The articles in this section of our site are presented in chronological order from the beginning. This tale is a bit of a roller coaster ride with some great success and abysmal failures. We are still living this journey and writing about it every single day. Hopefully you will find a little entertainment and a lot of knowledge in these posts. Our wish is that some of you may learn from our mistakes and make your story a little less rocky than ours has been.
Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself
If you’ve found us, you’re probably looking for advice on how to get your shit together, financially speaking. Welcome. But before we start talking about said shit, please allow us to introduce ourselves. Kind of. We are not experts on investing or how to get rich quick or how to barter your way from a single red paperclip to a house. We are experts…
It’s All About The Benjamins – Budgeting Everything
Budgeting. Unless you are a complete nerd (like me), budgeting probably sounds like utter drudgery. But if you are a nerd, you may already know that spreadsheets are fucking delightful. For you non-nerds, stick with me for a little bit. It’ll be worth it in the long run. First, let me clarify. I’m not asking you to figure out how much of your paycheck…
Money For Nothing – Credit Card Debt
As I said in our first post, we’ve made a fuck ton of mistakes. It’s gonna take several posts to cover them all. Here’s the first, credit card debt. When I was 18, and in college, I got my first credit card. I got it on a whim, without any forethought. They had been calling me weekly, trying to get me to apply. I…
Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself – Lifestyle Creep
So, now that you’ve done a budget (you did do one, right?), you know where you’re spending all your money. And you were brutally honest about what’s a necessity and what’s not. Were you surprised by how much money was going towards non-essentials? Don’t be. The truth is, it’s not uncommon for us to increase our spending as our income goes up. There’s even…
Give Me Your Money – MLM Rackets
When Scott was 19 and I was 20, we joined a legal pyramid scheme, otherwise known as a multilevel marketing company, or an MLM. You’ve probably heard of them – Amway, Herbalife, Market America. But if you’ve never had the pleasure of being approached about joining an MLM, let me break it down for you. You typically pay a fee to join the company,…
It’s A Bitch – Interest Hurts
Interest is a bitch.* The amount of money financed on car loans, student loans, personal loans, and credit card debt is enormous (we’re talking trillions, with a T). And the interest paid on it is staggering. And in large part, unnecessary. But that’s a subject for another post. Or several other posts. For now, let’s talk about systematically attacking your debts. Since you’ve definitely…
Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad – Business Failures
Despite our monumental stupidity, we have been incredibly fortunate. For the most part. We have run into a bit of bad luck from time to time in business. And unfortunately, one time, it cost us a shitload of money. Scott is a perpetual entrepreneur, and has been since his first adult job gave him a whopping $0.30 raise. He decided pretty much right there…
Are You Happy Now? – Spending Money Won’t Help
We’re about to start getting into the good stuff. Not just getting yourself out of debt, but building some savings, and before long, some wealth. But before delving into the logic and numbers, I want to talk about emotions. Because money, especially spending money, and emotions go hand in hand. Marketing depends on it. How we feel about money, and spending and saving, starts…
I Love To Live So Pleasantly – Stop The Spending
In 2007, life was amazing. We were complete morons, but hadn’t come to that realization yet, and as they say, ignorance is bliss. Right up until the light bulb snaps on and you see the enormous fucking hole you’ve been spending yourself into. The economy was great. Scott’s one remaining business was raking in money. I was making decent money, but Scott was making…
Make A Stash – Your Emergency Fund
So, how much money do you need to save? Again, I’m not here to dictate an amount or a percentage to you. You have to decide for yourself what your goals are, what you are willing to do, and how much and how long it’s going to take to get you there. But we can give you the tools to help you figure out…
In This Life of Luxury – Why Pay Taxes Today?
We continued to live a life of instant gratification and excess for the beginning of 2008. A few articles ago, I talked about credit card debt and how I never wanted to get into it again after we had dug ourselves out in the early 2000s. Well, Scott had a friend who worked in the mortgage industry in 2007 & 2008, and he told…
Take the Money and Run – The Online Savings Account
Where do you keep this emergency fund you’re establishing? Our recommendation at this time is to keep the bulk of it in an online savings account.* This is where interest rates start to become your friend instead of your enemy. Online banks offer interest rates over 10 times of those of the banks you can walk into or drive up to (with the economic…
Taxman – The Tax Comes Due
About half way through 2008, the housing market bubble was revealed for the house of cards it was, and it imploded. Taking the economy, and business number 3, with it. And that, my friends, is where our real trouble began. Scott, already under the tremendous weight of running 2 business and being responsible for not just our livelihood, but other people’s as well (which…
When I’m 64 – Let’s Start Investing
Once you’ve built an emergency fund, and perhaps even while you are building it (I will get into more detail on that in a future post), it’s time to do something else with your extra money every month. Investing it. Investing your money puts it to work for you to earn more money, which then also goes to work for you to earn even…
Ain’t No Sunshine – Cutting Expenses
When Scott got laid off near the end of 2013, we were in trouble. He made about 60% of our income. He was able to collect unemployment for 6 months, but it was less than a third of what he had been making. We had been making significant headway on our debt up until that point, but it was no longer an option. We…
Only Darkness Everyday – Owe Back Taxes? It Hurts!
In October 2017, not even 2 full months after we signed our second installment agreement with the IRS, we filed our taxes, and we owed more than we had paid in. It’s beginning to feel like we will always owe back taxes to the IRS. We were able to pay all but $1,200 of it, but it was still grounds to nullify our installment…
I Can See Clearly Now – Pay Down Debt
Scott’s latest business has continued to increase its revenue each year, which allowed us to increase our monthly payments to IRS, first to $1,300, then to $1,800, and eventually to $2,200. I also received a mind blowing $50,000 bonus ($38,000 after taxes) in December of 2018, and a promise of $25,000 bonuses for 2019 and 2020 (our company was growing and I think it…
