Spring Cleaning to Debt Freedom!

Well I think I can say that Spring is finally arriving here in Ohio. Temps in the 50's and low 60's all this week. This weekend, while I was hosing and blowing out all the salt from my garage I noticed all the "Stuff" (thinks I don't use or want anymore) that just seems to accumulate over the winter.

Spring cleaning is a great time to identify the stuff you no longer use or could do without. Resolve to get that stuff out of your house via Ebay or an upcoming garage sale. You'd be surprised at how much other people are willing to pay for you so called junk.

Selling stuff you have around your house is one of the best ways to eliminate your consumer debt and begin to build wealth. Just this week, I had a conversation with my neighbor and he sold his "off-road" motorcycle that he hasn't ridden in two years. (Way to go Ben build some wealth.)

I'm guessing if you'd spend 10 minutes in your basement or garage, you could find 10 things worth selling. Give it a try. Let me know what you come up with.

Money Advise

Money. It's not a dirty word. Money by itself is not good or bad. It's what you do with what you have that makes the difference. Ah but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Have you given thought as to why you do what you do with money? Where or who has taught you how to handle it? We all know that you have to spend less than you make or you'll never get ahead. Yet we as American's have a negative savings rate.

Where's a good place to start to get your financial life going in the right direction? I'd like to suggest a book. Hey, books are low to no investment dollars and a great return on your time.

By far one of the best books you could ever read is Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. If you're looking for a financial game plan, this book is for you. If your wondering, "am I doing this financial thing the best way I can, then read the book. Go get it at the library and read it for FREE.

If you're like most, handling money in your household has been hit and miss at best. You'll never get control of your finances this way. Make the decision today to win financially.

Did you see one yet?

In getting the cash register door ready for Aqua tonight. (Aqua is our Singles ministry every other Tuesday night.) For the first time I came across one of the new $5 bills.

My first reaction was, wow, this is pretty cool. My second reaction was this looks like monopoly money. Have you come across one of these new $5 bill yet? When you do, please post a comment on where you first saw it.

Things I did on a Snowy Spring Saturday

Well, this weather stinks. I woke up to snow flurries and it's been that way all day. I didn't let the weather get me down. My day has been very enjoyable so far. Here's some highlights.

1. Coffee and the local paper.
2. Walked the dogs. Twice so far today.
   
3. Catch up on the blogs I follow.
4. Read a few chapters of the book "Margin". Thanks Kevin.
5. Off to the library and read the following magazines: Bicycling (5 issues), Fortune, Forbes, Men's Health, Money, Real Simple & Smart Money. I love the library.
   
6. Check-out the following books: Lance Armstrong Performance Program; Becoming a Millionaire God's way,The Millionaire Maker, and Not-for-Profit Accounting.
7. Detailed my Felt Bicycle and put on two brand new tires. (Can't wait to put miles on them.)

The rest of my day? I'm trying to get the grease off my hands from detailing my bike. After that, I'm cook'en fish for supper then I'm diving into the books I checked out of the library today.

Have a great Easter Sunday.

Is the sky falling?

Even if you don't follow the stock market on a consistent basis, I'm sure you've heard all the gloom and doom about your investment or retirement dollars. We'll I'm one more voice that here to tell you, don't panic.

First of all, investing is considered to be savings for a period of greater than 5 years. I'm 41 years old so retirement for me is still 25 years away. So, that means I'm an investor when it comes to saving for retirement. At this stage of the game for me, I look at the down turns in the market as "everything" is on sale. So using the principal of dollar-cost-averaging, I'm getting more shares for my investment dollars right now.

Why and I calm when the market is down so much already this year? Great question. Take a look a the chart below. There are some major "bad news" events listed here. Look at where the market ended up 5 years after the "bad news". The worst return was over 8%. So take heart, keep funding your retirement plan and ignore all the "financial experts" on TV.

I love a bargin

I'm always on the look out for getting the most for my money. I get really excited when I get a great deal on something that I've been looking for.

Last fall, my sandles finally bit the dust. (pun intended). So I've been casually looking for a new pair ever since. I now own a new pair. Check this out.


Original price was $45.00. The price I paid was $9.97. That's a whopping 78% savings. I must admit, I'm more excited about getting a pair of $45 shoes for $9.97 than the actual shoes themselves. Although I must say I look very stylish in them.

Anyway, always be on the lookout for getting the most out of your hard earned dollars. Here's to your financial peace.

5 cool "Free" softwares

I'm always on the look out for useful and free software. Here's 5 that you should check out for your own use.

1. Abiword
www.abisource.com
Replaces Microsoft Word
Want a good word processor but find Microsoft Word too expensive? AbiWord is my favorite replacement for Word. It’s lightweight (meaning it runs quickly) and includes pretty much every feature that I use regularly in a word processor, plus it can save files in formats that you can exchange with Word and WordPerfect users, plus open any of their files, too.

2. OpenOffice
www.openoffice.org
Replaces Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint
If you want to replace the rest of the Office suite, your best bet is OpenOffice. It includes very nice replacements for Excel and PowerPoint (and workable replacements for Access and other Office elements).

3. KeePass
keepass.sourceforge.net
KeePass is a program that securely stores and manages the abundance of passwords we all use on a daily basis.

4. GnuCash
www.gnucash.org
Replaces Microsoft Money or Quicken
GnuCash is a slimmed-down version of the bloated Microsoft Money and Quicken packages, but it contains all of the features I want for managing my money. The interfaces are incredibly simple - it functions much like a checkbook ledger on your computer - but there’s a lot of meat hidden throughout the software.

5. Firefox
www.getfirefox.com
Replaces Internet Explorer
If you haven’t switched to Firefox for your web browsing needs, do it now. It stops annoying popups and it has lost of plugins that can make surfing the web even better.

Emergency Fund. . . . Thank you God

What's the first step in a sound financial plan? Answer: An emergency fund. I sure am glad my family has one. Unfortunately, today I got to use it.

I took my beloved 1998 VW turbo diesel Beetle into the shop today because it was sounding funny and not running the best. It has 101,000 miles on it. I dropped off the keys in the night drop, my wife picked me up and off to work we went. (We both work at NewPointe.)

The first call from the shop wasn't to bad. New glow plugs $275 parts and labor. I thought doable. About a 1/2 hour later, ten the other shoe dropped. The second call came, I need to replace the catalytic converter. Ouch! I'm looking at a total bill of $1,400. (Other than normal oil changes and the deer that hit me, this repair is all I've put into my car in more than 2 years.) Much cheaper than a car payment.

Anyway, I told the shop, no problems with the repair bill. Let's get my car running good. I thanked them for their work and asked them to give me a call when they are finished.

Do I like pulling $1,400 out of my families emergency fund? No way. But I'm very thankful that I have it to pull out. Because in the past, a car emergency also meant we had a financial emergency. Now I get to just fix the car then work on putting the dollars back into my emergency fund over time.

Take back your money for FREE

Ok, I'm assuming by now you have completed and filed your 2007 tax return or you are very close to doing so. I'm also assuming you received a refund. I'm sure you've heard that by getting a refund you are allowing Uncle Sam to use your money all year long without paying you any interest on your money. (This is true.)

With that being said, I know people are deathly afraid of owing money at tax time. So where's the balance? Hey, I even like getting a little refund. I found a tool that will help with this. Here's the link. It's Kiplinger's tax withholding calculator. You'll have to have your 2007 tax return in hand to use this tool.

When I ran the calculation for myself, it told me I should be claiming 2 extra withholdings. This would add another 87.50 per month to my take home pay. This sure will help when $4 a gallon gas comes this summer.

21 more. . .

Things keep getting better and better on Tuesday nights. Yep, Tuesday is Financial Peace University night at NewPointe and that pumps me up.

We began class again by cutting up more credit cards.

21 destroyed last night. That brings our class total to 54

I can't describe the feeling I have for days when people destroy their credit cards. Not because credit card by themselves are evil but because of the bondage people end up living in because of what they use them for.

Newsflash, credit cards are not an emergency fund and should never be used as such. A starter emergency fund is $1,000 in the bank. You need to get there ASAP.

Renewal & Reflections

Larry, a good friend of mine, and I meet on Wednesday morning for coffee and growth. Currently Larry and I are reading "The Life you've always wanted" by John Ortberg.

Chapter 5 deals with a hurried life. I suffer from that! I can't wait to get with Larry to talk about this chapter. Anyway, I'm trying to change in this area and will need help doing so. One thing I intentionally did today was to reflect on my day as it went on. Doing so brought about renewal and relaxations.

Here's a list of what caught my attention today:

1. The warmth of the sun coming through the drives side window.
2. The Robins in my front yard.
3. Chaz, my son trying for the first time to drive my 5 speed VW Beetle.
4. My 18 mile bike ride. Oh how it refreshed me today!
5. NPCC Check-in Team Members for jumping in today.
6. My small group. We are growing closer together.
7. The melting snow. I hope this is the last of it.
8. A fellow NewPointer asking me for some financial advice. Word to the wise, stay away from ALOC loans (Advanced Lines of Credit)
9. My Wife, she is great.
10. My dogs. (I'll aways have at least one.)