Tag: steps

Friday Five: The First 5 Things You Should Do if You Are in Debt

Dave Johnson4 Comments

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The “Friday Five” are five items to help you in your journey to financial freedom. They might be 5 tips, they might be 5 tricks, or they might just be 5 items of thoughts. In any case, it’s Friday, and I’ve got 5 “things” for you, so here we go!

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As you can see, I’m trying something new with the Friday posts here. I like having some themes that I can dock to, such as the “Thursday Think Tank,” and the “Tuesday Tip Jar.” On top of this, I feel like you kind of don’t want a long post getting in your way on a Friday, and would prefer just to get out there and enjoy your weekend.

So these “Friday Five” posts will be a bit shorter, and get right to the heart of the matter, of hopefully providing you with 5 items you can use to help with your financial health and success.

So here goes! We’re going to kick the first one off with the first 5 things you should do if you find yourself in debt.

Back in January, my wife and I found ourselves in a buttload of debt. If you aren’t familiar with some of these fancy financial terms such as “buttload,” just know that it was a LOT. If you check that fancy little diagram/chart in the right column of this site, you can see we were just north of $126,000 in Credit Card and Student Loan debt.

Even though it took us years to get into this position, it was a smack in the face once we took a hard look, put it all together, and realized just how bad off we were. We didn’t really know what to do first, and just felt an initial sense of helplessness.

Debt can be super-scary, and you may not know where to begin. So let me give you 5 good initial areas to focus on if you find yourself in a similar situation:Read More »

5 Steps for Maintaining a Healthy Relationship While Dealing with Financial Difficulties

Dave Johnson1 Comment

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Quick Update: This serves as my final apology of the week for the wonky schedule in posting over the past few days. I’m back from New York now, and next week should return to a totally regular cadence and format. Thank you!

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I often feel weird writing this blog. The reason being is that I am in a pretty decent amount of debt, and yet I’m writing a blog that essentially gives advice on how to deal with debt. It’s like a person who was born with their arms taped to their body giving advice on how to throw a badass fastball, or a person with nothing but a loaf of bread in their hands trying to give guitar lessons on how to properly shred.

What I am decent at however is marriage and maintaining a long and healthy relationship, so let me get someone to cut this tape off of me so that I can eat this bread and we can get started!

My wife and I got married at a very young age, and in August we will celebrate our 24th year of marriage. If you factor in the 3 years we dated, we’ve been together a LONG time!

We know that we’re in this for the long haul, no matter what. One of us will most likely need to put the other in the ground (we all know I’m the one dying first) and that’s the only thing that will put an end to our relationship in any kind of physical way.

So regardless of how we might bicker or fight at times, we know that neither of us are going anywhere. We love each other a great deal. We are soulmates.

When it comes to finances, and being in a less-than-ideal financial situation, it’s bound to put some stress and pressure on a relationship. There is going to come a point where the money is finite enough and you both see the importance of a particular way or thing to spend it on, and that leads to conflict. Conflict in turn leads to… “healthy discussions.”

We have had many such “discussions,” and the fireworks that go right along with them.Read More »