Dear Prudence....

Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play?
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day.
The sun is up, the sky is blue,
It's beautiful and so are you.
Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play?

Dear Prudence, open up your eyes.
Dear Prudence, see the sunny skies.
The wind is low, the birds will sing,
That you are part of everything.
Dear Prudence, won't you open up your eyes?

Look around round
Look around round round
Look around

Dear Prudence, let me see your smile,
Dear Prudence, like a little child.
The clouds will be a daisy chain,
So let me see your smile again.
Dear Prudence, won't you let me see you smile?

Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play?
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day.
The sun is up, the sky is blue,
It's beautiful and so are you.
Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play?


I do love prudence. I don't want to be rich. I don't want for anything - only to have enough and that's always achievable by being prudent.

prudent adj. 1 (of a person or conduct) careful to avoid undesired consequences; circumspect. 2 discreet. prudence n. prudently adv. [ME f. OF prudent or L prudens = providens PROVIDENT]

I don't wish to sound like our new prime minister (*shudder*) because my kind of prudence is much more cheerful than his, for all his newly-practiced smiles. That might be because I only have my family's economy to think about, and he has the whole country's - but those kind of thoughts are for another blog.

My kind of prudence is based on trusting that we'll always have enough, because I think money is a form of energy, which is therefore as affected by positive and negative thoughts as any other. I've written extensively on this in a post about the Cosmic Supply Company, so I won't say it all again here. But on a day-to-day basis, I do keep a firm handle on our financial situation and I teach the children to do the same.

It's important to be able to take a snapshot view of the overall financial situation at any given time, which means asking:

• What's the balance, in cash and accounts?


• What funds are due to come in and when?


• What funds are due to be paid out and when?


• What funds are therefore available for spending?

And, most importantly:

• What do we want to spend them on?

The last question is where the fun comes in, because there's an element of choice and decision, which is empowering. Do we want to save up for our new wetroom? A holiday or long journey? New clothes? Art/craft stuff? Books? Or splurge it straight away on food? It's even fun to work out what kind of food we want to buy and eat. Sometimes all our spare cash goes on that, if we feel so inclined, and we eat quite expensively, by our standards. Other times we opt to spend money on something else and make food money stretch a long way. And we're very good at making food money stretch a long way, when we want to.

The thing is, it's much more enjoyable, in my view, to spend time relaxing as a family, idly discussing what we want to do with our spare cash, than it is drifting alone around the shops spending on impulse and credit, like a lot of people seem to do. We end up with things we really wanted and will make very good use of.

I know a lot of people don't enjoy having just enough, but I do. Maybe this is because I grew up in a family where there was slightly too much money (after my mother left my dad, who didn't really have sufficient). Stepdad was a chartered accountant, and piled up money in various accounts, bonds, shares and schemes, which he then lay awake most nights worrying about, like Smaug the dragon. I decided this wasn't for me. But Stepdad did teach me how to keep accounts, and the value of so doing.

A person who knows how much money they have available to spend and how they want to spend it is an economically healthy person, in a strong position of personal power. You can achieve this quite easily and quickly, no matter how dire your current situation and no matter how steep your debts. When you have achieved it, you're as well-off as anyone else, in my opinion, as long as you have some small amount to make a decision about, because it's the perception of choice that makes the difference - the amount to decide about is largely irrelevent.