Problem Solvers or Excuse Makers?

I believe that we live in the greatest country known to man.  We live in a country where we have the freedom to write the story of our lives.  Some people diligently develop novels of success while others fail to see past themselves and the negative consequences of their own decisions.  I have written before that the poorest of the poor in the United States are living more comfortable than many citizens throughout the world.

As I have written prior to when it comes to the world of Student Loans I have no mercy for those individuals who suck the system for every penny they can get and then decide that hey it’s not fair.  Its predatory lending how could they expect me to pay x dollars back? 

I wonder how some of these people survive in the real world.  I read their stories one after the other and they even have support groups to pat each other on the back and say it’s alright not to pay your debt.  It’s not your fault it’s the mean ole Government’s fault.  Sadly some of these people did not do the necessary research before signing up for school while others obtained their degrees and then became shocked at their inability to make money.  Seriously who thinks they’re going to be able to pay back $50,000 on an artist salary?  What about the teacher who is agitated because of the lack of pay?

I look at the accomplishments I have obtained in my life and each one had nothing to do with luck or being rich or whatever excuse these people come up with.  I busted my butt to get my degree.  I worked full time and went to school full time so I could provide a better life for my family.  I feel content paying back my student loans because what I have been able to reap the benefits of.  Yet there are people who want to have a pity party for them talking about how their choice to take out a student loan is preventing them from having kids, living life to the fullest, yadda yadda yadda.

I have student loan debt, I have a family, I am providing for my family.  I know many people who are doing the same thing as me.  Paying back a debt that truly bettered their life.  There are two kinds of people truly in the world, problem solvers and excuse makers.  I find these members of groups who want to avoid paying their debt to comprise the latter part.

How smart are these people with their support groups?  I have yet to stumble across a “support group” for those individuals who have paid their obligation.  Yet these individuals who bleed the system for what they can get refer to those who meet their obligations as “rich, lucky, insert adjective here.”  I’m delighted and saddened by this great country that we live in.  Delighted because all of the opportunities and saddened at how so many people try to exploit these advantages.  What a great but sad world that we live in.

Ms. Shuster The Piker

What could you do with $100,000? What could you do if that $100,000 only required you write an essay containing 480 words and was written at Microsoft Word readability statistics of grade 10.6? Well I would think this would be a really good accomplishment especially if you beat out 40,000 other hopefuls. Chances are you might go to a local community college, a 4 year state school or in the case of Yelena Shuster you would go to Columbia University.

That’s right you would take your $100,000 attend a phenomenal school in the Eastern United States receive your degree and then bitch blog about how horrible it is to have an Ivy League education and unemployed.  I think back to the thousands of people that I have met throughout my high school and collegiate days and I cannot help but ponder what they would have been able to accomplish with that extra $100,000 just laying around.

This goes back to the issue I have of people and money and now with student loans. This individual won $100,000, she won an amount from an essay that sadly some people in our country will never at one instance in their life see yet she has the audacity to write about how bad it is to be her. Cry me a river especially when you come into the fortunate opportunity Ms. Shuster had. I have no respect for her and sadly she and I are from the same generation pool but the difference is I know how to pull myself up by the bootstraps.

Hey I just checked out the stats for my post, over 250+ words and written with a readability statistic of 12.0, this should be good enough for $60,000, right? Wrong. To the people like Ms. Shuster get over yourself and when you do that get a j-o-b. She, like many others, need to realize that she chose her education and her future is from the decisions she makes today. Maybe if she would spend more time focusing on getting a job and less time on blogging she could turn her blog title to Ivy League and employed dot com.  Just a thought. 

$100,000 Victory

Here’s a thought: Owe a debt, Pay it

I have been surfing the Internet today while watching the Alabama-Florida game and I came across an interesting website.  This site is Student Loan Justice Dot org and I decided to write out the name rather than link up to the site.  I have student loans and I am paying them even when I was unemployed and on a much smaller income I was paying my student loans.

Apparently this is a site that is dedicated purely to student loan borrowers who feel the loan industry is just as predatory as the housing industry.  I have empathy in that I understand where some of these people are coming from as far as taking out large loans as an 18 year old kid and not knowing what your future holds.  With that said though I do not have sympathy for these individuals.

When I took a pay cut to find employment well over a year ago I quickly realized that I had to add some other kind of work to supplement the missing income my family was accustomed to.  What did I do?  I went a got another part-time j-o-b.  How did that work out for me?  Well the part-time gig enabled me to not only pay my student loans, but to also provide private insurance coverage for my family.

I hate going back to the societal issues but the truth remains that we have some lazy people who are purely irresponsible.  The United States Department of Education did not tell me what school I had to go to, nor do they tell anyone else, but just like anything else if you take money out through a loan you’ve got to be prepared to pay it back.  Again I have empathy for these people but I do not have sympathy for those individuals within our society who are probably living next door.

Delayed Gratification Can Save You Money

There has been one question lately that I have been thinking about primarily because of a Dave Ramsey workbook that I am contemplating is what would you do with one million dollars? Imagine someone coming up and handing you a check with 6 zeroes behind the 1 and how would you spend it? Would you give a portion away? Would you blow it? Would you invest it, what exactly would you do?

In that same workbook was a statistic from another book stating that highly successful people tend to be more proactive than others. If you, like I have found myself in the past, are more reactive when it comes to your money then how likely are you to keep the million dollars within 1 year? Within 3 years? Within 10 years?

The answer may surprise you as many people who come into money go out of money because of poor spending habits. Let’s face it the society we live in is based primarily on the instant gratification rule. Meaning if I want something I want it now and when I say now I mean yesterday. I have found myself to be guilty of making snap judgments when it comes to the world of money. Those quick decisions have typically led me to a dead end battle to wage on in this thing we call life.

I look at delaying the decision making processes on wants to be fruitful and rewarding. Normally what I would view as a gotta have, well, that feeling subsides within 24-48 hours and I find myself being relieved that I did not give in to a spur of the minute budget breaking expenditure.

Seek and Destroy

My wife was able to negotiate a lower payment arrangement with our cable provider which allowed us more features than we had before and I just wanted to say how proud I am of her.  In our previous 6 years of marriage we had never had DVR or many of the movie channels.  Well that is until recently when Mindy took her negotiating skills to task and was able to get us more for less.

What can I say?  How can I complain?  Now it’s no big deal if we have something come up and there’s a television show we want to watch but we’re too afraid of missing it.  Wow it sounded great until I realized the big game is gonna be on next Saturday and we’re scheduled to go to the in-law’s house.  Maybe I can convince her I need to watch the game live. 

With the DVR I have taken full advantage of recording Dave Ramsey’s shows and have spent the majority of the weekend watching them.  Amazing how hearing other people’s success stories can motivate a person to achieve their own dreams.  That’s what I am here for to zero in on personal debt and destroy it.  I will be debt free and I will work my budget off to get there.

Picking Myself Up From Falling

The 2009 year is almost over and my question is what kind of year did you have?  Did you meet your financial goals?  Did you fail to meet them?  What did you accomplish and what would you have liked to have accomplished?  In looking around and taking a hard look at my own life I see the misfortunes that happen to a lot of people.  I was gung ho about starting on my budget ready to become debt free and when the movement was not fast enough for me what happened?  I stop paying attention and when I stopped paying attention I fell back into the same ole rut I was previously in.

Now I’m not saying that I am going to be on here everyday but during my sabbatical from this blogging site I re-evaluated my budgeting skills.  What I found was quite alarming as I had done everything the financial guru’s had said to do.  Get a budget and put it into writing however even though the budget looked good on paper there was one key ingredient that I had left out. 

My bills are all due at various times in the month and to say that my rent is ‘x’ amount of dollars for December, January, February, etc. sounded good but reality was I might need to pull from my November checks to pay for my December rent.  Already off the bat my beautiful budget that I had meticulously figured out days in advance was shot.  It was done for so rather than be intelligent about it I took the stupid approach as the paper, pen and calculator went flying.  My new approach will consist of breaking down the bills by pay check.  I believe if I would have been doing this all along I would have positioned myself not to have gotten frustrated but to have been in control.

I want to do this right and I want to make sure that I am set up to succeed.  In doing this comes my part in making sure that I stick to the budget.  During this same time period I will begin a work out regiment with the goal of losing weight.  As long as everything goes as plans my waist line will be getting smaller as my bank account grows. 

The advice that I have for anyone who has started a budget only to find themselves giving up is to hold off on the negative feelings.  I’m beginning this walk and I’m inviting you to join me.  If you have something to add as a suggestion, comment or just want to make your presence known feel free to let the blogosphere know.

Obama: Will he be a hero or a zero?

I want to start this post with how much does the job market suck right now? I have a friend who has been searching and searching and searching for employment. Too many companies are learning how to down size and perform work more efficiently for less. Amazing how prior to the downturn of the economy many businesses were operating on more personnel and larger budgets.

At this point in time many companies have figured out how to gain more for less just like the American consumer has with personal finances. For my friend he was one of the numerous who have fallen victim to the belief that President Obama would be able to resurrect the world and unfortunately Obama has seemingly done the opposite. I realize the economy was failing under Bush but where are the significant increases under Obama?

Funny how the Obama supporters are still blaming Bush and saying give Obama more time, but what happens when Obama is still failing at the end of his four year term? Who will the Liberals blame the economy on then? Well the answer is simple, they will blame it on the Conservatives and Republicans just like how they are blaming this group now concerning Obama’s Health Care reform.

For my friend the job market has been slow and sadly enough I believe the entire American economy will not strive but barely survive at best under Obama. The mindset in which the American public handles their money has changed and so has the mindset of corporate America. Obama was supposed to be a hero but in the end will he be a zero as the job and economic markets continue to change in the great United States of America?

Most Millionaires DO live on a budget

I came across an article tonight posted on the Yahoo! Finance page entitled, “Now Even Millionaires Can See the Benefits of Budgeting” and was written by Paul Sullivan on Monday. The title took me back a little when I thought about how asinine this title is as an overwhelming census seems to be that millionaires can spend money like it’s going out of style and not worry about the repercussions of living on a budget.

From the research I have conducted in trying to live a debt-free lifestyle the one common factor I am finding out with millionaires is that these people are more money conscious than the working folk in society. Truthfully the millionaires living next door did not achieve this wealth by spending money in a fury and did so by watching their every penny.

The large majority of millionaires in our society did so over time and did not become a millionaire instantly and maintain their wealth. Sure there are people who were the beneficiaries of winning the lottery, inheritance, etc.,  but a lot of these people spent their money while not living on a budget. The thought process behind this title seems to be derived from the theory that those rich people can spend money whenever and on whatever they want. This is a myth that holds no validity in most cases.

The smartest and wisest thing Mr. Sullivan offered in his article is that “…a budget isn’t a bad idea.” How true this is and the goal of achieving financial securities in the future is exactly why I am budgeting now. Spending wildly is what got me into this mess and spending wisely will get me out. Folks, the millionaires in our society didn’t get rich over night and the smart ones will not go broke over night either.