Hope for your financial journey and beyond
Adieu 2013
2013 is nothing more than a Times Square Ball drop from being in the books.
As excited as I am for 2014 to arrive, I’ve been thinking over the Christmas holidays of the incredible year 2013 was for myself and my family. As I’m sure yours was also, our year was filled with ups and downs. So today I’m going to conclude my writing for the year by sharing the biggest victories and disappointments I encountered this past year.
Is blogging wearing you down? I know for me there have been various times during the past year where it felt like a drag. I’ve seen this sentiment expressed elsewhere on blogs, so I am fairly certain it’s a common phenomenon.
If you are like me and feel a sense of commitment in keeping to a predefined schedule, you probably just suck it up and write through the tough days. A couple of times this year when I did this though, I felt my writing quality suffered.
If your main income is derived from blogging you don’t have much choice. You essentially have to keep working through the doldrums.
Whatever your situation, it’s a sickening feeling to be tied to something that you can’t (or choose not to) take a break from.
For 2014, I’m going to work on giving myself some freedom to take writing breaks from my blog if I feel the need. Nothing too extended - just skipping a post here or there. I think the benefit to me will be staying fresh and not forcing myself to produce writing that is sub-par.
Are there optimal times to take a break from your blog? I think you should at least consider it on these occasions:
Hidden Nuggets Series #22 - “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” - Deuteronomy 6:6-7
Repetition is the key to learning.
Repeat things consistently, day in and day out, and patterns will develop that are extremely difficult to break. These patterns could be positive or negative depending on what has been repeated. Either way, they get hard wired into the brain and influence our behavior.
As a parent, I serve as the default pattern developer for my children. They will pick up on what I routinely say and do and begin to express those things in their life (both consciously and subconsciously). Nothing serves to be more encouraging and/or terrifying as seeing your children turn into you.
The following is a guest post by Kim Fourman.
Taxes may not be foremost on your mind right now, but they are important to think about before the year is over. It would be wise to know what kind of changes are coming and how that can affect you. For those in business, including the self-employed, here are two big changes coming for this year’s tax return.
So what is Section 179 anyway? Well, first you need to understand depreciation. If you buy an asset (say, a computer), you are generally not allowed to expense (“expensing” means writing off or deducting) the entire amount in the year that you purchased it. Instead you are supposed to spread out the expense over several years.
My high school basketball team was not the most athletic in the world. My senior year, the tallest player was our 6′ 4″ freshman center. We didn’t have a deep bench and only slightly above average quickness. No one could come close to dunking a basketball.
We did have continuity though, with five seniors who had been together for four years. Having played together for so long, we had learned each others’ tendencies and developed some serious offensive talent. During my senior year we averaged over 80 points a game.
Our biggest advantage didn’t come from our skill. It came from our coach. He was a great motivator and we had learned to trust his instincts and understanding of the game. His wisdom about game situations proved valuable on many occasions, most importantly one winter afternoon as we competed for our state’s private school state championship.
Hidden Nuggets Series #21 - “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.” - James 1:14
What consumer products seduce you?
We all have our weaknesses when it comes to spending. There are certain consumer items that routinely tempt us to purchase them. For the longest time I refused to believe that I had an issue giving in to these temptations.
However, I began to notice certain behavior patterns emerging that forced me to admit to the truth. Certain consumer products are very attractive to me and I have to continually fight my spirit’s desire for them.
The area just north of Baltimore, where my sister and her husband live, was calling for 4-6 inches of snow on Tuesday. My kids are totally jealous. Living south of Atlanta we don’t see much accumulated snow during the winter, if any. Were we there, I know what we would be doing…having a snowball fight.
Snowballs are fun, except when it comes to debt levels snowballing out of control. Credit card after credit card, loan after loan, missed payment after missed payment and the debt skyrockets upward, seemingly with no end in sight.
Until one day, a light bulb flashes and you wake up to realize that debt is creating a stranglehold on your life. It’s decreasing your chances of retiring wealthy and living a stress free financial life. So you decide to focus with intensity and develop a plan that will get you out of debt.
But which debt does one start with? You’ve accumulated so many.
There are two basic methods to paying off debt, the Interest Rate Method and the Debt Snowball Method.
Use a blog calendar to schedule ideas in advance.
How do you put together a blog post? I had no clue how to answer that question when I first started blogging. I just started writing without much thought to methodology. Now, looking back, I can see that flaw evidenced in the poorer quality of my early writing.
After several frustrating months of writing, I realized the need to come up with a procedure for seeing an idea through from inception to publish date. So today I’m going to outline the process I developed that has helped me avoid some blog writing frustration along the way.
Hidden Nuggets Series #20 - “…you shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your poor brother, but you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly lend him sufficient for his need…” - Deuteronomy 15:7-8
Giving is especially on my mind right now as we enter the holiday season. So much so I’ve dedicated an entire week here at Luke1428 to that topic. On Monday, I talked about why people give for the wrong reasons and how dangerous that can be. I followed that up on Wednesday by describing the five step giving plan my wife and I use to decide where our money goes. Personal finance is all about making intentional and wise decisions with your money. Giving is no different.
Through it all, there has been one common theme related to giving - our attitude.
Several years ago I heard someone speak about our mental attitude in relation to how we view money. This person used a powerful visual that has stuck with me ever since. I’d like to share it with you today because it has revolutionized how I think about money and the opportunities I have to give.
Planning will help piece together the puzzle of how much to give.
Developing a plan for giving might seem silly. Perhaps you want to give wherever and to whomever you like without feeling constrained by a plan. Maybe giving is not on your radar at all. If that’s the case this post might not help much. But I encourage you to read on in the hopes I can change your mind.
Putting together a giving plan is a fundamental exercise you should go through to have success with your personal finances. We spend great amounts of effort to make plans for our monthly budget and our long-term investing. We plan out how we will pay for the kid’s college and support ourselves in retirement. So why would we ignore this area of our finances where a lot of money could potentially pass through our fingers over the course of a lifetime?
My wife and I started our giving plan for three reasons.
Image courtesy of salvationarmyusa.org
The calendar has now turned into December and that means our thoughts are shifting focus towards Christmas. There will be so many activities to attend, so many destinations to travel to, and so much delicious food to consume.
And there will be so much giving that takes place.
December is the month specifically devoted to giving. We regularly give in many ways throughout the year, but it all seems to come focused together during the December holiday season. Schools have students bring in clothing items for distribution to children from low-income families. Pastors preach sermons and urge their congregation to fill local food pantries. The Salvation Army kettles show up outside department stores. And of course, families celebrate the season by gathering around the tree on Christmas morning.
These are all good things designed to meet needs and bless people at a special time of the year.
However, if we are not careful, we can get hooked into giving for inappropriate reasons. This can have a negative impact on our budget, not to mention our emotional and psychological makeup. That’s why it’s important to analyze to whom we are giving and why.
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
