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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?
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?
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…
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?
Are you of the mindset “save for the future” or “spend like the future will never come“?
Image courtesy of Jillian Group.
In a way, the second theory has some validity. There’s no guarantee that everyone will even live to the acceptable age of 59.5 years old to get to reap the full benefits of our retirement savings…valid point.
But what exactly am I giving up now in order to save for tomorrow? A nice bag? A couple pairs of cute shoes that I’ll be over next year? Can’t say spending all my money today is really worth it.
I do believe in balance – I’m still allowing myself to travel and do things I enjoy. I’m not completely depriving myself by being frugal. Personally, I love seeing the growing balances on my statements every month more than I like going through the receipts of my latest purchases (I’m strange like that).
Either way, I’m very motivated to improve my net worth every month, every day. Closer and closer to my goals (which will always change and challenge me).
So what do you think? Is saving a waste of time? Should we all just throw caution to the wind and spend all our money on traveling the world while we still have life on this earth?
That’s an interesting alternative…I can’t 100% argue with that idea, BUT my inner risk aversion is telling me not to do that so I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. I’ll let this article from the Steadfast Finances blog offer even more insight.
I don’t know about you, but I hate springing forward! I’m fine with falling back, but springing forward is so annoying.
Image courtesy of Rick Trotter.
TIME
Time is the most precious resource we have but we usually don’t realize it until it’s already gone. Losing that one hour HURTS (especially that first day back to work).
168 HOURS IN A WEEK
But it got me thinking…how much of our time is spent paying the bills? For example, at work…thinking about work…commuting to or from work…this can be a fairly depressing revelation. And most of us will remain in this routine until we’re 65!?! I’ve calculated it to about:
- 40% of my total time is work-related
- 33% is spent sleeping (especially weekend catch-up time)…
27% LEFT FOR ME
…And the remaining 27% of my total hours in a week is spent at my discretion doing things that I really want to do (besides sleep), things that I enjoy, and/or doing household chores or grocery shopping.
WASTING YOUR 27
Are you optimizing that precious 27%? Or are you wasting it away watching horrible reality tv (I know it’s not just me!). Continue reading Daylight Savings Time: Optimize Your 27
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.
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