Lately I have been questioning my investing strategy. Up until now I have been following Dave Ramsey’s advice by investing in mutual funds. This has worked well, but I am wondering if there is a smarter way. A key idea in investing is that the investor should always understand what they are investing in. So…
Category: Reach Your Financial Goals
How I Became a Personal Finance Superhero
I used to ignore my finances, especially when I was in school, because I hated to see that I had little money and a lot of debt. In hindsight, I would have done a lot better if I had a plan to follow and an easy way review my finances. The plan I recommend is…
You Are Not Greedy Enough
I have been considering the concept of greed and how it relates to some of the happenings over the last few years (banks failing, mortgages not being paid, Madoff, etc.). I argue that these people were not greedy enough. Take a look at someone like Madoff. If he was more interested in his needs over the…
So You Want to Save Money?
I always knew what restaurant.com was, but I did not pay much attention because I don’t want to get stuck spending money on things only because I have a coupon. A few weeks ago I had a friend give me the low down on how to use it. I first started at restaurant.com and found some restaurants which I…
Dave Ramsey’s Plan Does Not Work For Everyone
Maybe this will get me some hate mail. Dave Ramsey‘s plan works great, but it does not always work for everybody…or does it. I want to use this topic to address thinking for yourself. Essentially Dave’s plan is a set of decisions that a person can make which will help them to prosper. We use…
Getting Your Spouse On Board:The First Thing I Tried
When we got married, I first tried to get Andrea to go along with the Dave Ramsey plan. She was ready to stop being a college student and spend the money she worked so hard to earn. I had been paying down debt while I was waiting to get married so I was not on…
3 Things That Chain You to The Assembly Line
In previous posts I have mentioned that many jobs tend toward the assembly line mentality. If you are working on the assembly line you are in a race to the bottom. There are other aspects of the assembly line mentality that make it harder to leave the assembly line. I used to think this way…
How the NFL Union Can Teach You To Make More Money
As many of you know, I am not a sports fan but the NFL strike is being discussed on many of the podcasts I listen to. One of the big questions coming out of this is “How do you negotiate on either side without being greedy?”. I do not have the answer, but I have…
What is Money?
Money is a very complicated subject. It represents many things to us. Many people have a much distorted view of money that allows it to complicate our lives, end relationships, and keeps them from having much of it. One thing money represents to us is time. If you make money for spending a certain time…
Dave Ramsey is an Amazing Man
Dave Ramsey is a national talk radio host and author.His teachings are basically get out of debt, build an emergency fund, and then become wealthy.Over the last few years it may have seemed stupid to pay down your house considering the increasing values; it virtually could be used as an ATM.To many, it seemed that…
Free Money
I wanted to share this piece of info because I am running into too many people that believe that the money from the government is free.This money is not, for someone to receive money from the government it is taken from somebody else.One of the sources is debt issued in the form of bonds which…
Monthly Payments
We Americans are falling into a horrible trap.The trap is thinking of our finances in the short term.We think we can afford something as long as we can pay the monthly payment; house payment, car payment, furniture payment, boat payment, credit card payment, motorcycle payment, etc.We no not consider that the financing companies are stretching…
Evil Money
All too often I encounter people that think I am a bad person because I make more money than someone else.On a grander scale many people believe that large companies are evil.Finally, some people are seen as bad because they produce products based on Christian ideals and do not give them away for free.All of…
Debt Philosophy
The other day, a friend and I stumbled upon the subject of our conflicting debt philosophies.As you have previously read, my wife and I want to eliminate all of our debts with our extra money, and then begin investing (debt snowball).My friend (we will call him Jose in this story) subscribes to the philosophy of…
Leveraging Your Abilities
Have you ever heard the statement “don’t trade hours for dollars”? Until recently I did not fully understand the implications of this statement. I was listing to The American Entrepreneur podcast and Ron (the host) fully explained it. When you trade hours for dollars the only way to make more money is to work more…
Life or Death Situation
I recently had a discussion with a friend about her frustration with her budget. She said that there was nothing else that could be cut from the budget. I looked at the budget and found that there were things that could be removed. I said she could shut off the cable and internet; she said…
How to Avoid a Recession at Home
How many of you fight about money with your spouse? Do you get frustrated when your wife goes out and buys new shoes even when you are on a tight budget? Do you get mad at your husband when he goes out and spends a ton of money on fishing gear when you have been…
Working Freedom
I have had numerous discussions about paying off debt; these discussions generally show that people fall into one of two camps. The first camp believes that you should not pay off your house because you could use that money to invest. The other camp (which Dave Ramsey belongs to) argues that if you invest your…