Follow Me Out of Debt | Get out of debt and get into prosperity!

Have you ever felt like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole? In particular, I'm talking about conversations that you may find yourself in with people when what they say is the complete opposite of how you think about a particular subject.   I can't tell you how many times I've been asked to give my opinion on a new vehicle that was purchased for $35,000.00 or more, and while I know that I...

Are you considering a HELOC (home equity line of credit)? A HELOC is a borrowing instrument that allows you to use the equity in your home to borrow against. My wife and I talked about this and did some research, and this is the information that I found on the subject that I want to share with you today.   Personally, I think that the scariest thing about a HELOC is that your house is on the line....

Simply stated, SMART goals give us an opportunity to put our goals through a filter that will help us to better define our individual goals and increase our odds of success by stating our goals the correct way the first time. Whenever we define a goal for ourselves, we want to follow the SMART goal format.   SMART is an acronym, and it stands for the following:   S - Specific: You want your goal t...

In general, it's good to be in the present. However, I also think that it's important for us to anticipate the future as well. If we only look at our finances one week or even one month at a time, we miss opportunities that will benefit us in the future. This includes investing, saving for retirement, and other ways that we will eventually get into prosperity.   Thinking big picture may not come e...

Do you start your day by hitting snooze for a half hour before you actually crawl out of bed? Before you know it, you're rushing around like a crazy person trying to get out the door to get to work, get to school, drop the kids off at daycare, or get to wherever it is that you are headed. You've spent most of your initial energy just trying to make it on time to your destination. By the time you c...

When we are bold and courageous and know that we're going to succeed before we even start, that's when real progress is made. Knowing with absolute certainty that you will accomplish your goal before you even begin puts you at an incredible advantage over those who approach goals with timidity.   How do we become more bold? It's actually not a difficult process. What's more, it doesn't matter if y...

Habits are simply regular actions on autopilot. We have repeated the actions often enough that we no longer need to think about the actions in order for them to occur. Most of us have established both good habits and bad habits.    There are ways for us to transform some of our bad habits into good habits that will help us to improve ourselves physically, spiritually, emotionally, or mentally - de...

Even the most driven and focused individuals can succumb to laziness. We don't even realize that it's happening to us when it happens, but when we were set to work on certain tasks but binge-watch Netflix instead, laziness has crept in and successfully defeated our plans.   So what do we do about this? The best way to defeat laziness is to plan ahead and manage time in the best way possible. Use a...

Excuses set us back from accomplishing our goals. They extend the time necessary to accomplish a particular goal or a task related to a goal because the excuses are something that we use to justify our actions that go directly against what we had set out to accomplish in the first place.   It's almost too easy to come up with excuses as to why we are doing things to self-sabotage our efforts. We j...

Between my wife and me, we've been receiving 0% introductory APR credit card offers at least three times a week lately. I started to wonder why there has been a sudden increase in aggressive marketing from the credit card companies. What I've come up with is that the credit card companies want to see who will transfer a balance or make a large purchase on one of these cards and forget about it unt...

One of the best ways to learn more about yourself and your spending habits is to look at transactions over the last three to six months for several different categories. These categories can be entertainment, restaurants, and even your morning coffee. Even if you aren't one to keep good records, most banks and other financial institutions will allow for you to go back 90 days or more when you do y...

Our brains are wired in such a way that we can imagine an event and actually react and feel emotions the same way as we would if we had actually experienced the real thing. Isn't that a bit fascinating? I think so.   With this concept of visualizing, we can actually imagine ourselves being out of debt. We can picture ourselves sitting at our kitchen table, desk, or wherever we pay the bills and im...

If you are the one who primarily takes care of the household budget, you may not realize that you are effectively in a leadership role. Does this mean that you get to boss your spouse around? No, of course not. However, you do need to picture yourself as a leader because you are essentially the one who has taken the primary role in managing your family's finances. With that said, a good leader loo...

Inviting friends or family members to weigh in on a personal financial problem may not work out as well as you had intended. This is especially true if you are married and the disagreement that you are having is with your spouse. If the two of you are unable to agree on a plan or a resolution to an issue, one of the worst things that can happen in that situation is for one or both spouses to go ou...

Do you have an issue that you're having trouble with that hasn't yet been addressed on this show? Perhaps you're just starting out and need a little boost to get started on your journey out of the debt. Whatever the case may be and whatever question that you may have, this is the resource for you.   I am opening up an Ask Me Anything, otherwise known as an AMA, to allow for you to ask any question...

Do you struggle to make your money last until the end of the month? Regardless if you are paid monthly, bi-weekly, or otherwise, I'll be explaining a couple of strategies that will help you to make your money stretch until the end of the month.   What I'll be covering today: -How to change your due date with your lender's permission and some caveats -How to stretch your grocery budget -How to stre...

It's great to have goals and to be focused on those goals. I love to be driven and to keep going even when times are tough in order to complete a goal. It feels great, and sometimes I welcome challenges just so I have the opportunity to overcome them (within reason, of course). I love to-do lists and tend to schedule quite a bit on these lists. However, I don't recall the last time that I schedule...

I have to tell you about this hilarious Facebook ad that I saw this morning. Long story short, this guy did this ad to push his system on how to make money flipping real estate. He was standing next to a Lamborghini parked in front of a Chase building. I didn't actually listen to the audio portion of the video, but I did watch it and read the comments (which was mostly the hilarious part). People...

Resentment is a bad thing in a marriage. When you are working on what could sometimes be a stressful path towards getting out of debt, you may come across certain situations where you argue or fight with your spouse. You won't always see eye-to-eye, even in the best scenarios. If you get into a lot of these negative situations, there is the potential for resentment to become the unfortunate produc...

Let me tell you how I really feel about credit cards. Credit cards can be dangerous. At the same time, there's nothing wrong with the responsible use of credit cards. The key is to know yourself and know whether or not you possess the ability to own a credit card for responsible use only.   Part of the problem and why there is a danger involved with credit cards is that there's the lack of an emot...

I had a job when I was younger that you may find hard to believe. I was a credit card pusher. Yes, I worked for a company that was hired by banks and other financial institutions to call potential customers to get them to sign up for a credit card. Hey, we all do things when we're younger that we're not proud of, and that was one for me.   The process in place required that I place calls to potent...

Are you looking for a free budget spreadsheet that you can use for your monthly budget? I've got my personal monthly budget spreadsheet that I've used over the years now available for download. Simply go to http://followmeoutofdebt.com/budget  to download my budget spreadsheet.   I'm also including instructions on how to use the spreadsheet and talking a bit about how the automatic calculations wi...

Do you have a fear of making large payments towards your debt? I usually recommend saving up for a large payment and applying it towards the debt in huge chunks at a time. When you save up the money and put it aside to pay towards debt, it's an adrenaline rush. It also helps us to get into the habit of saving money for something. It's a good habit to train our brains to do this, especially when we...

Rule number one when it comes to working with your spouse is to be kind to your spouse. Both of you must follow this rule, otherwise things will become turbulent, and there's a much higher possibility that the two of you will argue or fight. This is true whether you are working on your monthly budget together or something as simple as deciding on where to go out to dinner.   Realize that your spou...

Are we chunking away at debt using an eating utensil or an ax? We've been in the process of saving for our first large debt payment to chunk away at our highest APR credit card that we want to get rid of first. I'm not going to lie; it has been challenging, and there's no doubt about that. If you are having trouble getting off of the launch pad, I want to let you know that you're not alone.   I'm...