This month my goal is to live within my means: caloric means, financial means, time means and energy means. "As opposed to what?", you ask. Answer: "rather than" over-eat, over-spend, over-extend and run around ragged and overly tired out!------------------------ In our society, it is not easy to slow down before screeching through the corners and maybe running into the ditch. You are not a good American if you are not pushing limits of every kind. So, we get what we work for. In the last three months of the year, the average weight gain in the American adult population is 12 pounds. That's like adding two cantaloupes to your knapsack to carry around 24/7. ---------------------- More Americans went financially bankrupt last year than ever before. Chronic fatigue syndrome and autoimmune disorders are at all time highs. Depression and emotional symptoms of depletion continue to fill the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies at record rates. Estimates are that at any time of day, 30 to 50% of drivers on American roads are suffering sleep deprivation. Do I have to go on with this? My goal is to live within my means and that is not easy! ---------- ------------ In keeping with this challenge for myself, I've shortened this newsletter, at least for this busy time of year. Perhaps you will gain more from less. Perhaps I will distract you less without so much stuff. -------------- -

Here's what you can do; 1) read this letter entirely; 2) go to the NEW feature on my web site, the "What's Right With The World?" page, make a contribution (not money, but two or three things right with your world); and, 3) recommend this newsletter to a friend. Three simple things, that's all. ----------- Quality living is slow, simple, steady and serene! Happy All Saints Day! ------------------ Paul W. Anderson, Ph.D----www.netpsychologist.com

-------Cure for the Financial Hangover------------ Does your financial life emulate a perpetual happy hour? Thursday evening you throw caution to the wind, downing drink after drink, yielding a horrible hangover. Not wanting to deal with the pain, you assemble your magic hangover concoction, which you learned from your college roommate, and you are back making merry again on Friday. Eventually, though, either your liver, or your boss, will cry uncle and you will be forced to deal with the consequences.

Many people's financial lives resemble this happy hour cycle. They throw caution to the wind, spending dollar after dollar, yielding the same, horrible hangover when confronted with that monthly credit card bill or Sunday afternoon debt consolidation commercial. Unfortunately, the same kind of cure is applied. One that numbs just long enough to head out and spend some more. After all, they work hard and deserve to be happy. ---------- - Everyone's story is different. Not everyone is bordering bankruptcy. But many are not where they want to be financially, which has a growing effect on their day-to- day mental health.

Well, here is the silver bullet: A budget. Hold on, I know everyone's eyes just rolled. The "b" word connotes horrible evils so let's dispel those right off the bat. A budget is not a straightjacket. It does not say "you have been very bad with your money so you do not get to play with it anymore." It is not just for poor people. In fact, the book The Millionaire Next Door indicates the majority of millionaires did not inherit their money, but rather "they became millionaires by budgeting and controlling expenses, and they maintain their affluent status the same way." (Thomas J. Stanley, William D. Danko, Longstreet Press, 1996, page 40) A budget is simply a tool used to manage income and maximize its distribution to provide the most enjoyment from it and control over it.------------------------------ That is the key. Use a budget to reach your goals. Go to the local coffee shop, or anywhere that is relaxing, and list your goals, values, and priorities related to finances and life in general. It is difficult to reach a destination if it has not been defined. The destination may be more time with friends and family, more money for charity, regular DVD purchases or funds to purchase a home or new car. Maybe you just want to get out of debt and vanquish the tremendous mental burden surrounding it. Whether short or long term goals, silly or important life changing goals it is imperative to clarify and prioritize them based on the values placed highest.

Next, it is important to understand how much you are making, spending, saving and giving. Be honest. What can be changed or improved? Then take your monthly nut and divvy it into practical categories that will effectively dictate how you distribute your monthly income. For instance clothes, entertainment and miscellaneous categories, in addition to your fixed categories. If you do not add these realistic categories your budget will burst every month because life happens. Structure your budget around your established goals and continually review and update it as life changes. Lastly, be patient. This process can be long and painful to be sure. But you are guaranteed improved mental freedom as a result if you are dedicated to it. Work on it, get frustrated, put it down and come back to it later. It will take time, but it will happen. Who knows? Maybe you can celebrate your newfound freedom at Thursday's happy hour.------------------------ contact Scott at pswilson@sbcglobal.net

What does this sound like to you? Giving up, working and striving harder, a balanced life, living smarter....? Some would say it means borrowing as much as you can from the future.

I'd really like to have a dialogue with yo about this. so don't be shy. Email me your thoughts!

Thanks, Paul W. Anderson

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"What are the facts? Again and again, what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what 'the stars foretell', avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable 'verdict of history',---what are the facts and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"------- - --------Lazarus Long (fictional character in "Time Enough For Love" by Robert A. Heinlein

WORKERS IN THE U.S. effectively gave back $21 billion to their employers by not taking vacation last year, according to Expedia. com, the travel company that commissioned the study hoping to encourage more ticket buying. An amazing 12 percent of the American work force doesn't take any vacation. More take only a part of it. The leading reason: too much to do. Nearly a quarter of nonvacationers said time off made them feel guilty.------------------------------- It's hard to feel entitled to a vacation when even the government considers it more of a privilege than a right. Of industrialized nations, the U.S. is the only one that doesn't require employers to give vacation, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Our workers average the fewest days off (14).

"We've got a cultural problem with leisure time," says Herbert Rappaport, a professor of psychology at Temple University. "We are an overworked, overtired, underpleasured culture." How did we get here?" Capitalism, materialism and upward mobility," he says. And things have only gotten worse now that technology makes us available all the time, he adds. We're expected to work even when we're out of the office, and we never really feel out of the office.

Dr. Rappaport says bosses often make the problem worse by encouraging vacations, then complaining when someone has the gall to take one. David Sossen, president of an aerospace consulting firm, used to work for a big company where a prospective vacationer routinely became "the most critical irreplaceable member of the team," he says.

To combat that problem, he and his colleagues would buy expensive, nonrefundable tickets and ask the company for a reimbursement if bosses grounded them.------------------------ Still, they'd be pressured to defer vacations "to some other time when the person would be working on some other project for some other manager," he says. In Seussian terms, his bosses seemed to say: "Take off the entire month of Octember."--------------------by Jared Sandberg, Wall Stret Journal, July 30, 2003