What We Learned About Finances Will Help us Lose Weight

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I’m not doing very well with my weight loss goal. As of last Friday, after over three months of effort I’ve lost a total of 1.1 pounds. I know the problem is that I struggle with eating too much. With the start of a new year, Vonnie also has made a commitment to be more healthy. We investigated several weight loss programs including Weight Watchers, which we have been a part of in the past and were very successful. We were literally putting our coats and shoes on to drive to a nearby center and enroll again when something stopped […] Read more »

I Don’t Want To Pay Off My Debt Anymore!

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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 »

How to pay $2,048 in debt before Thanksgiving by doubling-down

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Would you be interested in knowing how to pay off $2,048 in debt? We all know having a budget is important, but budgeting doesn’t work unless you do. That is why motivation, encouragement, and a vision to succeed is required when putting on the uniform as an Enemy Of Debt. Follow these three ideas to pay $2,048 in debt before carving your next Thanksgiving turkey.   The power of a post-it note Write your most urgent goal on a post-it note and stick it to your bathroom mirror. It doesn’t have to be prolific and it doesn’t have to be […] Read more »

My New Decade Resolution: Paying Off My Mortgage Early

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As another year comes to a close, people will reflect upon their successes and failures of the past year. They will also look forward to 2014 and set goals for what they hope to accomplish in the new year. Having turned 40 over the weekend, I’m taking a bigger picture approach. I started reflecting on my life in terms of decades. I spent my entire twenties and half of my thirties being financially irresponsible racking up $109,000 of credit card debt. The second half of my thirties was spent recovering, paying off that debt through the help of a debt […] Read more »

Why Cash Only Weekend Spending ROCKS!

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Hearing colorful language coming from our home office, my wife stormed in to find out what was going on. I was reconciling our checking account, and even though it had only been a few days since I had last done it, I couldn’t make the numbers come out right. Between Christmas shopping, and being out of town for extended family gatherings quite a few transactions had posted, and I was obviously making a mistake somewhere. The arithmetic error was quickly found and fixed, but in the process I found something that could not be corrected as easily. We had spent […] Read more »

Debt Free For the Holidays

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Today’s post is a guest post from Jefferson, who writes for the family finance site, See Debt Run. The site began as a place to chronicle a family’s journey out of debt, but has evolved into a place to discuss a whole spectrum of topics around family finance. They discuss everything from saving money on groceries, to how to teach your kids about money, to even how to find out if your co-workers are making more money than you. Last year at this time, my wife and I didn’t get each other anything for Christmas. We didn’t have to. We were […] Read more »

I Slept In On Black Friday…..and STILL Got a Door Buster Deal

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My daughter caught a case of jealousy when her brother purchased his own computer after saving up for the better part of the year. Tired of butting heads with my wife for the use of a computer that contains her SIMS computer game, she decided she wanted her own computer as well. When we started talking about how much one that would serve her needs would cost, and how long it would take her to save up for it, there were tears. A lot of tears. When you’re eleven years old, eight months is an eternity. Daddy heart melt of […] Read more »

Are You Perfect?

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Like most stereotypical males, I enjoy movies with lots of action and explosions. But I also really enjoy movies that inspire, and cause me to reflect upon the things going on within my own life. I got pulled into just such a movie one night last weekend. It’s one of my all time favorites, and I stayed up way too late to watch the ending. The movie is Friday Night Lights. Note: Before you non-football fans roll your eyes and click away, be patient for just a moment, this post has only a passing reference to football. My favorite part, […] Read more »

Credit Card Companies Think You’re Stupid

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Over the weekend I saw a credit card commercial that had me shaking my head. In the commercial, two woman are having lunch at an outdoor restaurant when one woman suggests the others’ friends are simply inviting her to events so they can pay with their credit card and earn credit card rewards points. When the bill comes, woman #1 whips out her credit card and offers to pay. The commercial ends with the two staring at each other, one wondering if she is being used, the other hoping her friend won’t figure it out. Seriously, do credit card companies […] Read more »

Warning: The Long Term Effects of Debt Will SHOCK You

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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 »

How Does It Feel to Pay Off $100,000 of Debt?

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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 »

What the Check Engine Light Taught Me about Myself, My Finances, and My Relationship With My Wife

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“I’m not happy with you, by the way,” Vonnie stated in a matter of fact tone. “You can’t keep things from me like that. You know that.” Driving north through Iowa on our way home from St. Louis, the check engine light remained illuminated on the dashboard of our rental car, reminding me of my mistake. It started a few days earlier during our 4 day trip to St. Louis when we had asked the valet at our hotel to retrieve our rental car so we could get some paperwork out of the car. I sat down in the drivers […] Read more »

Will You Accept the Challenge?

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  I am not the first person to point out the many parallels between financial and fitness goals. The mental and emotional tools we use to motivate ourselves to eat healthfully and workout are pretty much the same tools we use to save more money and make better purchasing decisions. Both require extensive discipline. Both require the ability to say “no” to short term temptations in order to live better in the long term. So I had a thought.  When I find myself lagging with my financial goals, why not jumpstart my healthy financial habits in much the same way […] Read more »

Paying Off Debt With Gazelle Intensity Isn’t Enough

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I’ve seen it happen to friends and family. It’s even happened to me. A person loses a large amount of weight very quickly through the use of a very restrictive diet. Unfortunately, as time passes the weight begins to return because the restrictive diet is abandoned. The question commonly asked is why would a person who had so much weight loss success just give up and go back to their old habits, reversing all their progress? To me, the answer is simple: being on a restrictive diet is not real life. Such a program teaches people one thing, to unconditionally […] Read more »