. Yesterday she fell and was a little sore so the plan was for the banker to come out have her sign the papers while she sat comfortably in the car. Well, the papers weren't ready so we go back on Monday. All this reminds me how grateful I am to be in a position to have the time it takes to makes this sort of life change. No wonder I never did it before now.

ASIDE FOR THE DAY:  I had to edit what I wrote the last two days, because I wrote stuff that made me feel a little queasy when I thought about certain people actually reading it. Would I want to be them reading that? No. So here I am. Booorrrriinng myself.

Truth is, I want that person in me who is willing to stay grounded and focused on this process to speak and write here. Not the persons in me who are excited and passionate and hence reminded of all the previous excitements and passions I’ve lived in other forms. (ie, this ain’t gonna be about my relationship history even though I will likely be reminded as I go of every decision I’ve ever made along the way that brought me here, including all the financial decisions that were very much intertwined with my personal life.) 

Maybe I’ll change my mind. Who am I to hold back?

Here are my My Day Two Accomplishments:

#1) Sent an email to my wonderfully communicative investment advisor at Merrill Lynch and asked him to investigate www.rsfsocialfinance.org in order to move a large chunk of money that I have invested in things like AFLAC and EASTMAN KODAK and WELLS FARGO of course.

#2) Decided to go with www.umpquaonline.com  because they sound so cool and I can download my transaction into my Quickbooks file. I’ve been doing this for years and want to continue being able to track my life as if I were a business.

ASIDE: I fell in love with double entry bookkeeping when I was in college and I worked for a small business helping track their Accounts Receivables. We used an old-fashioned (no computers, just typewriters and fancy clickable books with snaps and carbons to keep track of all of the financial records.) I was in love with Harvey, even though he was married to Fran who told me “I lived through the sixties and believe me, it wasn’t like they say, it was just totally normal. I never even saw a hippie!” Harvey, though a Republican, would listen to me as long as I wanted to talk or argue politics. I lived above their store and painted a huge orange arrow in bedroom and the kitchen a salmon color. I was shocked later to find that this annoyed them. Harvey always had a smile for me though.

#3) I filled out a contact form with Lifescapes Landscaping. With some of the money I’m not investing, I’m going to invest in my yard. Add fruit trees and raised beds in the back for vegetable planting. I hope they call back.

#4) I made a face book page called MY FINANCE MAKEOVER and added a photo that a very wonderful friend took of me on my birthday celebration a couple years ago after plying me with champagne. (Twist my arm, I said) Those are his one dollar bills I am throwing up in the air. I like this fun photo. When he took it I was really considering what life would be like if I could play the stock market as well as he did. I knew he could teach me and I wanted to learn. Now, those bills being thrown up in the air have a different feeling. As if the lady throwing them in the air knows something about their lack of intrinsic value; and something more about real value which is intrinsic-ness itself.

#5) Replied to Marco’s kind reply to my ridiculous email thanking him for his webinar.

Note to me:  DON’T GET DISTRACTED. DON’T GET DISTRACTED. DON’T GET DISTRACTED. 

Did I know this would be Day One? 

No.

I did not.

I knew I would be listening to a webinar with Marco Vangelisti. (Also known as the fabulous painter, Marco Vangelisti). 

Here you can see him in a youtube. (
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=marco+vangelisiti+slowmoney&FORM=VIRE2#view=detail&mid=D55612186E43A485B19FD55612186E43A485B19F

He is an ex-wall street nice guy turned www.slowmoney.org genius. 

He took the innards of my mind which have been swimming for a few years now in a brilliant and jumbled chaotic mess and made a presentation (of many of my exact thoughts) that was clear, to the point, easy to follow, dynamic and doable.

So Day One of My Finance Makeover begins right here.

Here are my My Day One Accomplishments:

#1) Investigated new banks. Made plan to change from old friend Wells Fargo.

(I’ll have to send thank you’s to the tellers for their service to me for the last 15 years, including giving me two little stuffed white horses as part of their gratitude to special customers like my mom who keeps a chunk there in our shared account -- two little stuffed horses that eventually became raggedy dog toys until finally their innards were completely eaten and the rest destroyed in the compost that feels like my entire backyard.)

#2) Download the past 90 days of all my account activity and highlight all auto transactions I will have to change to the new bank.

#3) Write Marco Vangelisti a thank you email for his amazing webinar.

Here are two more links, worth investigations.

www.rsfsocialfinance.org

www.transitionus.org  


Ciao for now!

This is such a safe space to write since the traffic is well, slow. So here goes, I am in complete safety.

Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple. 

I never understood why that part of the Bible has been ignored by so many wealthy stock market loving Christians. I'm not a Christian, so I ignored this Bible bit without any guilt at all and have invested in the stock market AND I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do about it.

I'm working on a little book project to show in the simplest of terms why incurring interest or charging interest is at the root of ... well...all this shumugama were in.

I am unbelievably naive.  

I don't say that proudly. it's just an obvious fact. Why do I want to write this little book? 

Because:

This little bit of information that I am going to lay out about Jesus and his views on usury (plus a Part II that describes a few other minor points about how the Earth's finite resources are missing from our current economic equations, hardly an original thought on my part, although please repeat it to whomever's attention you can get) can transform the way we think and behave around money. We meaning ALL of US. *

*The Christians, the Jews, the Muslims, the Bahia, the ex- and the current cult devotees, the military, the pacifists, the farmers most of all, and the US Democrats, Republicans, Tea Partyers, the British, young, and old. Anyone who will listen. It's just not very complicated. (Repeat: I am very naive.)

Galileo Galilei is purported to have said "Mathematics is the language of the Universe was written in." 

Accounting is all about numbers; the numbers can show us the way out; we can rewrite this.

This man is a genius. What he says and writes makes so much sense and it is almost completely opposite of everything I ever thought was true about money. 

At least  I don't have to start that investment club and I was thinking about. Thank  GAWD.

 (If this clip doesn't explain why, read his book Sacred Economics....basically, when we loan money and ask for interest on the loan, we are right there engaging ourselves in that part of the economy that is headed for inevitable failure.)

It's kind of a relief actually. 

In essence, Charles here describes what the economy has to look like in order to match who we, as in the collective we who know that we are all one we, are becoming. 

Om shanti shanti hi.

(Here is the POINT: The world economy requires INCOME from a source that is either outside of itself or UNLIMITED in order to thrive….Again….The world economy requires INCOME from a source that is either outside of itself or UNLIMITED in order to thrive.)

Here's a short explanation of the world economy from someone (me) with access to the most basic of minds. (Please respond if you have a moment.)

In any moment in time, we can look at our private (separate) financial $$ picture and paint it this way.

We own some $$.

We owe some $$.

What we own minus what we owe equals our “net worth.”

That's it.

In accounting this sums up the Balance Sheet.

The only way to change the net worth of our nice and tidy closed little system (from moment to moment) -- is to own more or owe more -- to bring $$ in (INCOME) or send $$ out (EXPENSES).

In accounting this sums up the Profit or Loss Statement.

In truth, our little financial ecosystems, are not closed….They rely on money coming in and money going out. If there was nothing going in or out, our “worth” would have no value or meaning… no purpose at all.

To extrapolate.

Think of an extended family, say 10 members.  Each person owning some $$ and owing some $$....You could put it all together and make it into one giant snapshot of Net Worth for that group.  Together we own a million dollars, and together we owe a thousand dollars.  Nice.

Yet again, for that to have any value (or any inherent meaning at all), there must be $$ coming in and/or going out. Why would those 10 people want that million dollars without something around to spend it on?

Extrapolate in your mind again…..this time for a city, a state, a country….

Eventually $$ has to be added into the system from somewhere outside of the system. Right?

It’s true for the individual….it’s got to be true for a group of individuals as well, even a really big group (like everyone alive right now.)

There has to be money coming in or going out from that system in order for it to work.

So eventually $$ has to be added from somewhere OUTSIDE of the system. 

Whether it is printed or discovered deep inside the earth or somewhere on the moon, there has to be a source that is unlimited in order for the economy of exchange (which is what our economy is - in the most basic of senses) to continue working.

So who decides what has value? A dollar bill or a gold coin?  “We” do, of course, by our agreement.  (More specifically the people with some force and power who the rest of us are likely to fear decide for “us”…It used to be a king, or a chief, or a demi-god....today it may be someone we elect....but they still have POWER....cause we agree to give it to them.)

Once the dollar bill is less and less accepted (eventually that may happen, I hear) …what will there be then? It has to be something unlimited (or close) for the system to work indefinitely.

Amazingly, fortunately, incredibly, awesomely:  There stills exists AIR, WIND, SOIL, FIRE, WATER….and GRAVITY.   (These "things" are as close to unlimited as we can experience in these bodies.)  


AND we get to continue to live here on Earth with those unlimited resources as long as our bodies can adapt to whatever Mother Earth metes out.

The POINT is: The world economy requires INCOME from a source that is either outside of itself or UNLIMITED in order to thrive….Again….The world economy requires INCOME from a source that is either outside of itself or UNLIMITED in order to thrive.

I've been trying not to say thank you to my kids.

 It's a habit though. It's hard to break and more and more all it gets me is a cold stare.

So now I'm doing this instead: 

"Child, you are _____________"   (fill in the blank).

(Ideas:  sitting in your car seat ready to be buckled in, putting the dishes in the dishwasher, staying quiet while your sister has a fit, smiling at me even though I know you are bored standing on this line, tying your shoes, jumping on the trampoline, eating your dinner, doing your homework, watching TV, stretching, doing a handstand, not making any sounds that annoy people.)

(I say that line with little variation in my tone, however with great presence to the subject.)

Then I say:

"What does this say about you?"

or

"What does this say about what you are capable of?"

or

"What does this say about you as human being?"

Very often, I get an actual reply....

"It says I am __________________"  (making a health choice, a good student, caring about my body, athletic......)

I agree with them or sometimes I disagree if that's what's needed to make sure they download what is really cool about what just happend. (No, Sam, your actions told me you ARE A GO-GETTER, AND NOT A LAZY POOP!)

Then sometimes I even get a Thank you!  from them. 

(This has actually happened more than once.)

There were five of us.  Luke died in 1991 when the Mac SE30 was super hot, before email kicked in. Steve died in 2009, before the 2008 financial crisis sunk in, before I got a facebook account, Mark (brother #3) had picked up over 100,000 bags of trash, and before Sandra created Giselle and almost two hundred other giraffes.

Now -  the three of us who are left, are keeping up with the tide of creativity that is washing over our planet. We are keeping up and maybe even in the wave itself, going with it, increasing it's momentum. I feel that we are an ity bity subsection of importance and enormity. 

And we have spectator guardian-angels.

This is my favorite blog entry to date:
http://thetrashwhisperer.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-to-make-bomb-in-7-easy-steps.html

And one my favorite Sandra giraffes from www.sandramoreano.com

My prior webiste was little melancholic. This new one was made by someone else, my neice who knows me. And I like to think it's how she SEES me...Happier, lighter, more colorful, with professional potential. (I'm more than half a century for goddsakes) 

ILOVE IT! By seeing the best in me, she nurture-hearted me.

Here's my old banner for old time sakes.

All of that reminds me of this:

Yesterday we went to Big 5. On the door there was a yellow notice. "We are low on amunition. Only 3 boxes per customer please." I read it to my son. We were on our way to check out an airsoft gun I told him he could buy with his own money - It had to come from his allowance and I had nothing to give for "extra" chores, so he'd have to save up. It was a clear-plastic-barrelled airsoft gun, the kind with an orange tip so no one would mistake it for the real thing. We walked in the store and to the left was a wall of other more real looking airsoft guns (I was glad we weren't getting those.) He showed me the one he wanted. I put in my hands and it felt like a real gun.

I looked at my son and said, "Come let's go. I think I'm going to throw up."

Depsite his intense anger later, I told him I was done. Done with his toys guns. Nerf and water that's as far as I would go from then on. I got clear. I checked in with that queasy stomach feeling, I let go of all the negative stories about my bad parenting and his "normal" hunter-gatherer desires and what's the research say anyway? And I applied my nurtured heart approach. The queasy feeling said - "Hey, it may his home, but it's your house...and you don't want anymore of those things in it....respect our needs." And then I was clear. No more toy guns.

His Dad is out of town so he's sleeping at my house. I remember a day when I could still hold him and his sister in my arms and I watched a neighbor at our apartment complex get her kids out of the car while they were still in their pajamas, part of an early morning divorced-couple-kid-switch. And I very inappropiately mumbled to my children "See that....Cassidy's Mom and Dad live in two seperate houses. That will NEVER happen to us."  Was that some kinda pathetic arrogant innocence, or what?

I voicemailed his Dad the gun story, he texted back. "I'm done with guns!" I texted back. "Me too!" And that was it.  We may be divorced but eventually we come around to the same positions.

This morning the usual routine of fear was brewing. Would he get to school on time?

So mostly I ignored him...and I said a few things like..."It' very good that you aren't being rude right now...and....your bike is on the porch, I'm going to walk the dogs....and don't forget to brush your teeth" That seemed like the kind thing to do for his teachers. And just before he would be late, he got up, got dressed, didn't eat his eggs, and I think he made it there on time.

I'm noticing that my little fear has nothing to do right now.