Day 91: Four

Okay... Let me start by saying WHERE THE HELL DID A MONTH GO?

I understand that I am a bit behind on my posts here, but this is almost out of hand. I assure you that I have not been lazy for 31 days. I have actually been extremely busy. I have a whole host of posts (look... it rhymes) that are waiting to be logged in here.

[Rather than letting the blog flounder and be forgotten I decided to start fresh on April fools and to add the older posts in as we go.]

Like I said, I have been really busy. There have been some ups and some downs over the past ninety days and I can honestly say that I am happy with where things are headed even if nothing has really changed. 1/4 of a year into this mess I am:

1. Still smoking
2. Still broke
3. Still plugging away at a job I am not happy in
4. Still fat and injured

That being said I am also:

1.  Happily in love
2. On track to fix #3 of the previous section
3. Healed on one foot completely
4. 1/4 of a year wiser

I'm looking forward to telling you about the upcoming adventure I hope to be on shortly. Right now though I am excited about finishing my 14 hour day and going to bed.

It's good to be back...

Day 29: Extensions

I'm not here today to talk about creating new hair looks quickly via a multitude of ways to trick the men in your life. Sadly, I am here to talk about something a little more boring. Tax Extensions! I spoke a few days ago about what you can do to get the IRS to work with you on your back taxes. I forgot to mention something very important about tax extensions. For those of you who don't know, a tax extension gives you until October 15th to file your return. That is pretty self explanatory,  but what they don't explain is that  you still are responsible to pay the balance owed (if there is any) on April 15th.

This is very important because you incur interest and penalties from Uncle Sam on those six months you wait. This also has been known to produce certified mail from the IRS that doesn't say very nice things! The best way to avoid this is to... ready... PAY YOUR TAXES!

On a side note it is hard to neglect the uncanny similarities between being deceived by hair extensions and by tax extensions! They both are meant to look like one thing but are actually something completely different. I am just not quite sure which one is more dangerous!

Day 27: Taxes

A while back I received a letter from the IRS trying to discuss my back taxes. First off, let me state that I am by no means in massive tax debt in addition to my other debt. The reality is that I do owe Uncle Sam a few bucks. These past few years have been dificult and I have pushed really hard to make ends meet. That being said... PAY YOUR TAXES! Uncle Sam can be one scary dude. It isn't necessarily a good thing to owe your government money when they are broke!

The thing about it is they will definitely work with you. So, if you are up against the wall with them, give them a call! Surpissingly they can be very aimiable. They set me up on a payment plan that works with my budget and should get me clear in just a few months. So as we move back into tax season I feel like I am prepared to get my next W2... at least until I have to do something with it!

Day 26: Brakes

That whole "driving my car off a cliff" idea is starting to look better and better by the minute! The brakes on my POS are definitely getting to the point that they need to be changed. I showed them to one of my techs at the shop and he informed me that I was probably going to need a whole new brake assembly which is going to cost around $700. This does not bode well for the debt relief strategy of paying off my credit cards!

Luckily I have a buddy who can get it done for me a little cheaper, but it still doesn't change the fact that I am pissed to have to spend it in the first place. Its not like I wanted to spend the money frivolously anyway... I wanted to do something nice for the GF! Valentines day is coming much quicker than you think... that shit creeps up on you!

I have to believe that when I check my lottery tickets I am going to be 121 MILLION dollars richer tomorrow. So if this is my last post... its because I am RICH! I will still be thinking about you guys anyway, just so you know, on a beach in Costa Rica! If anyone needs to get ahold of me I will be here:

www.thespringscostarica.com

Day 25: Faith

Today sucked! It seemed that nothing really was going well at work. On my way home I took a second to relax and clear my head. I said a little prayer to myself and assured myself everything was going to be okay. I was pretty worried about my finances when I woke up today and I wasn't quite sure how I could get through the next few weeks. I got home and checked the mail. I had two letters. The first was a check-card from one of my venders for selling a  body for a truck. I knew that was coming and that there is no money on it until I deliver this truck. The other letter I didn't know was coming. It was from the manufacturer of the trucks I sell. Apparently someone did some accounting on their end and found out I was owed for a promotion that had going on last year. I new I was going to be receiving a gift card for $300 from them... I was pretty surprised to find out it was just a check for six times the amount! I guess some deals I had done last year came through as well.

I set out to deposit the check and had to stop by the store. For fun, I bought a $2 scratcher ticket... I won $22 dollars! Now, I am a firm believer that good things come in threes and so I quickly purchased a couple of Mega Millions Lottery tickets. The jackpot is $121 Million. I am saying another little prayer right now that nothing good happens to me until about 7PM tomorrow night!

It just goes to show you that a little faith will go a long way. I believe that there are greater forces at work than you or I can see. IF you want something bad enough... it will come to you. More importantly, if you ask hard enough for help... it will be given to you. It isn't always the way you would expect, but most of the time you will look back and notice it was there!

Day 20: Karma

I'm not here today to talk to you about cosmic forces or about how what goes around will eventually come around. I actually wanted to further what I talked about yesterday. One very important factor in getting out of debt is to manage your credit score. Ultimately this is what will decide if can get credit and how much the lending institution will allow you to borrow.

The past two years have been tough on my credit score! The key factor in fixing that is knowing where you stand. It is free to obtain one detailed credit summary a year through the major credit reporting agencies. I recommend everyone do this! There are also various websites that you can pay to see your current score (www.freecreditreport.com). I, however, have found the ultimate site that is truly free!

www.creditkarma.com

They have a wealth of information and useful tips. One function that I find very useful is the "credit simulator." This allows you to see where your credit would be if various positive or negative situations were to take place.

I can't stress how important this is to me and how much it can help you to make sure that you are doing the right thing. Check it out, you don't have a thing to lose and it is always nice to have Karma on your side!

Day 19: DMP's

About 9 months ago I finally realized that I was in a financial downward spiral. I needed help! I turned to the person I hold in the highest regard of all the world for some advice... my older brother. I wasn't asking for money, I was looking for help. See, I had done everything my brother had told me to do leading up to this point since I first reached out to him three years ago. In all reality I should have been flying high, but the drop off of the economy had left me grounded. I was promised an opportunity that was going to change my financial standing for life. The only thing that had changed in the first year and a half was the amount of credit cards I had.

My brother knew that I was doing everything in my power and so he recommended I talk to someone about my debt. At first I was scared. I didn't want to "settle my debt for a fraction of what I owed" because I knew that it would have ill effects on my credit. My brother continued to tell me that there are different types of services. He sent me a website to check out:

http://www.clearpointfinancialsolutions.org/

I went to the website and filled out the information inquiry. Not long after that I received a phone call from a counselor that took me through the steps of what the counseling service does. He explained that they set up what is called a DMP (Debt Management Plan) to help people get their lives back the right way!

Ultimately I found out that they are there to help! My counselor, Brandon, was really awesome in assisting me to gather all of my debt data. They spoke to my credit card/loan companies and created a plan. What most people don't understand is that the credit card companies have programs to help you to pay them back. Most of these programs won't even effect your credit.

When it was all said and done Brandon had created a payment plan that dropped and consolidated my monthly payments into a manageable single bill that I see results from! The average APR drop was over 10%! 10%!!!!!

I just passed 6 months of being on my Debt Management Plan and have seen my total debt shrink by 25%! That is a massive drop. If I go along at this pace I will be debt free in another year and a half!

The whole point is that there are options! You have ways to get out of your holes! You just have to look for the information. I am supposed to check in with Brandon soon to re-evaluate my situation. I will keep you posted on how things progress as we move along.

Day 14: Goals

As i've said before, I believe that having goals is very important. Most people will sit down January 1st and devise their goals for the coming year. A lot of people will try and shoot for the stars with their goals or establish a goal that is too vague to be accomplished. Often times this is more detrimental that helpful because the goals are too hard to reach and fall quickly out of sight. An easy way to counter-act this is by setting your goals and then creating sub-goals and a plan that will launch you into the heavens.


Let’s look at a new year’s goal that just about all of us has set. We have all told ourselves on January 1st that “this is the year I am getting into shape!” What does that actually mean? We are all in some “shape.” I, for instance, am currently rounded! Such vague goals are the reasons why there is a 45 minute wait for an elliptical machine at the gym until a about January 20th. Twenty days is all it takes for people to get bored, give up, or convince themselves that they don’t look that fat in their size 40 jeans.


Now, if we go back and look at that goal in a different light and start of by saying “this is the year that I get into my target weight range coupled with a healthy body fat percentage!” Automatically we can see a drastic difference in what has been laid forth. By setting this type of goal we have a start, a direction to go in, and a finish. If you do a little research it is easy to find out where you fall on the healthy weight zone scale. This is the start! Let’s say for instance you are 265lbs with 28% body fat. If you are 7’ tall this may be okay. Likely you are more in my range of pretty close to 6’1”. A healthy range for someone my size with a larger bone structure is to be between 190-215lbs with a body fat percentage from 14-18%. That puts me about 50lbs outside my range. This is my direction! Healthy weight loss accomplished by diet and exercise should yield around 10lbs of loss per month for men and around 6-8lbs for women. Knowing that I can deduce it should take me 5 months to get into my healthy range if I hit it hard from the get go. Don't think you have to go balls out from the beginning. Take things slowly! Set sub goals for yourself. Take it in steps. I have compiled an example of the first three months my own personal process to losing 50lbs and 12% body fat (the finish) below.




GOAL- 50lbs and 12% fat loss!



January-

1. Get a gym membership
2. Start exercising 2-3 times per week.
3. Cut out fast food.
4. Cut back on beer.
5. Drink one glass of water for every soda.

February-

1. Increase exercising to 3-4 times per week.
2. Pick up a sport.
3. Switch to diet soda.
4. Drink 2-3 liters of water a day.

March-

1. Increase length and intensity of workouts.
2. Switch from beer to vodka.
3. Increase the amount of home cooked meals you eat.

By creating sub-goals that you can monitor on a day to day basis the end result is much easier to attain. I promise that if you were to follow that brief three month plan alone you would see a drastic change in your appearance. The same rules apply to things like personal debt. If you want to be out of debt in 2010 then start by paying your highest interest rate credit cards off first. Set a goal to take care of one card every two months and make the small changes in your life to attain that goal.


I know this post was a bit long winded, but it is amazing information that has been passed onto me. I promise if you heed it you will not be one of the people that vanish from the gym on the 20th! Good luck.

Day 5: Finance

I have to admit that the fantastical day dreams I had as a wide eyed college graduate do not quite match up to my current financial state. I had pictured myself at this point being a high powered movie producer with a big house and a BMW M3 in the driveway. Truth be told, I have an apartment and a 2004 Nissan Xterra. The Xterra (or Xterror as I like to call it) serves as a mode of transportation to my day job as a Peterbilt truck salesman, but it also happens to hold the record as the most expensive Xterra ever sold!

Don't be misled here, there is absolutely nothing special about this truck! I paid $21K for it off the showroom floor in 2004. However, due to lack of experience, a bit of stupidity, and two ill thought out refinances I still owe $15,256 on the thing with a monthly payment of $486. When it is all said and done I will have paid around $54,000 for the damn thing. This is particularly vexing because a 2010 BMW M3 is $53,000! I will delve more into this topic later when I discuss why you should never refinance your vehicle and how Wells Fargo is the devil!

I digress from the point of my dreams and my reality not matching up. This is important because they definitely do NOT! Anyone who reads this that is in sales knows what the last two years have been like... shitty, What compounds this situation is that I had zero savings when I switched careers and moved into sales. For the greater part of the past two years I have been juggling credit cards and loans in order to get me over the proverbial "hump" to lay some solid groundwork with my finances. This elusive "hump" has yet to show up. In fact the only hump of any sort I have managed to locate is a seemingly insurmountable mountain of debt that has been topped off by a flag that some crooked banker erected with a smile to read "Average APR 18.9%." Needless to say that this has done wonders for my credit score. The damage has been done though. I had spent the previous four years making up for horrible college credit card mistakes, and now I will be spending the next few on these.

In my darkest hour, when I was at least a month behind on just about every bill I have, I decided to take a stand. I took some very good advice and got some help straightening out my debt. I have been holding steady and have started to chip away a little bit at a time. In the coming months I am going to share with you what I have done to get my head back above water. I no longer feel lost and anxious when it comes to my debt. I am not where I envisioned myself 8 years ago, but that is okay for today. I still have some time to get that M3!

So here I am, a 29 year old impromptu mountain climber ready to scale that mountain of debt. The one thing I know for certain is that when I reach the top I too will erect a flag (after burning the current one) that will read "DEBT FREE."

Then... I will smile!