Financial Peace can be found in these troubled times!

Financial Peace can be found in these troubled times! Yes I know it sound odd, but it is true. My 401k may be suffering like everyone else', but that doesn't mean that my family is suffering during this financial crisis in the market. In fact, the opposite is the case. We are doing better now that we were one year ago! We have no credit card debt. We have no car loans. We have no furniture that we are renting to own. All we have left in our debt category is just over $10K and our house. We have eliminiated well over $30K in debt over the last year on less than $55K of income. If we can do it you can too. Just create a budget and live your financial life responsibly.

The place we find ourselves in this troubled time is actually a peaceful place. We can pay our bills and this year like last year as the holidays approach will not be a time of dread, due to the mounds of new debt that will be taken on for Christmas. I can testify to you all that there is hope if you are on the edge or even if you are already in the icy waters. That hope is in the form of the Seven Baby Steps that can be found in Dave Ramsey's book "The Total Money Make Over".

Do your family a favor this day go find a copy of this book (at the library, a bookstore or online) and begin to read it. You will be greatly blessed if you do! I know we have been. Join us in rejecting the failed policies of living in debt! Discover the joy and the peace that can be had when you no longer live paycheck to paycheck due to the money you have already spent. Learn the principles that will free you from the bondage of debt. There will never be a better time than today to step forward and take control of your financial life.

Freddie and Fannie and the ENRON Crooks!!!

There is a lot of panic in the financial markets right now with the declining stock prices in most sectors. I personally attribute this insanity to the poisoning of the credit markets by the Democrats who were in charge of Freddie and Fannie. They purposefully mislead investors so that they could rake in $90 Million in bonuses based upon their fraudulently cooked books. The securitized mortgage instruments that they knowingly assisted in pawning off is the height of fraud in my book. These bad mortgages where sold Grade A or AA investments to the unsuspecting and the greedy alike are criminal in my opinion.

These CEO's and CFO's from Freddie and Fannie along with those Senators and Congressional members who accepted money from these organizations through their lobbyists are corrupt and ought to be punished in a fashion at least as harsh as was given to the ENRON crooks! If the heads of Freddie and Fannie had been life long Republicans they would already be indited for the crimes they have committed and if the top three Senators who took money from them to look the other way had been Republicans they would be the subject of countless exposes on the evening news! But instead they are given the keys to the kingdom and the mess is swept under the carpet and the American people are scammed for over a BILLION DOLLARS! And one of them, namely Barrack Obama, set to become the President of the United States in a similarly fraudulent fashion.

ENRON cost few thousand people everything, but this scandal is going to cost us all something alot more dear and precious.; or freedoms in the name of change. That change has a name and it has failed EVERY TIME AND PLACE it was tried. Communism, Marxism, and Socialism.

700 BILLION DOLLARS!!!!! HELL NO!!!

This bail out that has been proposed by President Bush, Hank Poulsen, and the rest of the Goldman Sachs team they have brought to Washington DC, is TOTALLY BOGUS!!! It is INSANITY!!

Newt Gingrech is 100% right on this issue!

1. Remove onerous regulations that are sitfling Small Business.
2. Repeal Sarbanes-Oxley!
3. Eliminate Capital Gains taxes immediately to encourage market based investment solutions.
4. Pass a REAL ENERGY BILL that encourages drilling and alternative energy developments.

This insane push to SOCIALIZE the Financial Markets is WRONG and WILL NOT SOLVE the problem!

I urge everyone who reads this to Call your Senators and your Representatives NOW and tell them to OPPOSE this BAIL OUT!

Another one bites the dust!!!

The financial sector may be realigning itself after the insanity in the marketplace due to BAD FEDERAL REGULATION, but at least one financial institution is $9300 richer today, as we paid off another student loan, (thereby doing our part to avert the coming crisis in the Student Loan market. Just a little over $10,000 to go and we will be calling Dave Ramsey to tell him we are "Debt Free Except for the House". Coupled with the promotion and raise I just got at work our Federal Tax Refund this year should put us pretty darn close to that mark. Time will tell though for certain this time next year we will be working on our Real Emergency Fund of six months worth of cash. Too bad the Democrats at the helm of Freddie and Fannie could not understand that the only way to remain solvent financially is to be properly capitalized. Perhaps they (Raines, Johnson and Gerellic) will do a better job of running Barrack Obama's campaign coffers. Yikes is he a fool putting those three embezzlers in charge of his money! You know what they say a fool and his money are soon separated. I guess that explains a lot about our current financial crisis as a nation. We are a nation run by of financial fools and socialist idiots! It is sad that Mitt Romney didn't win the Republican's slot I am certain he would have know how to solve these financial situations. Perhaps McCain / Palin will be wise enough to put him in charge of the Treasury Department.

Changing Your Money Mindset...

I came across an interesting money article by Mike Peterson who is the senior certified counselor and a co-founder of American Credit Foundation, which is a non-profit credit counseling organization. He is the author of Reality Millionaire, from which this article is excerpted.

I don't much about Mr. Peterson other than what is on his website at this moment. However, I going to do some more digging because the premise of his work appears to be in alignment with God's Laws of Managing Money and Good Common Sense Financial Management. I know I agree whole-heartedly with his observations and suggestions on from his article titled Changing Your Money Mindset .

This post is in response to a really outrageously out of perspective response to the article.

Pete wrote this response posted 06.04.08 12:54 PM:

"Apple stores not fake like the US economic and economic numbers. Nothing is
more fake then the US economy . The recession will get worse and may turn into a
DEPRESSION. Americans deserve a great DEPRESSION for spending more money then
they earn on stupid items like an ipod. "

This attitude is at the core of our problems. Pete isn't getting the facts at all... Here was my response to Pete. I thought of being a bit harsher but I restrained my baser nature.

Here is my response:

Pete, turn off CNN! They have an agenda that ignores FACTS. If
you don't believe me check the chart in USATODAY... Take note that is is
slower growth than previous years but GROWTH nonetheless... http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2008-05-29-gdp-jobless_N.htm

We are not even in a REESSION so go get an education preferably in a third world
nation it will teach you to stop spouting your hatred of America. We have
problems but they are not the ones you are spouting!

For the record here are two definitions that ECON101 might have though
you if you were paying attention.

RESESSION is "A decline in business activity. Often defined as two
consecutive quarters with a real fall in gross national production."

DEPRESSION is "A severe or long recession... although the distinction
between a recession and a depression is not clearly defined, it is often said
that a decline in GDP of more than 10% constitutes a depression."

I doubt Pete will ever read my comments or learn the error of his ways. The reality is that America is great and so is our economic system INSPITE of the destructive and corrosive legislation that seeks to create a kinder more SOCIALIST system. Last I checked both Russian and China had embraced Capitalism why is that we as a nation of idiots are seeking to embrace a failed economic system? That is a question I wish I had an answer to.

Another Debt Bites the Dust!!!

As if to the beat of the iconic Queen tune, I am pleased to report that "Another One Bites The Dust!" This time I chose to use dynamite on the logjam that was my car loan because the speed at which we were shedding the balance wasn't fast enough for my goals. So I placed an ad on Craigslist and sold it. (I really like Craigslist!)

I got just under $1600 over what the bank was owed for it and turned around and purchased a 2001 Taurus SEL project car for $1600. It is going to require lots of elbow grease, to be at the level of quality I desire in a personal vehicle but there is plenty of time for that work to be done as it can be afforded. It isn't the best looking but it is 100% street legal and the heater works very well as does the engine.

So the total for the first six months is just over $18,500 in debt reduction! Not bad for a few hours less sleep and a willingness to take one step back in order to change the financial path that my family was walking. Not bad at all! In fact it has brought hope and vigor back into my marriage!
Now we are on to the first of the Student Loan payments. I anticipate having it paid off before the middle of the year, provided we can keep up with this pace.