I was looking at my finances today and I must say, considering the factors of my life, I think I am doing a pretty good job managing my money. But since I had to qualify that, I must admit, I don’t feel that great about my finances. I live a pretty frugal lifestyle, as I mentioned in my car decision post, I have had the same car for 10 years and have no plans to buy a new one. Clothes, I spent some money on my work wardrobe this month but in actuality I haven’t bought any new clothes since last year about this time. On the entertainment side, cable TV, books and eating out dominate but in fact I have cut back on these things lower my cable plan, returning my DVR and completely changed the way I eat at home. One month into my plan to stop eating out, I have saved about $160. Not bad!

So why am I feeling down? The problem is even though I am living frugally, education is eating up all the money I am saving. Between me and my girlfriend, it seems as if every month we pay the school more and more. My investment accounts haven’t helped my money problem. I had some foresight and some luck in selling most of my individual stock investments between February and June of 2008. I am not bragging but things could have been a lot worse. Now about 70% of my investments are in cash and 30% is still invested. That 30% is still hurting me when it falls though. Today the market was down about 2.5% alone. It gets tough looking at my statements, even if I consider myself somewhat knowledge about finances and feel overall pretty good about my investments.

So what to do when my Money has me down? First I must stop looking at my finances so much. I probably look at my finances a couple times week! Healthy monitoring is a good thing but I know what I’m doing is a problem. Making sure that I am not overcharged or that transactions are being charged properly is critically important. If I allow businesses to charge whatever they want, they will try to get away with everything they can. However, knowing that things are tight right now and that this situation isn’t going to change for a while, constant monitoring will just depress me. I think I am going to check my finances once a week every Friday for about 10 minutes and that’s it. Hopefully the Friday effect will positively influence the lack of money effect.

Secondly, I must appreciate what I do have. I know I sound cheesy but bear with me. I have a job in this economy when there is 10% unemployment, I should be way more thankful. It’s easy to get complacent, want more money or at least take your job for granted and I am doing all of these things. One of my good friends, who was out of a job for a couple months told me that the psychological effects of not having a job are more depressing than actually not having money (thankfully he has a new job now). At least I don’t have to worry about this! Another fact that I should be more appreciative about is that I am going to get a post graduate degree. Some people do not have the opportunity to get a bachelor’s degree and even though it’s expensive, I should be proud I am getting a graduate degree. I should feel thankful about not going into retirement right now. I truly sympathize with people all planning to retire and now having to change their plans. There is a saying I heard a commencement speech that goes “What makes God laugh? A: People Making Plans!” Unfortunately this couldn’t be more true. I have the benefit of having plenty of years to invest and hopefully I will make some money in the market. Most importantly, I should appreciate my family more. I have a great family, my mom and dad will always support me in my endeavors. My girlfriend is so wonderful and couldn’t ask for anything more. My dogs are so loyal and fun; nothing is better than a Saturday afternoon playing with them. I got a lot of things going for me and I should really stop focusing on money.

Finally,I need to give back. I do a horrible job as a humanitarian. Sure I donate stuff to charity but that’s just getting rid of junk first then helping people second. I would love to volunteer but honestly I have no time to do so. Since I am complaining about money, it is odd that I would even think about giving money but I think that is what I should do (hear me out). With the withdrawing of US troops from Iraq, veterans find themselves in a tough spot. They are coming back home from a war zone only to find that they themselves are having financial troubles and jobs that are not as available as they used to be. I don’t know what charity I want to give to or how much but I think I am going to start to give back some amount to a charity that helps struggling military get back on their feet. As an American I should do more. If anyone knows about any charity they like, please feel free to leave a comment or email me. One thing I take for granted is what a great country I live in, sure it has its problems but here you can do anything. Frugality is not a good reason to not give back and help out where I can.