#iwtytbr

I'm on Week 2 / Day 2 in my Pick Four workbook.  Today's quote, "You are the only person in existence who can use your potential. It is an awesome responsibility."  Here are my four goals:

1) Kick ass in my MSIS program

2) Make enough money to support my family on my own

3) Write a blog post a day

4) Complete IWTYTBR financial plan

I've been struggling to write for the past few weeks because I've had a lot going on.  My wife and I welcomed out first child into our family at the beginning of August and this fall, I started working toward the security concentration in my MSIS program.  My wife and I have been a little busy.  My commitment of writing each day has suffered from it.  I think the main reason it has suffered is because I created to large of a goal.  My goal was to write 750 words a day but I think I should strive to just created a blog post each day, no matter the length.  This way there is no excuse to not send a post.

Today, my main goal is to complete my Pick Four goals.

1) Complete my weekly reading and study for tomorrow's quiz.

2) Make a list of examples on how to complete this goal 

3) Post a blog post

4) Complete the Week One Action steps

Get my credit score and report

Set up my credit cards

Make sure I'm handling my credit cards effectively

I was giving the idea to try to plan out my week from Amber Rae.  In a post were she showed her weekly plan drawing.  I’ve been doing the drawing almost every week.  In the bottom is a priorities section.  I have a number of daily priorities but I also have some weekly priorities.

My daily priorities are the following:

1. I want to continue to work on my nightly routine.  My goal is to try to get eight hours of sleep a night.  I also want to wakeup at 5 am to workout and write before work.  This means I’m going to have to go to at least get into bed around 9:30.  The hardest part about going to bed this early is setting up a trigger.  I’m working on it this week.

2. I want to work out every morning.  Move (& Sweat).

3. Eat Well.  Today, I'm making lunches for the week.  I'm making a few pieces of steak, chicken and pork chops to add some variety, one cup of mixed vegetables, and a half cup of beans.  For breakfast I'll eat about four eggs, some salsa, and a half cup of black beans.  I'm trying to cut out all refined breads for breakfast and lunch.

4.  Get outside everyday.  Walk Beans, go for a run, or read a book with Lisa while outside.  I need to do whatever I can to get outside and breath some fresh air everyday.

5. Pray / Meditate.  I need to spend some time in prayer, meditation, or thought on a daily basis.  

6. Write every day.  I want to write 750 words every morning and post something on this blog.

7. Express Gratitude.  Make sure I tell the people I care about how much they truly mean to me.  Appreciate life and everything that comes with it.

8. I want to start adding a weekly recurring theme to one day and try to expand or add other themes when it feels natural.  I've tried doing I Will Teach You To Be Rich Monday's in the past.  I never finished the plan last time.  This week, I'm going to try again.  I'll update my credit card spreadsheet and do a brief write up on Monday about where I left off.  I also want to start writing about my classes in the MSIS program and what I'm learning.  I think it will help me with one of my main midyear goals to learn SQL and PHP.

What are my weekly priorities?

Complete my first Toastmasters speech.

Finish painting the nursery closest.

Hang all the wall art in the office and nursery.

Clean out and paint the office closest.

Donate all clothes to Goodwill.

Unpack and assemble the baby shower gifts.

Put furniture in the garage on Craig’s List.

Figure out which car I want to buy, get financing, and prepare to buy next Monday.

This past week, I’ve been working on I Will Teach You To Be Rich’s Action Plans for Week Three.  IWTYTBR’s Action Steps for Week Three were the following:

Open you 401(k) (three hours).

Come up with a plan to pay off your debt (three hours).

Open a Roth IRA and set up automatic payment (one hour).

I’ve completed two of the three actions steps a few years ago but the second action step was hard to get my self motivated to complete.  It’s never enjoyable to figure out a plan to pay off debt. But it’s necessary.  To come up with a plan to pay off our debt I tried to follow a few key sections in Chapter Three.  Two of the main parts I concentrated on were Ramit’s, “The Ladder of Personal Finance,” and the, “Crush Your Debt,” sections.  I appreciate the easy to follow and understand chain of command for the ladder of personal finance. It’s great for someone who’s new to investing because it tells them exactly where their priorities should be.  When people think of investing, they always think of stock picking.  They think of the idea of making quick money overnight.  When in reality all they’ll do is lose their shirt.  Here is IWTYTBR’s The Ladder of Personal Finance I followed this week:

1. The Ladder of Personal Finance

There are 5 Rungs to the LOPF.  Ramit’s positive reminder is that it’s not a big deal if you cannot get to number 5 because most people never make it to number 1.

Rung 1: If your employer offers a 401(k) match, invest to take full advantage of it and contribute just enough to get 100 percent of the match.  Luckily, I completed this when I got my first job.

Rung 2: Pay off your credit card and any other debt.  Review page 40 in Chapter 1 for the best ways to do this.  

- This is the Rung I’m stuck on.  I need focus paying off my credit card debt before moving onto Rung 3.  I need to review page 40, review our credit card spreadsheet we created in Ch 1, and go to Dinkytown to get an idea of how our payment effects how many payments we’ll need to make.

Rung 3: Open a Roth IRA and contribute as much as possible.  

- I opened a Roth IRA at the end of college because I contracted at a chemical company for a year before I received my current full-time position.  I’m not moving on to this step but I do currently deposit a small amount to my Roth every month just to stay in the habit of contributing.

Rung 4: If you have money left over, go back to you 401(k) and contribute as much as possible to it. Current limit is $15,500.

Rung 5: If you still have money left to invest, open a regular non-retirement account and put as much as possible there. Pay extra on your mortgage debt, invest in yourself (start a company, get an additional degree).

After reviewing, The Ladder of Personal Finance, I found that I’m on Rung 2 and I need to seriously set a plan to have our debt paid off with a set timeframe.  This lead me to the next key topic of the chapter, “Crust Your Debt.”

2. Crush Your Debt

I want to become debt-free, well at least credit card debt free.  If I want this statement to become a reality then I need to revisit page 40 in Ch 1, “Five Steps to Ridding Yourself of Credit Card Debt,” or FSTRYOCCD.

1) Figure out how much debt you have.

- I created this chart when I started this plan but I haven’t been reviewing it.  I treated it more as a checkbox. I need to update it and review it, to plan my plan of attack for paying off our debt so we can move up the LOPF.  *UPDATE* I updated this chart during the week with current totals, down-payments, and I went to Dinkytown to run some calculations to figure out how long it will take us to pay off our debt with different down-payments.

2)Decide what to pay off first.

- Right now my plain is to pay off the highest APR and then concentrate on the lower APR accounts.

  3)Negotiate down the APR.

- I did this when I first went through these plans.

  4)Decide where the money to pay off your credit cards will come from.

- Last week I went through all my bills when I was in the process of moving all our bills from our online checking account back to our brick-and-mortar checking.  I figured out how much we can afford to pay towards are credit cards and how much we need to pay to pay them off in a set time frame. 

  5)GET STARTED

- I set up automatic payments, based on Dinkytown calculations, to start at the beginning of this month to payoff our credit card debt.

This week is Chapter Four of IWTYTBR titled, Conscious Spending: How to save hundreds per month (and still buy what you love). There are four Action Steps this week.  They are the following:

Get your paycheck, determine what you’ve been spending, figure out what your Conscious Spending Plan should look like (thirty minutes).

Optimize your spending (two hours).

Pick your big wins (five hours).

Maintain your Conscious Spending Plan (one hour per week).

I still need to complete the colosing of my internet checking account.  I was able to transfer all the bills except the gas bill becaue it was already processing.  Once the bill is processed I'll be able to close the account and move the pmt to my local brink-and-mortar store.  

The Action Steps for Week Three are the following:

 Open you 401(k) (three hours). COMPLETE

Come up with a plan to pay off your debt (three hours):   Run a calculation from www.dinkytown.net to see how much you could save by paying an extra $100 or $200 per month. Revisit p. 35 in Ch. 1 and p. 220 in Ch. 9 for details on how to pay off CC debt and SL.