Easy Change

Being debt free is sexy. There. I said it. Nothing is more attractive than someone who has their financial house in order. It often indicates this person is self confident, has drive and motivation,and most importantly, knows how to execute. Who doesn't want to be with someone who knows how to execute? All that being said, what is the best thing that we can do in terms of reviewing the debt reduction strategy for Christmas. The first, and it bears repeating is that you should reduce spending on Christmas and avoid putting anything on credit cards. The next two ideas are more novel and could really help with your debt reduction. 1. When you are asked what you want for Christmas say you want some help paying off some debt. Give you friend/relative the address and account number of the bill and have him/her pay an amount equal to your gift. Some might think this is tacky or smells like a hand out but I disagree. This is admitting you need help and directing resources someone wants to ...

This weekend was pretty good, but there is definitely still some stuff that needs to be done. I have caught up on a bunch of things lately though so I feel pretty good. Due to a slight injury, I've stopped exercising for the next week or so. I'm hopeful that my body will heal and I will be able to resume afterward. We'll see. In other news, this weekend was a great opportunity to relax and take in some sun. I enjoyed sitting out with my plants and having coffee in the early morning. And a quick walk down the jetty where I live without treating myself to a lunch out was a healthy and frugal activity this weekend. I also was quite productive on the side in order to move some projects forward for side income which is a huge part of paying off debt at this point. Amazingly, this month's finances were all but wrapped up by the 15th of this month, so I am looking forward to getting the final pay of the month and 'closing out the books' lol. It marks the halfway point...

Fortunately, there was a little bit of extra income in my household this past month. This was largely because of the way paychecks fell etc but now here I am trying to figure out whether or not it makes sense to pull the trigger on a major lump sum payment on a credit card (this was transferred debt from a student loan). But now, here I am, stuck because some money has been eaten up (quite literally) in a hurry. 1. Dinners out 2. Unexpected medical expenses 3. Landscaping 4. Birthdays 5. Water bills Of course, some of this stuff was planned for and some of this stuff was actually handled via the normal buffer that is built into the budget. However, where I was quite eager to put a huge chunk down against some of this debt, these expenses, which total over 500 dollars make me somewhat more hesitant. If I decide to pull the trigger anyway, it is probably not that big of a deal. But I will end up using some of the savings to do this deal -- effectively loaning myself the money. And if I c...

I remember when I used to work at a job where I was paid bi-weekly instead of semi-monthly. For those of you who are not payroll nerds like I am, bi-weekly is when you are paid every other week. Semi-monthly means you are paid twice per month. People generally think of them the same way, but they aren't. The semi-monthly people are the ones who get the short end of the stick, in my opinion. If you are paid semi monthly, most often it is on the (1st and 15th) or the (15th and last day of the month). This means that you need to make your money last for that period of fifteen days and cover all of the bills for the next period with that paycheck. Personally, I've found that the best way to do this is using excel. Setup a spreadsheet in excel (or any other spreadsheet application) with a column for the title of your bill. The next column will be for the date your bill is due each month. The third column is how much the bill is for. Obviously, this is just an estimate since you are...

Or at least, I'd like to be able to! That's why I get upset when people post their net worth on NetWorthIQ.com. I am sitting here at home, diligently working on my finances or at work, updating by budgetting spreadsheet and then I find out that Kira2001 or CatLover44 or BurnThruCash has a net worth that dwarfs mine by about 400k. And that is annoying. I don't begrudge people their money or their net worth. Heck, my household net worth is doing well as of december, (up over 20k), which is a significant improvement over last month. But the fact of the matter is this: NetWorthIQ is misleading. It is a great site for people that really want to track their net worth over time, but the searches that return sparse amounts of what I think are slanted and inaccurate sets of data are annoying. When I put my info into the site, I want to compare myself with people who are using the site the same way I do: diligently each month. When I compare myself with people who are doing something...