Living In Financial Excellence Podcast
By Matt Wegner
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Podcast Description
Embracing Debt Free Living and Building Wealth the old fashioned way - by working hard and saving money! Tips and Tools for L.I.F.E. - Living In Financial Excellence
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Clean096 Financial Excellence: Surviving the Bad Housing Market | Episode 96: How to Survive the Bad Housing Market, Feb 7, 2012. The housing market has been pretty cruddy for several years now but there are good signs of improvement. Today I interview my friend and realtor Kim Werla about the state of the real estate market at the local and national level. Kim is a persona friend of mine and I really like the way she approaches her business. Here are some of the neat things she does to set her apart from other real estate agents: Kim's agency is the first in our county to use QR codes for each specific listing. Kim gets funny looks from home inspectors because she accompanies them throughout the entire inspection process so she understands the issues with her buyers' prospective homes. Not too many realtors I know actually do that. Kim has had success with trying different days for open houses. Many realtors will just stick the old tried and true (Sundays), which isn't working well in my area. Each week, every agent in her office does a complete live tour of each house they have listed so they get a good feel for the house. Many other agencies just sit in a room and talk about the listings. . Sponsor: MozyPro Online Backup: Simple, Automatic & Secure Backup http://mozy.com/pro // Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: We have a new sponsor for the podcast. Mozy Pro for Business is a fast, simple way to back up your business so you don't have to worry when your hard drive crashes. The market isn't the best for sellers but most sellers end up buying a different home right away, so what you lose by selling now can be gained on the other end when you buy at low prices. There's never been a better time to buy. Ok, that's debatable, but this is a REALLY good time to buy a home. Even though our local market is depressed, the national inventory level is down to 6 months. That's not bad at all for a slow economy. On average buyers can save 13% when they buy a short sale and 22% when they buy a foreclosure. Talk about a red tag sale! Whether it's a good time to buy a home or not, you still need to have your finances in order so you can make your purchase a blessing instead of a curse. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! 7S7MP8TCC5GX | 2/7/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean095 Financial Excellence: Importance of your Personal Brand in Business | Episode 95: Importance of your Personal Brand in Business, Jan 31, 2012. I mentioned back in Episode 93 that my show is black or white. You either love my rambling or you hate it. That's because of my personality. My audience either connects with my personality or it doesn't. Either way is ok with me because I know I can't please everyone. I have learned to embrace who I am as my personal brand and use that to connect with my audience. Today's show is about the importance of understanding your personal brand and how to build your community with that brand. Sponsor: MozyPro Online Backup: Simple, Automatic & Secure Backup http://mozy.com/pro // Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: We have a new sponsor for the podcast. Mozy Pro for Business is a fast, simple way to back up your business so you don't have to worry when your hard drive crashes. Many small business owners make the mistake of portraying themselves as a bigger company than they really are. In today's market, consumers connect with people, not with businesses. It's important to let your company reflect your personality so you can attract the customers that connect with who you are, not just what you do. If you're a service provider, especially if you're self employed, this show is for you. Others may find the information applicable, but self employed service providers are the target audience for today's episode. To understand your personal brand, you need to know how and why people connect with you. You also need to learn how to talk about what you do in a way that compels people to want to learn more. Once you know how people connect with you and why, you can identify your target market segment and market only to them, which aligns you with customers/clients that will connect with you and energize you. This results in a happier you, happier customers, and more referrals. Once you know who your target market segment is and how they connect with your personal brand, you can establish yourself as an expert within your niche and that segment. Understanding this process will reduce wasted activity, save you time, and help you be much more successful. Not very many people connect with businesses anymore. They connect with people within those businesses. They will connect with you. You just have to help them connect. I mentioned I've been reading the book "Book Yourself Solid" by Michael Port. It's a fantastic book for self employed people. Check it out: Another great resource for the self employed or entrepreneurs (especially coaches) is my friend Justin Lukasavige's show Coach Radio. I encourage you to check it out and learn from him. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! 7S7MP8TCC5GX | 1/31/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean094 Financial Excellence: My (Lame) Debt Free Story | Episode 94: How and Why I Got Out of Debt: My Lame Story, Jan 24, 2012. Last week I was interviewed by Jon White on his Debt Free Living podcast about how my wife and I got out of debt and how we live without debt today. I'm pretty modest and I don't think we have a sensational story, but it's still worth sharing since we don't talk about the specifics a whole lot on our show. Plus, it saved me a lot of prep time this week, so I'm taking the easy way out ;o). Sponsor: MozyPro Online Backup: Simple, Automatic & Secure Backup http://mozy.com/pro // Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: We have a new sponsor for the podcast. Mozy Pro for Business is a fast, simple way to back up your business so you don't have to worry when your hard drive crashes. I don't often talk about our journey to freedom from debt on the show. Quite frankly I think it's a boring story. I mean, we didn't have tons of consumer debt when we started our journey. Having said that, we still had a moment in our lives where we decided we never wanted to owe anyone anything again. We actually had been free of consumer debt before, but we for some reason thought that car payments were just a way of life. So, even though we were debt free except the house, we jumped right back into a truck payment. Boy was that stupid! Now that we've matured financially, we realize we don't want to ever owe someone again. We've learned to communicate about money and our priorities for money. We've learned to tell our money where to go. We've learned to be proactive with money instead of reactive. Because we're debt free, we have so many more options with our careers, our relationship, our retirement, and our giving. It's a really cool place to be when you don't owe anyone anything! Jon let me do a shameless plug for my other business, Grate Outdoor Solutions, where we provide the coolest camping and outdoors gear on the market. If it isn't cool, we don't sell it. Thanks, Jon! You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! 7S7MP8TCC5GX | 1/24/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean093 Financial Excellence: Handling Business Criticism, & Suze Orman’s Approved Card | Episode 93: How to Handle Criticism of your Business, Thoughts on Suze Orman's Approved Card, Jan 10, 2012. Today I talk about how I personally handle criticism and rejection in my business. I also offer my thoughts on Suze Orman's new Approved Card. Sponsor: MozyPro Online Backup: Simple, Automatic & Secure Backup http://mozy.com/pro // Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: We have a new sponsor for the podcast. Mozy Pro for Business is a fast, simple way to back up your business so you don't have to worry when your hard drive crashes. For a long time, I've asked listeners to leave a review on iTunes so other potential listeners can decide if this is a good show to listen to. Well, we got a few not-exactly-glowing reviews. I talk about how I deal with the less-than-positive feedback. I've also received negative feedback from clients. It's easy to take that personally, but I share how I turn the negative feedback into something good. Sometimes you don't get any feedback from customers except that they don't return your calls. It's important to qualify your customers and clients in advance so you can avoid these situations. I mentioned John G. Miller's book, "QBQ: The Question Behind the Question in the show. Here's a link to purchase his book and save some $$ on Amazon: Steve Stewart at Money Plan SOS wrote a great blog post about Suze Orman's Approved Card on his blog. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I thought I would share Steve's thoughts and add a few of my own. He did a wonderful job of breaking it down, and I appreciate him unknowingly saving me some work ;o). A summary of my thoughts about Suze's card? There aren't any real benefits, and it costs you a monthly fee to have no added benefit. But there's a lot of discussion on the show, so you'll have to listen in for the specifics. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 1/17/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean092 Financial Excellence: DIY Project Gone Wrong | Episode 92: DIY Project Gone Wrong & Tax Deductions for Charitable Donations, Jan 10, 2012. A few months ago I wrote a post about whether the benefits of hiring a professional outweigh the frustrations of trying to do a project yourself. In that post, I mentioned we had skilled friends who knew what they were doing and had the right tools. In today's show I share a personal DIY project that went wrong. Big time. And it cost me a bunch more than it would have to hire a professional. Oh, and I answer a mailbag question from a listener about tax deductions for charitable donations. Sponsor: MozyPro Online Backup: Simple, Automatic & Secure Backup http://mozy.com/pro // Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: We have a new sponsor for the podcast. Mozy Pro for Business is a fast, simple way to back up your business so you don't have to worry when your hard drive crashes. Megen wrote in with a question about whether you can deduct charitable donations if you don't qualify to itemize deductions. I'm pretty handy around the house and with our cars. But my latest project got out of hand. Today I share what happened. I probably would have been better off paying a mechanic to do the work for me. I got a quote of $529.90 and at this point I'm probably already $260 in with three days lost. I've done similar projects before but they were at my dad's house where he had all the necessary tools. I somehow forgot that I didn't have all the tools for the job and I had to go buy some more. Talk about sticker shock! I had no idea that even cheap tools could cost that much. Have you ever attempted a DIY project that cost you way more than you anticipated? Share your story by leaving a comment. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 1/10/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean091 Financial Excellence: How to Make Money by Blogging | Episode 91: How to Make Money by Blogging, Jan 3, 2012. In today's show Matt discusses a topic brought up in our discussion forums about how to make money by blogging. There are a lot of ways to make money from blogging, but they all depend on having a really good blog Sponsor: MozyPro Online Backup: Simple, Automatic & Secure Backup http://mozy.com/pro // Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: We have a new sponsor for the podcast. Mozy Pro for Business is a fast, simple way to back up your business so you don't have to worry when your hard drive crashes. Accepting ads on your site can earn you some extra money but you have to be careful with the types of ads you accept so you don't send conflicting messages to your readers. You also don't want to overwhelm readers with ads in the text of your posts because that can scare them away. Affiliate ads are easy to use but typically don't generate a lot of money unless you have a large subscriber base. There are other ways to make money blogging, like writing for other blogs and performing admin tasks like blog maintenance. Some sites will even pay you to write content that other people can use for their own blogs. t may seem tempting to just start up a blog and make lots of money but the truth is it takes a lot of work and time to develop a blog to the point where you can monetize it and earn a significant income from it. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 1/3/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean090 Financial Excellence: Saving Money at Christmas Time | Episode 90: How to Save Money During Christmas and Other Holidays, Dec 20, 2011. Today I share tips and tricks from the Financial Excellence community about how to save money on Christmas gifts, decorations, and other holiday expenses. We had a lot of suggestions, including some from my friends at Super Frugalette, Sparing-Change, The Single Saver, and Smart Family Finance. Thanks guys! Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Many of the suggestions sent in involved not spending any money at all. From making gifts to baking gifts, we shared a lot of ways to get creative with gifts this year and save some money. Several of our listeners, like Lindsey and AJGrifdog, recommended having a plan for your gift giving. It helps to set aside a little each month so you have the money to spend when it's time to shop. Here is the Gift Planning & Budgeting Worksheet Janelle and I use each year. Charitable donations were another common suggestion. Not only do you avoid giving someone something they don't need, but you're able to make a true difference in someone's life. Plus, you get a tax deduction. Win-win-win! Meg at Sparing-Change shared how she makes homemade wines and jams for friends and family. I got thirsty reading her post! Denise at The Single Saver recently wrote a 12-day series sharing some great money saving tips. Check it out! Super Frugalette says it's ok to say, "I am not in a financial position to exchange gifts this year and I would prefer we didn't." I couldn't agree more. If the shoe fits, don't be afraid to say that to someone. Shaun at Smart Family Finances reminded us of the creative gift-giving ideas that give you tax deductions. Newlyweds on a budget shared a post about their Christmas on a dime as newlyweds. We didn't get it in time for the show but it's a good post and worth sharing. Check it out when you get a chance. Miss T at Prairie Eco-Thrifter also recommended pot luck dinners to save on the food prep costs, which my family has been doing for a while and I LOVE. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 12/21/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean089 Financial Excellence: How Much do you Need to Retire? | Episode 89: How much money does it take for you to retire? Dec 13, 2011. Today I welcome special guest Pam Otten, financial adviser and host of the "Intelligent Investing with Pamela Otten" radio show. Together we discuss how to determine the right nest egg size for your retirement. Pam has been on the show before and has had me on her show numerous times and she is a good friend of mine. You may recognize her name (and voice) from Episode 087 and Episode 066 of this podcast. She's also my adviser and someone I trust for investment advice. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Next week we'll be talking about Christmas gifts and how to save money when shopping for Christmas. Do you have some tips for saving money on Christmas gifts? Share them by emailing us at mailbag [at] financialexcellence [dot] net with the subject line: Christmas! Most people wait until they're ready to retire and then wonder if they can retire. If you wait that long, it's waaaaay too late, and you probably won't be able to retire. You need to have a plan early and start working the plan early. Many financial advisers suggest your expenses will decrease by 25% when you retire. That very well may not be the case, and it's important you have realistic expense projections. In fact, your expenses may increase when you retire. Pam also says you need to start with a written spending plan and eliminate debt if you want to retire comfortably. Hmmm, where have you heard that before? Oh, yeah - Matt says that in almost every podcast episode! The #1 problem in retirement planning is the lack of an end goal - your financial planner cannot help you reach your goal if you don't know where you want to go. It's time to start thinking about when you want your lifestyle to be when you reach retirement age. Your return on investment will be related to the amount of risk you're willing to tolerate. You should understand that low risk investments come at a pretty steep opportunity cost. Similarly, higher risk portfolios should be well diversified to minimize your risks. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 12/13/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean088 Financial Excellence: 5 Tips to Grow your Business | Episode 88: 5 Tips to Grow your Business from the Start, Dec 6, 2011. If you're thinking of starting a business in the near future, these are five must-do's to make sure your business is poised to grow from the start. Today I share some "Wish I had" tips regarding growing your business. Actually, they're not specifically related to growing the business. They're things that, when done right, help you spend more time on growing your business instead of fixing the mistakes (speaking from experience here). Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Your business name is more important than you think, and not in the way you're probably thinking. It's important to not get too fancy or too cute with your business or domain name. Matt shares how picking the wrong business name hurt him more than once. Market research is extremely important to do up front. Matt shares how he recently conducted some market research and what he learned from it. Picking a niche and sticking with it helps you avoid burnout, both professionally and personally. Your website and/or blog are both very important for growing your business. Taking the time to really think through the layout and flow of your website will save you tons of headaches down the road. Your business plan is crucial to have before you start the business. Too many businesses skip this step and it bites them later because they didn't think through the details of actually running the business. Yes, we've been guilty of that too. :( You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 12/6/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean087 Financial Excellence: Developing an Attitude of Gratitude | Episode 87: Developing an Attitude of Gratitude, Dec 2, 2011. Last week I made a guest appearance on the "Intelligent Investing with Pamela Otten" radio show. Since it was around Thanksgiving time, we talked about having gratitude and being thankful for things. I thought it was a pretty good topic and I was swamped when I came back from traveling over the Thanksgiving weekend, so I figured I would just share the recording of Pam's show. The only trouble was, I ended up procrastinating and I didn't get this episode released until later in the week! My apologies to all, and I hope you enjoy the show as much as I enjoyed being on the show. Oh, and sorry for the commercials. I was too lazy to edit them out! Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Pam asked what I'm grateful for. I'm not grateful for Black Friday, but I am very thankful for the blessings in my life. Take time out to thank those around you for the difference they make in your life. Wouldn't you appreciate it if they thanked you on a regular basis? Christmas is coming, and it's about a lot more than how much you spend on presents. If you've ever gone through tough times, you've learned to live without. Too many of us are unwilling to give up some of those creature comforts until we're forced to give them up. When we're forced into the situation, we often find it's not as hard as we thought it would be. Never confuse happiness with gratitude. Happiness is a concept many of us never reach, but it can often be found by first finding gratitude. Should you tithe on your gross income or net? Matt's answer may surprise you (it's kind of an irrelevant discussion). Are you giving as much as you would like? Matt and Pam discuss how to make sure you can give 10% or more of your income. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 12/2/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean086 Financial Excellence: Black Friday and Debt Free Living | Episode 86: Black Friday & Debt Free Living, plus Congressional Budgeting, Nov. 22, 2011. Today I welcome financial coach Jon White to the show as we discuss politics, holidays, faith, and debt free living. Jon runs the blog JW'$ Financial Coaching and hosts two podcasts at www.jwfinancialcoaching.wordpress.com. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: First and foremost, I owe an apology to our listeners for not releasing an episode last week. In my infinite wisdom, I attempted to save a few bucks by upgrading our email/smartphone sync service myself. Three days later without a new podcast episode or anything else productive, I had the sad realization that I should have called my IT guy and paid him to do it right. I saved $100 but it cost much more than that in lost productivity. Lesson learned. The congressional super-committee has done a not-so-super job of finding their assigned $1.2 trillion in budget cuts. Since they can't agree on anything, they've basically given up and will allow the pre-planned $1.2 trillion in across-the-board cuts take place over the next nine years. The problem is, we're still over-spending by at least that much each year. Their plan (or lack of plan) still gets us as a country deeper in debt. Not good. Black Friday is the topic everywhere this week. It's interesting how much more hype there is each year about all the "stuff" you need to buy on sale than there is about being thankful for the stuff you already have. Are you shopping for more stuff this year or taking time to remember the reason for the holiday? Last year Janelle and I offered our thoughts on how Black Friday doesn't always live up to the hype. Check out 032 Financial Excellence: 6 Tricks Retailers Use to Get Us to Buy and 033 Financial Excellence: Black Friday Doesn’t Have the Best Deals. If you are going shopping on Black Friday, Jon recommends having a written budget so you don't over-spend. In fact, you probably should have been budgeting for Christmas gifts and holiday spending all year. Here's the Gift Planning Worksheet that Janelle and I use to stay on track with our shopping. Remember, just because it's on "sale" doesn't mean it's a good deal or it's the best price. Even if it's a good price, it's only a good deal if you needed it, you were planning to buy it anyway, and you have the cash to pay for it. No deal is so good that it's worth going deeper in debt to buy it. Jon just launched a new podcast, called "Debt Free Living," where he interviews people who have been successful at getting out of debt. The cool part of the show is its focus on life after debt. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't have the anchor of debt weighing you down. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 11/23/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean085 Financial Excellence: Money & Military – A Tribute to our Troops | Episode 85: Money & Military: Financial Advice for our Service Members, Nov. 8, 2011. Our military members face some significant challenges today, both on and off the battlefield. Finances are one of those challenges. Today Matt talks about the financial challenges faced by our military men and women and offers some tips for them to avoid financial problems while serving our country. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: It's critical for military members to have a written spending plan every month and to plan farther ahead for upcoming travel, training, deployments, and more. When deployed or on temporary duty (TDY) it's easy to get lost in the extra pay allowances you get. Make sure you live off your base pay and have a plan for the extra income so it doesn't get spent before it hits your account. That will help you reach other financial goals quicker. Trying to take care of Power of Attorney (POA) at the last minute is a pain. Taking care of it ahead of time saves you a lot of hassle and lets you spend more time with the family in the last few days before you leave. Make sure any life insurance policies you have don't have a "war clause" in them. This prevents your beneficiaries from being paid if you die at war. COMMUNICATION is of utmost importance in a military marriage. Without both spouses being on the same page before the military member leaves for deployments or training, how can the one left behind properly manage the finances without adding conflict to the relationship? Couples absolutely have to make sure the spouse at home not only has the authority to manage the finances but knows HOW to manage the finances. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 11/8/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean084 Financial Excellence: You Can Be in the 1% | Episode 84: You Have the Ability to be in the 1%, Oct. 18, 2011. Today I had hoped to get Reverend Elijah on the show to share the story of his childhood in Uganda. Before he was six years old, he was abandoned, poisoned, and kidnapped to be sacrificed by a voodoo witch doctor (three separate events). As a teen he was ready to commit suicide until he found a church and converted to Christianity. Now he's the founder of Living Hope Uganda, a ministry that not only feeds hungry people, but teaches them the skills to earn income for their families and change their economic future. Learn more about Living Hope Uganda at www.livinghopeuganda.org. Anywho, Occupy Wall Street has been in the news, but what are they trying to accomplish? Are they mad at rich people for figuring out how to build wealth while the so-called 99% didn't? Are they just mad in general? Do they expect wealthy people to give them money? Read the show notes below to see what I actually did talk about this morning. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: I was raised in an environment where if you didn't like your situation, it was up to you to change it. Not the government. Not your employer. Not the rich people. YOU. I don't make a lot of money, but I feel a lot closer to the 1% than the 99%. I don't think redistribution of wealth is a good thing. I believe that was tried in many communist countries and it failed miserably. Look at how many people risked their lives to escape East Berlin when the Wall was still up. They risked it all (and many died) to have a taste of live on the capitalist side, where they had opportunity. America is still the land of opportunity. If you don't believe that, you should read Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard. Stacey wrote in with a question about whether you should invest 15% of your gross income or net income. Matt wrote in with a question about the current GOP presidential candidates' financial plans for the country. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 11/1/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean083 Financial Excellence: Mystery Shopping and Other Extra Income Opportunities | Episode 83: Is Mystery Shopping Legit? (and Other Side Hustle Opportunities), Oct. 25, 2011. Over the last few months I've been taking on some side hustles to earn extra income and see if they're legitimate ways for our listeners to earn some extra cash. Today I unwrap the mystery behind mystery shopping and discuss whether it's really worth your time. At the end of the show I briefly mentioned Living Hope Uganda. This is a cool organization that's doing more than just feeding hungry people. They're teaching transferable skills that help the poor in Uganda create income streams so they can feed their own families instead of waiting for help from charitable organizations. If you teach a man to fish... Check out their ministry at livinghopeuganda.org Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Mystery shopping often sounds like a scam and there are a lot of scams out there. You need to make sure you're signing up with a legitimate company. Some of the companies I've found that are pretty legit are: Corporate Research International BARE International Maritz Research National Shopping Service Certified Field Associate Market Force Shopper I break down the ins and outs of mystery shopping and how it works. To avoid scams - never join something that requires an initial investment! If you become a mystery shopper, it's important to remember you're an independent contractor and you need to track that income separately like you would for a business. It's reasonable to expect to make $200-$300 per month doing mystery shops but you'll spend a lot of time earning that $$. It's not hard work but it is time consuming so be prepared to earn as low as $5 per hour. When it comes to other side jobs, sometimes you just have to be open to opportunities and make yourself available. That's how Janelle landed her current temporary (full time) job. There are often some seasonal jobs you can pick up to supplement your income. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 10/25/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean082 Financial Excellence: Financial Literacy in the Workplace | Episode 82: Money Smart Week Wrap Up and Promoting Financial Literacy in the Workplace, Oct. 18, 2011. Last week Kevin Suddick (our lead financial coach) and I attended the Wisconsin Summit on Financial Literacy. Today we recap some of the things we learned. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Money Smart Week is moving to April 2012 and will be a larger, nation-wide push for financial literacy. Financial coaches can and should be a part of Money Smart Week. Get involved at www.moneysmartweek.org Why should you attend a Money Smart event? We give lots of reasons why. The Wisconsin Dept. of Financial Literacy (DFI) is making a concerted effort to promote financial literacy in the workplace. Why is that important? Consider the following stats (from the DFI): 55% of Wisconsin residents spend as much or less than they make. 57% of WI residents have no rainy day fund. 19% of WI residents engaged in some form of high cost non-bank borrowing (payday loans) in the last year. 57% of high school students tested failed a basic financial literacy test. These people are our current and future work force. If they're living paycheck to paycheck and using payday or title loans, they're certainly not paying attention to their work. How can the be productive for their employer when their minds are elsewhere? 66% of Wisconsin businesses provide some form of financial education for their employees. The problem is, 90% of these are talking about investing for retirement when 55% of their workforce is living paycheck to paycheck. Kevin and I are putting together a financial boot camp program to fix this trend. If you're an employer, it's extremely important for you to help your employees get their finances under control so their problems don't become your problem. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 10/19/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean081 Financial Excellence: Why Budgets Fail and How to Create a Successful Budget | Episode 81: Common Budgeting Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them Oct. 11, 2011. Many people attempt to do a budget and fail miserably. There are so many different ideas out there about how to do a budget and very little guidance on how to make them work in your life. In today 's show Matt discusses the common pitfalls that prevent you from being successful in the budgeting process, and how to overcome them to create a budget that works. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Budgeting is such a negative term to many people. It shouldn't be a restrictive experience. Rather, it allows you to plan your expenses and spend with confidence, if done correctly. Lots of people mistake tracking expenses as having a budget. That's like driving a car while looking behind you. Tracking expenses is only a piece of a successful budget. Many budgets fail because they try to create an average monthly scenario that never plays out in real life. Matt covers how to fix this in your monthly budgeting process. Successful budgets are all about being proactive, making a plan, and sticking to that plan. Credit cards can derail the plan, but the cash envelope system can help stick to the budget. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 10/11/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean080 Financial Excellence: Buy a Boat or Buy a House? | Episode 80: From the Mailbag: Should I Buy a Boat (and more) Oct. 4, 2011. Today Guest Steve Stewart from Money Plan SOS joins me to answer questions from listeners about buying boats, life insurance for children, and where debts with judgments fit in the debt snowball. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Rita wrote in with a question about a whole life insurance policy on her daughter. She wants to know if she's wasting money on whole life insurance or if she should buy term insurance for her daughter. Matt called in a question about old debts with judgments on them. He wants to know if he should pay them first when he saves up a little money or if he should work the rest of his debt snowball first. Dave Ramsey's advice on debt doesn't make any sense either. That's because his advice isn't based on math or current financial philosophies. It's based on emotions, behaviors, and the advice you'd find in the Bible. My favorite question for the day came from Jackie. She and her husband are debt free and currently renting a house. They live near Lake Michigan and love to spend time on the water. Jackie wants to know if they should buy a house or if it's ok to keep renting so they can buy the boat they want to live the lifestyle they want. They also have retirement and college savings in place, and her husband earns a great income. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 10/4/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean079 Financial Excellence: Why Dave Ramsey’s Advice Doesn’t Make Sense | Episode 79: Why Dave Ramsey Doesn't Make Sense: Sept. 27, 2011. Dave Ramsey has a lot of critics in the financial world. Many of them criticise his methods because they don't make mathematical or theoretical sense. But Dave isn't trying to make mathematical sense. He teaches financial techniques that work from an emotional and Biblical standpoint. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Dave Ramsey's Entreleadership nationwide simulcast is coming up on Sept 30th. If you're in the Sheboygan, WI area you can register and attend at Word of Grace Community Church in Sheboygan Falls. Dave Ramsey's business advice doesn't make sense to the secular world. That's because he follows Biblical guidelines when he can. He's not perfect (and neither is anyone else) but he tries to stick to God's word when doing business. Dave Ramsey's advice on debt doesn't make any sense either. That's because his advice isn't based on math or current financial philosophies. It's based on emotions, behaviors, and the advice you'd find in the Bible. Dave Ramsey's advice on credit scores doesn't make any sense to the secular world. Since he doesn't borrow money (see previous bullet) he doesn't care about his credit score. There's a lot to consider here, and I don't think you should worry too much about your credit score. I don't think you should trash it intentionally but I don't think you should take on additional debt just to keep a higher FICO score. Why doesn't any of Dave's advice make sense on paper? Because personal finance isn't about math or knowledge. If it were, we'd all be millionaires because we all know we should avoid debt, spend less than we make, save money, and plan for the future. That's common knowledge. What is uncommon is people actually using that knowledge. Personal finance is about behaviors, not knowledge or mathematics. It's time for the annual Podcast Awards nominations! Will you do us a favor and nominate our show under the People's Choice category? Copy and paste this url into your nomination form: http://financialexcellence.net/lifepodcast You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 9/27/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean078 Financial Excellence: 7 [Good] Character Traits of a Cheapskate | Episode 78: 7 Characteristics of Cheapskates (in a Good Way): Sept. 20, 2011. Cheapskate is such a negative term in today's society but when you look at the definition and characteristics of being a cheapskate, it's actually a good thing (at least in my eyes). Today I discuss what qualities define cheapskates and how those qualities set cheapskates up for long-term success. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Dave Ramsey's Entreleadership nationwide simulcast is coming up on Sept 30th. If you're in the Sheboygan, WI area you can register and attend at Word of Grace Community Church in Sheboygan Falls. It's time for the annual Podcast Awards nominations! Will you do us a favor and nominate our show under the People's Choice category? Copy and paste this url into your nomination form: http://financialexcellence.net/lifepodcast The information I used today came from Jeff Yeager's book The Cheapskate Next Door. If you're inspired by today's show, check out a copy or buy it below (affiliate link). Don't worry - I'll only make a few pennies if you buy one through my link. There's a difference between being a tightwad and being a cheapskate. Cheapskates look for value in everything they buy. Tightwads either never buy anything or they only buy the cheapest option. That can actually cost them more money in the long run. Are you a cheapskate? Does that make you proud or embarrassed? We're thinking about changing the cover art for the podcast to make it more consistent with the new Financial Excellence brand. Both covers are shown above. Which do you like best? Vote by commenting below. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 9/20/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean077 Financial Excellence: Inexpensive Family Entertainment Ideas | Episode 77: Free or Cheap Ways to Spend Time with Family: Sept. 13, 2011. My daughter proposed today's topic and came up with all the content for the show. I'm so proud of her that at 10 years of age, she understands memories aren't created by the amount of money you spend on entertainment. They're created by the quality of the time you spend with your family. That's a pretty powerful message to learn and understand at 10 years old. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Dave Ramsey's Entreleadership nationwide simulcast is coming up on Sept 30th. If you're in the Sheboygan, WI area you can register and attend at Word of Grace Community Church in Sheboygan Falls. You don't have to spend any money to have fun as a family. Our daughter proposed a list of fun things to do at little or no cost. As I cover the list in today's show, remember these are the things listed by a 10 year old girl. This isn't theory. These are actual things kids like to do and they cost less than $20, if anything at all. What things did I miss? What do you like to do with your family for low-cost or no-cost fun? You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 9/14/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean076 Financial Excellence: Starting a Business in a Bad Economy | Episode 76: Starting a Business in a Bad Economy: Sept. 6, 2011. Today I welcome Justin and Angela Kannich, owners of Kannich Motorsports to the show to talk about their journey in taking a part time business to full time in the face of a bad economy. They were met with lots of criticism and naysayers along the way as Justin gave up his stable job to follow his dream of helping motorcycle riders and racers find parts and accessories at lower prices. The Kannichs are a good definition of weird by today's standards: they have challenged the norm and taken their future into their own hands to create their own economy and define the life they want to live. The link above is their blog. Their main business sites focus on high quality motorcycle clothing and accessories, and high end, low price motorcycle parts. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Justin quit his steady and stable job to work full time on his business. He was met with a tremendous lack of support by friends and family, who all thought he should stay at the job he didn't like. Justin's wife Angela was the biggest supporter of following his dreams. She even took on a part time job to allow him to quit his job and work on the business. Slowly but surely, Justin and Angela are building their business by keeping overhead low, focusing on cash flow, and building relationships with Racers, gear distributors, forum administrators, and other motorcycle enthusiasts. Most importantly, they build relationships with their customers. They are ok with building their business more slowly to avoid taking on debt. How cool is that? I thought it was very interesting that both Justin and Angela reported feeling healthier and more balanced after making the switch. They have less stress, more balance in their lives, and are more physically active. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 9/6/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean075 Financial Excellence: Get Free Media Exposure for your Business | Episode 75: How to get featured on the local and national news Aug 30, 2011. If you're self employed it's extremely important to pay attention to branding yourself and positioning yourself as the expert at what you do. Today I welcome career coach Joel Boggess at 4pointscoaching.com to the show to share how he was able to position himself as an expert on both local and national news stations. Joel has been on tv and radio over 30 times, so he's got a lot to share on this subject. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Joel shared some slides for this conversation with me. In a matter of a few weeks, these slides will be part of a class he will be selling but for our listeners he has graciously agreed to share them for free. free publicity copy Joel breaks the process of getting free exposure down to a few key points: Understand the media needs you. Connect with media personalities and build relationships with them Media people are overworked and underpaid, so when you can help them do their jobs, they'll be grateful. Find newsworthy events, share them with your media contacts, and offer to comment on that. Create a system (isn't that the solution for everything?) The August Financial Excellence Challenge is almost over. What can you do this month to stimulate your own economy? Work an extra job, do a budget, sell some stuff, invest more for the future? Let us know what steps you're taking. If we all take care of our individual economies, THE Economy will take care of itself. Read some of the comments on the post to see what other people are doing to stimulate their personal economies. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 8/31/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean074 Financial Excellence: 5 Things I’d Do Differently with Money | Episode 74: 5 Things I'd Do Differently With Money If I Had the Chance; Aug 23, 2011. I don't like always second guessing my decisions or living in the past. But sometimes I do look back and reflect on decisions I've made, both good and bad. Today I take a moment to share some of the financial decisions I've learned from and what I'll do differently in the future. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Budgeting and communicating with my wife should have been a priority from day one. I share some thoughts about how that has affected our marriage. I bought two cars brand new when I was younger. Listen in to hear why I won't do that again. I have always invested a little money for retirement but looking back I could have invested a lot more and I wish I'd have made better choices then. I definitely won't make the same mistakes in real estate that I made when we bought our current house. If I did it all over again, I wouldn't have gone to school for engineering. I think a business degree is better suited for who I am today. Having said all that, those experiences made me who I am today and I wouldn't change that for anything. So I have no regrets and no desire to do it all again. I only look forward to the future and making better choices there. The August Financial Excellence Challenge is in full swing. What can you do this month to stimulate your own economy? Work an extra job, do a budget, sell some stuff, invest more for the future? Let us know what steps you're taking. If we all take care of our individual economies, THE Economy will take care of itself. Read some of the comments on the post to see what other people are doing to stimulate their personal economies. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 8/23/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean073 Financial Excellence: How to Know When You’re Winning Financially | Episode 73: How to Know When You're Winning With Money; Aug 16, 2011. Financial Coach Steve Stewart (MoneyPlanSOS.com) joins me today as we talk about how to determine when you've finally done it and achieved financial success. It's a great topic and we had some awesome discussion, both on the show and in the live chat. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: It's hard to know when you've reached the top if you don't define what success looks like. Even then, success may be a moving target for you. We used the analogy of running a marathon. Success may be just finishing the race, or it may be beating your previous time. It's hard to accomplish either if you don't train and condition yourself for the race. Net worth plays a part in the process - do you use your net worth as a scorecard to measure your financial success? Is success relative? Is it a defined number? Is winning just an attitude instead of a number or defined end state? Steve and I talk about this and much more on the show. There's a difference between financial security and financial freedom. We discuss the two and how they relate to today's topic. The August Financial Excellence Challenge is in full swing. What can you do this month to stimulate your own economy? Work an extra job, do a budget, sell some stuff, invest more for the future? Let us know what steps you're taking. If we all take care of our individual economies, THE Economy will take care of itself. Read some of the comments on the post to see what other people are doing to stimulate their personal economies. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 8/16/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean072 Financial Excellence: The US Downgraded Credit Rating & You | Episode 72: S&P Downgraded the US Credit Rating: What Does it Mean for You?; Aug 9, 2011. Recently Standard & Poors downgraded the US credit rating. The markets are in a panic and people are worried about a double dip in the recession. Should you be worried? Well, if you're living paycheck to paycheck you have reason to worry. If not, nothing really should change in your situation. Today we talk about what specific steps you can do to be prepared for any fallout from the government's situation. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: I mentioned the Rapid City, SD police officers who were shot on duty last week. My friend, officer Tim Doyle, should be coming home today. The other two officers didn't make it. Please keep their families in your prayers. This credit rating change should be a wake up call to our congressional leaders to finally make some tough decisions, but I doubt it will. The stock market is really volatile right now, but it's crazy to jump off a roller coaster in the middle of the ride. Investing is a long-term deal and you need to keep that focus to avoid losing money. With the threat of a double dip, now's a great time to build up your emergency fund. That'll help you navigate a recession with confidence. There's no better time to pay off debt than right now. Paying off debt improves your cash flow situation and protects you from major financial disaster when your income drops. For job seekers, it might be time to try a new approach and stop looking in the paper for jobs. For employees, it's time to start creating your own job security by improving your performance on the job. As always, a written spending plan helps do all these things. Start doing a budget today! The August Financial Excellence Challenge is in full swing. What can you do this month to stimulate your own economy? Work an extra job, do a budget, sell some stuff, invest more for the future? Let us know what steps you're taking. If we all take care of our individual economies, THE Economy will take care of itself. Read some of the comments on the post to see what other people are doing to stimulate their personal economies. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 8/9/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean071 Financial Excellence: Creating your Own Economy; Social Media Tips | Episode 71: Creating Your Own Economy and Social Media Tips for Small Business; Aug 2, 2011. Today we split the show with two unrelated topics. I don't like to do that very often but sometimes I feel like I need to. Ok, I'll be honest: I didn't want to talk about social media for a full 45 minutes. As I was preparing for the show I saw that my friend Jon White did a podcast on creating your economy and I thought that was a good topic to address today since it follows on the heels of last week's show about the Great Recovery. So, I've officially announced our challenge for the month of August: Time to create your own economy! We want you to take specific actions this month to stimulate your individual household economy and let us and others know what you're doing. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Before I got anywhere with the show I had to comment about the debt ceiling situation and our leaders' total failure to accomplish anything with their compromise bill that will just prolong the agony until after the next election. Talk about a spineless cop-out! I talked a little about the social media tools I use for my businesses and why I use them. Janelle and I are a little conservative when it comes to business and social media, especially Facebook. We believe business and personal relationships should be separate. Consequently, we're not likely to accept friend requests from people we only know professionally. Sorry - it's not that we don't like you. We just don't want out personal lives out there mingled with our professional lives. I also don't blindly follow Twitter users. While I don't reject too many, I don't follow people who haven't even uploaded a photo or who have had a profile for years but never sent a single tweet. What can you do this month to stimulate your own economy? Work an extra job, do a budget, sell some stuff, invest more for the future? Let us know what steps you're taking. If we all take care of our individual economies, THE Economy will take care of itself. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 8/2/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean070 Financial Excellence: Refusing to Participate in the Recession | Episode 70: Refusing to Participate in the Recession: Dave Ramsey and the Great Recovery; July 26, 2011. Dave Ramsey has initiated what he is calling the Great Recovery. It's not about promoting Dave or his company. It's not about promoting us as financial counselors. It's about teaching God's people to manage money God's way and changing the economy, one family at a time. Today Kevin Suddick and I weigh in with our thoughts about the Great Recovery, Dave Ramsey, and changing the economy. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Too many of us are still waiting for the government to fix the economy. It's been several years since the housing bubble burst in 2008 and the stock market crashed. The only thing the government has managed to do about the economy is blame the other political party for the recession. Government doesn't fix the economy. Businesses do. We need to stop waiting on the government and start supporting businesses to bring this country out of a recession We can't support businesses if we're worried about the future. Being confident in your future starts with getting out of debt and freeing up cash flow to live with confidence. It also means having an emergency fund in place to handle emergencies when they happen, rather than waiting for the government to help you out. When you surround yourself with negativity, you become a negative person. Stop listening to the media about how bad the economy is. Yes, the stock market crashed. Three years ago. In case you haven't heard, the Dow is back to roughly 85% of its pre-crash level. So the people you keep hearing about that lost all that money in the stock market are the ones who were dumb enough to jump off the roller coaster in the middle of the ride. Those who are still on the ride are halfway up the next hill. The only person responsible for fixing your situation is you. It's time we stopped whining about our situations and started doing something about it. Dave Ramsey is calling on churches to start teaching how to manage money God's way. The amazing thing about doing things His way is that it works! Imagine a community of people making smart decisions with their money, confident in their future, and living a life of purpose by serving others. Broke people can't help others. Let's teach the broke people how to not be broke so they can help others by paying it forward! Join the Great Recovery and make a difference in your community! You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 7/26/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean069 Financial Excellence: Cash Flow Lessons Learned for Small Businesses | Episode 69: Cash Flow Basics for Small Businesses; Crap! I Got a Credit Card; Yakezie Challenge Update; July 19, 2011. Today I intended to cover some lessons I learned about small business cash flow over the last few years. Before I got that far, though, I had to make a confession about an embarrassing new event in my life: I got a new credit card :( Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: The Yakezie Challenge has been really good for our blog. I recommend any personal finance blogger give it a shot. I am the (not so proud) owner of a new Kohl's Card. I didn't get the card on purpose but it's mine now and I own it. I explain the whole mishap on the show today. The main topic of the day is cash flow for businesses. In the personal finance arena, cash is king. In small business, cash flow is king. I explain the difference between cash accounting and accrual accounting, and why business owners need to know the difference. Protecting your revenues are crucial to maintaining cash flow. Sales mean nothing if the customers don't pay. It's crucial to do a cash budget and have accurate sales/revenue projections. Otherwise you have no idea if you're going to be profitable or not. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 7/19/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean068 Financial Excellence: How to Handle a Drop in Income | Episode 68: What to do when your income drops, July 12, 2011. Today Kevin Suddick joins me again to discuss how to handle a reduction in your monthly income. This can come from loss of overtime hours, a change in jobs, layoffs and more. Here in Wisconsin, the new state budget signed by governor Scott Walker will cause state employees to contribute to their own retirement and benefits plans instead of the state paying for all of it. That means state employees will see their net income drop by roughly 6%. We wanted to talk about how to deal with a financial change like this to help people in similar situations turn a mountain into a molehill. Don't forget: Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Kevin explains the steps he walks his clients through when they're in this situation. The first step is writing your situation out on paper. Identify where you are and establish a baseline. Next, kevin recommends putting some control mechanisms in place to prevent overspending. Third, it's helpful to identify some areas where you can cut back as a family in your spending. We then shared some thoughts on saving money in your everyday spending before getting back on task. If you have a variable interest rate on your mortgage, now is the time to lock in a fixed rate! It's also very important to have an emergency fund in place to protect you from long term unexpected expenses. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 7/12/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean067 Financial Excellence: Is Paying Cash for a Car a Good Idea? | Episode 67: Is paying cash for a car a good idea: paying cash for autos, groceries and more, July 06, 2011. Today we answer a voice mail feedback question about paying cash for cars to avoid auto loans. We also discuss paying cash for groceries and other budgeted items. Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Brent Green from the Pursuing your Calling podcast called in with a question about paying cash for his car. We answer his question and expand on the topic of why car loans stink. Further answering Brent's question, we talk about the pros and cons of buying new cars vs. used cars. Janelle had an interesting debit card experience at the grocery store the other day. We share the story today. For a lot of people, carrying cash is intimidating. Janelle used to be afraid of it too. She discusses her former negative feelings about carrying cash, and her current positive feelings about it as well. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 7/5/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean066 Financial Excellence: What Investors Should Know about Diversification | Episode 66: (Live Show) What every investor should know about asset classes and diversification with guest Pamela Otten, June 28, 2011. Today we welcome special guest Pamela Otten (the Financial Mom) to the show to discuss what you need to know about asset classes and diversification with your investments. Pam is an investment adviser and host of the radio show "Intelligent Investing with Pamela Otten." Her main focus is to help women become investing stars. You'll learn a lot from listening to her in today's show. Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: You never want to put all your eggs in one basket. I think we all know that but surprisingly a lot of us do exactly that without even knowing it. There are three main asset classes for investments: Equity (stocks), Fixed Income, and Cash. Beyond that, there are lots of smaller categories of asset classes. You need to know which ones you're investing in and why. I've felt for years that you should get out of debt before investing. Pam agrees, and shares her views on why that's so important. Pam reveals why target date investing funds aren't as good as they sound. Pam wrote a blog post about how to find an investment adviser you can trust. It's written for women, but it definitely applies to men too. If you're not sure about the level of service you're receiving from your adviser, you need to read her post. There are some fancy terms like overlap, correlation and re-balancing that are affecting your portfolio, and not necessarily in a good way. You need to know how they impact your investments. Pam explains them today, You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 6/28/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean065 Financial Excellence: 4 Steps to Living Without Credit Cards | Episode 65: (Live Show) Four Simple Steps to Living Without Credit Cards & When you Should Become a Financial Coach, June 21, 2011. Our lead financial coach Kevin Suddick filled in for Janelle again today as we finished his story about how and why he became a financial coach. We then brought on financial coach Steve Stewart with Money Plan SOS to discuss how to wean yourself off of using credit cards slowly. Oh, and thanks to everyone in the live chat during the show. You made it a lot of fun! Living In Financial Excellence airs LIVE every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Kevin didn't become a financial coach to make money and pay off debt. he became a coach because he was debt free except his house, and he wanted others to feel that sense of success. Kevin trained with Dave Ramsey's staff in Brentwood, TN. That's the same training I went through in 2007. It's important to me that our team members give consistent advice to our clients. I like to quit credit cards cold turkey and cut them up, but my friend Steve Stewart has a different approach. His approach is four simple steps, and it's a more gradual approach to living with out the credit cards. It's a great approach for you if you're reluctant to take the plunge and cut up the cards. Here's what Steve recommends. You'll have to listen in to see how and why these steps are so effective for living debt free. Step 1: Remove the cards from your wallet or purse. Step 2: Delete your credit card numbers from online accounts. Step 3: Call the credit card companies and close the accounts. Step 4: Cut up the credit cards. This process takes several weeks or months to complete and there are things you need to substitute for your credit cards for every step. Listen in to learn how to complete this process with confidence. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 6/21/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean064 Financial Excellence: Dump $65k of Debt in 2 Years | Episode 64: (Live Show) How to eliminate $65k of Debt in Two Years, June 14, 2011. We did another live show today and since we had so much fun, I think we'll be doing them on a regular basis. Today our lead financial coach Kevin Suddick filled in for Janelle and we talked about his story and how he & his wife Lori eliminated a bunch of debt in a short time. The live shows will be every Tuesday at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch live and join the chat at financialexcellence.net/live-show Show notes: Kevin grew up in Detroit in a very manufacturing oriented environment. With a degree in telecommunications he promptly pursued several career paths that had nothing to do with his degree. My favorite job that Kevin held was as a boat captain for an island-bound amusement park in the Detroit area. Later in life Kevin and his wife Lori moved to Green Bay, WI. It was during their stay in Green Bay that Kevin woke up and realized he had $65,000 in debt and no plan except to go deeper in debt. Kevin wised up and began talking with (and listening to) his wife about their debt situation. He realized (finally) that their debt made his wife very nervous and he resolved to fix the situation. Kevin shares how they became debt free except the house in just over two years. His story is a good motivator for listeners wondering how to fix their finances. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 6/14/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean063 Financial Excellence: Preparing your House to Sell in Down Markets | Episode 63: (Live Show) Preparing your House for Sale in Down Markets, June 8, 2011. The main topic of the show is preparing your house for sale in any market. The added benefit is that we did the show live and (finally) made our big announcement. Show notes: Congrats to Megen Guest, the winner of our $150 prize package for correctly guessing our secret! We've decided to move back to our home state of South Dakota, provided our house sells. Listen in to hear why we're relocating. Just in case you're thinking about moving to Sheboygan, WI, here's our listing. Check it out and share with friends! http://www.shorewest.com/1200188 There are a lot of low-cost or no-cost things you can do to make your house more attractive to prospective buyers. Today we share some of the things we've done recently to prepare our house for selling. This is Janelle's last scheduled show until the summer is over and the kids are back in school. We'll have some other great folks sit in on the show but Janelle will be missed dearly in the meantime. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 6/7/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean062 Financial Excellence: Top Ten Financial Mistakes we Make | Episode 62: Common Money Mistakes and Financial Blunders June 2, 2011. We asked for some feedback from the community to make this show and we were overwhelmed by responses. We had so many people share their biggest financial mistakes that we are splitting this topic into several different shows. Show notes: We've got some exciting news coming up but we're not sharing it yet. Can you guess what it is? We have a $150 prize package to the person who can guess what our announcement is! We'll be announcing our big news LIVE on June 7th at 10 a.m. CST. That's next week already! Watch the show live at financialexcellence.net/live. From real estate mistakes to day trading to investment and estate planning mistakes, we cover a lot of ground today with regard to financial mistakes you should avoid in the future. In the coming weeks we will be sharing specific stories of financial lessons learned, and we'll even have some guests on the show to talk about their story and what they've learned from it. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 6/1/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean061 Financial Excellence: Advice for First Time Home Buyers | Click here to leave a review on iTunesEpisode 61: Advice for first time home buyers: Mortgages, Markets & More! May 25, 2011. Per listener request, we're covering things first time home buyers need to know before jumping into real estate deals. Show notes: We've got some exciting news coming up but we're not sharing it yet. Can you guess what it is? We have a $150 prize package to the person who can guess what our announcement is! We'll be announcing our big news LIVE on June 7th at 10 a.m. Watch for the details. Contentment goes a long way. Matt shares his guidelines for mortgage terms to ensure your financial stability in the future. There's a difference between a seller's agent and a buyer's agent. Make sure you have a buyer's agent in your corner. Don't be afraid of a house with ugly carpet or paint colors. That's easy & cheap to change. But don't buy a house with ugly bones! There are a lot of costs many first time home buyers fail to consider when looking at houses. Don't fall into that trap! You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 5/25/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean060 Financial Excellence: Your Credit is Critical Home Improvement Tool? | Episode 60: Your Credit is a Critical Home Improvement Tool? Plus, Asset Allocation & More, May 18, 2011. This week we review a recent article in a local paper about the importance of your credit in home improvement projects. We also dip into the mailbag to answer a question about good asset allocation, and we read some listener feedback about doing a live show. Show notes: We need some feedback about whether we should do a live show or not. If we do, what day and time work for you? Let us know by sending an email to mailbag@financialexcellence.net. Asset allocation is important in investing for your future. Matt shares his thoughts on the different ways to approach asset allocation. We share a recent article in a local paper about the importance of your credit when planning DIY home improvement projects. Basically, we rip the article apart. We hope you find the article as amusing as we did! Matt shares why he feels your home is not an investment or an asset to most people. We've got some exciting news coming up but we're not sharing it yet. Can you guess what it is? We have a $150 prize package to the person who can guess what our announcement is! You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 5/18/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean059 Financial Excellence: Paying for College Without Student Loans | Episode 59: Paying for College without Student Loans, May 11, 2011. This week we dip into the mailbag to answer a question about paying for college without taking on student loans. Show notes: We need some feedback about whether we should do a live show or not. If we do, what day and time work for you? Let us know by sending an email to mailbag@financialexcellence.net. Matt has been very blessed to pay for most of his education through this military service. There are similar programs out there to help you pay for higher education without going into debt. We've got some exciting news coming up but we're not sharing it yet. Can you guess what it is? You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 5/11/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean058 Financial Excellence: Become a Financial Coach, Update to Emergency | Episode 58: Becoming a Financial Coach & Updates to our Basement Water Emergency, May 4, 2011. This week's episode covers a lot of information, including some exciting updates for our coaching business, updates to our basement water saga, our thoughts on Osama Bin Laden's death, and the Financial Excellence discussion forums. Show notes: Osama Bin Laden is dead. Please remember to give credit to our military men and women who made this moment possible. It's quickly becoming a political tool, and we don't want the focus to be taken away from where it should be. We've brought a new financial coach, Kevin Suddick onto the team. Kevin started this week and we will be bringing him on the show soon so you can get to know him. We talk a little about how we went through the hiring process and what it takes to become a financial coach. Our thoughts might surprise you. We give an update to our basement water situation. When it rains, it pours. Or more accurately: when it leaks, it pours! You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 5/4/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean057 Financial Excellence: Real Life Financial Coaching Case Study | Episode 57: Real Life Financial Case Study with Financial Coach Steve Stewart, April 27, 2011. This week (as we promised several weeks ago) we are airing our guest appearance on the Money Plan SOS podcast with fellow coach Steve Stewart. Show notes: We discuss a real couple's financial situation. They have a construction-related business with a lot of debt from the business and a lot of personal debt as well. Steve tuned into how the spouse feels during times of financial stress. We sometimes get carried away talking about what to do and we sometimes forget to think about how it feels to be in these situations. When you're self employed, you have to make sure the business is profitable and set aside money for taxes. If you don't, it WILL catch up with you like it did for this couple. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 4/27/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean056 Financial Excellence: Surviving a Financial Emergency without Credit Cards | Episode 56: How we survived a financial emergency without credit cards, April 20, 2011. We woke up this morning to a water heater that rusted out and leaked throughout the entire basement. This is a financial emergency by our standards, but we didn't panic. In today's show we talk about how we handled the emergency without going deeper in debt. Show notes: We had to re-brand the Master Your Money program. It's now called the L.I.F.E. Self-Study program, and Matt is re-doing our online store to get it more functional after trying to fix something that wasn't broken! Most people would panic when their basement is filled with water. We talk about how we avoided panic today. Paying cash for anything feels good, especially when it's a big, unexpected, emotional expense. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 4/20/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean055 Financial Excellence: Sticking to Your Budget to Get Results | Episode 55: How do you stick to the budget when one spouse is a saver and the other is a spender? April 13, 2011. Last week we said that this episode would be our guest appearance on the Money Plan SOS podcast doing a Real Life Case Study with Financial Coach Steve Stewart. Well, we lied. Not on purpose, but we gave you some info that wasn't correct. We want to time the release of that episode with Steve's episodes so they release the same week. Steve has a few episodes in the chute, so he won't be releasing our appearance for a while yet. So, please be patient and watch for that show in the coming weeks. This week we instead answer listener questions about sticking to the budget when spouses have different personality styles. We also talk about a few other things that can throw off the budget, and how to overcome those obstacles. Show notes: April is Financial Literacy Month and we are teaming up with other coaches and bloggers to provide one minute daily videos to help you think about your financial habits and money management skills. View the daily videos on our blog. Life has a way of throwing curve balls at you, which can really mess up your budget. We talk today about how to handle those curve balls. The best offense is a good defense, and the best defense is a good offense. Listen in to see what we mean. When one spouse is a saver and the other is a spender, it can mess up the budgeting process quite a bit. We share tips on how to overcome your personality differences to create a budget you can stick to. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 4/13/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean054 Financial Excellence: How to Kill Credit Card Debt Fast | Episode 54: How to kill credit card debt fast: Do balance transfers work? April 6, 2011. Today we answer a question from the mailbag about how to eliminate credit card debt more quickly and whether balance transfers are effective for helping you get out of debt. Next week's show will be our guest appearance on the Money Plan SOS podcast doing a Real Life Case Study with Financial Coach Steve Stewart. Show notes: April is Financial Literacy Month and we are teaming up with other coaches and bloggers to provide one minute daily videos to help you think about your financial habits and money management skills. Balance transfers sound appealing to save money and work out mathematically but they're not a permanent fix. We share a few tips for speeding up the process of getting rid of your credit card debt. Sometimes you can negotiate lower credit card rates but it depends on your situation. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 4/6/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean053 Financial Excellence: Business Lessons Learned from a Financial Coach | Episode 53: One Year Anniversary of the Podcast: Business Lessons We Learned Over the Last Year, March 30, 2011. In today's show we take a look back at the last year since we started this podcast and share some of the lessons we learned about being in business as financial coaches. These lessons learned don't apply solely to coaching or service-related businesses. They're applicable to all businesses in general. Show notes: Business is not easy, especially when you're dedicated to operating debt free. We talk about how we've grown without debt. You can't just set up shop and expect customers to beat down your door. You need to work at marketing yourself and your business. Matt discusses the things that need to be in your business plan to protect you from the mistakes he made. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three-minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 3/30/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean052 Financial Excellence: Save your Marriage from Money Fights | Episode 52: Improving your marriage & relationships with special guests Marcia Thompson & Early Fuller of Christian Counseling Ministries, March 23, 2011. In today's show I interview counselors Marcia Thompson and Early fuller about common marriage problems (specifically involving money) and how to overcome them. Marcia and Early have a unique approach to marriage counseling - they counsel couples together to provide a balanced approach to help couples improve their marriages. Learn more about Christian Counseling Ministries at www.ccmcounseling.org Show notes: I've often thought that communication is the source of problems in many marriages, but it's more about how you view your spouse. Yes, Matt learned something today! Relationships are very similar to your finances. You have to work at them and make a conscious decision to get better. We talked about some of the common issues couples face in their relationships and how to overcome them. We also discussed singles and how they can overcome stress, depression and anxiety related to their finances and relationships. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 3/23/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean051 Financial Excellence: Joint vs. Separate Bank Accounts in Marriage | Episode 51: Joint Bank Accounts vs. Separate Bank Accounts for married Couples (& More), Mar 16, 2011. We got some feedback from our Facebook community asking us to talk about whether or not couples should have separate checking accounts. We discuss the pros and cons of that today plus we dig a little deeper into the communication and common goals that couples should work through. Show notes: Thanks to Brad Dassey of affordableradiovoiceover.com for the outstanding production of our intro and outro liners for the podcast. Brad has a unique voice and talent, and we appreciate his help. We asked for some ideas on our Facebook page, and we got lots of feedback. Thanks to everyone who shared some ideas. Why should you keep a joint checking account for your marriage's finances? In a word, TRUST. Some people like to have a joint account just for the bills, and keep the rest of the money in separate accounts, meaning his money and her money. We don't think that's a good idea. We also discussed some of the advantages of carrying cash. Not sure how that got into the conversation but it relates somehow! Men and women have different priorities for money, and it's important to work through those differences to make sure you're not caught in a financial tug-o-war. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 3/16/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean050 Financial Excellence: Life Insurance (Term vs. Whole) & More | Episode 50: Life Insurance: Term vs. Whole, Universal, How much you need & why you really need it, Mar 9, 2011. Life insurance is one of those touchy subjects that everyone knows they need but few people want to talk about it. The truth is, you may or may not need life insurance. In today's show we uncover the truth behind life insurance needs and the types of policies out there. Show notes: Thanks to Brad Dassey of affordableradiovoiceover.com for the outstanding production of our intro and outro liners for the podcast. Brad has a unique voice and talent, and we appreciate his help. A lot of people are confused about the true reason we need life insurance. We clarify that today. Another subject that confuses folks is how much life insurance coverage they truly need Matt sheds a little light on how much you need and what to do with the death benefit. We discuss the differences between whole life, term life, universal life, and annuity policies. How much coverage do you need for your kids? Probably not as much as you think. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 3/9/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean049 Financial Excellence: Surviving Short Sales with Guest Gregg Pechmann | Episode 49: Surviving Short Sales with special Guest Gregg Pechmann of Fighting Back Financially, Mar 1, 2011. There are a lot of people in the U.S. who have borrowed to the hilt on their homes to support their lifestyles, only to watch the value of their home drop. When you find yourself upside down on your home like that, it can be a very scary time of your life. In today's show we interview financial coach Gregg Pechmann, who has lived through seven (yes, seven!) short sales. Nobody knows more about short sales than Gregg! Show notes: Thanks to Brad Dassey of affordableradiovoiceover.com for the outstanding production of our intro and outro liners for the podcast. Brad has a unique voice and talent, and we appreciate his help. Gregg shares his story of how he got so upside down in real estate and what he did about it. It's important to have a good team to survive a short sale. Gregg shares who should be on your team, and how to find the right players. Gregg also shares how to work through the process of negotiating a short sale and what happens if you have two different lenders on the house. Gregg just released a book about his experience, called "Upside Down: How we Survived Seven Short Sales." Check it out! You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 3/2/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean048 Financial Excellence: Financial Considerations for Aging Parents | Episode 48: Financial Considerations for Aging Parents, plus Thoughts on the Wisconsin Budget Protests, Feb 23, 2011. In today's show we answer a mailbag question on the recent protests over Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's budget proposal and the ensuing protests that have made national news. We then talk about things you need to consider and discuss with your parents as they age. Show notes: Thanks to Brad Dassey of affordableradiovoiceover.com for the outstanding production of our intro and outro liners for the podcast. Brad has a unique voice and talent, and we appreciate his help. A listener asks for our opinions on the budget protests at Wisconsin's capitol. You don't want to be left wondering what to do when loved ones pass away suddenly. We discuss things you need to consider and discuss with your parents before they get older. Wills and powers of attorney are a crucial part of any estate plan, and it's silly to die without them. We use USLegalForms [affiliate link] for our wills and powers of attorney. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three minute survey. Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 2/23/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean047 Financial Excellence: Live Like a Millionaire, How to Invest & More | Episode 47: Living like a millionaire, Where to invest $7,000, and Do debt management programs work? Feb 16, 2011. In today's show we answer some listener questions from the mailbag about investing for the short term and debt management programs. We also discuss how to live like a millionaire or billionaire. Show notes: Glen writes from Australia asking about a company that manages your bills for you and whether it's something worth pursuing. Matt offers his thoughts on why these programs don't work. Chris from Nebraska asks where he should invest or save $7,000 for a family member with short-term savings goals. How does the average millionaire or billionaire live? Their lifestyles are more frugal than most. Being content goes a long way. If you are never happy with what you have, you will never have enough to be happy. We referred to an MSN article called "6 Ways to Live Like a Billionaire." Check out the feedback left by readers. I was surprised at some of the negativity surrounding the article. You can influence what we talk about in future shows. Simply fill out this three minute survey. We mentioned the book The Millionaire Next Door by Dr. Tom Stanley during the show. Here's a link to the book if you haven't read it [affiliate link]: Like what you hear? Visit the iTunes store and leave a review or leave a comment below. Or call our listener feedback line and leave a voice message that we can share on the air. As always, we appreciate your feedback! | 2/16/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 50 Episodes |
Customer Reviews
Living in Financial Excellence
It's about time Matt Wegner does his own show! He has been a guest on Intelligent Investing many times, and is always very popular - my listeners love him. Listen to Living In Financial Excellence to get great advice on your finances or finding a new career. If you are in debt and don't know how to get out, if you need help with a spending plan, if you aren't sure where to put your money first, Matt will give you a step by step process that really works!
Living in Financial Excellence
Matt does a great job in communicating about financial issues and provides straight answers on how to dig out of a financial mess. Folks can benefit by listening and applying what Matt has to say. Bryan Cooper - MyFinancialLifeCoach
Great Show
Matt does an awesome job with the podcast! If you're committed to truly improving your life and future; this is a GREAT place to start. Subscribe already!!
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- Category: Investing
- Language: English
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