It Takes Two To Make a Budget Succeed

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Couples argue. Vonnie and I are no different. After a week vacation in Kentucky and the following weekend out of town for my class reunion, we needed to do a serious budget scrub. I knew we had exceeded our original budget for both activities, and I began to outline just how much. I  hadn’t done a good job of keeping track of, or communicating to my wife during that two week period as to when the over spending had occurred, and by how much. I just kept thinking to myself, we don’t have anything planned the second half of the […] Read more »

What My Friends and Family Don’t Know….Only Hurts Me

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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 »

2012 Meets the 1950’s

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Today’s stage is set for the I Love Lucy show. A devoted wife and mother Lucy didn’t work but depended on Ricky, her star performer husband to bring home the bacon. Lucy longed for the chance to be a star and if she were here today maybe even a credit card. The sad truth is that she wouldn’t be able to get one. Why? Well because of the Credit CARD Act of 2009. The act which was meant to protect people has put stay at home mom’s at arm’s length from applying for credit. In an effort to help students […] Read more »

The Waiting Game: Saving Money Vs Paying Top Dollar

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I love reading and my favorite genre is fantasy. I’ve enjoyed George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones books and am looking forward to seeing the books in their video incarnation produced by HBO. Since I do not have cable, or HBO, my options are to either purchase the first season on DVD/Blueray or pay $2.99 per episode on Amazon Instant Video. From a financial perspective, this small purchase contains a useful lesson on spending. The retail price for the DVD is $59.99. Several stores have it in stock at the retail price and you can watch it as soon as […] Read more »

Do You Trust Me?

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“Unless Vonnie wants to go along to the mall with me…” our friend’s voice trailed off. Sure, I’ll go. I can look for a spring coat for Tori,” said my wife. A new spring coat for our daughter was in the budget, as previously discussed while planning our spending for that weekend. The coat was actually the final expenditure for the weekend as it drew to a close that Sunday afternoon. In a whirlwind of activity, I got ready to go to the gym, Vonnie and her friend put on shoes, grabbed their purses and headed out door with my […] Read more »

The Lost Subject: Personal Finance

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Were you taught about money and personal finance when you were in school? I wasn’t. Even today personal finance is not taught in most schools or considered a curriculum requirement for college students. How do we expect today’s youth to stop the vicious cycle of debt if we don’t teach them how? The latest report from the Federal Reserve shows that consumers are still using their credit cards in a big way; revolving credit, which is made up primarily of credit card debt rose to $801.0 billion. It’s obvious the cycle continues as millions of Americans rack up debt and […] Read more »

Being Debt Free is NOT the Goal

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I recently registered for the Twin Cities marathon, which will be held in October of this year. It will be my third marathon, so I’ve been through the training before. However, as a refresher, I dusted off a marathon training book I had purchased several years ago and began reading. The first chapter is quite inspirational. It reflects upon the time and effort it takes to train for a marathon. By the time race day arrives, months of work have been put in, and hundreds of miles have been logged in preparation of the big event. The thing that stands […] Read more »

An Open Letter to My Debt

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Dear Debt, I’ve waited 5 years to say these words to you—good riddance. I know you’re thinking that this is some sort of joke and I’m really about to burst into a Green Day song, but I assure you I’m not. I’m legitimately, once and for all, saying good riddance. You have caused me enough grief, frustration and sadness for two lifetimes. And I couldn’t be happier that you’re gone. We started out as friends. You were a constant presence in my life. It was comforting to have you because it was a reminder of the good times we had. […] Read more »

An Uncomfortable Conversation

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With me sitting on the edge of our bathtub, and my wife brushing her teeth as she prepared for bed we began a very serious budget discussion. We were on day three of a week long visit from our Kentucky friends and were burning through our discretionary funds at an alarming rate. We needed to reign in our spending, and ensure we kept ourselves on budget, or we were going to run out of money fast. The next day the four of us were planning on going shopping for the supplies needed for Thanksgiving Dinner. As a group, we had […] Read more »

The Most Important Money Advice You Will Ever Receive

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You do not need to buy a bunch of books from Dave Ramsey, Suze Orman or David Bach to get this kind of advice. You don’t have to go to week long seminars to learn this powerful tool either. You don’t even have to leave your home. Look no further than this blog post and you will get the most valuable money advice you could ever need. The power of this strategy is amazing! It will teach your children a valuable lesson. It will save you thousands of dollars. It will help your marriage. It will even allow you to […] Read more »

Should you “Occupy Wall Street”?

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You may be aware of a growing social protest movement that began on Wall Street a few weeks ago. According to their website: “Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.” And now this protest is metastasizing and spreading to 25 […] Read more »

Eliminating Debt is Like Fixing a Car – Persistence Pays Off!

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I hate cars. Let me be more specific: I hate the fact that I know very little about cars. So little in fact that someone could completely make something up, I’d believe it was a real problem, and pay through the nose to fix it.  So, when the check engine light began to blink on and off in my car while it felt like it was about to stall, I knew that I was the one that was in for a ride. I wrote a previous post in the CareOne community about the problems we’ve been having with the car, […] Read more »

Why do so Many Americans Rely on Social Security?

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As I checked up on Twitter Thursday morning I noticed that “social security” was a trending topic. Very rarely do you see a trending topic that has any real life value, so it was for this reason I decided to see what all the fuss was about. You don’t have to be Democrat or Republican to know that Social Security is bankrupt. This is a non-partisan issue, or at least it should be. Some seem to believe that reform is not only needed but necessary, while others think it should just be left alone. Regardless of which side you tend […] Read more »

Financial Lessons for the Kid in All of Us

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While gathering my things after a workout in the locker room of my health club, I noticed a little boy about 3 years old wanting to go look at the scale. Each time he wandered towards the scale, his dad would grab the boy and guide him back to the locker area. The man instructed the boy to stay by him as he finished getting dressed after swimming. The boy would stand near his father for a few seconds, then start walking back towards the scale. The father would again grab him, indicating that the boy could see the scale when he was done getting dressed. This repeated itself several times, each time the boy becoming more insistent that he wanted to see the scale, each time his dad becoming more firm that he stay next to him. Read more »