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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.
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!
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?
Good morning, Readers. The topic of today’s article is not necessarily geared to my traditional Dolla Thug audience of 20-somethings, but we can all learn these lessons early before we’re parents ourselves (and if you are already a parent, then this article should be of even more value now!). I want to introduce you to our first guest author, M. Smith. M. Smith is a financial article writer. She has worked as a financial consultant and has had many articles published on various finance sites; her areas of expertise include debt settlement, debt consolidation, debt relief, refinancing, reverse mortgage, credit repair and so on.
Courtesy of www.allmandandlee.com
THE DREADED REUNION Have you recently been to your high school or college reunion? You must have had a nostalgic and fabulous experience. One of the benefits of attending a school reunion is that there is no underhanded advantage in attending it! You need not pretend how young you are or where you started your life. Your classmates already have that information. The relative advantage is that if you have a diverse class of 500 classmates, then you get to learn from the various wide-ranging experiences and subsequent financial experiences of your classmates. Continue reading Money Management for Teens and Parents
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…
Many of you may have heard the Consumer Reports that the new iPhone 4 just isn’t worth the money. I’m really not surprised.
Courtesy of Milliamp.com
The strategy for most electronic/software companies is to make an innovative, yet subpar product that can be easily “upgraded” upon in 18-24 months (like clockwork!) The goal is to just get you to keep coming back to spend $100s on minimal improvements when your old product would serve the same purpose WITHOUT you coming out of your pocket again. BRILLIANT!
Have you ever wanted to talk about money with your friends? Investment ideas? Stock tips? What they’re doing with their money that they like that might work for you?
Courtesy of http://canuckjihad.wordpress.com
I’ve reached out before and gotten mixed responses. Not asking for account balances or anything, just curious about people’s opinions, ideas, thoughts, recommendations, suggestions, etc. Nothing too personal. Keep it generic.
I know it all depends on the person and I am open to talking about just about anything with my friends, but why do you think it is so taboo to talk about personal finances with friends? Even family for that matter! It could really be a mutually beneficial conversation if people were open to it, no? What about you? Do you talk about money with your friends or family? Why or why not?
Came across this interesting video thanks to a fellow blogger from bazaart.tumblr.com about how money is REALLY spent in this world. Nothing we didn’t already know, but let me know what your thoughts are… My initial thoughts are that we have no choice but to stay in control of our personal finances given all of the madness that surrounds us!
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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