It is no secret, I’m sure, to long-time readers that I’ve been floundering a bit the last couple months. My full-time job has been getting the best of me lately, with several project deadlines looming around the end of the year. My Mom’s death in September has made focusing on anything besides grief difficult the last two months, though I have had to try to put one foot in front of the other and get back to a semi-normal routine. Because I am a glutton for punishment, we have also decided to move this month.

“Sadness” by Eric Perrone

While all those factors have conspired to affect motivation in several areas of my life, what has really suffered is my writing. Thanks to a number of close blogging friends, I have had no shortage of guest posts to present here at Frugal Dad (Neal from WealthPilgrim.com is sharing another great one with us this Friday!) since they learned of my mom’s passing. These breaks in the action are welcomed, but I do feel a little guilty for not cranking out material at the pace I once did.

Just yesterday I missed my first Monday post in nearly two years of blogging. I wasn’t motivated to write. I had an incredibly busy weekend of packing and moving boxes, etc, and when I finally sat down late Sunday night at the keyboard there was nothing left. No witty budget concepts. No rants about self-reliance. No new reviews to tell you about. Had I finally run out of things to say?

Fortunately, not yet. I had simply run out of steam. I was losing focus, and not just with my writing. I am not sure if it is depression or just the normal grieving process, but after losing a parent (who also happened to be my best friend, besides my wife), you sort of go through a period of just going through the motions.

I wake up, eat a quick breakfast, kiss the wife and kids and drive to work. I check my email, my to-do list, keep busy, leave in the evenings, play with the kids a while, work on the blog and go to bed. But when I go to bed feeling completely exhausted I can’t recall the specifics of the day. Did I even ask my kids how their day was at dinner? Did I remember to send that status email on the big project at work? Did I remember to pay the utility bill online? And for just a moment, just a split second, I don’t even care. I just want to go to bed to put this day in the books and do it all again tomorrow.

The problem is when you find yourself in one of these funks the days just start to slide by. Life starts happening to you, instead of you being in control. The budget gets relaxed. Old, bad spending habits come to the forefront again. You stray from healthy eating and start refueling on crap from fast food restaurants and vending machines. You distance yourself from loved ones. And the worst part? When you are going through it, you aren’t even aware it is happening.

At some point you snap out of it; like a fog lifting in the middle of the morning. Things start to become meaningful again. It is at this point that you recognize the days have been sliding by, and you start grabbing for moments before they can get by you. Yes, I’ll be at my son’s next football game, and instead of watching alone at the fence down from the bleachers, I’ll be among the other fans cheering for our kids’ team. Yes, I will again be my former productive self at work. Yes, I will balance my checkbook and take a stab at a new budget for the next month. I will re-engage life.

This was really just a long way to say thanks for sticking around during this tough time. I have some exciting ideas for the blog in the coming months, including a few spring projects I think you will enjoy (mostly related to square foot gardening, living off the grid, etc.). I’m going to rededicate myself to getting back to my frugal roots over the next few weeks, and hopefully my writing will reflect that focus.

Finally, if you are reading this and feeling blue, or more than blue, I suggest you talk to someone. It doesn’t have to be a professional, though I would certainly recommend one if you are experiencing signs of depression. Go out to lunch with a close friend and open up about what you’ve been feeling. Sometimes it helps to simply get things off your chest, and let someone else know what you are going through. Whatever you do, don’t ignore the symptoms and let too many days slide by.

People often can be successful in the business world but clueless when it comes to managing their own finances. A business-minded strategy is a great way to manage and organize your household finances.

“Business advice can translate into wise decisions for your personal finances,” said Heath Tudor, consumer liaison for Resqdebt, a financial health management company in Allen, Texas.  “Using simple business practices, you can easily make your house more profitable and efficient.”

Tudor suggests these steps for managing your household finances:

Create a Plan - All businesses begin with some sort of a plan, both short term and long term. Plans help guide decisions and direct you where you want to be in a certain amount of time. Build a plan around your goals. Budget for everyday expenses, emergencies and long term plans.

Track Spending – Businesses often use spreadsheets to track income and expenses. This lets them know the state of the company’s finances at anytime. Tracking your finances will help you visualize your situation and make better decisions. However, you don’t need an expensive or complicated bookkeeping program to track your finances. Check out free online bookkeeping tools, such as Quicken or Mvelopes or create your own spreadsheet. Record everything that you bring in, spend and owe.

What comes in must be more than what goes out- In business you want to bring in more than what you are spending; the same should apply at home. As you track your finances, look at your income and your spending habits. If you are coming up short every month or using your credit cards to cover purchases, you need to adjust your income-to-spending ratio.

Cut Down on Expenses - Businesses want to keep expenses low so that overhead does not cut into their profits. You can’t always change how much money you bring in but, you can change what you pay out. Examine your bills and find places where you can cut down on monthly expenses.

Conduct Reviews - Review your plan weekly, monthly and yearly. Make adjustments and track your goals.

Overall, the most important thing for your household finances is to stay organized. Know what you are spending and always remember the bottom line. These steps will help you become more profitable and the CEO of your house.

I’m writing this post at 4:07am, and just a couple hours ago my mom passed away at 54 years young. For those who have followed along for a while, you are probably familiar with Mom’s medical struggles dating back 13 months.

I know it may seem strange to some that I’m even at a keyboard, but Mom’s now gone, the house is quiet with sleeping kids, and I’m turning to the activity that has always been therapeutic for me: writing.

Strange that through blogging we feel compelled to share life’s highs and lows with 10,000 complete strangers, but I don’t think of you as “complete” strangers. Over the last couple years I’ve made “virtual” friendships with many of you, and I enjoy sharing bits about my life with you all – the highs and the very, very lows.

I hope you’ll understand that I need a little time away from the blog to help settle my mom’s affairs, look after my grandfather, and grieve. I’ve lined up a couple guests posts for the week, and there may be a day or two between posts.

Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers expressed over these last 13 months.

I wrote a bit more about my mom in this post, The Path to Contentment

When our financial turnaround was underway there were a couple things that often derailed our plan. Emergencies seem to come in waves of twos and threes, constantly draining our emergency fund. But emergencies weren’t the only thing that got us.

The big expenses that managed to sneak up on us are what really gave us financial fits. That unusually high power bill two summers ago compliments of a prolonged heat wave. The annual car tag renewal I completely forgot about, even though it is due on my birthday every year. And each month it felt like we were always needing to replenish groceries and household items that were not on sale, or that we never had a coupon to use.

In an effort to sort of smooth out these financial highs and lows (well, mostly highs), we implemented the following relatively simple steps.

Sign up for levelized billing with your utility company. This was as easy as a phone call to our utility company and the completion of  simple form. “Levelized billing,” as it is commonly referred to, involves the utility company averaging your last 12 months of utility bills and using that average amount as your next bill due.

The beauty of this system is that your utility bill hovers around the same amount each month, even in the extreme highs and lows of summer and winter. A particularly high-usage month averaged against eleven previous months has little impact on the new amount due.

One note about levelized billing plans, utility companies require at least one year of history, and often require no late payments within that time.

Use a sinking fund for large annual expenses. We use sinking funds for those large, annual or semi-annual expenses, such as insurance premiums, taxes, etc. Rather than being hit by a $600 insurance bill at the end of the year, sock away $50 a month in a sinking fund at your favorite online savings account, and when the bill is due simply transfer the full amount to checking and pay the bill.

Watch for cyclical coupons and sales and stock up when prices are low. Coupons tend to run in cycles of 12 weeks or so, and often times grocers match sales to available coupons in an effort to attract shoppers.

For instance, a monthly P&G coupon circular is included in our newspaper around the first of every month. Flipping through the store sale ads you’ll likely find sales on P&G items to match up with those coupons.

It might also help to keep a price book. Jot down the price of items your household routinely purchases. Start tracking the cost each time you purchase, and soon you will be able to determine if that “sale price” is really a bargain. If it is, stock up, refuse to buy when prices are high, and wait until the price drops or a cyclical coupon is available again.

Do you ever stop to think how many of our decisions are based in fear? I’ve been doing it myself pretty much my entire life. While there is much to be afraid of these days, I hope to find the peace to begin making financial decisions for other reasons.

Finding that peace is an uphill battle thanks to entities like the media. I’m willing to bet none of us can go through an entire day without hearing about swine flu, a terror plot, identity theft, an airplane crash, a horrific car accident, a celebrity death, or a nefarious government conspiracy.

Traditional media does a great job of perpetuating their own motto, “If it bleeds, it leads,” but they aren’t alone. New media is getting in on the act, too. One of the hottest trends on the web the last week or so involved a website that shares death risk rankings. How inspiring.

This fixation on the negative has left us all in a constant state of worry. We live in a perpetual state of fear – of dying, of going broke, of losing our freedom, of losing a loved one, and on and on. Don’t believe me? Why do you think pharmaceutical companies, especially those with leading drugs for anxiety and depression, advertise heavily during the nightly news?

I’m not just picking on pharmaceutical companies. There are a number of industries whose main purpose is to sell consumers products that make them feel more secure. From life insurance, to identity theft protection, to those make-your-own last will and testament software providers, many companies exist to help alleviate your fears.

Those companies are not necessarily bad, and most of us in and around finances generally agree their products are a necessity (at least when it comes to insurance and wills). However, this fear bleeds into other areas of our financial lives.

How many of us are terrified of applying for a new credit card, or canceling our current credit cards, because of the impact it might have on the great FICO gods? It’s sad when we allow our behaviors to be dictated to us by some secret, highly-protected, highly-complicated algorithm dreamed up to dummy down lending decisions.

This thought occurred to me the other day as I paid off yet another old credit card account, from a company that had provided horrible customer service over the years. We had already introduced the credit card to our sharpest pair of scissors, and now I was ready to call and cancel the card.

As I’m dialing the customer no-service number I remembered the same advice I’ve given here at Frugal Dad before – don’t close your oldest credit card because length of credit history is an important factor in calculating your FICO score. Same for credit utilization, which would also be affected if I canceled this card with a high credit limit.

Thankfully, at that moment my common sense kicked in and I said out loud, “Screw FICO.” Blasphemous, I know. I’m not going to carry around this old account from a company I can’t stand just because it might affect my credit score. I’ll do business with whoever I want to, and for as long as I want to. I dialed the remaining numbers and canceled the credit card.  Good riddance!

I’ve also spent too much of my life obsessing over my finances. I’ve stayed awake at night counting credit card balances instead of sheep. I’m afraid of something happening to me, leaving my wife and kids without enough to survive. Do I have enough life insurance? Do I have enough in emergency savings? Do we have enough saved for the kids college plans? Will I ever be able to retire? The list of financial worries is endless.

At some point you just have to live your life. I’m not advocating throwing caution to the wind, burying your head in the sand, or not taking basic steps to secure you and your family’s future adequately. But I am advocating that we try to sort of put things on autopilot so we can stop worrying, and obsessing over our finances.

Over the last couple years, simplifying our financial life has been a big goal for us. We’ve consolidated accounts, set up automatic transfers where possible, put retirement savings on auto pilot. Besides periodic checks on balances or fund performance I rarely look at the “big picture” stuff. I focus on winning today, and being “present” for my kids. As long as we keep winning the daily battles with money, the “big stuff” will take care of itself in time.