SAVING money seems old hat these days and I'll 'fess up right now that I'm a financial conservative.
No plunging into high-flying investments for me.
On the risk scale I'm about a six out of 10, which makes me not much fun for financial advisors, and I've seen a few.
The first directive from the last advisory chap I visited was to create a will. Soon after, a bill arrived from a lawyer for a barely comprehendible document purporting to be a will.
I could understand the advisor's logic in recommending a will as the first step in re-ordering my finances but I thought he was starting at the wrong end.
Far more comprehensive and heaps more fun is the financial literacy workshop I've started.
Sure, it's basic. But there's no tricky jargon.
Officially, it's called Steps to Securing Your Financial Future.
I call it Budgeting 101.
It's a four-session course and two sessions in, it's done wonders for renewing my enthusiasm for personal budgeting. I haven't started putting dollars in the jar each time I make a phone call but I have looked at where I'm spending my money.
Plus we get cake made by the lecturer. Gluten-free, of course.
The women completing the course range in age from their mid 20s though to their 50s and 60s.
Most are wage earners. Some are freelancers with irregular incomes.
One is a small-area farmer, which is like extreme freelancing given the high dollar value, the changing climate and so on.
So far the course has re-confirmed the following:
1. A man is not a financial plan.
2. Superannuation isn't always the best option for a woman if she's spending half her career out of the workforce.
3. Many women think they don't have enough money to warrant seeing a financial advisor.
4. Women often don't want to be money-focused. They want their lives to be driven by other goals - to enjoy their lives and their families. They say they are bored with finances and budgets and would rather leave that to someone else.
5. Some women, who are pretty slick with funds as singles, automatically surrender their financial independence when they marry or get involved in a long-term relationship.
It makes me think how embedded in our society is the idea that men "do" money while women "do" child-raising.
My fellow course participants are daughters and grand-daughters of a generation who thought it impolite to talk about politics, religion, sex and money, which means they don't have a natural penchant for trading shares or following stock markets or even broaching finance in conversation with their partners.
But they're tops at following supermarket specials.
Our homework after the first session was to record our daily expenditure, a frightening task on some accounts.
Some were inclined to berate themselves for spending on face creams and beauty treatments.
They dumped their guilt when they learned it was OK to include a "goo" line in the budget.
Others set aside money to build a safety buffer in case they need to make mortgage repayments during an income-free period.
We talked about why budgets don't work. Perhaps they're unrealistic.
We might leave out a "goo" line because we don't want to admit that's where we spend our money.
Maybe we have a blow-out and in a fit of disappointment never return to review the budget.
But like the horse that bucks, budgets that bust have to be conquered.
This workshop is a great how-to guide. Check it out at www.wire.org.au
