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 »

A Black Friday Deal you WON’T believe!

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Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving! I hope your day is filled with family and board games along with tons of turkey and stuffing (I love stuffing). I should be entering receipts into YNAB right now. I usually check our bank account for my wife’s deposits at the same time but when I signed on to online banking I saw this: They are using the holidays as an excuse to sell you money Look, I understand if you don’t have enough money to purchase all the Christmas gifts you’d like to. Maybe you will borrow money to buy gifts this year, I’m […] Read more »

What Your Credit Score REALLY Means

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I’m currently enrolled in a credit monitoring service, getting periodic updates about inquiries into my credit, and small changes up or down in my FICO score.   When we charged something on our American Express, I was notified of a balance change. When we applied for a consolidation loan, I was notified of the inquiry and of a slight decrease in my score. Everything made sense, until I read a notification that landed in my inbox last week. My FICO score had increased by 24 points, and I couldn’t believe the reason why. A few weeks ago, my wife was in […] Read more »

Hindsight is 20 dollars: An Andrew Jackson can save you 2 hours or more on home improvement

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A termite infestation was discovered during our last insect treatment. Our “guy”, Bugs by Brian, sprays on a quarterly basis and always does a great job keeping spiders and other bugs from getting into our home. What we didn’t know was that large pieces of wood separating the sloped yard from our flowerbed and patio was home to some wood-eating critters. Not wanting to spend any money on the project, I decided to take care of them myself. This was a big project but I already knew what had to be done – I had replaced some of the 6’ […] Read more »

Save Money, and Your Credit Using FICO Score Watch

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Please note that a commercial relationship exists between our site and FICO® that could include FICO providing us with product and other forms of payment. The views of the author(s) herein do not necessarily reflect the views of FICO. FICO is not a credit repair organization as defined under federal or state law, including the Credit Repair Organizations Act, and does not provide “credit repair” services or advice or assistance regarding “rebuilding” or “improving” credit records, credit history or credit ratings. I logged into the myFICO website, and within a few clicks I was staring at my current financial state […] Read more »

Keep Workin’ Your Moneyplan Like Biz Markie

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This weekend I had a connecting flight in Baltimore. On the way to my gate I saw Biz Markie getting ready to board a flight to New Orleans. I checked his Twitter feed and found he would be performing in Baton Rouge that night. If you don’t know who Biz Markie is then just search YouTube for “Just A Friend”. Yeah, now you remember. What amazes me is that he hasn’t changed a bit. I would know, I saw him perform live at the Rosemont Theater back in the late 1980’s. How does a rapper who hasn’t released an album […] Read more »

Are You As Financially Savvy As A 7th Grader?

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My daughter and I always have a good time together. We have similar personalities, interests and senses of humor. She was aware of our situation as we fought to pay off over $109,000 of credit card debt, and even shared her perspective on our journey in a guest post here on Enemy of Debt. She apparently also paid close attention to how our view on money and what is important in life changed over the last few years have changed. I found this out through a conversation we had last weekend. We had gone to the mall to buy a […] Read more »

If You’re Going To Succeed, You Have To Have a Plan!

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One of the major components of marathon training is the long run. Once a week, I run much longer than any other day, gradually increasing the length of my run until I reach a distance of 20 miles.   I usually increase my long run by a mile a week. As I pass the 9-10 mile distance I start adding fluids and carbohydrate intake during my run. The weeks where I ran 12, 13 and 14 miles my long runs went horribly.  I didn’t have the physical energy, nor the mental motivation to keep going. In last week’s post I contemplated […] Read more »

Don’t Cheat Yourself By Living a Life of Half-Assity

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I was painfully making my way through a 14 mile run early on a Saturday morning. I was at mile 10, and struggling to find the energy or even the desire to pick up my feet and keep running. “If only I weighed less, this wouldn’t be so hard,” I thought to myself. Last October, when I crossed the finish line of the Twin Cities 10 mile race, I instantly decided I was going to run the full marathon in 2014. I had a full year to get lean, train hard, and run my best marathon ever. Yet here we […] Read more »

Millennials should skip the 401(k) and go ROTH all the way

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When I was a young adult there were only two options to prepare for retirement: Pensions and 401(k)s. Well, there was also Social Security – but we won’t go there! The investing landscape has changed dramatically. The government has created other venues for tax favored accounts – and all of them are better than doing nothing. Everyone’s situation is different. I’m not a Financial Advisor so you need to seek the advice of a trained professional but I do think Millennials have the best opportunities to become investors and get complete control over their financial destinies if they skip the […] Read more »

Pay the mortgage or credit cards first? Which do you let be late?

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Let me start off by saying: I hope you never find yourself in this difficult situation! Life gets really stressful when money is tight. People get sick, layoffs happen, and the household income drops due to unforeseen circumstances. When you find yourself short on cash, which do you let be late: The mortgage or credit cards? According to TransUnion, one of the major credit reporting agencies, more Americans choose to pay their credit card bills to keep from being late than keep a mortgage current. Is this wise? Let’s walk through a few scenarios to expose the pros and cons […] Read more »

No Effort, No Results

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A little over a year ago my mom had major back surgery.  Over the years her spine had become so twisted that it was squishing her internal organs in a way that was extremely uncomfortable, and would only get worse.  Titanium rods were attached to her spine using large screws in hopes that it would force her spine to be straightened, improve her posture, and resolve some breathing and pain issues she had been dealing with for years.  She is in her mid to late 60’s and the doctors advised that if she was going to have surgery the time […] Read more »

How Much Does It Cost Businesses To Allow Credit and Debit Card Payments?

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Imagine going through a fast food drive through, and seeing a sign stating that you will be charged a service fee for each order. If that wasn’t odd enough, the sign goes on to say that your $0.39 will be refunded if you pay with credit card, cash, or gift card. That’s exactly what a long time EOD reader reported to me via email recently, and after some internet searching I found that a company that owns 20 Taco Bell and KFC restaurants across the Midwest has indeed implemented this policy. If you were reading carefully, you should have come […] Read more »

The Big Wins You Should Go After

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The following is a guest post from Martin of Studenomics, where he’s totally focused on creating financial freedom by 30! I’ve been writing about personal finance for five years now. I’ve explored every topic from big wins to frugality to real estate. There are times where I discuss more advanced topics. Then sometimes I run into a friend and they want to hear about getting started. I know that most of you are past the stage of getting started so we won’t discuss the basics. Instead we will refresh on the big wins. The one thing that we’re all delusional […] Read more »