I was driving the other day, and while waiting at the light, I saw a window placard on the car in front of me which read. “House cleaning services”. It was just another mobile advertisement for one of the local national chains. I began to think, “you know it’s tough keeping up the house these days, with tight schedules revolving around school, soccer, and various other activities. Who has time, to clean the toilet, dust off the shades, vacuum, clean the dishes etc., I sure could use some help around the house, right?

Whether it be daily, weekly, or at the very least monthly! Because between you and me, bottom line, it’s not getting done very well now! So it’s very practical, yes, even logical, to spend a few bucks to enlist the help of a professional to help tidy up a few things around the house on a regular basis. Just think, with that small monthly, reasonable expenditure taken care of, I can now add more or less to my daily “to do list” of activities. My quality of life could dramatically improve, less stress, guilt, back pain, etc… This makes perfect sense doesn’t it? But do I really want someone seeing my underwear on the floor! I can get over that, for some peace of mind! But can I afford it? I can probably make some adjustments here and there but where?

Right then, I came to the realization that not only did my house need some upkeep, but my financial house needed some foundation work as well! There were a few cracks that needed to be fixed. And we all know that a solid financial foundation must be in place in order to build a strong financial house on it. Now I find myself back to square one, who has time for finances! I would rather do housework for crying out loud! At least I can see the results of my hard work! Money just seems to disappear like my socks in the dryer! I need a vacation just thinking about all this!

You had to mention vacation didn’t you. Isn’t it funny how we spend hours, even in some cases days, weeks, months planning our much needed vacation. Yet, that one or two week time frame is just a millisecond in the grand spectrum of our entire lives. We all need to put more planning effort in our financial house, so we can take that permanent vacation (retirement)

It doesn’t matter how much dirty laundry we piled up, or how much we make now, or how much or little we have set aside for our future, the time to start planning is not tomorrow, but now. So how do you get started, how can this be accomplished?.

One way to start this financial house cleaning search is to obtain a “financial needs analysis,” this is the first step in the process of putting together a personal financial house cleaning strategy. Like a good house cleaning, we all could use a little help cleaning our financial house as well and it does not cost anything to have your house inspected and recommendations made.

Right then a horn blast woke me out of the temporary nirvana of house cleaning bliss, the light had changed and it was back to reality, back to the hustle and bustle, but I did manage to catch up to the car with the house cleaning placard, and jotted down their number. It’s also time to find the number of a good financial house cleaner as well.