Motivational Money Management
The street corner marked the end of my eight mile run, and upon reaching it I peeled off my tank top. It was soaking wet from being in the rain for just over an hour, and I rang it out as I walked the final block to my drive way. I opened my front door to see my wife looking at me with eyes wide open and a smile on her face. “I look out the window and see this beast walking up the driveway without a shirt on!” She went on to explain that it wasn’t just the fact […] Read more »
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 »
I’ve never identified with the concept of gazelle intensity. My interpretation of it has always been one of extreme frugality, living with no frills for an extended period of time in order to throw as much money as possible towards debt and/or retirement. It always seemed to me that kind of perspective would have people essentially get zero enjoyment out of life while they pay off debt, or save for retirement. I always thought there had to be some kind of balance. I never understood why someone would purposefully and completely deprive themselves of everything. But over the weekend, […] Read more »
Today’s post is courtesy of John Schmoll, who is the founder of Frugal Rules, a blog created to help people experience financial freedom through frugality. John is passionate about budgeting, saving and investing and enjoys sharing his knowledge and experience with others so they can avoid making some of the mistakes that he made. A veteran of the financial services industry, John has an MBA in Finance and experience as a licensed stockbroker. Now that I’ve got your attention, let me tell you that I’m not thinking of giving up on paying off my debt. 🙂 Instead, I’m expressing the […] Read more »
Before we enrolled in our debt management plan, many of our credit cards had very high interest rates, some as high as 29.99%. We were making very little progress on the actual balance of our accounts, our payments going mostly to line the pockets of the credit card companies. I know I’ve paid an insane amount of interest to creditors because of our overspending. With the finish line of our debt management plan in sight, I wondered how different my financial picture would look if I had invested that money instead. What I discovered SHOCKED me. Ground Rules First let’s […] Read more »
Last Thursday we made the October payment to our debt management plan. After hanging up the phone, I leaned back in the chair to let the gravity of the payment sink in. To be honest with you, my bottom lip trembled a little bit as tears started to form in the corners of my closed eyelids. With our 52nd payment, the amount of debt that we have repaid through our debt management program has hit the mark of $100,000. Sitting in a conference room at work with the door closed, I couldn’t quite figure out the exact reason behind my […] Read more »
I walked by a chiropractor’s office a few weeks ago where a sign hung in the window that read, “Pain is Not a Lifestyle.” The meaning of the sign was obviously referring to physical pain. There is no need to walk through life in pain when the people inside the office can relieve it for you. But as I read the sign over and over, a wave of emotion and memories flowed through my consciousness as to how my life used to be full of so much pain due to my finances. I remember all the things I had once […] Read more »
On Saturday Vonnie turned the big 4-0. Forty is the age where people question their place in life, reflect upon what they have or haven’t accomplished, and question their mortality. In other words, their 40th birthday can leave a person feeling old. I wanted to give my wife a day of fun that would make her feel special, and help ease her way into her fifth decade on planet earth. The night before her birthday I told Vonnie that she better get some rest because she was in for a very busy day. She started to ask questions, but I […] Read more »
“Are you making yourself old again?” I heard Tori’s friend say to her from behind me as we headed off to dance class. I had never heard the phrase before, but I immediately understood what she meant. She was referring to the scrunched look on Tori’s face which was a result of the unusually rough time that just occurred at home as I had to continuously poke and prod her to get dinner eaten, dressed, and out the door on time for class. The wrinkles on her face made her look old. But even more than just making her look […] Read more »
A windy day was in the forecast with gusts up to 40mph. I didn’t care, I was going for my run. The wind smacked me in the face almost immediately as I started off down the street. I tucked my head down, turned the volume up on my iPod, and cut through the wind for the first half of my run. Every step was a struggle, the end of each block a victory. I was grateful when I reached that familiar street corner that represented the half way point of my run. I smiled as I turned the corner, knowing […] Read more »
Peace. It’s a word that’s been stuck my head. It all started with a post I read last week in which the author described how budgeting brought peace to her marriage. The title stirred something inside me. A simple, but powerful word, that for some reason seemed to continuously pop into my mind over the weekend. Friday evening we were trying to decide what to do for dinner. None of the options left on our meal planning list sounded very good to the family. In a moment of frustration as my stomach growled, I suggested we go out to eat. […] Read more »
In life, it’s our experiences that shape who we are and how we handle adversity. Most lessons can be applied across the board and help us in ways we never expected. Today I wanted to highlight the similarities between training and running a marathon to the process of getting out of debt. As most of you know — Travis is a machine — and although he faced some challenges along the way while training for his 3rd marathon, on Sunday he completed it and reached his goal. Achieving debt freedom involves some of the same dedication, sacrifice, and intense focus […] Read more »
If you love sitcoms, you may be familiar with a show that aired during the 1990’s called Seinfeld. If so, surely you remember an episode that mocks the size and fatness of George Costanza’s wallet. He would put everything in his wallet including money, receipts, numbers, coupons and even candy. I was sitting in my office the other day and became painfully aware that my wallet had become just a little too thick. It was time to do one of those periodic cleansing of the wallet to purge those things that I don’t need to be sitting on for 10 […] Read more »
At mile 19 of the Twin Cities Marathon in 2003, I found my family, as well as my brother-in-law and his family cheering me on. Seeing their familiar faces provided me the instant mental “pick me up” that I so desperately needed to keep going. When you’re being challenged in life, having people there to support you can make all the difference. However, as I work to achieve the very difficult task of getting out of debt, I am missing the support of many of the important people in my day to day life. Because they have no idea what […] Read more »