Declaration of War

Posted on September 18, 2009 Written by Leave a Comment

This version of the financial declaration of war was recently inspired by Adam Baker, author of Man vs. Debt, and it was exactly what I was looking for to describe how I feel

Photo Courtesy Mateus_27:24,25

Photo Courtesy Mateus_27:24,25

Whereas, Debt stands in immediate and blatant opposition to my pledge to live a fulfilling live of meaning and passion;

Whereas, Debt has crept into our lives by schemes and tactics that rival terrorism, preventing growth and success;

Whereas, Debt has crushed our spirit and limited our horizon by enslaving our time and energy;

Whereas, Debt has stripped us of our freedom and turned us out to Sallie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae, Chase, Wells, and Citibank;

I, the sole proprietor and stronghold of this rampart and free enterprise called, The Griffith Home, do forcefully and formally DECLARE WAR on Debt!

It shall be known by all who know me that I will not back down until the end of this debticide. Those who oppose will be conquered and settled upon.

This is my pledge in accordance, and in concert with the community at Man vs. Debt:

  • I will cancel all of my credit cards and will never apply for credit again as long as I shall live.
  • I will continue to follow every penny I spend.
  • I will spend less than I earn.
  • Every dollar has a name before it arrives. Every dollar knows where it’s going.
  • Variable monthly expenses shall be paid for with cash only.
  • I will continue to apply pressure where I bleed to reduce the costs.
  • I will never spend my emergency fund on non-emergencies.
  • I will eliminate my car payment and never buy a new car again, until I am a millionaire.
  • I will pay off my mortgage as fast as I can.
  • I will continue to educate myself and meet others who have joined this army.
  • I will never loan money to friends or family. Gifts only.
  • I will spend extra money on me to make me better than before.
  • I will remain faithful to my General, Dave Ramsey.
  • I will hold my Commander in Chief, God, above all others.
Filed Under: Reports from the Front Tagged: , , , , , ,

Credit Scores Are For Losers

Posted on March 24, 2009 Written by Leave a Comment

Okay, so that’s a pretty bold statement, I’d say. It may be down right offensive to some, because of the time and effort that you may believe you need to put into making sure you have a high credit score.

But what is a credit score for, and what type of institution are you dealing with that bases your integrity and credit-worthiness on some sort of mythical imaginary manufactured number?

Lenders.

If you haven’t figured out by now, when you own someone money, you become their slave.  Proverbs 22:7 isn’t just a verse in the Bible.  If you’ve got any sense whatsoever, you’ll see it as a truth, whether you believe in God or not.

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

Does it have to be spelled out?  Debt is bad.  All debt is bad.  Debt represents a purchase of some sort that was made because there was no money to actually buy whatever it was.  Debt will enslave you.  Some of the world’s smartest and brightest people may try to pitch to you the idea that debt is a tool used to get ahead, but I can assure you, this makes no sense in any way, shape, or form.

In fact, it is the reason our economic awareness is where it is right now.  We are in the midst of turmoil in the economy due to DEBT!  If you have a better explanation, I’d love to hear it…so I can laugh, and point out that you’re wrong.  I apologize if I sound arrogant, but I am 36 years old, and debt has never been a source of prosperity in my life.  It has always brought me down, and most recently, it has also brought down a very large number of my friends whom I love dearly.

When Do You Need a Credit Score?

When do you need to borrow money?  That’s your answer.  If you haven’t figured out by now that saving for what you are intending to purchase is the best choice, then stop reading now and go somewhere else, because I no longer, nor will I ever camp on the side of those who believe that a credit score is important, and I will not borrow money anymore.

If I never borrow money, I’ll never need a credit score, right?  But what about buying a house?  What about it?  If you must buy a house, borrow as little as possible, and do it for the shortest period of time, and as Dave Ramsey continually preaches, don’t take on more than a 15 year fixed mortgage and don’t let your payment exceed 25% of your take-home pay.  But we won’t be able to get the house we want!  Sorry.  That’s right.  You won’t.  Start saving until you can.

The longer you go without borrowing money, the lower your credit score will fall.  Do you care?  If so, why?  Ask yourself these questions and consider how much freedom you may experience when you employ the behavioral disciplines that are required to persevere through your impatience towards a savings goal.

You will, I guarantee, come out ahead EVERY TIME when you save for what you want instead of depending on your credit score to get you into DEBT!  Debt SUCKS the life out of you.  It destroys your spirit and makes you feel trapped, but only as long as you continue to have a mindset of borrowing.  Change your ways and you’ll find that even though you’ve gotten yourself into a deep pit of shit, you’ll be on your way to digging yourself out.  Do not borrow any more money.

If you haven’t heard about or read Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness, I would recommend that you do immediately.  The audio book is fantastic, and if you have iTunes, you can download it for half the price that Amazon charges for paperback, then stick it in your iPod and listen to it in your car or on your walks, rides, etc.

My life has been completely changed by these teachings and principles and I AM on the road to financial freedom.

Filed Under: Personal Finances Tagged: , , , ,

Jack Of All Trades, Master of None

Posted on February 27, 2008 Written by Leave a Comment

A pilot flies the plane.  He doesn’t fix the engine.  The technician installs the indicator lights, but the pilot needs only to know one thing.  What does it mean when it’s on, what does it mean when it’s off…

Finding yourself wasting time on tasks that you, to be frank, suck at?  Quit doing those tasks.  When you’re building your business, there’s something to be said for knowing what the indicators are, but that doesn’t mean you need to know how to take them apart and put them back together again.

In the world of blogging, which is basically marketing through copy editing, it’s critical that you find your place and pursue it.  Some of us design templates, some of us program features, some of us can do a little bit of everything.  While it’s nice to be able to say, “I know how to do that,” it can very easily become your downfall.

There are only so many days in a week, and so many hours in a day.  Spending your time working on a wider variety of tasks will make you a well rounded individual with an average compensation.  Why?  Because the more you show you know, the more they’ll demand, and likely without increased return on your invested time…and then you lose one important opportunity, the opportunity to strive for excellence in one area.

People who focus on one thing develop their craft to a much higher degree than those of us who attempt to do it all, and therefore are worth more.  In the search for purpose in this life, it’s fun to explore many different ideas.  It’s exciting to apply your talents to more than one area, but it will be even more rewarding if you become an expert in your field.  You might even find that focusing on one path opens up doors you thought would never appear.

The key to financial wealth and freedom in this economy is developing a support network and farming out the tasks that you just plain suck at.  Anyone who has built a successful business can tell you that.  Don’t spend your time doing what you don’t know how to do.  Evaluate your processes, make sure you understand how they work to help your business, but find the right person who is an expert at that task…or machine :) .  Robots never talk back!

Filed Under: Tips and Tricks Tagged: , , , ,

The Apprentice Theme Part One: Inspiration

Posted on February 8, 2008 Written by Leave a Comment

Approximately 4 weeks ago I threw in the towel on other people’s themes.  While there are hundreds, maybe thousands of fantastic themes in the world, none of them were just what I wanted, which is probably why there are hundreds of themes.  The proliferation of themes for WordPress is a byproduct of that very freedom to create.

So, what to do?  Well, the most obvious choice was to design my own theme.  But what would it look like?  What features would it have?  Would it continually evolve?  Would I get so lost in my own code and design that I wouldn’t know where to go next?  The answer to all of those questions turns out to be..#$@#(*$&!

Building a theme is tough work, especially when you’re migrating from basic knowledge to more advanced knowledge of WordPress.  The hardest part has turned out to be styling the site with CSS, which I am still doing, daily.

I figured I would call it Apprentice.  How fitting, right?  Why not.  I also thought that I should come up with a fairly consistent color scheme.  After all, branding, while not as critical in a slow market (see the article at teamforty.com about social networking) is important.  Especially when it comes to consistency.  The first step I took was to create the name, get the domain, and create the logo you see at the top.  The rest is history.

It’s known that imitation is the best form of flattery, so I set out to imitate one of my most influential blogs by Darren Rowse called problogger.net.  I used his site as a model, but I made certain to force myself to build the layout by trial and error, rather than copying code.  I knew that I would learn more that way, and 4 weeks later, I have learned some very basic lessons about CSS and applying what I see in mind mind quickly to a design style sheet.

During the process I found that I wanted a myriad of features.  I found myself saying, “If only I could have this or that.”  Now, I have this or that, and believe me the list is long and detailed.

Stay tuned for part two of this series where I’ll outline a list of features that I implemented throughout the design of this theme.  If you’d like to be notified automatically, use our subscription box to subscribe to our updates and we’ll send you an e-mail we post the follow up story.

Filed Under: The Apprentice Theme Tagged: , , ,

MAC Attack…

Posted on August 30, 2005 Written by 2 Comments

My first computer was an Atari, technically. My actual first personal computer, designed for personal computing, was an Apple IIc with a 5.25″ floppy disk drive. It was a predecessor to the GUI.

I played games on it. That was probably the only thing that I did, until I found that my new best friend, Chad Taylor, also had the same computer. I met Chad about 3 years after I had been given the computer for Christmas. We swapped hundreds of programs and games. Most of my time was spent in Zork, text based adventures; silly programs that you actually typed commands into like, “Pick up rock,” or “Take Jewell Encrusted Egg.” These were simple things. When Chad gave me Appleworks, I began my journey to typing mastery. I typed my MATH homework even. How ridiculous. My parents realized I needed a printer and bought one for me. Dot matrix baby.

A few years later, a handful of my friends ended up with the Macintosh! It had a MOUSE!?! I became creative. I never had one, but I always visited my friends’ houses to use theirs. And most of it was painting, or learning how to use spreadsheets…and an occasional round of Sim City.

As time passed, the IBM PC took over, and I ended up getting sucked into the technical aspect of computing, which led me to computer repair. I focused alot on tearing apart computers. My first IBM compatible was an IBM 8088 with a green monitor. It was with this computer that I wrote my first sequenced music pieces. They are long gone. And so was the creativity and freedom to simply use a computer for what it was intended. The next eighty three gajillion hours was spent on troubleshooting IBM crap! I’m 33 now, and I have recently acquired a Powerbook, and I have slowly migrated most of my creative efforts to that platform. I write music on it, I record on it, I blog on it. There’s nothing I can’t see myself doing on it, EXCEPT, all of the technical crap that my XP platform forces me to deal with. Bottom line, Apple has tapped my creativity and I will probably never use my PC for anything more than serving the web and running my accounting and personal finances. It’s just not as friendly as this beautiful PowerBook!

And just think, only recently was I a die-hard PC freak with words like Macintrash, and Trashintosh oozing from my mouth.

I write more, I create more, I desire more, now that I have the freedom to do so. Computing with a Mac is like driving a rail through the rocks at 100 miles/hour. Computing with a PC is like riding a tricycle on the beach.

(P.S. There’s a better analogy than that, but it’s freaking 1:30 in the morning and I’m tired.)

Good Night!

Filed Under: Tips and Tricks Tagged: , , , ,