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Hi there! I know I’ve been a little MIA (try a LOT MIA), but I want to give all my readers an update on what I’ve been doing the last 6 months! I wrote and launched a COURSE with the help of Young Movement.
This was a 6-week pilot course through July and August with students from CUNY and Brooklyn College. But don’t worry – I definitely plan to bring the knowledge to DollaThug.com fans so stay tuned!
My class was great!
Aren't we cute???
And I learned SO much while teaching. My main goal was to create an environment where people could feel comfortable in asking questions about the oh-so-taboo topic of money and get a better understanding of money management and, most importantly, how to achieve financial goals and build wealth!
The goal is to take learnings from the pilot course and prove the need for a class like this – then receive funding to launch on a much larger scale. Wish me luck!
You can check out more photos here! Just call me Professor Dolla Thug…
Big shout outs to Young Movement: Micah, Odellia, Cory, Rob, and Brian.
So we’re two full months into the new year and how many of you have been sticking to the New Year’s resolutions you made on January 1, 2011?
…Crickets?…
…Don’t wanna think about it??
Well let’s look at some “fun” facts…
Stat #1: About 100 MILLION Americans make a New Year’s resolution (CNN). That’s 1 out of every 3 Americans!
Courtesy of icanhascheezburger.com
Stat #2: Out of the top 5 resolutions, two are finance-related: Pay Down Debt and Save Money!
Stat #3: But only 12% of us actually achieve our resolution goals by the end of the year (WSJ)…
Stat #4: And 35% of us have already fallen off by February (CNN)!
So which bucket do you fall in? If you’re not happy with your current bucket, you can make a change today!
We’re in the CRITICAL ZONE, so here are my top 5 tips to making sure you have a fighting chance to meet your financial goals before 2012 rolls around!
1) Mindset, mindset, mindset!
It’s not about doing a crash diet budget. It’s about adjusting your lifestyle over time. As good ol’ Dave Ramsey says, personal finance is 20% knowledge…80% behavior!
REMEMBER: Until your mindset changes, your finances never will!
2) Plan how you are going to actually meet your goals.
Write it down, step by step. Track your progress in a spreadsheet or use free software.
3) Motivate yourself with mini-rewards along the way.
When you reach small milestones, it’s good to recognize that and keep momentum toward reaching the next step.
4) Tell a friend! A lot of friends!
They can encourage you AND hold you accountable.
5) Automate it!
Don’t leave it up to willpower. Decide what you want to accomplish, then set up automatic deposits or automatic payments. Out of sight, out of mind – don’t even give procrastination or excuses a fighting chance to change your mind.
What kind of challenges have you run into with your own resolutions? What tips do you have for others?
Dearest Readers,
As of today, I’m competing in an “Education and Wealth” blog competition on GoBankingRates.com and it would be really wonderful if I could win so…do me a huge favor and VOTE FOR ME, PLEEEASE! All you have to do is go to the site and comment with my article #: “19″. That’s IT! SO easy. You should also check out the other articles, they’re pretty good. Below is the article I submitted which I think is a decent read for anyone in school (undergrad, grad, or other). Thanks for your support!!!:
For many, it’s that time of year again – time to head back to school! After sharing my own college credit card debt disaster story, a reader asked me what I would have done differently back in college.
Courtesy of cbc.ca
I decided to make my response into a whole new post so here are my top money saving tips [in no particular order] for higher education budgeting (those I followed and those I wish I’d followed!). Comment with any other tips that I missed!:
1) This first one is pretty obvious, but…apply for as much financial aid, grants, and scholarships as humanly possible. FAFSA and www.fastweb.com are the best sites to start with. Every little bit helps and it costs nothing to apply (except your time, but that’s irrelevant ).
2) (if you can help it) DO NOT BUY BOOKS NEW! Get them used or BORROW them whenever possible. The college text book market is one of the biggest rip off scams known to man (right up there with infamous infomercials). Chances are you’ll probably only spend about 5 hours of your entire life with any of your text books – so why spend $300 on each! There are plenty of online markets for trading and bartering for college text books, amazon and google are your friends.
3) To be a true college student, use Megabus, Bolt Bus, or Chinatown bus service whenever possible! Amtrak is just not worth the money when you can use much cheaper means for much better savings.
4) You’ll be surrounded by fellow peers spending (their parents’) money all around you. Don’t try to keep up with the Joneses! It’s not worth it – trust! Keep it cheap – shop at forever21, H&M, other less costly stores (and don’t sleep on Target). Because let’s face it – out of everything I bought during college, I probably only know where 5% of those clothes are today – stuffed in some storage bin in my closet!
5) If you can be an RA and live “room and board”-free – DO IT! I never took advantage of this (too busy being a bad example by having parties in my own dorm room), but if you decide to be a Resident Advisor for your dorm, this can save a lot of college housing costs during your latter years of college. Good deal if you ask me… Continue reading College Saving Tips – LESS is MORE!
One of my favorite personal finance bloggers, the Financial Samurai, began the Yakezie Challenge to promote great personal finance blogs and build up the blogging community. The objective is for any given blog to take note of their current “Alexa Ranking” and work steadily for 6 months to reach the top 200,000. As of tonight, Dolla Thug is officially participating in the challenge! My current Alexa ranking is 2,175,623…that’s a long way from 200,000 BUT with your help, I can one day get to the top 200,000 and higher! Let’s see where I stand in 6 months by March 1st, 2011 (since Feb 29th doesn’t exist in 2011!) Any progress is good progress. It’s going DOWN!
A few months ago, a fellow personal finance blogger (who’s actually hilarious) from Punch Debt in the Face started an exclusive club of which I am now a proud member: the Thousand Dollar Baller Club. [Check out the photo below, but replace the car with a Subway Metro Card and a brown face and that's ME, son! Ridin' all DAY!]
Courtesy of PunchDebtintheFace.com
I’m still aiming for that “Six Zeroes and Up” Club, BUT I can’t take for granted that I’ve at least made it to $1,000+ status. BALLINNNNN!!!
What about you? Are you a Thousand Dollar Baller? On your way? Ballin outta control?
I’m sure some of you are probably wondering how I got this alias. My own mother said to me, “Are you sure you want to be known as Dolla Thug??? Do you know what a “thug” is??? Why can’t you be Dollar Diva or something?”
I just had to assure her that “Dollar Diva” just doesn’t quite do it for me…doesn’t quite do my mission justice. “Dolla Thug”…is perfect…and you’ll see why with this post.
Courtesy of www.superchefblog.com
IT WAS NEW YEAR’S DAY…JANUARY 1, 2008…
You may recall from a previous post that my personal finance revolution happened a few short months before this day. I was extremelyfocused and watching EVERYTHING I did with my money – from that $1.99 Snapple I shouldn’t have bought for lunch to that $6.99 cold medicine I bought when I felt a cold coming on. Every expense was just taking away from the money I was using to pay off my debt and build up my savings. EVERY.DOLLAR.COUNTED!
IT’S A CELEBRATION!
Now…when it came to celebrating New Year’s Eve…it was my first NYE in NYC so I wanted to do it big with my friends (don’t worry, I budgeted for it so I made it work!). Within the last few days leading up to the big event, my friends and I were all excited about our dresses and hair and shoes and the party and dinner and open bar and etc, etc, etc!
In the midst of it all, one of my friends needed me to spot her a little cash; it wasn’t too much – maybe $15-20 bucks. I can’t remember if it was to buy the perfect necklace for her dress or to cover the cost of the cab back to my place. Either way, I obliged because I knew she’d pay me back, it was no problem and I had it on me so I was fine helping her out. BUT…just like the $1.99 Snapple and the $6.99 cold medicine, I definitely kept a mental tally of the money I was putting out each day and this small loan was no exception… Continue reading How I Got the Name “Dolla Thug”
DOLLA THUG MENTALITY – SCHWARZENEGGER INTENSITY!! The Dolla Thug Revolution forced me to stop wondering where my money went and made me focused enough to say, “Ok, I’m going to take care of the necessities, and everything else in my paycheck is going to this credit card debt.”
Courtesy of pictureschat.com
After the credit card debt was paid off, I was able to say, “Now I’m putting all extra money toward savings for my emergency fund.”
Then, “Ok…now I’m going to use this money to rapidly pay off my student loan debt and build up some investing funds.”
During my initial Dolla Thug phase (which doesn’t last forever!), I just pretty much spent the bare minimum for a good 8 months. You’d be surprised what you can do when you STOP spending money! Utterly amazed! Continue reading How Dolla Thug Came To Be (Part 2)
There comes a moment in every personal finance success story where the person has to realize the error of their ways and (most importantly) TAKE ACTION to do something about it. Whether they realize they work TOO hard to have NOTHING but bills and debt to show for it. Or they have an emergency scare that snaps them back to the reality that they need to have savings and stop living above their means.
Courtesy of http://www.stoptherobbery.com/Intention.html
It’s that “A-HA” moment. That “something’s gotta give” moment where the light finally turns on in your head and you realize you have the power to make the future better – NO MORE PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK!!!
Mine happened…October 2007. (More to come…)
The Personal Finance Revelation is a financial “Come to Jesus” moment. It marks the end of financial insanity and chaos, and marks the beginning of the journey to financial achievement.
It’s like that moment in A&E’s Intervention, when the person decides to go to rehab. Yeah…it’s like that…
Conversation starters for couples dealing with Financial Questions that I came across in a Bank of America brochure. May come in handy if you start the financial communication now as money is the #1 reason couples break up and/or divorce!:
Courtesy of http://wowcolumbia.nexo.com/poetscorner
For the record, I am not a certified financial advisor of any kind and will not be held legally responsible for any misuse of the content of this site.
Below is the article I submitted which I think is a decent read for anyone in school (undergrad, grad, or other). Thanks for your support!!!: 
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