The last time on this site, I wrote about the bookkeeping detective and have been quite amazed at the responses I have been having. I forwarded the article to some people I know and they all loved it. So now I am going to add a few more stories and I will then self publish it as an E-book and charge a small fee for it! I just think it will be another way of making accounting fun to learn!
As I am always looking at ways of using my accounting knowledge, I am just in the process of finishing a programme called “The Great Money Diet”. This is a way of teaching people how to manage their money as well as donating to charity, but also generating extra income for you. The idea is that an individual should start looking at their finances as a business, and making sure they are maximising their income, minimising their expenditure, decreasing thier liablities, decreasing thier bad debts, but increading their good debts!
The way the money diet works is this:
- You get an individual to sign up to go on the diet for at least a week – you decide how much to charge them. Initially I did not charge clients as I wanted to try the diet first to see how it works.
- The individual has to nominate a charity to donate some of the extra pounds they would have gained by being on the diet ( some may not want to do this)
- You then send the individual daily money management tips – I now have a bank of these, so I would just send automatic emails
- At the end of the diet, the individual can carry on with some more advice or stop the diet and recommend others to you.
How the money diet works in principle
Example of how the diet works in practice!
Step 1 (weekly budget)
The individual makes a list of everything they know they are going to spend for that week.
Step 2 (review the list)
The list is reviewed to find out if an item is definitely needed, I the item could be taken out or whether the cost can be reduced!
Step 3 – Recalculate the figures from step 2
Step 4 – How much have you gained?
This is the difference of the figure in Step 2 and 3
Step 5- The individual can then donate at least £5 to their chosen charity if they so wish!
I have 17 people signed on the next week’s course and they will pay £50 each! So feel free to try this or let me know what you think! You can also check my website for more details http://gennythetrainer.co.uk/Diet.aspx
Genny Jones is a Fellow member of the Association of Accounting Technicians. She has over 15 years experience of delivering training courses in manual/computerised accounting and payroll. She specialises in Sage Accounts, Sage Payroll, and Quick books Accounts and Payroll.