Review: Kaiku Visa Prepaid Card

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My wife and I are back on a cash only spending plan, and it’s working out fabulously. It keeps our spending in check and within budget. Some of the comments on my recent posts on this subject have made a valid point, however. Dealing with only cash means there are times when I may be walking around with a significant amount of cash in my wallet, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that makes me a little nervous. One solution to this problem could be a prepaid debit card. Not just any debit card, but a Kaiku Visa […] Read more »

Know Your Warranty, Or Pay The Price

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I watched my wife cringe as she sat in the living room chair. She paused the television and told me to listen. She was irritated by the high pitched squeal emitted by our air conditioning unit each time it started up. I heard it, but it just seemed like background noise. It didn’t bother me in the least, but it was like nails on a chalkboard for her. It’s been making this noise for years. It squeals for a few minutes, and then it quits. We had someone come out to take a look at it a few years ago, […] Read more »

Tell The Joneses To Go To Hell, They’ll Respect You For It

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It’s taken me over 41 years of walking this earth, but I’m finally getting a grip on the person I want to be. It’s been building for awhile, but my perspective was reinforced at a gathering with friends over the weekend. It was our monthly gourmet club get together, which is basically a modified potluck. The host picks the theme and prepares the main course, and the rest of the guests bring an appetizer, side dish, or dessert that matches the theme. It’s a great group of friends, and we always have a lot of fun. It’s also an event […] Read more »

The One Reason For Eating Out That Is a Big Fat Lie

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I think we would all agree that dining out is more expensive than cooking at home. We all go out to eat from time to time, but did you notice that we always seem to attach some sort of excuse to it? Whether we’re celebrating, or we’re on vacation, or we’re just too busy to cook it seems like we have to justify to ourselves a trip to a restaurant. Sometimes there are some valid reasons, sometimes there isn’t a reason other than we just want to and that’s OK. But there’s one excuse that we tell ourselves over and […] Read more »

The Effect Of Debt….We’ve Come A LONG Way

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I know that my life is very different now that we’ve eliminated $109,000 in credit card debt. We have breathing room in our budget, we have the freedom to decide what we do with our money, and life is just over all less stressful. But every now and then, something happens that brings me back to the days when we were struggling and reminds me just how much better off we are without the weight of debt holding us down. My smoker is in need of some maintenance. The rope gasket I had installed on the cover of my smoker […] Read more »

Want Success? Make The Choice!

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There is a redemptive power that making a choice has. Rather than feeling like you are an affect to all the things that are happening Make a choice. You just decide what it’s going to be, who you’re going to be, how you going to do it. Just decide. -Will Smith (actor) This quote was stuck in my head all week, and it inspired me to view the world through a different perspective. I walked to the vending machine with every intention of buying a soda to go with my lunch. When I arrived at the bank of vending machines, […] Read more »

A Parent’s Job Is Never Done

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I heard an interesting comment at a wedding over the weekend regarding the current generation. An acquaintance was talking about how his brother was working with some recent college graduates, and how they work really hard on the job, but when they go home all they do is play video games. He described them as intelligent and hard working, but lacked the common skills of shoveling a driveway because all they did in their off time was play games. I laughed a little bit, shrugging it off as your typical older generation looking down on the younger generation sort of […] Read more »

Find Your Financial Forever Pace

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The fact that the weather app on my phone said the outside temperature was in the mid thirties was reinforced by the water dripping from the roof of my house. The sun was shining, the snow was melting, and I was stretching out for my first long run outside in months. Nine miles to be exact. The first few miles are always the hardest. Even though I thoroughly stretch out before I start, it always seems to take a few miles before everything gets loosened up. During my run on Saturday it took about 4 miles, at which point something […] Read more »

Save Money Effortlessly through Digit. Really? Yes REALLY.

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It’s time for me to come clean, and be completely honest with you; I have trouble saving. Almost exactly a year ago, my wife and I made our final payment to our debt management program paying off $109,000 of credit card debt. With that final payment we freed up $2489 in our monthly budget. Having that extra breathing room we immediately did some things to better our overall financial picture such as consolidate some other debts and refinance our mortgage. But even after those changes were complete we still had a sizable amount of extra funds in our monthly budget. […] Read more »

Change Your Perspective, Change Your Life

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I’m always the first one of our family to throw back the covers and climb out of bed on weekend mornings. My goal is always to get up, get to the gym, and get home before anyone else even thinks of getting up. One such Saturday morning I was composing a note to leave on the kitchen counter as I was preparing to head out to the gym. My wife likes to know what time I left so she knows approximately when to expect me back home. So, I ripped a piece of paper out of a notebook and wrote […] Read more »

Debt Is A Temporary Condition – How Long It Lasts is Up To You!

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Today’s post is my contribution to the #DebtIsNotForever movement started by Jackie Beck over at The Debt Myth. You can participate as well by taking a picture of your “Why” you want to get out of debt, or why you’re working to get out of debt right now and posting it to her Facebook page. Check out this link for more details – Jackie is also hosting a giveaway for all that participate in the movement, and publicly take a stand against debt. Will you stand with us? Pain is temporary. It may last for a minute, or an hour, […] Read more »

Budgets make me feel inadequate, but made me rich

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Last year I recorded a show about the 7 Common Denominators of the Wealthy. It was then I realized there were many commonalities related to having – and operating on – a household budget. With so many wealthy habits tied to being on a budget, why is it that most people don’t do one? It is because budgets makes us feel inadequate. It certainly has made me feel inadequate. Tell me if you’ve felt the same way before too. Budgeting makes me feel inadequate Think back to the last time you created a budget. How did that make you feel? […] Read more »

Defining Phenomenal

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Waking up in the morning and realizing you’ve reached the day on the calendar when you get to add one to your age tends to make a person think about what they have and have not yet accomplished in their life. Yesterday was that day for me. Combine that with the end of the year when many people think about what they want to change, or do better in the new year and the result is some serious thinking going on within my brain as I drift off into unconsciousness for the night. If I was being honest, I’ve been pondering […] Read more »

Motivational Monday: Three Steps To Achieve Your Financial Goals

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A few months ago, I caught a link to a motivational video filled with inspirational quotes. I still watch the video almost every morning as I prepare to take on the world for the day. It centers my thoughts on what I am going to do that particular day to help me make positive progress towards the goals I am trying to accomplish. After several weeks of listening to this video, I wanted to find out who the voices in the video were. With the help of Google, I was able to determine one of the people featured was a […] Read more »