Easy Change

Well another major hurdle has been met for the personal finance journey to get out of debt. Amazingly, the car loan is now paid off and there is a significant improvement in the ability to have free cash flow each month as a result. Doing a debt snowball is extremely daunting, but now, nearly 2 years after my original start, I am starting to really really see the benefits. Other than the mortgage, there is only one loan left, and it is a student loan that gets paid at an accelerated schedule. What this means In reality, there is not much to doing this other than paying off bills early and aggressively, but in terms of the psychological benefits, it is just amazing. I feel more free than I have ever felt and along with the emergency fund, having additional free cash flow makes it quite easy to feel I could survive comfortably for a large number of months if I were to suffer any loss in income. Taking Rewards One important thing to realize when making these kinds of big progress mileston...

This evening, I decided I would log in and check on my current portfolio of prosper loans. Not long ago, I railed against prosper and now it appears that there is definitely something big going on over at prosper. The message from their website: start of message Prosper Filing Registration Statement; Enters Quiet Period Prosper has started a process to register, with the appropriate securities authorities, promissory notes that may be offered and sold to lenders through our site in the future. Until we complete the registration process, we will not accept new lender registrations or allow new commitments from existing lenders. If you're an existing lender, your current lender agreements will be unaffected; your existing loans will continue to be serviced; you'll be able to track and monitor your loans; and you'll be able to withdraw funds from your Prosper account. If you're a borrower with an existing loan, you will continue with your current borrower agreement and be ...

You'd have to be living under a rock at this point to be unaware of how scary the situation is with the global economy. That's right, GLOBAL. Even though we like to segment our countries into developing and developed...and give them even fancier names like 'frontier', the reality is that this current situation shows just how coupled all of the world's economies still are. The big concern for many at this point, and many of the government officials is the fact that the credit markets are not yet flowing. Instead, all of the money is being locked up nice and tight at banks and they are not lending. In the end, I am interested in considering prosper and some of the other peer-to-peer lending sites. In the event that these banks do not open up lending, we will be in a severe recession quite fast. But for the average person, there is a genuine concern that there might not be enough money for their boss to get enough cash to make payroll, or that there might not be money...

Well, with a recent windfall, it was possible to retire a significant bill which was costing about 250 minimum in cash flow each month. However, this was a bill that was being paid extra on, so strictly speaking, this is more like a 500 dollar increase in monthly cash flow. Getting debts paid off is really great for three reasons. The first reason is the increase in cash flow. The second reason it is great to pay off debts is the emotional feeling. In reality, the debtor really is a slave to the lender. And I know that people will feel that this is a somewhat dramatic stance to take, but I feel like it is true. Each time I pay off a debt, I feel more and more free. Finally, the great thing about paying things off is knowing that it is over. In a strange way, finishing a debt is like crossing the finish line on a long race. And when extra income comes in, it is like a windfall, a burst of energy that cannot be missed.