Free Books!

Posted on May 19, 2013 by outtadebt

Starting Today, May 19 until June 2 each of my books will be Free on Amazon.

Download, read, enjoy and give a review on Amazon if you can. These free download help me out when the books go back to a paid status.  Why Free?  Each Free download helps a book in the Sales rankings.  Once the books goes back to ‘paid’ status, the sales rankings keep those free books.  Higher rankings means more eyeballs on the books when they’re in a pay state.

May 19-23                    Book 1: Genesis                   Goof_Off_to_Goofy_Marathoner

May 19-25                May 25-28             May 29-June 6

May 19 through May 23 - We Got Outta Debt

May 25 through May 28 – Kennedy’s Men: Genesis Book 1 (New Fiction Series)

May 29 through June 2 – Goof Off to Goofy Marathoner

You do not need a Kindle to read the book!  You can download Free Kindle Reading Apps and read from you PC, Mac, Android Tablet, iPad… etc..

 

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A Long Strange Journey

Posted on May 5, 2013 by outtadebt

I went to a birthday party last night for some friends.  Great time and it was fun watching how silly a bunch of women can get when they get together.  Silly with or without alcohol involved. One of the people there was a Fraternity brother of mine I hadn’t seen in 4 or 5 years.  For the sake of anonymity, we’ll call him Mike.

Mike & I were Pledge Brothers.  (Pledge Brothers, for the non-Greek reader, are those guys who go through the process of ‘Pledging’ a Fraternity together.  For more details, please refer to the documentary “Animal House“)  Anyway, Mike & I went through this together and became pretty good friends.  Last night, we had the chance to sit down and have a real conversation about where we’ve been and what we’re doing and how we got there. Mike was on the 7 year College Plan.  Not intentionally, mind you. But just as a matter of how life happened.  He took some time off, was asked to take some time off, and just needed to find what worked for him.

Continue reading →

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Tax Returns as ‘Forced Savings’

Posted on April 10, 2013 by outtadebt

According to this post in Mint, many people take advantage of their tax return as the means to  savings.  While the ideas presented in my prior post are things I would do, I should point out that my assumption is based on people not tweaking their deductions so they pay as close to $0 to Uncle Sam as possible.

What makes the most sense, in my opinion, is that you should first take the time to tweak your deductions/exemptions.  THEN, use any savings to make sure you pay down debt.  Unfortunately, many workers use any extra money and put their focus toward adding expenses, rather than saving or reducing debt.

Take the time out and reap the rewards of either continually paying debt down faster or investing the extra money throughout the year.

 

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2013 Tax Day Countdown

Posted on April 7, 2013 by outtadebt

It’s just a little over a week until the Tax Man Cometh here in the US.

Have you filed yet?  With the delay of the filing season caused by the Congressional Shenanigans of earlier this year, more and more people are filing later in the season.  While the IRS doesn’t begin processing returns until January 30, a 2012 survey by Intuit found that 82% of taxpayers who filed by the end of February (just 28 days) got a refund.

What are you going to do with your refund?

Continue reading →

Posted in Debt Free, Identity Theft, Savings | 1 Comment

Over 50 Retirement Planning

Posted on April 6, 2013 by outtadebt

So you’ve started a little later than you should.  I know I have, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to just give up.

You will just have to be a little more fluid in your goals.

According to the 2012 Survey by Employee Benefit Research Institute 66% of US Workers report having some retirement savings.  While this may seem like a great statistic, it’s down from 75% from their 2009 survey.  Approximately 60% of respondents report that their retirement savings totals less than $25,000!   So what do you do?

Continue reading →

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Retirement Myths

Posted on April 1, 2013 by outtadebt

When you begin to look at retirement from any age, whether you’re 25 and planning ahead (awesome!) or 50 and are thinking.. Hmm.. I wonder what I should do? 

You’ll hear from a number of different sources, including this one, information that’s spot-on and some that’s more of an old wives tale.  One of big problems with listening to any type of advice is it at one point in time it may have been true. Times change, laws change and definitely people change.

With Social Security in the news lately we’ve taken the approach in this household  with retirement planning by not counting on Social Security. We just don’t feel it’s likely to get much of anything when the time comes for us to ‘retire’.  More than likely, we’ll be looking for ways to supplement our income.  And in one case, that has already begun.  That’s a post for a different day, however.

This article is going to go through some of the most popular retirement myths that abound.  No, I’m not talking about Elvis having retired and is now flipping burgers in a Memphis suburb (everyone knows he’s in Amarillo).   Continue reading →

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Reflection & Retirement Planning

Posted on March 30, 2013 by outtadebt

After we became ‘eligible’ for AARP, our focus has shifted a bit from the “Get Outta Debt” theme we’d been living under for the last four years.  As anyone who has successfully made that “Outta Debt” goal can tell you, we shift to “Stay Outta Debt”.  The good news there, is that you’ve already done the hard part.  Paying down bills, creating a Spending Plan and looking to save money can all be carried forward to your new theme of staying Debt Free.

In the “AARP Eligible World”, we have the added theme of getting ready for retirement.

Continue reading →

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Emergency Fund Financial Study

Posted on March 17, 2013 by outtadebt

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!   

Emergency Funds, Rainy Day Funds, “Oh Crap” Funds.. call them what you will, the concept of having money stashed aside for the sole purpose of unexpected expenses is a key aspect of your financial health.  For the longest time, our Emergency Fund was our Credit Card.  This was before we got our act together, set up a small emergency Fund and knocked out our $68k in Credit Card debt.  Of course, if you’ve been here before, you know these things.  And for those new visitors, welcome.

So why do I rehash a topic we’ve discussed before, both here and in my book (‘We Got Outta Debt‘) ?  Because it’s important, that’s why!  How important?

Continue reading →

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Balancing 401k to Deductions

Posted on February 23, 2013 by outtadebt

We owe Uncle Sam some money this year.  We stopped claiming our younger two daughters as dependents on our Taxes this year.  Unfortunately, we didn’t make any adjustments to my withholding earlier and now we’re paying the Tax Man.

tax-manIt’s too late to do much about the 2012 taxes, except maybe add some to our IRA.  However, what we need to balance now is how make some adjustments for 2013.  The two choices I see are:

1.  Increase our Federal Withholding to we pay Uncle Sam more money for him to blow, or

2. Increase my 401k contributions.

As you might guess, I’m pretty certain we’ll do #2, but I need to figure out how much to increase and not get to the point where we get money back from IRS next year.  Since we’ll be eligible for Catch-up Contributions this year (a nice benefit to turning 50), we have some room to add.

I’ll keep everyone posted on how things go with this.  In the meantime, if any of my readers know of a good site to help figure this out, please share in the comments.

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Guest Post – Debt Freedom

Posted on February 21, 2013 by outtadebt

I’m happy to present my first guest post by a non-blogger!  I found Bethany on Twitter where she talked about having paid off all her debt except for a little more on her Student Loan.   I wanted to take some of the focus off the ‘older’ voice (me) and get some insights from a younger person who has a lifetime ahead of her.  I’ll let Bethany take over… 

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Hi, I’m Bethany and I am almost DEBT FREE!!  I am 26 years old and graduated from Central Michigan University in 2009 with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.  I majored in Marketing and luckily I’ve been able to find a job in that field.  I am also a photographer and enjoy shooting both landscapes and portraits.  I especially enjoy photographing children, they’re just so innocent and carefree.  Check out my albums on www.facebook.com/BethanySuePhotography.

I have been blessed  with an incredible family and hope to have one of my own someday.  As an adult, I did the “normal” thing in life and opened credit cards and took out student loans to attend college.  Then the constant thought/fear of paying of debt for the rest of my life opened my eyes.  I hope the tips below help you in your journey to becoming debt free!

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