Easy Change

It has been a long time coming and I would be lying if I said that I hadn't really been looking forward to it. After about two years of payments, finally enough money being in the emergency fund, there was enough to pay off the car. And that, about 26 months early! The best part was the phone call from Toyota. The service rep asked if there was any interest in buying a new car. Of course, they would offer a discount of 1% on any financing needed. I just think that there is a tremendous amount of pressure both from the company and from the society in general to stay in debt. I wasn't that surprised, but everyone loves to have someone in some sort of hock to them. And this, is the real crux of a personal issue I am struggling with. Dave Ramsey is so strongly against debt, it makes me wonder if there are some cases where it makes sense. Regardless of your feelings on this issue, it undoubtedly is better to not have any debt. And this month is the first month that there will be no

So, recently I went on the trip of a lifetime. I say that with a straight face because I truly think that I will never return to that part of the world in this lifetime for that kind of trip. The trip was to Monaco, Greece, Turkey, Italy and Cyprus. Originally it was to include Egypt and Israel but due to unrest in that part of the world, those destinations fell through. Since this is a money blog, I will say that this trip was quite expensive for us; there were four of us that went total, all friends from back in my college days. This trip last two full weeks and the cost I am including includes meals and tours and activities for each day. Most of the days were aboard a cruise where the food and lodging were provided as part of the cost. All told, this trip cost more than 5000 per person, USD. I am not saying that to brag, but merely to indicate the amount of difficulty for that kind of trip. Put simply, that was a serious percentage yearly earnings -- far more than I have ever spent