7 Awesome Ways to Accelerate Your Savings and Build Wealth

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Seven Awesome Ways to Accelerate Savings and Build Wealth

Most Americans are saving very little money, if any at all.  I know my savings have been harder to come by in recent years. Over the last few years my income was cut almost in half due to several factors.  On top of that, we were also paying cash for my wife’s bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Things got pretty tight there for a while. Saving money was not an easy thing to do, but we did manage to save a little periodically even though we were under the gun financially. Now my income is now returning to a much more […] 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 »

Small Victories- Getting Out of Debt One Small Step At a Time

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small victories get out of debt one step at a time

Getting out of debt can seem like a daunting task.  When you finally decide to take the step of getting yourself out of debt, it’s easy to be intimidated by the huge goal you’ve presented for yourself. And when you realize what you’re up against, you’re ready to give up on getting out of debt before you even get started. So how do you overcome that overwhelming feeling when you want to achieve your goal, but you’re so intimidated by all the work you know it will take to get it done? You have to chill out, take a step […] Read more »

Bad Debt Collectors and What You Can Do About Them

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Dealing with bad debt is no fun. Dealing with a bad debt collector can be downright terrifying. When you have a bad debt that has gone to a collection agency it can be very easy to want to avoid the pain of the situation or even totally ignore it when you know you can’t possibly pay it.  That’s why some collectors of overdue debt will do everything they can to get your attention, even if it’s illegal. Most debt collection agencies are legit and strictly follow the rules set forth by the FTC  (Federal Trade Commission). However, there are plenty […] 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 »

7 Ways You Can Stay Motivated to Get Out of Debt

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7 ways to stay motivated to get out of debt resources

Over the years I’ve seen plenty of people get motivated to get out of debt, but they never end up following through with the process.  They are usually pretty fired up about getting out of debt and start out very motivated.  But not long after they start the process, their energy flags and it’s not long before they lose their motivation. I’ve seen a lot of other people make decent progress in paying down debt, but for whatever reason, they end up losing their focus and go back to their old habits, never finishing the get out of debt process.   How to […] Read more »

How to Get Ahead If You’re Living Paycheck to Paycheck (Part 2)

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get ahead living paycheck to paycheck

In the first article in the series, I covered eight things that might cause you to end up trapped in a paycheck to paycheck life. In this second post, I’m going to show you a few things you can do to get your finances under control, stop spending more than you make, and end the paycheck to paycheck cycle for good. If you read the last article, at this point you’ve probably figured out some of the top reasons why you’re struggling financially. Once you understand those reasons, I explained that it was important to get your mindset right and […] Read more »

The Power Of A Support System

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“Why does part of my brain keep wondering if I’m really going to be able to finish next week?” I asked my wife. At 8:00am on this coming Sunday the starting gun will fire, and I’ll begin a 26.2 mile run that is the Twin Cities Marathon. I’ve been training hard for the last 9 months, but a little piece of my consciousness seems to want to focus on how hard the last couple of long runs have been.   Then I think about how much further I have to run to complete the marathon and wonder if I’ll really be […] Read more »

How to Get Ahead if You’re Living Paycheck to Paycheck

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get ahead living paycheck to paycheck

Some recent studies showed that more than two thirds of people are living paycheck to paycheck at least some of the time. That’s pretty incredible! It seems to be getting harder and harder to keep your head above water financially, and there is no lack of reasons why that’s happening. Some of it is because our attitudes about money have changed over the years.  Some of it is also because of the changing economy, and some of it is probably due to the fact that the world is rapidly changing, and some are getting left behind because they refuse to […] Read more »

How to Talk Yourself Out of Debt By Creating a New Script

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How to Talk Yourself Out of Debt By Creating a New Script

Could it really be possible to talk yourself out of debt?  Can getting out of debt really be that easy? Actually, no, I don’t believe it is. Getting out of debt is not as easy as talking to yourself using the right words.  You have to take action as well. Even the bible says “In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty”- Proverbs 14:23   The Right Self Talk Helps But using the right kind of self talk can get you into the right mindset to change habits and get out of debt for good. […] Read more »

Five debt induced feelings that can ruin your relationship (and how to cope with them)

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Do the words you screamed at him/her still taste bitter on your tongue? Did he/she snap at you when you asked an innocent question? Well, chances are that if you recently had a serious argument with your ‘loved one’, this was because of either love or money. One of the most often cited reason for divorce is ‘fall out of love’. Statistics also tells us that money problems are mentioned in about half of the divorce cases in the developed world. You know, I believe that debt is a curse. When it comes to relationships, debt can be a killer […] Read more »

Don’t be sloppy with your money: make sure to get what is due to you

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sloppy with money

One thing I know well is debt. Small wonder this is: I lived with debt for quite a few years before we reached a crisis point and dealt with it once and for all. Debt, however, is just a symptom while the illness is in a number of behaviour patterns we acquire on the way. My illness was in: Refusing to talk about money; Refusing to check on my money; Convincing myself that I need stuff (I didn’t really); Not having a big, fat dream for my life; and Being sloppy about money. How can one be sloppy about money, […] Read more »

We’re Getting a Debt Consolidation Loan, and I’m OK With That

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Hot off the presses, EOD Nation, despite all you may have read, debt consolidation loans are not evil. Even after completing a debt management plan in which we paid off $109,000 of credit card debt, my wife and I knew we still had actions we had to take to really get our finances completely on the right path. One of those actions is paying off two additional lines of credit that could not be included in our debt management plan. Our goal was to consolidate these two lines of credit with a single consolidation loan. We applied for such a […] Read more »

Optimise your spending: eliminate waste in your life and budget

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optimise your budget

In my last post I told you about the ERR budgeting strategy I came up with to optimise our spending and make out money go further. Today I’ll share a bit more about the first element of it – eliminate. This is about eliminating waste and deciding what you absolutely want in your life. Let’s get back to the time when my husband told me about the enormous, obscene amount of consumer debt we had. Now, I’d love to tell you that I kept my cool and calmly went on following the commandments of personal finance. It was not to […] Read more »