June 2006 Archives

Daily updates to be more common

Starting next week this site will be updated almost daily. I say almost because life gets busy and I will make an attempt to write everyday. Since this weekend is a holiday weekend I will not make updates.

So why am I going to start writing daily? Since I started writing on the web I have thought about what to write about as my main topic. I have written about Apple, web design and about my life. I wanted my site to be mainly about one topic.

I may continue to write about the above topics, but for the most part this website will be about my journey to debt freedom.

If you have read the previous posts you know about the debt problem that I am in. This was heavy baggage that I brought into my marriage. Although the specific details of my debt have not been discussed, this information will be disclosed next week.

I am also writing this as an inspiration to others. Living without debt and paying cash for everything is realistic.

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Admitting there is a debt problem

Last year is when I finally said to myself “I am fed up with all my debt!” It really was my debt. My wife has some debt, but nothing near the amount I have. When we got married I should have been more open about my debt situation. Once she found out how much debt I was in she was a little upset. Ok, very upset.

Who could blame her? It is not her fault, it is mine. We were struggling financially when we got married. We could hardly pay for food. Bills were late and we had no clue where our money was going.

We even discussed bankruptcy. That is when I finally realized that we had to change something. Bankruptcy is not an answer. It is not an easy fix. Some people told us that bankruptcy was no big deal. I did not want to go down that path.

We both know that we needed to get out of debt. So we went to a credit counseling agency and placed some debt into that. It sounded good at first until we realized that this was also hurting our credit. There was no charge from the agency, they only asked for donations.

This is when I first heard about The Dave Ramsey Show. This guy knew what he was talking about. He is wealthy and had a plan that makes sense. He has been in debt and got out of it and is now a millionaire.

I talked April out of bankruptcy and told her that we could do this on our own. I have taken it upon myself to slash this debt and have total freedom. I have April’s full support and I am thankful for that.

I got myself into debt and I am going to get myself out of debt. How did I get into debt and how much? To be continued…

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My final decision to eliminate debt forever

I have been listening to The Dave Ramsey Show daily and finally have come to a decision. Debt freedom is not a fantasy. I listen to callers talk about becoming debt free and living debt free.

There are so many inspiring people who call in to the show to tell about their journey to debt freedom. April and I have already taken a few steps to becoming debt free.

We have not used credit cards in almost 2 years. People have asked how we have done this. But don’t you need a credit card for emergencies? No. I used to believe that until I ran up about 10,000 of credit card debt. This has since been paid off. Credit cards will get you in debt very fast.

So how do we handle emergencies? We have an emergency fund. That right, we have cash in a bank that we do not touch unless it is an emergency. When you have cash you will spend less. It has been proven that people who use credit cards will spend more.

I just received The Total Money Makeover written by Dave Ramsey. I will be discussing more about my journey as I read the book and implement the steps necessary to become debt free.

My big goal is to get my wife on the same track as me. In the next few months I will show her how we will make a total money makeover.

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Net Neutrality - Fight for Internet freedom!

You may or may not have heard in recent news about net neutrality. Congress will be voting on this bill and unless Internet users act now our Internet usage will change drastically.

From Google’s website:

In the next few days, the House of Representatives is going to vote on a bill that would fundamentally alter the Internet. That bill, and one that may come up for a key vote in the Senate in the next few weeks, would give the big phone and cable companies the power to pick and choose what you will be able to see and do on the Internet.

Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can’t pay.

I have already done my part. Find out how you can take action now.

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Opt-out of credit card offers permanently

Do you get lots of credit card offers in the mail? When I get this stuff it goes straight into the trash bin. Recently I found a site to assist in getting rid of this junk mail.

You now have the chance to opt-out of credit card offers that are sent to you mailbox. The website is OptOutPrescreen.com. Using the secure submission form you can opt-out for 5 years, opt-out permanently (which is what I did), or opt-in. I am not sure why you would opt-in unless you enjoy monthly payments to the credit card companies.

This is legit and endorsed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Hopefully this will decrease the amount of offers that I get that make their way into the trash. Also for all the environmentalists out there this will decrease the amount of trees being cut down for these stupid offers.

I found this at a great site called Get Rich Slowly which I found to be a good resource of information.

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PNG transparency in Internet Explorer

Recently I added some cool icons to this site. I found that most of my visitors use a graphical web browser, so it makes sense to add graphics to the site to spice things up.

The graphics I used are png files. The icons show up great in Firefox and Safari. Unfortunately I did not test Internet Explorer for Windows until today. The graphics look horrible.

The background to the icons are supposed to be transparent, but in Internet Explorer 6.0 (what I recently tested) the background is gray. I found out recently that Internet Explorer does not support the alpha transparency that PNG offers.

This is not new information as it has been a known issue in the web design world. I will be changing the icons as soon as I can to display correctly in all browsers. I am hoping that the icons add a nice effect to the site.

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