Finance Roll

There is a law all smart people break.

Parkinson's law.

Parkinson's law states that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." It was first coined by C. Northcote Parkinson in the book Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress.

A common derivation of that is "expenses rise to meet your level of income." Has that happened to you? It happened to me in 1991 and I'm particularly aware that it could happen to me again in 2005.

In 1991 I took my BS in finance and started a carpet cleaning business...like most finance majors, of course! I learned the business for a couple months and was earning a whopping $200-$300 per week working for someone else.

When I left that company and went out on my own, the ad I used FLOODED me with business. I had 15 calls by 10:30AM the day the small ad first ran. The answering service told me every "little old lady in Saratoga was calling".

So almost immediately I went from making $200-$300 a week to making upwards of $1000 per week.
WOW...23 years old and making that much money WORKING FOR MYSELF was great fun...had a great boss!

I don't remember what I spent all the money on other than one of those nationwide pagers but my spending
rose dramatically. But guess what? At $7.95 per room for carpet cleaning it doesn't take a math major to
figure out I was working very hard to earn $1000 a week. So, of course I got tired and lazy and slowed down.
My income level dropped to some level probably near $500 per week but my lifestyle didn't and you can figure
out the rest.

If, while earning $1000 per week I was living like I made $400-$500 per week I would have been sitting pretty...
or whatever the male equivalent of sitting pretty is! :>)

Recently in a workshop I had a woman relate her story. Her husband had been out of work because of injury for
about a year. They had been living on only her income for that time. Before his injury they had been living on two
incomes and usually had just enough money to meet all their expenses.

The injury had her worried. How could they do it on one income?

Somehow, THEY MADE IT. All the bills were paid on time. They didn't take any drastic measures like canceling
the cable or pulling apart the 2-ply toilet tissue to get 2 rolls out of every one.

This gal was amazed and tremendously EXCITED because her husband was going back to work soon and she
was going to be able to put a large chunk of one entire income toward eliminating all their debt using my program.

(Do you have it yet?) Two thousand dollars a month put under your mattress or towards paying off a debt is
$24,000 per year or $120,000 after 5 years.

This family was forced to break Parkinson's law and you see how it dramatically improved their lives. The silver
lining in the cloud.

Don't be forced to break the law...do it voluntarily starting today. If you are a two-income household pretend
that one of the incomes is now gone. If you are a one-income household advertise for a wealthy widow or
widower and then pretend that your income was slashed in half.

Keep track of every penny you spend...write it down...put it in your Quicken, Microsoft Money or any spreadsheet
program...just get it on paper so you can see it.

Be brutal about it and I'll bet you can live on half of what you now make. Take the "missing" half and pile it on
your debt. (you know which debt don't you?)

Break Parkinson's law and you'll never be sorry!