Living life from cover to cover
Congratulations to the winners–Tia and Jamie! I’ll be in touch with both of you shortly!
Don’t forget to enter to win one of 2 copies of Andrew Hallam‘s Millionaire Teacher: The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned in School!
I recently had the opportunity to read Andrew Hallam’s book, Millionaire Teacher: The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned in School. I was a bit skeptical of it at first, given the title and the fact that after perusing it, I realized that it was heavily focused on investing (we all know how I feel about investing). I figured there was no way this book could capture my interest or attention but you know what? It did.
The book starts off with Andrew describing how he chose to live post-college. The frugality (okay, let’s call a spade a spade. Extreme cheapness) with which he lived made me cringe at times (living with no heat, in Canada, in winter because he didn’t want to pay for heat? Ridiculous). He’s pretty self-depracating about it and recognizes that a) no one should actually attempt to live like he did and b) it was just a tad extreme. But he makes a good point–no one can get wealthy if he has a cloud of debt hanging over his head.
He also does a great job of telling the story of how he came to have his views on wealth, and what he needed to do to get there (I don’t want to ruin the story for you). He recognized that as a private school teacher, he was not guaranteed the same retirement funds as public school teachers. As a result, he had to take a much more active role in shaping his retirement and the book shares the lessons he learned in socking away money for the day he retires.
But the crux of the book is where he explains investing, why it’s important, how to do it and why he believes investing is really the only true path to wealth. He does an outstanding job of explaining the basics of investing (which, for someone like me, is really helpful), including defining terms, concepts and methods not so much for investing but picking the types of stocks and bonds to invest in. Now, I’m sure just reading that last sentence bored you. I assure you, the way Andrew presents that information is way less boring than it seems and he makes a Prison Break reference (which made me very, very happy)! By weaving personal stories, relatable metaphors and culture references, Andrew makes investing understandable for everyone–including me!
I don’t know that learning this information in school would have made me more interested in investing (at the time). But that’s just me. I think there are plenty of people–kids and adults–who can benefit from Andrew’s story. And his book. So, thanks to the wonderful people at Wiley publishing, I have 2 copies of the book to give away. Just follow the directions on the widget and enter to win your own copy of Millionaire Teacher.
Winners will be announced on Monday, April 9 so get your entries in!
Money Tune Tuesday took a little vacation in order to bring you my posts about Southland. Now, for it’s triumphant return, I bring you a guest post from my awesome friend and musical twin, Travis.
I’ve been a fan of Jana’s Money Tune Tuesday since….well pretty much since she started this blog. Jana and I have similar taste in music, so I always look forward to see what song she’s going to pick next. Like Jana, I often find motivation and meaning in music. The songs I enjoy the most are those that I identify with and can apply my interpretation of the lyrics to my own life.
For readers who are not familiar with my story, my wife and I are enrolled in a Debt Management Program (DMP) and are a little over half way through a 5 year program to eliminate our credit card debt. Over the course of the 33 months that we’ve been in the program, I have explained countless times what a DMP is, defended it against people who claim programs “like that” are scams, and discussed several times why in my situation it was the right choice over declaring bankruptcy.
Recently, I was switching up the play list on my iPod, reloading it with songs I hadn’t listened to for awhile. One of the songs that I loaded was “Riptide” by Sick Puppies (Jana’s note: Another Sick Puppies song, “Maybe”, essentially changed my life. More on that next week).
When I first heard this song about a year ago, it really hit home. Due to some of the discussions I had been having, doubt had begun to form as to whether we had chosen the best option to effectively get back on our feet financially. This song gave me the strength to re-assess our choice, and have confidence in the educated decision my wife and I had made. The people that were questioning our choice are not living in my house, looking at my bills, or supporting my kids. No matter what things may look like from the outside, or what other people may say, they don’t know the specifics of my every day life. I know best what is right for my family financially, and I am confident that we chose the correct path to eliminate our credit card debt.
“Riptide” is a hard rock song, however I found this awesome unplugged version that I would like to share instead. Check out the video, and take a moment to think about any decisions you’ve made recently that you may be doubting due to the opinions of people that just aren’t informed.
Travis is a contributing writer to the My Journey Out of Debt blog in the CareOne Community, and can also be found every other Thursday at Enemy of Debt as well as his own blog, Our Journey To Zero. He shares his family’s experiences, struggles and successes as they fight their way out of debt. As a father and husband he provides a unique perspective on balancing debt, finances, and family.
I am not a spontaneous person. I like schedules. I like plans. I need predictability because when you’re living with major depression and anxiety, having a routine helps keep certain things in check. Knowing that I’m doing this on Saturday or that I have a work meeting on Monday allows me to create a schedule that attempts to thwart a little bit of the panic attacks and overwhelming anxiety that overtake my life whenever they have nothing else to do.
It works that way with my budget as well. As soon as I’m done paying bills for a month, I plan out the next month. I know exactly how much money I’m going to need every payday. This provides a certain comfort to me. Along the same lines, I make almost no unplanned purchases, even for frivolous items like nail polish and the occasional soda and peanut butter Twix at Wawa. Buying books from Amazon is an extra kind of special; I will keep a book in my cart for days before I actually pull the trigger and purchase it (because I’m insane and have to make sure that there is no way possible it will ever be in the library). I have to plan for spending the money in my head before I can actually make the purchase. I’m only slightly neurotic.
But sometimes I have to let up on my compulsive need to plan every single penny. This happened to me twice this week. The first time, I realized that FinCon is the same week that my daughter starts kindergarten. Fortunately, I won’t miss her first day (or dropping her off on her second) but I couldn’t bear the thought of missing any time the following week. I know that it won’t make a difference to her and my husband is fine with it, but for me, I couldn’t do it. So I spent $150 to change my return flight from Monday to Sunday. I figure the money is offset by the savings I’ll have for spending one less night at the hotel but it was still $150 I was totally unprepared to spend. It’s totally worth it though.
The second time I spent unplanned money was on Sunday. I’ve mentioned before that I was in a sorority in college. Even though I grew extremely disenchanted with the organization as a whole, I still maintained a level of love and respect for several of my chapter sisters. I lost track of most of them once I graduated but thanks to a little thing called blogging (and Facebook), I was able to reconnect with one of my favorite people from my chapter (you know who you are and I know you’re reading). She was actually my “adopted” little sister and is probably one the biggest reasons I don’t regret joining my sorority. I emailed her after she left a comment and, once we realized we live about 45 minutes away from each other, we decided to meet for brunch. It was the best 3 hours I spent all weekend and I would have gladly paid more than the $18 it cost for the food. And I didn’t twitch once when I took out the money.
It’s probably good for me to spend unplanned money every now and then. It’s a good reminder that there’s no possible way I can control every situation in my life. But it’s also a good reminder of why I save my money and don’t make too many unplanned frivolous purchases. Because when important, unexpected expenses arise, it’s nice to be able to afford them.
This week kicked my ass. I’m not sure what was so different but wow, am I tired. So tired, in fact, that forming any sort of coherent thought takes a tremendous amount of effort. I really hope next week is better.
Since I’m incapable of thinking, you should probably go ahead and check out these posts instead:
There are some other people who are kind enough to let me write for them. Here are some other shots from this week:
