Snowed in and lemming a new bag

There's about a foot of snow outside my house right now and I'm passing time by flipping through magazines. I'm loving the new Dior Gaucho bag, but I seriously question how often I'll actually get to use it. The sensible side of me says that there are much better ways to spend $1400 (or better yet, save it), but the inner fashionista is telling me how cute I'd look with it. I've been watchful of our household finances these days and was able to purchase an investment property and pay off my car loan (a year early, yay!) This of course, now leaves me cash-strapped and I'll need a good recovery through a shopping ban.

As I'm writing this, a gorgeous new Chanel bag is sitting in a box waiting for my decision on whether or not to keep it (so much for the ban!). It's that new kelly style quilted bag with a single handle across the top. I loved it after seeing Nicky Hilton carry it in a few celeb photos, and immediately ordered it. My husband saw it and thinks it's ugly and said it looks like a old-lady bag. Decisions, decisions...

I'm also catching up on my TiVo'd shows. Last week was hellish at work with me putting in 12 hours+ per day. I love all the financial shows and I'm currently watching The Wall Street Journal report with Maria Bartiromo. Her guest was Liz Perle, author of a new book titled, "Money, a Memoire". I totally agree that we women often don't take control of our own financial future, and these are professional, intelligent women! This author had her husband "take care" of all the finances and found herself in a jam when they divorced (all the assets were in his name only). Some stats I gathered from the show:

- 85% of men said they knew what they were worth. Similar number of women said they were not sure. The experts on the show said that men are competitive and view their net worth as a "scoreboard" of success. Women on the other hand, relate money to emotions and although love making money and decisions on how to spend it, lose sight of the bigger picture.
- 40% of women admit to lying to their partners about what something costs. LOL, I've definitely been in this category before. Not huge discrepencies, but say $200 for something that was really $260. My husband caught on pretty quick and I realized that it was totally unnecessary to fib about these things.

To jump start your financial future, here are my top picks on which books to read:
- The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke - Suze Orman. I learned so much from this book about credit scores and the basics of saving/investments. If I only had it when I was in college...
- Smart Women Finish Rich - David Bach. I read Smart Couples Finish Rich, but it's essentially the same message, Bach coined the term "Latte Factor", which is how all the little seemingly inconsequential spending can add up to big bucks.
- Save Karyn - Karyn Bosnak. This woman spent and spent and spent, living large in NYC and was $20,000 in credit card debt. She came up with an idea to ask people for help and through a combined effort of people sending her money and a lesson in frugality, was able to turn it around. I originally saw her story on TV 2 years ago and thought it was disgusting to ask random strangers for help paying off her gucci purses and such. But kudos to her for coming up with the clever idea and hey, she didn't force people to help.

Knowing your financial situation is a very empowering thing. I love making investment decisions and watching our money grow. I know I could do more if I really curbed the shopping, but hey, live within your means (this means not going into debt shopping!) and life's too short to give up on what makes you happy!