Posted: October 08, 2014
Last week, I gave you some tips based on the letters A-M, that were hopefully both inspirational and motivating. But I had several people tell me that the column fell a little short.
If I was doing the Alphabet, I couldn’t just stop at M. Instead, I needed to complete O through Z too. Okaaay. So here goes. Thank God I had another week to think about it.
O is for doing Outstanding work, always. Don’t compromise.
Posted: October 08, 2014
Last week we looked at some similarities between too much weight in your pocketbook (debt), and too much weight in your waistband (fat). Both can drag you down, and if you’re not careful, both can be disastrous.
This week, we’re going to look at a way to fix the first problem. For cutting down our debt, I’m a big fan of Dave Ramsey’s “The Total Money Makeover” and “Financial Peace University.” According to Dave, you need to take personal responsibility for our money and so it “quits happening to you.” Instead, we need to start “happening to it.” You do this by using a step by step approach called Baby Steps.”
Baby Step One is to build a starter emergency fund of $1,000 as quickly as possible. With that, comes getting on an actual budget where you “give every dollar a name and tell it where to go.” This will give you some breathing room, and keep you from getting further into debt for those little “emergencies” that seem to happen all the time.
Posted: October 08, 2014
I’ve seen hundreds of people successfully lose weight. But I’ve also seen others fail. Over the years, I’ve often wondered what the difference was between them.
After lots of reflection, I believe it comes down to what I call the A-B-C’s. These are things that successful people seem to have in common, in weight loss, but and also in life.
While I didn’t make it all the way through the alphabet, here are plenty of ideas to get you started:
Posted: October 08, 2014
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been fortunate to be part of Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University at our church. I may be the coach, but I’m really taking the class just like the rest of hem.
Most of us are wanting to get a handle on excess debt, the budget, and creating an emergency fund. Financial Peace University is a great way to do that. It’s a great program that has served us well before.
Several years ago, Kathy and I used Dave’s principles to pay off lots of debt and it really worked. But unfortunately, it’s all to easy to slip back into the convenience of getting things now, and paying for them later.
Posted: September 18, 2014
I love challenges, especially physical ones. Like this year’s Warrior Dash, held recently in Crawfordsville, Indiana. I think it’s because as a child, I had asthma so severe, the doctors wouldn’t let me participate in any physical activity at all.
They were pretty worried I’d have an asthma attack at school, and there wouldn’t be any help for me. This was back before they’d developed the rescue inhalers that are so commonplace now.
For many patients, asthma gets better as the child grows up, or goes away altogether. In my case, it got worse. So they kept me away from physical exercise and steered me towards music lessons. Years of piano, violin, and drum lessons, and it worked, too. I kind of had a gift for it, and I’ve never, ever had an asthma attack while playing the piano!