TAKE A STAND & PROTECT YOUR PROGRESS…STOP JUNK MAIL & CREDIT CARD OFFERS

If you've made a commitment to be done with debt and have started to work on the debt snowball one of the ways that you can lose the 'temptation' of getting sucked back into the credit game is to take the initiative and STOP the offers from coming in the mail.  

We are being bombarded daily with credit 'offers' from our local banks, airlines, our member clubs (Sam's/BJ's), local retailers where we buy our groceries, clothing ALL offer discounts if we just 'sign up today' for THEIR card. We can't go online and not be hit with an advertisement in the margin offering us 0% interest to transfer a balance.  The marketing dollars credit card companies and banks spend on advertising will astound you. 

Here's what the top 3 advertisers on Google in the credit market are spending on MONTHLY ads to capture your attention and your business:

• Chase $4,489,865 (using 64,368 'keywords')
• Capital One $6,349,382 (using 65,545 'keywords')
• American Express $3,593,729 (using 93,706 'keywords")

You can see you don't have a chance at escaping their tactics! 

So what can you do?  

You have to have AWARENESS and be smarter than they are! You have to know that they don't spend $14,432,976 PER MONTH collectively to advertise because they aren't making big bucks in interest charges once they capture you!!! You have to stop believing you can WIN with their offers and beat them. Their buildings are bigger than your house for a reason!  

Sit with this for a week. Really digest the reality of the money that is being spent by the corporate credit giants to get rich off of the average American family by way of interest rates earned by them.  They benefit each and every time we have a 'want or need' that we are willing to 'charge'.   

And then make a commitment to do something different! Commit to using your 'debit card and CASH' for your purchases and be done with interest charges on purchases you made a year ago.  

 You  can also decide to stop receiving the prescreened offers of credit and insurance you receive in the mail. To do so, you have two choices: You can opt out of receiving them for five years or opt out of receiving them permanently. To opt out for five years: Call toll-free 1-888-5-OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688) or visit www.optoutprescreen.com.

A FEW YEARS OF HARD WORK & DILIGENCE PAYS HUGE DIVIDENDS FOR A STRESS FREE LIFE!

We all know that hard work pays off. Yet in the area of our finances many of us feel that taking control leads to a boring and unfulfilled lifestyle.

Class after class I lead has nay-sayers who by week three are in agreement that the "steps' I teach could/would change their lives but it would seem SO HARD. It would seem so STRICT. It will 'UPSET the kids".

Yes, at first it will seem difficult.

Doesn't anything new we do take effort and have a learning curve?

Do you remember learning how to ride a bike?
Or Skiing? Did you think the first day it would be 'easy' and you would be accomplished. Heck no.

You started out with training wheels or on the 'bunny slope'. But once you got your bearings and started to 'feel' your bearings you almost forgot you were learning something new to begin with. Many of you went from novice to amateur and many of you to experts from that first experience to where you are today in those areas.  It's the same with our financial goals.  We have to first learn and plan on how to get there. The "work" is the learning how to budget and tell our money where to go. This is where a coach comes in.  Did you get up on your bike alone or did a parent, brother/sister, aunt/uncle put you on that seat the first time out?  Did you just show up on the ski slopes or did a family friend or parents take you and lead your confidence in the right direction?  I work with couples/individuals who are ready to pay off debt, and build wealth. I do the pay off debt part of the coaching!  I help you establish an individualized workable plan, help you eliminate your debts and create a freedom you haven't felt in years.

For more information check out my 101 coaching package

One of the FASTEST ways to change our spending habits it to change our 'awareness' around them.

How do you do this?  A Written Cash Flow Plan                  

You look at what you have coming IN for the month in advance-that would mean you sit down NOW to figure out what March will look like and what needs to go OUT… you decide in advance of the month, where your money needs to and will go. 

You will find your best success will come from setting a 'limit' on your spending in areas that can get away from us such as entertainment, eating out, kids asking for lunch money, the last minute trips to the grocery store.  For me it was eating out. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but we were spending $1200-$1300  PER month eating out! We were both running businesses and we had kids in after school sports and also on leagues after the school sports ended. Most nights, that meant we were not eating until after 8pm. Most weekends were also spent in another town for most of the day. 

When I actually decided to start getting back to "budgeting basics" two years ago I had to pull my 'records' to see what I was currently spending on each category-for most of us that means looking up all the charges and debit transactions and adding them up. Even though my balance was paid each month, I was SHOCKED at how much we were spending on this one category.  Whether we could afford it or not was not the issue, it just seemed excessive to me.   I became concerned about the expensive 'habit' my children were 'inheriting' from me! I didn't want to be the one responsible for their inability to manage their financial lives because I became oblivious to how much we spent on this behavior each month.  I HAD TO come up with a new 'habit' amount and try to stick to it. This also meant I had to figure out a number for groceries. This took some guessing on my part because I had not cooked more than once or twice a week in what seemed like five years. 

But I was determined!  I established an 'envelope' and set up new monthly spending LIMITS for our family of four (+ 2 every other weekend) in the following areas: 

• EATING OUT - This envelope is labeled "entertainment & eating out' 
• GROCERIES -Keep my coupons in here as well
• GAS - Ha! Been beating this one lately and having extra each month!
• CLOTHING - Keep my coupons in here as well

I started planning my meals, clipping coupons, looking at sales flyers, saying 'NO' we are not stopping and made it a game that I was determined to WIN!

Was has winning this game done for me?  I was able to reallocate that  'excess' spending and pushed that $400 extra per month onto the car loan I had and I was able to pay the car off early!!

That was the last debt on my debt snowball so now those dollars go to the mortgage each month and that will be paid off earlier too!  

It's empowering to win with money. Not to just have it. Not to just earn it. But to really win with it.  I'm going to win at this money game and I'm determined to help other families do the same!

Check out my services at sickofthehustle.com 

Americans paid a sickening $32 BILLION in overdraft fees to US banks last year!!!

Banks make their money on MONEY or LACK THERE OF...  

Unlike a retail store who makes its profits on a product, banks profit on the 'transaction' of money.  Think about when you open a savings account at your local bank. You basically deposit (loan them) your money at a very low interest rate.  Once you're in the door their marketing machine begins… sign into your online banking and you can see for yourself there are 10 offers on each page trying to capture your attention.  Open your mailbox and there are offers for their credit card. Open your bank statement and you find a slick insert with their most recent program rates! 

They are working very hard to lend your money back to you in the form of mortgages, home equity lines, credit card offers, personal loans, car loans, all of which range with interest rates of 2.75% to well over 20%-- WELL OVER your .035 that you are earning on your savings. 

After raking in money on savings accounts, Banks turn their attention to checking accounts. Banks make most of their money by charging the following fees:

• Overdraft fees: which represent approximately 60% of the fees charged by banks. The average overdraft fee today is $29 per transaction! Only 10% of the population pays 75% of the fees, and they tend to be the most economically vulnerable, including our troops. Can you believe that last year overdrafts fees paid to US banks exceeded $32 Billion!?!? Yes $32 BILLION!!  In 2007 that number was only $17.5 billion so we have gotten twice as bad with handling our money as we were 7 years ago. 
• ATM fees: which can add up quickly. If you go out of network, you pay ATM fees to two banks: your bank, and the bank that owes the ATM- this accounts for over $11 Billion in fees.
• Monthly fees: which most people get waived. A direct deposit or minimum balance usually takes care of this fee but the average American is paying $6.00 month just to have an account at their local bank.  

HOW did we get to this point where we are financing 60% of the bank growth by our STUPIDITY?? For some of us we just stopped using basic sixth grade math and keeping track of what we have in our accounts. It's craziness really.  Some of us haven't balanced a checkbook since online banking became the 'norm'- we just check our balances 1-2 times A DAY!!! It's laziness really. Living paycheck to paycheck has become the norm because many Americans have tried to 'out earn' their stupidity. It doesn't work and this is the price we pay… FEES! Late fees, monthly fees, higher interest rates. 

I'm here to tell you there IS ANOTHER WAY!  

Let me help teach you how to implement a healthy financial budget that will have you taking control and putting money back in your pockets NOT the banks! 

If you would like to learn more, visit my website. 

THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE....

Very few of us have had real guidance in terms of how to have a healthy financial lifestyle. We may have picked up some good AND bad habits from our parents and grandparents. I always remember my grandmother saying 'You MUST save for a rainy day" yet while that was one of my early memories of money by the time I was 16 and had my first job I immediately wanted STUFF!!!  I realized money was a way to freedom. Freedom from the constraints of NO. If I wanted those jeans I didn't have to ask for the funds, I just bought them. If I wanted a certain shampoo or hairspray that my mom didn't want (or couldn't splurge for) I bought it.  The freedom was something new and I LOVED IT!! I loved the independence it allowed me and it was that feeling that led me for many years. It made me want to work. That was a great thing because in order to have the things I wanted I had to work for them.   The reality was however, that while my mom taught me to balance a checkbook by the age of ten (was one of MY chores!) I really didn't want to 'structure' how I handled money. I just wanted to 'use it'.  

I think this is true for many of us.  We start to 'earn' our way and 'buy' the things we want and because someone else is taking care of many of the things we need we get off on the wrong footing. We shoot from the hip so to speak and don't have a real plan about how to handle our finances. We get to our full time job, we enroll in benefits that we don't understand, we start to save for retirement because we are told we will get 3% matched and we roll forward. Many of us however look like the photo above, the cart is leading us, not us leading the cart!  

What is wrong with this picture? The cart doesn't move!  

Many of the couples and singles I meet with have money in their retirement accounts yet are carrying credit card debit of $10-15,000 at a 14.54% interest rate. They are socking away money into retirement and carrying such a heavy consumer debt load that can't be attacked because they have it backwards.  The steps I teach are pretty simple. You do them IN ORDER. They work! Millions of Americans have implemented these steps and reached a new financial freedom that they never imagined possible.  You do them in this order:

• Step 1: Save $1000 ($500 if you are earning under $25k year) into a small emergency fund
• Step 2: Pay off ALL non mortgage debt smallest to largest (this is called the Debt Snowball)
• Step 3: Now fund a fully funded Emergency Fund saving 3-6 months of your monthly expenses
• Step 4: NOW start to put aside 15% of your household income into tax favored retirement funds
• Step 5: NOW start to put aside 15% for college planning for your children
• Step 6: PAY OFF your mortgage early!Step 7: Build your wealth and Live & Give like no one else!!!!!

Designing & mapping out a plan helps us reach our goals quicker. When you lead the cart and know where it's going we can actually get there!  What are you doing to work your way towards financial freedom? Do you have a real plan?