I had a conversation with a friend last night who is interested in starting a business, a private practice of sorts.  Her idea is to buy a small house, establish her practice in part of it, and rent the rest of the house out to others commercially.  The problem is, she was thinking of getting [...]

Today on Dave Ramsey’s radio show, he mentioned a letter Abraham Lincoln wrote to his brother-in-law in response to a request for money. The amount of $80 seems like a small amount these days, but it’s probably the equivalent of someone asking for around $10,000 or so today. Here are some excerpts of [...]

We’ve always felt that the benefits of living debt free (except for our house), but the last few weeks have really driven home the importance of owing nothing.  Circumstances at my job changed drastically in the last couple of weeks.  The resulting situation was going to mean a lot more hours for me, and when [...]

My biggest problem with this whole situation is that people who made bad decisions are being helped out, while those of us who made good decisions are not getting equal benefit.  Not that I think we should, but no one else should either.  Borrowers should learn a lesson from taking bad mortgages, and lenders should [...]

You can probably tell by my previous posts that I’m dead set against using credit cards…even if you pay off the monthly balance every month. Understandably, lots of people have credit card debt and want to get out. Sometimes they use the strategy of balance transfers to new cards as a tool. [...]

I wish I could remember where I heard this advice, but I think it is one of the best things I’ve ever heard…
Give money to your friends, don’t loan it.  If you loan money to a friend and expect it to be paid back you will probably lose either the friend or the money, and [...]

I have an ongoing back and forth with a friend at work (the pancake guy) about debt. Obviously, I’m against it, but he is very pro-debt and constantly uses the phrase, “debt is a tool–the math proves it”. He is always saying, “If I ever have $1M of net worth, I hope to have $300k [...]

Okay, based on yesterday’s post I came up with what I’ll call my three unbreakable rules for getting out of debt. My thought process went beyond just getting out. I think these rules also apply to STAYING out of debt.

1) Don’t borrow any more money
Absolutely the most important rule–didn’t even have to think about it. [...]

I think the most important thing you have to do to get out of debt and stay out of debt is to ave a plan and stick to it. There are several plans out there, and I don’t believe any of them really apply to every person’s situation. Which plan you use isn’t [...]