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In a strange and surprising turn of events, I have somehow succumbed to the world of finance: a place I have diligently avoided like Roppongi on a Friday night.

I'm a slacker when it comes to finance. All my adult life my personal finances have been in a state of dire dereliction and I've been quite happy to let them stay that way. I have always paid bills late, and paid them reluctantly, and always lived a very hand to mouth existence, with no clue as to what I had, or what trouble I may have been getting into. But that's all changed. And how. I guess it's just finally time.

I mentioned a while back that I bought David Bachs book, Smart Women Finish Rich. I can't begin to tell you the impact that this book has had on my life. It is quite far-reaching and I owe this guy a lot. He has somehow successfully turned my financial world from a big mysterious black hole into something that I can clearly understand and am actively repairing and turning around. He's laid out great financial advice in an easy-to-understand way, and miraculously de-mystified/illuminated the (formerly) dark nether-realms of money.

I've been on the phone this week to all sorts of banks and super-annuation companies back in Australia trying to wrangle high-interest yield accounts and transfer to a low interest credit card (although, to be fair, the credit card WILL almost never be used again once it's paid off), investigating investment funds and just generally getting my head around what I do and don't have. That YNAB budgeting software I mentioned a while back has been awesome too.

It's all having some cool spin-off effects too. I don't know how long this'll all last, but other aspects of my life are being streamlined too. Work. Exercise (hell, I joined a gym a couple of weeks ago, and have a training program). Health. Time management. A general awareness/avoidance of wastefulness in everything, and a pretty healthy level of productiveness (erm... most of the time...)

For the first time in my life, I have set myself some real goals (financial and otherwise) and actually mapped a path to achieve them. They are not pie in the sky dreams, but substantive and realistic goals. It's exciting. I feel like someone has turned on the grown-up switch in my brain. Holy shit, it's exciting, and I'm doing it all on my own which is generating confidence and optimism. It's so cool, I just had to share it with you.

Now that I've started talking to people about all this, it's been really interesting to hear what other people have been doing with their money... I can't believe how many people out there seem to completely have their shit together with this stuff! Charlene and I were laughing about it, saying how come no-one ever told us what to do before?

I want to ask other people what they do with their money. Do you have a financial plan? What do you do with your money? What sage advice, worldly suggestions, similar stories or pithy quips can you offer? Please answer in the comment box below....