Chasing the Bull

“Then [Jesus] said to them, ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” - Luke 12:15

I would have loved to retire a millionaire. I would probably sleep better at night if I knew that our future was secure. The more I think about it, however, the more I have come to realize that my personal net worth does not define who I am as a person, as a dad, or as a husband.

This does not mean that I have suddenly stopped caring about our finances. Unfortunately, I tend to spend a tremendous amount of time worrying about them. What this does mean, is that I have finally forgiven myself for the financial mistakes I made in the past. I cannot go back ten years and correct these mistakes. I can change my future, if I start now.

We are not in terrible fiscal condition. Our net worth is relatively modest at $93,462. We do not really have a ton of assets, we have simply minimized our liabilities. We basically have our mortgage, my student loan, and another personal loan (which I took at 6% to pay off every one of our high-interest credit cards).

The main problem with our fiscal plan is that our expenses equal our income, almost to the penny. At the end of the month there is nothing left. We stick to our budget within 5 to 10% and have cut out just about everything that we can (and still maintain the lifestyle that we have agreed upon). We have 2 old cell phones with the minimum amount of minutes for emergencies, have basic cable that is bundled with high speed internet, and cable phone (Yeah for free long distance calls), and only eat out once a month. My wife and I go to movies about twice a year, and rent movies even less than that. It is just so hard to find anything else to cut out.

Just this week, I have began Snowflaking and will send this money off to our Roth IRAs. Additionally, with any money left over from my My Diet Coke Challenge will also be sent to our retirement accounts. I guess this is as good a start as possible.

Will we retire as millionaires? I have no idea, but I would love it if you joined me on this adventure. Please consider subscribing to my feed.

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I have to admit I really like NBC’s “ The Biggest Loser“. It is very motivating, inspirational, and yes, even educational. As it turns out, some of the things I have learned relate very well to personal finance. Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think!

5. Stop Complaining - Jillian always tells her students to stop complaining. She does not want to hear the word “can’t”. How many times have we blamed our situation on someone else? If only VISA would have rejected my credit card application when I was in college. If only the US mail system was faster, I would not have another late fee. If my high school would have actually taught us more about personal finance. It does not matter how you got to where you are! Stop complaining and take an objective assessment of where you are now. Only then can you start to make progress.

4. Strive for Consistency - Losing one hundred pounds is not something that will happen overnight. It takes discipline and a tremendous amount of effort, day-in and day-out, to see results. The same can be said about saving for retirement. You will not be able to save a million dollars this year. You can, however, retire with that much if you save and invest a little bit each month for the next 30 years. If you are still in your 20s, it will be much easier if you start now.

3. Accept Mistakes - With the exception of Neil’s 17 pound gain last season (which he did on purpose), mistakes happen. Every now and then, a contestant will bust their butts all week, only to gain a pound or two. The only thing they could do was to evaluate their diets and correct this going forward. Investing is very similar. Last November, I purchased shares in Force Protection, or what I call “The Worst Investing Decision Ever”. I purchased it around $17 and proceeded to watch it sink to $1.50. I cannot let this single thing affect my confidence in the stock market. I simply revisited my purchase analysis to see if there was anything I missed when I decided to buy FRPT. Turns out, there is now a class action lawsuit against them for accounting irregularities. Yes! The worst stock pick ever.

2. Think Long Term - The main reason I want Mark to be in the finals is because of the way his family makes him feel. He loves them and you can see it and feel it when he talks. Mark had to sacrifice months of his life, away from his family, in order to add years to the end of his life. He realized that short term wants should sometimes be secondary to his overall life plan. I relate this to investing for my future. Sure, I would love to buy my wife a new wardrobe. She deserves it as hard as she works to raise my son. We have agreed, however, to postpone these “desires” for a few years, in order to secure our future.

1. It does not matter where you are - JUST START TODAY - Kelly tipped the scales at 271 pounds when she started The Biggest Loser. Can you even imagine how she must feel now. She has lost almost 100 pounds. This did not happen overnight, but I can tell you with absolute certainty, that she is glad she got off the sofa and started. This is the same with saving, eliminating debt, and investing. It does not matter whether you have a negative net worth or not. You can change your circumstances, but to do so, you have to start somewhere.

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Since I am new to the blogging world, I thought I would start off by posting ways in which my wife and I save money. This post was inspired by a similar post on Million Dollar Journey.

Included below are 25 ways that I save money:

1. I eat at home whenever possible. My wife is the most amazing cook, so it is safe to say, I would rather eat at home than spend $25 on something I may or may not enjoy.
2. I take leftovers from the night before to work for lunch. Again, pretty easy to do with my wife’s cooking.
3. I switched from premium cable to basic cable and bundled cable phone and internet together. This reduced my monthly bill from $150 to $101, or $588 per year.
4. Since my phone line is now a cable phone, I get unlimited long distance calling within the US. As a result, I reduced our cell phone plan to 700 minutes a month. This reduced our monthly bill from $129 to $89, or $480 per year.
5. It gets pretty cold during the winter months where I live. Last year, we just cranked up the heater and as a result, our gas bill was about $350 per month for the 4 winter months. This year, I bought a space heater from QVC to use in whatever room we were in at the time. The heater cost me $50 and reduced my gas bill to approximately $140 per month. This results in an overall savings of $790.
6. I signed up with Duke Power’s fixed price biling program. Since I have a 2 year history with Duke, they could estimate what my monthly bill averages out to over the course of a year. I agreed to pay this average over the course of the next year with no settlement at the end. My bill was $140 per month. My new cost is $117 a month, or a savings of $276 per year.
7. I track all of my spending with Microsoft Money. It truly puts my spending right out in the open so I can see where my money goes.
8. I wear my clothes out before buying new threads. I have never cared about fashion so this is pretty easy for me as well.
9. My wife and I TiVo everything and watch it when we get free time. How does this save us money? By the time we get done watching all the programs available on TiVo, we have no time to go to the movies. Plus this saves us money on a baby-sitter!
10. I either go to the library to get my reading material, or I buy it on eBay. You would be surprised at how much you can save by reading books for free.
11. I run the dishwasher only when it is completely full. Even then, I try and stop it when it gets to the drying cycle. The air can dry your dishes all by itself!
12. I turn out every light that is not being used. I saw an episode of MythBusters where they proved without a doubt that turning off lights saves more money than leaving them on if you plan on being out of the room for more than 10 seconds.
13. I turn off my computer every night. Research has shown that this alone could save you $30 a month, or $360 a year.
14. I do not smoke or drink too much alcohol. I do drink entirely too many diet sodas, but I buy whatever is on sale that week. If I could stop drinking them all together I could save $520 a year ($10 per week times 52 weeks).
15. I pay 95% of my bills online. This saves about $10 a month (on stamps), or $120 a year, not to mention the time it saves NOT to have to write a check.
16. I drive a diesel car that gets 50 miles per gallon (Jetta TDI). Even though the engine cost about $1000 more, I have more than made my money back with that purchase. Gas prices are terrible and only getting worse!
17. I wash clothes every 7 days. This ensures each load is maxed out.
18. During the spring and summer months, we open up the house and use the attic fan instead of the A/C. This saves us a ton of money, even though I do not know how to quantify it.
19. I always buy generic over brand name products. I used to work in a grocery store and I can assure you that some private label products are actually made by brand name companies. Most private label products are extras made by the big boys.
20. I clip coupons for products we use out of the Sunday newspaper.
21. We signed up for the basic insurance plan at work instead of the premium plan. This makes fiscal sense, because we do not go to the doctor’s office very often. The premium plan has a slightly lower deductible ($10), yet the bi-weekly premium is about $50 more.
22. I buy quality products that are well made. These products will last longer and provide much better results.
23. I do not have any magazine subscriptions. Why should I? Everything you could possibly want to know is available on the internet for free.
24. I sell unwanted items on eBay so that I can buy wanted items for free (an exchange is almost free anyway).
25. I transferred all of my remaining credit card debt to a 0% card for the next 12 months. I should be able to pay them off in the next month or two.

Well there you have it. My list of 25 ways that I save money! I have found a few other blogs that have discussed ways they save money. I have included a few below:

The Finance Journey
LivingDeb
Value For Your Life
Tips and Ideas
Chalk Horse
How I Save Money
Tales of Abundance
Every Day U
The Family CEO
The Insider
Debt Free 4Ever
Thrifty Mommy

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