Super Simple Bookkeeping

with "Color of Money"

Sigh! We've got to do it.

Face it; you need to learn how to budget & do your personal bookkeeping with an accounting book or some sort of system - even though you hate math and working with numbers, right?

I suggest this one-year, super simple bookkeeping and personal accounting book,The Color of Money!

No, this is not a computer program or some software that you have to login to online. It's an modern paper book with pockets and a bare bones plan. It is perfect for those who have never ever done any personal bookkeeping before and are afraid to get started. It's easy enough so that a child, of say 10 to 12, could catch on and avoid the hassles that may plague his or her debt-ridden parents.

The Color of Money is also a great accounting book for a family's bookkeeping. (I'll tell you in a minute how I used it for my parents).

If your finances are out of control, and everyone seems to be telling you to BUDGET, this very simple accounting book will guide you and teach you how to budget. (Hey, then you can start saying to others, "You need to learn how to budget!")

Have you ever signed up to become a network distributor for some great product(s)? At that early stage you can't afford a salaried bookkeeper, or accountant, so you are stuck doing all your business bookkeeping yourself, but you know you should keep your business records separate from your personal finances. Believe me, that can be quite scary! Been there. Done that! But this small business accounting book shows you how to budget for your business, how to file receipts, and how record every item, and keeps everything in one place for one whole year. I'll even go so far as to say it works well for a small business just starting up.

Yes, you CAN get a comfortable habit of doing your small business accounting or bookkeeping, and begin to relax once you've got the basics down. Now, as your business grows, of course you can inch into more detailed systems as you need them. (I'll tell you about my experience in that regard too).

(By the way, are you the treasurer for a small group or club? I remember using a steno pad for that bookkeeping. The Color of Money would certainly look and be more professional as your group's accounting book. Hint-hint! The auditor would be impressed too, if you have to turn your book in for review).

How to Budget

Do you have this problem of bills showing up once a year, but you are not ready for them? It happens to me with house and car insurance. I've had to learn to budget!

You may be shaking your head and insisting loudly that there just isn't enough money coming in all year to cover ALL your expenses. True. I know that is a bigger problem.

However, recording in an accounting book the monies that do come in, and when, and recording what expenses you pay, and just when does an amazing thing. It shows you where the greatest needs are, and where there are serious money leaks in your lifestyle. If you stop spending money on certain non-essentials, and pay the essentials first, you will find the tension ease out of your life, and then ideas begin to come for earning much more money to cover ALL your necessities and - yes, even your heart's desires! There are a number of websites on the internet that teach you how to budget, some of them offer free help, but the real help comes if you have a guide to help you record your money coming in, and money going out, and start planning your priorities. That's all a budget really is.

Once you know how to budget (plan) your income and expenses, you will be managing your money instead of it managing YOU! The Color of Money will help you with that. It is a daily financial record book and budget planning guide. One year at a time.

Could you make yourself stick with this for one year? That could be enough to turn your life around!

Getting out of Debt

Learn how to budget and you can gradually pull yourself out of debt and then vow never to live in the negative (debt) world again. That's just way too hard on the nerves and your health.

Getting out of debt means you decide to live on what you have, do without the rest, and trust God and the government to help you keep your body and soul together in one piece until the debt is paid off. Face the fact that it may take quite a lot of time, but it will be worth it when you are OUT OF DEBT at last. Meantime, you will have learned good habits of managing what little money comes in and you can be trusted with larger amounts. Maybe even wealth! :)

Personally, I'm convinced that if you live with a beggar mindset you will always be poor, and NEVER become wealthy. To pull yourself out of poverty by your bootstraps you need to learn to manage small incomes well, make plans, work the plans, and earn your way up while thinking "What can I give?" instead of "What can I get?"

I concede that there are computer software programs that allow you to do this kind of personal bookkeeping or small business accounting too. Some of them are free. I use a free one now called, KMyMoney. But I still like to record things on paper books too - just because I need to see things laid out simply so I can understand them. The Color of Money is simple like that.

Not only will it help you learn how to budget, and if necessary, get you out of debt, this is a great way for a family to keep their accounting book. Let me use my parents for an example. My Dad had not completed his grade 8 education, so he had to work hard as an ox all his adult life, and physical labour doesn't pay as much as jobs where you use your brains more than your brawn, or muscles. Mom was sickly and worried a lot. Sometimes she feared that we children would be taken away from them because it was hard to cover all the costs of raising five children. And believe me, our parents taught us to make do, or do without until we were grown up and could support ourselves. Mom was good at mental math and often "figured" on the back of calendar pages, but they never had a budget as such, nor any accounting book. Mom just saw to it that they paid off debts first, and lived on the rest.

Years later, (in 1983 to be exact) when their children were all on their own, and Mom's health was worsening and she was not to do housework any more, I finally made the move back to care for them in their old age. When my middle sister, Elsie, who had sought and got herself a good education, wrote this book, The Color of Money and asked me to help promote and sell it, I decided to try it out first with our parents. I had no training aside from reading the first few pages of the book. I started it on January 1st, by filling a few blanks at the beginning, and then I laid it on the shelf under the toaster oven near where I sat at the table for meals. I told my parents that whenever they had any receipts, or when their pension checks came in, I wanted to record them in this accounting book. And all the receipts for each month would go into the envelope for that month, then into the cover pockets. It took a little nagging at first to get Dad to remember to hand in his receipts, but after a while it was a habit.

The first few months were not perfectly accurate, but after a while I could show how much was spent a month on groceries, and how much on gas for the car. I could show how much Dad spent at auction sales, and so on. Mom had often complained of her high prescription costs, but now we realized that they weren't all that high as she had assumed. I think she just dreaded them, though there were times they did get expensive. At the end of the year I transferred the monthly totals to the page at the back, and could see the whole year in a summary of a few lines. Filling out their income tax forms was a breeze!

None of us had studied bookkeeping or accounting, but we were impressed with the peace of mind it gave us to see the household expenses covered so nicely. I kept up this bookkeeping pattern for them right until after they had both died. Mom died in 1997 and Dad in 2007. I am sure Mom could have understood and done it for many decades before, if such a resource had been available.

There! You see that if your family needs to track money flow, The Color of Money can do that for you. It's so simple that even those who have never used a computer, or finished their primary education, can use this how-to accounting book for personal bookkeeping, or for family record-keeping.

Teach a Child to Manage Money

In fact, if you want to train your children to be wise in handling their allowance, this accounting book, The Color of Money is just the thing you need. Some of the column headings would not apply to them, such as household and utilities, or wage deductions, mortgage, etc. But there's an easy answer for that. Just cross them off and write above them what the child does need a column for. (I did this with my parents' books too). A child or teen that learns how to budget and plan their spending is going to be much more mature as an adult and will not have to learn these key life lessons from the school of Hard Knocks (experience).

Aunt Helena ordered a batch of The Color of Money to give to her grandchildren one Christmas for exactly that reason. What a great idea!

Teach a Class?

Do you teach a class of children or young people, or perhaps new immigrants? Would a short course in how to budget and how to use a personal or family accounting book be appropriate? This book, The Color of Money would work very well, and at a much lower cost than many other text books could be.

Let's Review

The Color of Money is a paper, cerlox bound one-year accounting book with very simple instructions so that you can draw up a budget and keep a record of your incomes and expenses. You record your receipts and pay stubs and slip them into the #10 envelope in the cover pockets. If you put it in a regular spot and make your entries each day or week, it will tidy up a large part of your struggle with bookkeeping. It won't make you wealthy right away - but it can prepare you for such a future.

You'll find The Color of Money right for you if you need;
$ a simple business accounting and bookkeeping plan.
$ to overcome your fear of bookkeeping
(something I wrestled with for some years)
$ to learn to budget
$ to manage your money to get out of debt
$ a simple personal bookkeeping plan
$ a simple small business accounting book
$ to teach children how to do simple accounting.

You need it for one or more of those reasons!?

Then, you need to order a copy or two right away. It would be ideal to begin at or near the beginning of January, but you can start any time of the year. (If you start later, just begin on that month's page and when done with December start using the pages for the earlier months that you missed).

The basic price is $25 per copy of The Color of Money. I could have made it lower, but then would have to calculate taxes and exchange rates and postage costs to different destinations, I've decided to save a lot of hassle and arithmetic work for both you and me, by rounding it off at $25.00 and absorbing all the costs.

Pick Your Payment Method

PayPal - allows you to use your credit card even if you don't have a PayPal account
MoneyGram - available at any Canadian postal outlet, and almost every country in world
Western Union - also available everywhere but sometimes difficult if you can't prove you know the person you are sending money to...
Money order, or check - sent by mail to my mailing address, slow but sure.

Send Me Only $25 and Your Mailing Address

for MoneyGram and Western Union, you'll also have to email me with the Transfer number so I know to collect it.

Incidentally, I'll be shipping from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Buy Now Buttons: PayPal. Include your mailing address and contact info.

My Mailing Address

You will need my address if using MoneyGram, Western Union, Money order, or check;
Ruth M. Friesen
903 23rd Street West
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7L 0A5
Canada

When using 'snail mail' please allow enough time for me to receive your mail before I put your The Color of Money into the mail back to you.

If you have any questions, or to let me know the money is on the way, here's how to reach me.

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