$25 ShareBuilder Giveaway
I’m giving away a $25 ShareBuilder Investment Cash Certificate. Here’s the scoop:
We’re In Debt (soon to be “Were in Debt”) today posted a comparison of online snowball debt repayment calculators, which included the CreditShack calculator.
A couple months ago, I thought about rewriting my snowball debt calculator to include additional parameters, such as comparing the highest-balance and highest-interest-rate methods, accounting for promotional interest rates, etc. I put this idea on the back burner and forgot about it until I read the King of Debt’s article.
Rather than coming up with ideas for improvements for this calculator on my own, I turn it over to you, oh readers. Please send me your suggestions for improving the debt snowball calculator by leaving a comment at the bottom of this post. Alternatively, send in suggestions for innovative new calculators that you’d find helpful (but don’t yet exist).
In the spirit of Free Money Finance, I’ll be giving away a $25 ShareBuilder Investment Cash Certificate to one lucky person who submits an insightful suggestion. (ShareBuilder is a discount stock brokerage.)
To be eligible to win the ShareBuilder certificate, you must leave at least one suggestion concerning a debt calculator in a comment below.
I’ll announce the winner on this blog Friday, February 2.
P.S. You may be able to combine the Sharebuilder cash certificate with a ShareBuilder bonus code.
Making Your Goals Automatic
I came across a motivational poster the other day that said: “It’s the start that stops most people.”
At first I thought it was cheesy.
Then I thought about it some more and realized the truth in this little proverb. It really is difficult to take action, especially on long-term projects or goals. Whether it’s paying off your debt, funding your retirement, working out at the gym, or something else entirely, why start right now when you can always do it tomorrow? The future workload of such goals seems too daunting to even initiate an attempt.
The secret to meeting your financial goals is quite simple: make them happen without you, automatically. There’s really no excuse for not starting an automatic process. The follow-through down the road won’t take any time or effort. Log on to your online banking system and set up a small extra automatic payment to your credit card debt every month. Start contributing to your IRA with an automatic monthly bank debit. (You can open a retirement account with as little as a $50/month commitment at T. Rowe Price.)
Whatever your goal is, set it up to happen automatically. You’ll reach your goal, whether you like it or not. Success doesn’t get any easier than that.
CreditDigest Roundup for January 14-20
Each week I summarize noteworthy credit and money management articles in the news and in the personal finance blogosphere. Without further adieu:
- Tricia @ Blogging Away Debt posted a nice summary and commentary of 20/20’s recent episode concerning debt in America.
- Trent over at The Simple Dollar suggests seven ways you can reduce your car expenses and five ways to cut your monthly food bill.
- The King of Debt explains how he put his debt reduction plan on auto pilot using his bank’s billpay service. (Automation of your investing and debt payments is the surest way to reach your goals.)
- 2million is disappointed that his savings rate dropped below 50%. Don’t you wish that was your problem?
Previous Articles
On Paying Yourself First: The Gap Between Rich and Poor
Politicians on a certain side of the aisle like to draw attention to the ‘injustice’ in the increasing gap in wealth between the rich and the poor. The wealthy, despite paying a disproportionately high percentage of their income to the government to fund welfare programs for the poor, manage to accumulate more money […]
Credit Card Annual Fees: When Are They Okay?
About every three weeks I get a letter in the mail from American Express begging me to apply for their Rewards Plus Gold Card. And every three weeks I tear up the promotional offer and throw it in the garbage. It’s like clockwork.
Why do I rip up the offer? The […]
Debt Constipation
Constipation and debt consolidation have a lot in common (besides sharing a few letters).
Think about it. You eat. Your food gets processed. And if you’re healthy, you get rid of it. Debt works the same way. You spend. You get the credit card bill. And if your […]
Selecting a Stafford Loan Lender
It’s that time of year again for students to start working on financial aid paperwork. Selecting a lender is a key decision in the financial aid process. In talking with students, I’ve found that most believe that Federal Stafford lenders are largely the same and that it doesn’t matter who services their […]
A Short Primer on Treasury Bills
When I tell people that I try to keep a good chunk of savings in United States Treasury Bills, they usually look at me cross-eyed. Then they hit me with tough questions like “What the heck is a Treasury Bill?” or “You got something against savings accounts?”
Well, in fact, I do have a […]
Patience
I was just thinking today about how the good things in life develop slowly over time, but the bad happens near instantly. It takes decades to build your career, but only a couple minutes to get fired. It takes years to lose weight, but only a second to get killed in a […]
Corporate Credit Card Fiasco
Many corporations provide their employees with corporate credit cards to pay for business expenses. If everything works as planned, the company credit card simplifies expense reporting and doesn’t force employees to float the company an interest free loan while waiting for reimbursement.
But what happens when something goes wrong? What if the company doesn’t […]
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