From Mike.com

A couple days ago I posted about the payday loans, and how I had my first (and only) experience with them while trying to help out some young hottie. I took out a high-interest loan for which I was liable to help her save her place, effectively helping her out by taking on her burden.

Today, I read an article over at Get Rich Slowly that talked about a family that got hit with credit card fraud by her own family members, and was asking GRS what they should do about it.

For both of these situations, and many that I’m sure I’ll, as you will, encounter in the future, I want to share a story out of one of the best personal finance books I have read, The Richest Man In Babylon.  It’s a story about a farmer that can understand what the animals are saying, as told by a character in the book, Mathon:

“This farmer, who could understand what the animals said to each other, did linger in the farm yard each evening just to listen to their words. One evening he did hear the ox bemoaning to the ass the hardness of his lot: ‘I do labor pulling the plow from morning until night. No matter how hot the day, or how tired my legs, or how the bow doth chafe my neck, still must I work. But you are a creature of leisure. You are trapped with a colorful blanket and do nothing more than carry our master about where he wishes to go. When he goes nowhere you do rest and eat the green grass all the day.’

“Now the ass, in spite of his vicious heels, was a goodly fellow and sympathized with the ox. ‘My good friend, he replied, ‘you do work very hard and I would help ease your lot. Therefore, will I tell you how you may have a day of rest. In the morning when the slave comes to fetch you to the plow, lie upon the ground and bellow much that he may say you are sick and cannot work.’

“So the ox took the advice of the ass and the next morning the slave returned to the farmer and told him the ox was sick and could not pull the plow.

” ‘Then,’ said the farmer, “hitch the ass to the plow for the plowing must go on.’

“All that day the ass, who had only intended to help his friend, found himself compelled to do the ox’s task. When night came and he was released from the plow his heart was bitter and his legs were weary and his neck was sore where the bow had chafed it.

“The farmer lingered in the barnyard to listen.

“The ox began first. ‘You are my good friend. Because of your wise advice I have enjoyed a day of rest.’

” ‘And I,’ retorted the ass, ‘am like many another simplehearted one who starts to help a friend and ends up by doing his task for him. Hereafter you draw your own plow, for I did hear the master tell the slave to send for the butcher were you sick again. I wish he would, for you are a lazy fellow.’ Thereafter they spoke to each other no more— this ended their friendship.

If you didn’t pick up on the moral of the story, here’s the next few lines from the book:

” ‘Tis a good tale,” responded Rodan, “but I see not the moral.”

“I thought not that you would. But it is there and simple too. Just this: If you desire to help thy friend, do so in a way that will not bring thy friend’s burdens upon thyself.“

Popularity: 65% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I don’t normally write about other people’s posts, but I stumbled on one today from Plonkee Money about supercharging your debt snowball that I just had to mention, and make note of so I can do it myself.

The problem:  4 gazillion ways to do the debt snowball.  All having their benefits in one form or another, but two mainly standing out as the most popular: paying off debts lowest to highest by balance, just for the psyche of getting debts knocked out and staying motivated; and highest to lowest by interest rate, for the savings on interest.

Plonkee outlines a way to have the best of both worlds, by transferring balances from the highest interest (and presumably highest balance) to the (presumably) lower interest, lower (or non-existant) balance cards.

Given my debts, this is structured great for me.  My highest interest debt is my consolidation loan, which is also my largest balance (sans my 0% family loan).  My lowest balance debts (actually, my lowest limit cards that are paid off now) have the lowest interest.  So shuffling down some of the balance from my high balance debt to my lowest interest cards and continuing the debt snowball just like before makes sense.  If I can keep the balance perpetually on the lower interest cards while paying them off, then I would pay less interest in the long run.

I’ll have to investigate how much of a gain this would be for me.  Using purchase checks (which carry the same interest as a purchase with no fee) I could do this, but my payoff timeline is so short (only 4 months or so from the time my last credit card is paid off until the consolidation loan is paid off) that it might not be worth the time to do it.  However, for anyone who is working with less in their snowball and has longer debt reduction timelines, this would definitely be the way to do it.

It also has the added benefit of keeping you involved with your finances, which in my experience has been key to keeping on track.  It’s hard to lose track of the numbers if you’re so involved with them.

Popularity: 60% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

It’s a simple question, but not one that I could answer a few months ago. At that time, I just wanted to be free from debt and start building wealth. That was the goal, but in hindsight, it seems like a rather simple and arbitrary goal. I mean, what do I gain out of life simply by being wealthy? Nothing. I’ll have a higher score than others, big whoop. In the grand scheme of things, that money means nothing.

Before, money represented a way to acquire things. Now, it’s being acquired as a way to buy my freedom. Freedom from everything, and toward everything.

So here’s a list of things that I’m doing this whole debt reduction and wealth accumulation process for. These are my life goals and plans, beyond February 2010. Atleast, at this moment they are.

1. I want to quit the rate race.
2. I want to quit timing my day by a clock.
3. I want to go to bed and wake up by my body’s demands, not my boss’.
4. I want to travel this continent by RV, seeing everything I’ve only read about.
   
5. I want to travel the other continents by whatever means, seeing things only a few have read about.
6. I want to travel the ocean by boat.
7. I want to wake up on a beach in Mexico, without concern of how I got there, or where I have to be.
8. I want to NOT own a car. I’ll putz around on motorcycles, scooters, and my two good feet.
   
9. I want to NOT own a house, I don’t want to be in any one spot long enough to do so.
10. I want to be asked “Where do you live?” and answer “Here”, no matter where I am when I’m asked.
11. I want nothing to do today, and not feel guilty about doing just that.
12. I want to be there for every rally that the next political superstar has. I feel guilty for not being there supporting Ron Paul at every event he had, or at least more than I did.
    
13. I want to take odd-jobs because I feel I can help, or because it would be interesting, not because I need the check.
14. I want to be able to donate my most valuable asset, my time, to causes that are important to me.
15. I want to read novels cover to cover, in one fell swoop, because that’s all I have to focus on at the moment.
16. I want to be free.
    

It feels a lot stronger inside me than I could probably put into words, but you get the gist. A couple years after the girls fly the coop, off to study the books at college and start into their own lives, I’m going to do the same, and study the world.

Money is freedom. Being free to live how you want, to enjoy all 24 of the hours you’re given during the day, however you want to spend it. This 40 50 60 70 hour work week is not for me, and when I get where I’m going, my time will no longer be for sale, at any cost.

I’d be interested in adding to my list, things that I’ve never thought about, so let me ask, what do you do it for? What’s the long-term life goal that you want to accomplish by putting off purchases, skimping by on the cheap stuff, and working the extra hours today? I really would be interested in hearing it, and there are no right and wrong answers… after all, your goals are yours. Please feel free to share ;)

Popularity: 46% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Can anyone spot what I’m showing in the title? Outside of the fact I’d name my kids “Oldest” and “Youngest” (and I’ll be screwed if a third one comes along… “Youngest Really”). If you can’t spot the difference, don’t worry, neither could I.

It’s always been “The Girls”, or OldestAndYoungest when referencing the offspring. Even when I was married, after Youngest came along, I’d usually always take both to do something if I took either. It just always seemed fair, what one gets to do, the other does too.

About a year ago I started noticing some problems with this “fairness” system that just wasn’t fair. While I would always take them both wherever we went, if we went to do something fun, usually I wasn’t doing something that both could do. For instance, an amusement park or carnival leaves Youngest in the cold due to the height requirements of rides, and now that I’m single again, I’ve noticed it actually works against Oldest when we went to the carnival. Because I won’t leave youngest down by herself, I can’t ride with Oldest, and that puts her either on her own or, depending on the ride, not able to ride at all. I brought them both to the carnival to be fair, but it wasn’t fair at all.

The disparagement isn’t as big as when we go do things that are more oriented toward Youngest, but I’m starting to see that Oldest isn’t all that into it anymore. She’ll go with the flow, but there’s more she’d rather do… and I don’t blame her.

When I noticed this about a year ago, I brought it up with ex-wife.

“Let’s have a day or two a month where we take them individually” - but she wasn’t having it. They’re sisters, they can’t be apart… Youngest won’t go to sleep without Oldest around… Or so she claimed.
“I find time to play with both of them, why can’t you?” She didn’t get the point I was saying, but oh well, I dropped it.
This weekend, however, turned out a little different. Very different, infact, and I’m happy to have had it from a daddy standpoint. Saturday, after picking up the girls from their mother’s and driving all the back to where I live, we went to the library. While there, Oldest told me she wanted to go back to Mommy’s.

It’s another 60 miles of driving for me to take them back to their mother’s and come home again, so my “frugal” side wanted to say “No”, but I think I understood. She wanted to go play with her friends.

She has friends at her mom’s, here not so much, they all disappeared when me and ex-gf split because they were all family or somehow related to family of ex-gf.

So I asked her mother, because I thought she’d be against it. I mean, Youngest wanted to stay with Daddy (she’s my baby girl, afterall ;) ) and Oldest wanted to return to her mom’s. This was the exact scenario she (mom) was so against just a year or so ago, why would she go for it now?

Well, I dunno what got into her, but she said sure!

So this weekend was spent with just me and Youngest. I made especially sure that I spent time with her, I was interested to see how it all worked out. And the verdict: I can’t believe we didn’t do this earlier.

Youngest is such a different person when outside of the shadow of her big sister. Normally, big sister dominates.

Is that normal for other multi-offspring houses? (I’m an only child…)

This weekend, Youngest was able to talk to me like she wanted to talk to me, not worried about her sister chiming in. And I learned that Youngest, who is normally shy and quite reserved, actually has a lot to say about a lot of things. Her mannerisms are different. It was like a slightly (not whole) different person.

So, it was a good lesson learned, that I hope I get to do again.  As a daddy, it’s important to not just spend time with your kids, but to spend time with each of your kids.  You get a fuller experience that way.  I don’t know what the longer term impact is on them, maybe it’s just the beginning of them each becoming individuals, and the scheduling between their mom and me might have to change to reflect that, but I really think it’s a good thing…  We’ll see.

Oh, and random stuff from Youngest:

After grabbing a seashell from the console of the car a couple weeks ago…

Youngest:  Daddy, did you know when you hold a seashell to your ear you can hear the beach?
Me: Oh yeah?
Youngest:  Yeah, and when you talk into the seashell, the people at the beach can hear you!

Funnier is the fact that when she asks why we can’t go to the beach or to the pool, and I tell her it’s still too cold, next time she gets in the car she talks into the seashell to see if anyone else is there… ;)

Popularity: 41% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Well, it’s that time of month again… No more paychecks due for the month, and all bills have been paid, so it’s time to see how I’m stacking up with all the things I’m talking about. So without further ado, here they are:

As you can see, once again another near 4% reduction with $1855 removed from the carried over debt. Another card is gone (Juniper/Barclays Bank/Barnes & Noble). I used to hate this card, but realized it was really just sour grapes to hate this card in particular when really, I hate all my credit card companies. So I’ll just say goodbye to this one, without a snide parting remark.

Getting partially swiped, and up the cutting block first for next month is Sears. I took this debt on when I bought my house and purchased a new refrigerator and freezer. I recieved 0% no payments, no interest for 13 months, which I will pay it off in time avoiding much in finance charges. But I can face it, my ability to catch this one before the expiration date was not because of my quick-wit and financial savvy financing skills, but rather due to the “luckyness” of reality smacking my drunk ass at the gaming table. Before that, I had little consideration for how I’d pay this off, but was of the mindset that the back interest getting smacked on wasn’t the end of the world, and I’d pay it off eventually.

Also up for some serious debt smackdown are my two Providian/WaMu cards! And next month is going to be one helluva of a debt smackdown month! It’s the Superbowl of debt reduction, the WWF steel cage match, the Daytona 500… Yes there will be wrecks, there will be accidents, there will be blood, and there will be debts that just don’t get up and walk out… At the end of next month there should be a few more DONE! lines there, and I can’t wait!

Anyway, some accomplishments/gains this month:

• Sold more stuff, including a couple cameras I had laying around.
• Got paid some money from a friend for hosting a site he built for someone else.
• Work gave me a gift card for all those hours I worked. $25 wasn’t much, but it was $25 I didn’t have before and I certainly wasn’t “entitled” to it.
• $25 for signing up for Revolution Money Exchange
• Traded in more MyPoints for a Wal-Mart gift card
• Only had a $104 electric bill this month. Where my electric bills were in the high $300’s, this is one of my favorite accomplishments.

Some not-so-great things/losses this month:

• Speeding ticket… ugh. Paid, but not the class (another $25 coming out soon)
• Took kids to the fair. This wasn’t bad in their eyes, but fun-to-cost ratio is just outrageous when you realize you bought $50 in tickets at $0.75 a pop, and all that the get to ride is glorified merry-go-rounds. I mean, between motorcycles, planes, bumblebees, boats, and jet-ski’s, youngest rode 5 rides… But really rode 1 ride 5 times, with different seats. Then $50 in food, drink, and other stuff…
• I still haven’t sold my DVDs. I don’t know if it’s just a mental block that will not allow me to sell them. This past week I caught myself staying up watching 1 or 2 a night, just going through my old videos. For the price I think I could actually get for them, I’m wondering if I should just hold onto them. I love my Pacino and Matt Damon movies, those are probably the only things I’ve “collected” in years, and I’ve got most every movie either of them have put out… Let’s just say I’m not “as motivated” to sell them as I was, but still think I should for some reason.

And just as a side note, I appreciate all of you that tried to help me with the DIV/0 error I had in the spreadsheet. Unfortunately for me, the Microsoft Excel fix for it doesn’t work in OpenOffice Calc, which is what I use. However, the impact of it is nothing, so I fixed it my way… bonus points for anyone who can figure out how I fixed it ;) J/k.

Popularity: 36% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I have no idea what a meme is, but apparently I caught one. I can’t see it, can’t taste it, can’t hear it… no bumps or rashes, no burning sensations… I don’t even know the person who gave it to me… I mean, it was a one time comment, and I wasn’t even fully here when she did it. Now I’m sitting here pondering my existence, forever changed by Michelle at The Bright Side of Debt.

According to the rules, I have to:

1. Write my own six word memoir
2. Post it to my blog, with visual aide if desired
3. Link to the person who tagged me in my post
4. Infect Tag 5 more blogs
5. Leave a comment on the infected tagged blogs to let them know

So, my own six word memoir: I have learned this already, again.

I consider myself somewhat intelligent, fairly well educated, and usually aware of my situation and what’s going on. So, it sometimes baffles me at the number of times I have to make a mistake in order actually learn from it. How many times I actually learn from my mistake, and realize “Hey, I learned this before”. In a financial context, I’ve abused cards, recovered. Abused cards, went bankrupt, recovered. Abused cards, recovered. Abused cards, recovering, swearing this time I’ve learned… ahh, just like every other time.

Anyway, time to go infect tag 5 more… I chose:

1. SingleGuyMoney @ SingleMoneyGuy
2. Amanda @ MeVsDebt
3. Single Mom @ Debt Free Is The Life For Me
4. Jake @ DebtSucksBlog
5. And last but not least, my man Elliot @ 21st Century Dad

Popularity: 44% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Today I decided that I was going to give “slow driving” a shot at conserving gas.  I have a slight tendency to speed, and knowing that high speed robs your efficiency, I figured I’d give slow driving a try.   Plus, I won’t risk another ticket that way.

I wanted to try 55 mph, but the speed limits on the highways between home and work are 70, at 55 I think I’d be a hazard to the other traffic.  Even at 60 I feel I’m the bad guy, but I stay in my lane on the right and give ample opportunities to pass if I can.  Other drivers are just going to have to deal with it.

I drive about 55-60 miles round trip between home and work.  It’s practically all highway, less than a mile from home to the highway on-ramp and less than a mile from highway off-ramp to work, so it really is all highway.

I currently get about 20 mpg in the Charger.  However, when I thought of doing this to save gas, it was actually a couple days ago.  So I already started the 60 mph max speed, trying to wean myself down to it.  Today when I filled up, I had recorded 22.4 mpg on the last tank.  That’s an improvement, and if I got that with the aid of just a couple days of slowing down, then this might prove quite a money saver.

With gas as expensive as it is now, the smart money person can’t afford NOT to investigate ways to reduce their consumption.  I usually fill up about once a week, so in about a week (hopefully longer) I’ll update you on my results.

Popularity: 44% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!