Since launching my Unautomate Your Financesback in March, I’ve been providing monthly income/expense reports in order to help promote financial transparency.
Last month, I missed posting any report for July, so as August wraps up here’s the “business” side of things around here. I’m not going to lie and tell you that I’m o.k. with the last two months. They are much, much lower than I wanted to be at this point! Part of transparency is showing both good and bad month… both the set-up and the launches. Here are the numbers:
Over the weekend, I was reading the Bible with Courtney, when we stumbled upon the section below, from James 2:14-17 (NIV):
(14) What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? (15) Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. (16 ) If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? (17) In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
Wow. Instantly after reading that passage, I had one of those lightbulb moments in life. That’s me. I’m the guy who says “Have a safe trip… I hope things get better… We’ll be thinking of you…”
I feel that I’m kind by nature. I really do hurt for people when they are in need. I really do wish that their circumstances would turn for them. I’ll even take time to listen and provide any advice if that’s what I feel they need.
But often, I stop short of helping them in any real, tangible way. Why? I’m not sure. I guess because it’s convenient. It’s convenient to think “Oh, I hope that homeless guy catches a break” or “I’m not giving him any money, he’ll just spend it on booze.”
So many times I hear myself saying, “If you need anything… anything at all… let me know!” I really do feel that way when I say it to people, but at the same time… this is such a cop-out. I know 95% of the time, even if they were in need of help, they’d have trouble asking. Even with an open invitation, our society teaches us not to rely on others…not to ask for help.
For the past few years, if you’d of asked me what the first step in getting out of debt or attacking your finances was… I would have replied, “Recognize that you have a problem”.
Bor-ing! And sort of lame.
Not that it’s not true. Recognizing a problem exists (on whatever level) *is* one of the most important steps, but I no longer consider it to be the first step (or the most important step).
Instead, I’ve realized that there is a much more important component and one that I believe is far better to start with. I’d tell you here… but then you’d have no reason to watch the video!
Compelling breakdown of the video:
[0:00] – Excited to be back on video, introduction to the topic at hand!
[0:55] – My old, safe, lazy response when asked what the first step in paying off debt is.
[1:20] – My big issue with my old answer and why I’ve come to realize it’s flawed.
[2:10] – The new, more powerful first step when attacking finances.
[2:55] – The ability for specific, passionate goals to help pull you through the slip-ups.
[3:40] – Courtney and I have gotten lazy in our finances & what we plan to do about it!
[5:00] – Call to action: Take the first step to start the offensive in your financial life.
[5:30] – Nobody gets out of debt because it’s “good for them to do”. Get specific.
What do you think? What is the first step someone should take when attacking their finances? What worked for you? What failed?
I’ve been caught up recently. For the last two months, I’ve been working intensely on my next guide. For the last two weeks, I’ve been focused deeply on recommitting myself here with MvD.
Whenever I burrow myself into “work”-mode like this, I have a tendency to take things for granted.
As I was looking through some recent pictures Courtney took, the one above made me stop. Something about itforced me to appreciate... “Woah,” I thought, “She’s getting really, really good at this.”
You see, Courtney’s been very dedicated in improving her photography skills. She’s chipped away at her goal slowly, taking photos every couple days, renting books from the library, following blogs and joining forums online. She doesn’t have any of the fancy gadgets or lenses that many do… just the stock lens that came with the camera and a big scoop of dedication.
Unfortunately, it took a photo like the one above to make me appreciate all that hard work!
This particular photo also made me realize the dramatic development Milligan is experiencing. As she approaches 2.5 years old, she’s a beautiful, strong-willed, and curious little girl… three traits I hope she maintains the rest of her life.
At this point, Milli is growing and changing weekly, if not daily. This is a phase in her life that demands my appreciation! If I were to take it for granted, I’d regret it the rest of my life.
Don’t wait for a picture to jolt you. Many of us are burdened by financial mistakes, consumed with work, and/or distracted by the meaningless details of daily life. But that’s no excuse.
What things in your life deserve more appreciation? More importantly, what people in your life deserve more appreciation?
Don’t hesitate. Take some time out of your day to tell them.
I’ve written extensively about credit cards and credit card rewards in the past and I rarely try to comment on the news of the personal finance world. Today, however, I’m going to make an exception.
In the past couple of weeks, a new study has emerged which suggests that credit cards rewards represent a transfer of money from the poor into the hands of the wealthy.
My first reaction? No $#!*, Sherlock!
A year ago this time, I wrote Bend Over… I’ll show you where you can stick your “Rewards”, where I shared that credit card rewards seemed to “feed on the vulnerable” section of our society. By taking advantage of people who are stuck in destructive and cyclical habits, credit card companies can afford to pay out 2% to a smaller fraction of it’s users.
I didn’t have the math, statistics, and legwork to prove any of it. I was simply expressing that it was a major factor in Courtney and my’s decision not to take advantage of rewards. As it turns out, though, the Consumer Payments Research Centerhas the math, statistics, and legwork to prove it.
Credit card companies charge transaction fees to merchants when customers use credit cards. This is nothing new, but some people don’t know this. The charges are slightly less for purchases ran as debit (but still exist).
Credit card companies prevent merchants from charging fees for credit card use and/or providing discounts for cash to help recoup costs. In other words, they are greedy controlling sobs.
Instead of being able to pass these fees on to only those consumers that use credit cards, businesses are now forced to raise prices for everyone. For example, if an average credit card transaction costs a business $0.50 they can’t charge credit card users an extra $0.50 charge. Instead, they raise prices $0.35 (as an example) for all customers, regardless of how they pay, to cover this cost.
Because of this above concept, consumers who use cash or other forms of payment pay marked up prices to account for the transaction fees generated by those which use credit cards.
Credit card companies then pass along a big portion of the fees that they collect as rewards to the credit card users. In other words, they collect fees from everyone(because they are built into the end price) and pass them back out only to those that use rewards credit cards.
I’m a big fan of a process I call “imprinting mottos”.
No, that’s not a official or scientific term. In fact, it’s a widely popular concept and probably does have a real name. Instead of trying to figure that out, I just made up this ghetto name. Only I know what it is, so it’s useless to everyone but me. I tend to do this a lot. *shrug*
Anyway, “imprinting mottos” is what I call the process of latching yourself onto a phrase, a motto, or a saying so intensely that it becomes part of your thought process. Some astute people may call it “anchoring”… sure, that’s cool too.
Whether we realize it or not, we do this all the time. ”I’m not good enough…” ”I’m cold never earn that much…” ”Just one piece is o.k….” ”I work hard, I deserve this car…”
These sayings become part of our thought processes… part of who we are.
By nature, most of my automatic “imprinting” or “anchoring” tends to be negative. They are mostly justifications or excuses to make me feel better. What I try to do is find sexy, compelling quotes or concepts to help reverse my unfortunate natural trend.
For example, Tony Robbins lent me this one “Nothing tastes as good as being fit feels!”. Sure, it doesn’t always work (especially for me), but occasionally I do find myself passing up certain foods or extra helpings because this phrase pops into my head. I’ve made an active decision to adopt this… I’ve repeated it to myself… I’ve made it part of me (at least a small… small part).
I’m not talking about affirmations here, either. I’m not suggesting you repeat “…and gosh darn it, people like me” a hundred times while doing jumping jacks. I’m not against affirmations, but I’m not captain of the fan club if you will.
This is a guest post by best-selling author and blogger Ramit Sethi.
For years, the most requested topic on my site, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, has been earning more money. Yet I intentionally stayed away because it’s almost always sleazy, attracting a ton of losers who simply want a silver bullet instead of actually working hard to earn money.
But if you’ve read my stuff, you know that I don’t spend much time on frugality, which I mostly consider a waste of time. Instead, I encourage people to focus on the Big Wins — automation, investing, negotiating, and understanding the psychology of money.
I’ve always said that you can’t out-frugal your way to being rich. So after nonstop requests for posts addressing earning more, I decided to make 2010 the Year of Earning More. The past 7 months have been dedicated to helping people earn more money by earning more on the side, and the response so far has been massive. Hundreds of thousands of people read, commented, and Tweeted and otherwise chimed in on earning more. Everyone wants to make more money.
Great enthusiasm — but there’s just one thing wrong with this…
Most people who say they WANT to earn more… never will.
Many of the same people who say they want to earn more also say they want to lose weight…only they focus on the “I wish I could lose weight” part instead of the “I’m going to go the gym 3x/week and eat 25% fewer calories.” They’re delusionally goal-oriented, focusing on the end result instead of how to actually get there.
As much as everyone says they want to earn more — and sure, they’d try it if only they could — most people will never earn a single dollar beyond their regular 9-to-5 paycheck. Fewer still will ramp that one dollar up to $1,000, or more, in side income. The pattern is always the same:
‘Earning more’ is sexy, so they get motivated, “$1,000 extra dollars on the side? I want that!”
They get started with the actual work of generating an idea, and figuring out their target market, but quickly realize things aren’t as easy as they thought, “How come nobody wants to pay me $500 a month to manage their Twitter account??” (The worst is: ‘I’m good at writing grants. Maybe non-profits will pay me to write grants for them!’ No, they won’t.)
They alternate between chasing a million things, and taking no action at all.
They eventually give up, putting off earning more until they have “the right idea” (i.e. never).
Enthusiasm and motivation are VERY powerful ways to get started, but they don’t carry you through to your first $1,000.
What does? A system that helps you identify ideas, test them for profitability, and then scale up your marketing. Compare this to most people, who think that earning more is about finding a magical idea that will somehow urinate money on them from heaven.
Why so much emphasis on that first $1,000? In my experience helping people to earn their first rounds of side income, I’ve noticed that $1,000 is the key earning threshold. Earning $100 is good, but it could be a fluke. Earning $500 is a better signal that you’re on the right track. After you hit $1,000, you know that you’re doing something right. After that, you can implement something I call The Tuner Strategy to “tune” your revenue up as much as you want — from $1,000 to $3,000 to $5,000/month, and more.
Interestingly, for many people who do reach the key-earning threshold, going from $0 on the side to $1,000 is harder than going from $1,000 to $5,000. But the biggest hurdle to get past is that first $1,000.
A big part of this blog from the beginning has been financial transparency. I’ve shifted from sharing the details of our daily spending (what we used to do), to sharing the details of the business side of the blog. It seems many of you are most interested in this one segment of our financial journey. :-)
June was another slow month here (at least on the surface), with only one content based post the entire month! Yikes!
The progress of the second guide, Sell Your Crap, has been extremely uphill. Like Unautomate Your Finances, the scope of the project just continues to grow and grow! It’s nearly 45+ days late in coming and I’ve even considered shelving it for a while and moving onto something else!
Thanks to some helpful consolations from trusted mentors, I’m staying the course and finishing the content as we speak. It’s better launching 30-45 days later than expected than to launch a crappy product (or to not launch at all)! I know when the time comes, I’ll be proud of what is certain my most ambition business undertaking to date. :-)
Despite sparse posting, here are the numbers for June:
I try not to do it too often, but I’m asking for your help!
I’m wrapping-up the creation of my second guide, Sell Your Crap. In order to decide which final pieces will be included (and which tips I’ll break down even further!), I’ve put together a quick, 5-min survey using Google Forms.
Your answers really do help a lot. The first survey I ran (several months ago) was a huge help. In order to show my thanks, I’ll be drawing one survey for every 100 submitted to give a FREE, advanced copy of Sell Your Crap to. So not only do you help me and the project, but you can win a free copy before anyone else has a chance to see it!
*Alternatively, you can also take the survey anonymously. Totally up to you!
Here’s the link one more time if you are interested in winning a free copy:
Just a couple questions about the content covered in the upcoming guide!
Have Clutter? I want to see it!
I’m calling on any/all Man Vs. Debt readers who have any shred of clutter (a whole garage, part of a room, or even a junk drawer) that they are wanting to destroy (or just organize/purge/etc…)
I want your pictures!
If you’d like to be a part of Sell Your Crap, I’m collecting genuine, reader pictures of their own trouble spots! Simply snap a quick photo of any clutter around your house, car, or work and send it to: Baker @ ManVsDebt . com
I have several ideas for the photos, including putting them together in a huge collage or slideshow. :-) If you decide to send a picture, I’ll assume you don’t mind me using it on the site or in the guide, etc… I could surf the internet for anonymous pictures, however I’d love to have real examples from the community!
But I never intend just to take without offering something in return! For every 20 people that submit a photo (whether I use it or not), I’ll raffle off another FREE, advanced copy of Sell Your Crap.
So that’s officially two ways you can help me and two ways to win free premium content! :-) Simply click the links above to take a short survey or get out your camera, take some pictures, and send them to: Baker @ ManVsDebt . Com !
It’ll be a couple weeks, at least, until launch, so in the meantime be prepared for some anti-consumerism, clutter-killing, and selling online material the next few weeks (hey, it’s on my mind)!
As you know, the interaction and feedback from the community is my favorite part of blogging. I appreciate your help!
It’s been a long, long time since I shared a list of the blogs that regularly influence my life and my business. It’s time I did so.
We’ve gained several new readers in the past couple of months, some interested in personal finance, some in the travel aspect. Others in entrepreneurship or ditching their clutter. With such a diverse community, I decided it would be best to share the leading blogs I follow for inspiration in several of these niches.
At one point, not so long ago, I followed over 100+ blogs. More recently, I simply don’t have the time to keep up with many of them, despite the information being incredibly valuable. So slowly, but surely, I’ve eliminated my RSS Reader down to just most of the sites below.
Keep in mind I have dozens and dozens of other blogs I regularly follow via Twitter and Facebook. This isn’t simply a list of my blogging friends (while some of them are good friends), it’s a compilation of what sources have been the greatest influence on me in several topics that I’m currently interested in.
I hope you enjoy what turned out to be a fairly beefy list. If you happen to find any new sources for inspiration amongst these rockstars, please help share the post by stumbling it below:
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