Need Help Budgeting Your Money? Read On

We’ve all encountered money problems. Nobody knows that better than Hayden Lake, Idaho, personal financial counselor Phil Colozzi.

But as Colozzi points out in his self-published book “Budget My Money? Are You Nuts?” (PMC Enterprise, 118 pages, $20 paper), “Budgeting doesn’t have to be complicated or confusing.”

Or particularly hard to pull off. “The magic word here is `PLAN,”’ Colozzi wrote. “Most people take more time planning their vacation or what color car they want or their weekly meals than they do managing their money.”

If that weren’t forthright enough, Colozzi offers a bit of his own story.

“I’m not a self-made millionaire trying to sell you on a get-rich-quick scheme,” the 59-year-old self-publisher wrote. “I’m not a college grad with a degree in business or finances. I’m just an average, middle-aged man who, along with his wife Mary, raised three children and now has six grandchildren.”

Interested enough to read more? “Budget My Money? Are You Nuts?” is available at Auntie’s Bookstore, all area Hastings outlets and at the Coeur d’Alene Book & Game at the Silver Lake Mall.

For further information, call Colozzi at (208) 772-2059.

If you do purchase a copy of Colozzi’s book, know this: He compiled the information from the people he has worked with over the years.

“I decided to write it seven or eight years ago when I first started working with low-income people and found out that they had no concept of budgeting and finances,” he says. “They knew nothing.”

They aren’t alone. Many of Colozzi’s clients make in the neighborhood of $100,000 a year, and yet, he says, “They still don’t have a thing. Their debt-to-income ratio is way the hell off.”

A member of the Spokane Authors and Self-Publishers group “almost from the beginning,” Colozzi - a 10-year Idaho resident by way of South Philadelphia - got lots of information both from other members and various speakers that the group brought in monthly.

But even while ready to print a second edition, he’s not above listening to a decent offer.

“I’m trying to do my own thing,” he says. “But if a publisher should come up to me and offer to take the book on, I’d have to seriously consider that.”

Calling all elders

Writing, reading and remembering are the themes explored in the various literary-minded courses offered to senior citizens this fall by the Institute for Extended Learning.

Virginia White will teach four sessions of her popular writers’ workshop, lead two book-discussion groups and moderate a seminar titled “Senior Authors: On Their Books and Publishing.”

In addition, Kate Fewel will offer a course titled “Life Writing.”

All classes are regular IEL offerings and will be held on weekdays beginning in September in various area senior centers. For registration information, call 533-3393.

Awards news, the sequel

In last week’s note about the 1999 Governor’s Writers Awards winners, I neglected to mention who was on this year’s jury committees.

Christopher Howell, a poet and director of the Eastern Washington University Press, was one of two jury members from east of the Cascades. The other was Ellensburg’s Karen Blair.

West-Side jurists included Rebecca Christie and Jane Laclergue from Olympia and Ken Mochizuki from Seattle.

Another Spokane-area resident, Arthur H. Clark publisher Robert Clark, was one of two jurists who decided the Nancy Blakenship Pryor Award. Clark was joined by Nancy Rawles of Seattle.

Calling all writers

Interested in creative writing? Barnes & Noble, which is located just east of the Spokane Valley Mall, is sponsoring a meeting for all writer wannabes at 7 p.m. Thursday to gauge interest in a writer’s group. For further information, call 922-4104.

Book club

The August selection of the Barnes & Noble non-fiction book-discussion club is “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt” by Edmund Morris. The group will meet Friday at 7 p.m. at the store.

What’s your signing?

Charlene Costanzo, author of “The Twelve Gifts of Birth,” will sign copies of her book at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Barnes & Noble.

The reader board

John Keeble, Eastern Washington University creative writing professor and author of “Out of the Channel: The Exxon Valdez Oil Disaster in Prince William Sound,” will read from the updated version of his book at 7 p.m. Friday at Barnes & Noble.

Mystery writer J.A. Jance, author of hardback novels “Outlaw Mountain” and “Breach of Duty,” and the paperback mystery “Rattlesnake Canyon,” will read from her books at 7 p.m. Thursday at Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington. For further information, call 838-0206. On Friday beginning at noon, Jance will sign copies of her novels at the Lincoln Heights Hastings, 2805 29th. For further information, call 535-4029.

Ivan Doig, author of “Mountain Time,” will read from his novel at 7 p.m. Saturday at Auntie’s Bookstore.