Forget About Buying Stuff, People Matter

Posted on March 20, 2008

Think back. What are your fondest memories in life? One of my best was a 9 day white water rafting, hiking, and outdoor adventure down the Grand Canyon with my mom. A few other that come to mind are building snow forts with my Mom and friends, a little-league no-hitter, and the craziness that was my Freshman year at college. Take a few seconds and think about yours best memories…

If you are like most people the things that came to mind had little to do with stuff and a lot to do with people and experiences. We often go through so much trouble to make money or rack up debt just to get stuff. Billions of dollars in spending are finance through credit cards and debt each year, usually just to get that nicer TV or a new car. Are you going to care about that stuff in a few years?

The lesson is.. don’t go into debt for stuff, but go into debt for vacations. We’ll remember those!

Ok, so I am kidding, but question still remains “why do we get distracted by stuff?”.

» Filed Under Living with Purpose, Materialism, Psychology of Spending

Go Big or Go Home – Why Success Requires Bold Decisions

Posted on February 29, 2008

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”

- Albert Einstein

The truth in that little statement is profound. If we truly want to succeed in our financial life and with our life goals in general, we must be willing to fully commit to our dreams. Often we don’t do much more than give lip service to the big things in life. Now, if you are happy have average or slightly better than average results, than go right on doing same things as everyone else. If you keep using those credit cards, leasing cars, buying cars and houses that our over our price range, spending frivulously, and not saving we can expect to end up like everyone else. If you don’t want to end up like everyone else then we need to stop acting like everyone else.

Sell the truck that you have a $20,000 loan on.
Move to a place that will help you accomplish your dreams.
Cut up the credit cards and stop using debt.
Take a second job for a little while to get out of debt faster.
Stop worrying about what people think or how much they have.
Hang out with friends that will challenge you, not bring you down.
Drive a reliable beater.

The list could go on and on and on. Personally, I don’t really care what the exact decision is…but that you are paying attention and making intentional bold decisions to advance you towards your dreams.

What bold decisions have been running from?

Post your recent bold decisions in the comments sections as public declaration and an added level of accountability.

Here are my bold decisions.

» Filed Under About Me, Friends, Living with Purpose, Motivation

Merry Christmas With A Lesson From Ebenezer Scrooge

Posted on December 22, 2007

“A merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavor to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit.” - Ebenezer Scrooge (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens)

The Christmas Carol contains some deep messages that are worth visiting during this precious time of year.

Accept that we can not change the past, realize that the past doesn’t dictate our future, and strive to leave a legacy that brings joy to those that we come in contact with. Scrooge changed his scrooge like ways, so can we.

I am off to spend a wonderful few days with family celebrating Christ, exchanging gifts, and reflecting!

Merry Christmas!

If you are looking for some finance advice to hold you over, feel free to search the archives.

» Filed Under Holiday Wishes, Living with Purpose

Can We Buy Meaning During The Holidays?

Posted on December 16, 2007

Consumers planned holiday-related spending increased to $923.36” in 2007. Gift card spending alone was 24 billion dollars last year while the national spending average rises about 4.76% year after year.

The money that gets tossed around on Christmas is staggering. Debt keeps us paying for Christmas well into the New Year. Gifts are often relegated to impersonal gift cards, because we don’t know what else to buy. We keep on buying though. Stress and frantic running are hallmarks of the season. Sometimes you can’t wait until it’s all over, so you can rest and recover.

I often wonder if we don’t spend ourselves into a frenzy to cover over our lack for the deeper things in life. Do we buy more to cover the lack of depth in our relationships with friends, children, and spouses? Do we spend enough time telling and showing people how valuable they are the rest of the year or are we trying to recover from a deficit with gifts? Maybe we don’t feel like the holidays have much meaning, so we buy to try to imbue the holidays with meaning through consumerism. I am not saying all or any of this is true, but I think it might be worth asking the questions.

Does it have to be this way? For those that want something more, what can we do?

Sources :

» Filed Under Holiday Wishes, Living with Purpose, Psychology of Debt, Psychology of Spending

Change Your Child’s Genetics By Giving Up The BMW

Posted on October 18, 2007

We recently talked about financially changing your family tree as financial motivation, but for those of us needed some more convincing here is evidence that our decisions about money go much deeper than just dollars and cents. Our choices are crucially importance to our children and this offers early stage evidence that our choices can cover over ‘bad’ genetics.

The researchers “studied 109 children who had been removed from their parents’ care due to reports of abuse or neglect and 87 control children with no reports of abuse or maltreatment.” The children also had two gene polymorphisms that put them at a greater risk for depression. The researchers also assessed each child’s support system and assigned each one a score for their support system quality .

I picked up three import things from the recap of the study. First, the effects of the depression amplifiers only held true for the children who were abused and neglected. Second, children with strong support systems almost completely escaped the effects of the ‘bad’ genes. Third, genes alone weren’t likely to make a child depressed, but maltreatment alone can.

Picture the ‘bad’ genes as little seeds. Give the seeds water polluted with mistreatment and lack of support and the ‘bad’ genes flourish. Nurture them with a safe supportive water and the children could likely overcome the ‘bad’ genes. At least in this small study the age old question of nature versus nurture is answered. Nurture wins .

To me, this is truly amazing! Think about the implications. Does it change how important we view sacrificing the BMW and huge backyard, so that we can have a stay at home spouse. Do you have to work 60 hours a week to support your current lifestyle? Is your debt stressing your relationship with your spouse and your children? Maybe we are sacrificing too much? Maybe we should be giving more time and money to support those willing to adopt and provide supportive homes for maltreated children? Hopefully studies like this help to illuminate which decisions are the truly important ones in life. What do you think?

» Filed Under Children and Money, Living with Purpose, Materialism, Motivation, Serving Others

Change Your Family Tree By Making Solid Financial Decisions

Posted on October 15, 2007

If you have ever listened to Dave Ramsey, there is a good chance you have heard him say “go and change your family tree”. It is a beautiful saying that paints a wonderful backdrop for our motivation to make healthy and wise financial choices. The idea being that the money choices we are responsible for now can and will affect your children and family. These are huge shoes to fills, and they get even bigger when broaden the perspective to grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Let’s not operate out of fear though. Be encouraged by that fact that if you stop your family’s reliance on debt, or align you decisions with your values, or even make wise investment choices, those choices will positively affect your family tree for generations to come. Think about being the grandparent that your great grandchild points to in photo albums and say he is responsible for changing the family’s relationship with money.

You can see that power of this principle at work when a couple’s perspective changes upon hearing that they are pregnant. The ensuing scramble to undo or right their financial ship is often frenetic. Too often those changes die and shrivel, as life, not us, starts to take control again.

The beauty of the saying is that is takes our focus off of us, and gives us something bigger and more wonderful to live for. When we hang on to those types of higher purposes, we receive long lasting sustainable energy. When we are motivated by short sighted and selfish goals, the changes are often short lived.

For those without immediate family, don’t be discouraged either. The trick is to find motivation from goals that are bigger than ourselves, and not on things that lose their appeal when the next new invention or model comes along.

» Filed Under Living with Purpose, Motivation, Serving Others

Do Cable and TV Cost More Than We Think?

Posted on July 17, 2007

Here are the highlights of some research to add some discussion to the cable canceling experiment.

I found a great website called Trash Your TV. It is your one stop shopping experience for anyone thinking of canceling cable or getting rid of their TV. TV viewing stats, success stories, effects of TV articles, and much more.

Let’s start with some eye opening stats about the about some real costs of watching TV:

Nielsen Media Research Inc. reports that the ‘average person’ watches TV for 4 hours and 35 minutes every day. Furthermore, the average household has a TV playing for 8 hours 14 minutes every day.
That 5 1/2 days a month watching TV, 69 days a year, and about 13 or so years for an average life span. Even if I watch half that amount in a week, WOW!
Exposing children to all that TV can affect the wallet by the Nag Factor. Marketers seek to brand your children and make them discontented. All that TV time could result in viewing as much as 30,000 commercials a year, which in turn influenced an estimated $300 billion in sales or $4,000 per pestering child a year in 2001.
Number of hours of TV watched yearly by Americans: ~250 billion
Assuming an average US wage of $7/hour that equates to S1.75 trillion dollars
Average US cable bill in 2005 was $43.04. $783 for the primary TV in their home, and $176 on accessories. $22 billion total on TVs in 2006. Source
A multitude of studies that link TV watching to obesity and weight gain. Cut out some TV and lose weight.
Television viewing has been linked to ADHD.
The American parent spends 38 minutes per week in meaningful conversation with their children.
Children view on average 16,000 television murders before age 18.

These facts don’t even include other factors like opportunity cost, decreased energy, decreased brain activity, and peer pressure. Some of those time and money statistics are staggering.

Mike @ Prosperous Land left a good comment in the cancel cable and save post that linked to a recent article on The Street : How to Earn $1 Million by Not Watching TV.

One thing I found interesting was a recent study found that it would take $1,000,000 for white people to not watch TV for the rest of their lives. Second, although I am not sure I can vouch for the reality of his numbers, he argues that if you ditch the TV at age 25 and “instead invested this money and received a return of 8% compounded annually over 45 years until you’re 70 years old, you would have more than $3.7 million in your account.”

I think that little fact sheet may be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the drawbacks of cable and TV. Sure those numbers look a little high, but even if they are half or a quarter that much, isn’t that a lot? I’m not saying that there aren’t any benefits, but I am becoming hard pressed to find them at this point in my life. The more I think about it, the truth is I really don’t want to look back in 20 years and realize how much TV and cable really cost me. How much is it costing you?

» Filed Under Living with Purpose, Motivation, Productivity

Friends Matter: Support And Education Through Friendships

Posted on June 19, 2007

In the previous post on how friends can shape our perception of reality, I ended with an example about my goal to become an entrepreneur. I came to the conclusion that there is not anyone in my life that can really understand and support that quest; they are all 9-5′ers. Some may even provide resistance. The truth of the matter is that we need some friends in our lives that will be able to challenge us, teach us, and relate to our unique struggles.

I think most of us know this instinctively, but the real work comes when we have to overcome our social awkwardness to seek out these types of relationships. Sometimes we are blessed with friends in our proximity that align with our goals. Often though, this is not the case. These are the times that we need to search out our needs and pursue relationships that will encourage success. This is one of the reasons the blogging community is thriving. It offers easy access to these types of relationship. If I decide to get out of debt, I can easily connect with real people who have gone through or are going through the same journey. They will teach us, support us, and even learn from us. In that vain I have added some entrepreneurship blogs to my reader, but I also plan to try and connect with a person or two in my area. Websites like Meetup can be a valuable tool in forming these types of relationships. Even going to church or community events can be a great place to start your search.

I won’t lie, this will be a goal that stretches me. I am working hard to become more outgoing, but I am far from extroverted. The reason I will succeed is because I realize these types of relationships will be an integral part of achieving my dreams. The passion for the dreams is what will drive me to step out of my comfort zone.

Let us end with an example. My friend Double Eagle over at Life In The Rough has a dream to be a golf pro. An awesome dream, but a dream that will require friends for support an learning. A dream like this will only happen if him to step outside his ‘normal’ circle of friends. Creating opportunities to train under professional golf pros, creating relationships with other aspiring golf pros, and interviewing pros that have been through a similar journey will be invaluable to chasing his dream.

» Filed Under Chasing Dreams, Friends, Living with Purpose, Productivity

Having Goals Is Great, But Having Purpose Is Better

Posted on June 10, 2007

Consider two similar working mothers: one who wants to get out of debt because a few of her friends starting getting our of debt. The other woman decides to get out of debt, so that she can provide a more secure environment for her children by quitting her job to pursue a life goal of staying at home full time. If you had to bet on which one will succeed at becoming debt free, which one would it be?

Maybe the example is too simplistic, but I hope the point is clear. Having goals is very helpful, but having purpose will change your life. The woman who feels called to be at home with her children will be motivated far beyond that of the first woman. If we can begin to define answers to the questions ‘who are we?’ and ‘what are we meant to do in life?’, our lives will begin to reorient themselves around these answers. Purpose fuels our passion, which in turn should lead to making measurable goals. The goal becomes important, not because it is a ‘good’ goal, but because it is a step towards achieving your deep fulfilling purpose in life. When the goal is the end in and of itself, there is nothing to motivate us. We are limited to the extent that our self discipline will keep us on track. I know for most that this isn’t a promising picture.

“Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for” -Victor Frankl(concetration camp survivor)

If you connect with these words, then there is no better time to start trying to find the deeper meaning in your lives. It may take us years, even a lifetime, but our lives will never again be the same.

» Filed Under Energy, Favorites, Living with Purpose, Motivation, Productivity