Tag Archives: Cash

Knocking Down Debt

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When we met with our upline platinum (at that time, she’s now Sapphire) back in October we were on a mission to knock down some debt of ours so that we can become debt free or pretty darn close to it by the end of 2010.  Well with the mentorship and coaching we received from her we were able to make some awesome decisions that we didn’t really know where available to us or didn’t even see it that way.  It’s the coaching that we received that opened our eyes and is exactly the type of thing we do with World Wide Dreambuilders.  It’s not all about “making the millions” it’s about the little things a the streamlining your life for success. 

So what exactly have we done in about three months?  Well it might not seem like a lot of time but on paper its a HUGE amount of reduction.  I’m not ashamed to put down actual figures here because I’m going to be real with you as I have always been on this blog.  People need to understand we are nobody special, we are just trying to make a change for the better in our life.

  1. Set our budget and started to use the envelope system where we take out cash for each budgeted item and keep it in an envelope.  Once the money is gone, that’s it.  We’ve been on track with our budget seriously for 2 months.
  2. Started putting 20% of our paycheques onto debt
  3. Started or re-started (I pretty much did this already) putting 10% of our paycheques into savings
  4. Streamlined our lives so that we live off 70% of our income
  5. Paid $3,700 towards our HBC Mastercard and closed it (they still owe me $253 because I overpaid!)
  6. Paid $ 20,210 towards our RBC Visa and are almost done with that. Have around $2,700 left to pay off

Look at what we’ve accomplished with a little coaching.  I wanted to know how to knock down some debt so I found someone who did just that and they taught me.  What did it cost?  NOTHING.  Just association.  Are we done yet? Heck no!

  1. We’ve got a Home Equity Line of Credit to pay off
  2. We have another regular Lineo of Credit to pay off
  3. The 2006 Mazda 3 to pay off (on it’s own it will be done in Feb of 2011, but hope to put a few extra months on it to get that payment back)
  4. Lindsay’s “Daddy Debt” from when she was in school
  5. Lastly our Mortgage. 

So what we hope to accomplish by the end of this year is to knock off items 1, 2, 3, 4 and only have the mortgage left.  So what does that mean in the long run?  Well considering we have all that debt where do you think a lot of our pay cheques go towards?  DEBT!  What happens when that debt is gone and your not making those payments?  Well all of the sudden you’ve got a lot of money kicking around.  The MasterCard, the Visa, the two Line of Credits, the car payment all add up to a huge chunk of change that we will no longer have to fork out.  We will be able to keep that and save it for a new vehicle, or any other large items that we need to get.  The best of all… we will pay for those things in cash.

Now all of this WILL happen this year and the funny thing is, none of the above is touching the money we make from this business!  How cool is that!

I write this not to brag, I write this to inspire because you CAN kill debt, you CAN streamline your life.  The question is are you willing to do whatever it takes to achieve a debt free lifestyle?  By whatever it takes I mean W H A T E V E R it takes.  Find a coach, find a mentor because if you don’t you’ll just continue that endless cycle day after day after day.

“Do the opposite of the masses”

Dreambuilding

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Over the weekend I put up a bunch of pictures of materialistic things I want and also put up some pictures of the area we want to live in.  Why do I do this?  Well for one it’s to help dreambuild.  If you’ve ever been around people who are successful you’ll notice they put up words of affirmation, pictures of things they want, or goals they want to achieve.  It’s basically dreambuilding 101.  You’ll find though the majority of people out there won’t do this and it’s a shame.  You need to visually see what your goals and dreams are in order to obtain them.  It’s a driving factor or a motivational tool that really does work.

My Brand New 2003 Ford Ranger FX4 Level II

Before joining this business I used to do that.  In fact my mother taught me that.  I really wanted a 2003 Ford Ranger FX4 Level II.  It was the fully loaded version of the Ford Ranger.  It was around $36,000 CDN and I originally thought i’ll never be able to get that vehicle.  I had so much student loan debt and other debt that there was no possible way.  My mom basically said put up a picture of your goal so that you see it every day and have something to work towards.  So I did exactly that.  It was one of the few times I actually stopped being an ass and listened to my mother and it paid off.  I stuck to my debt reduction plan and paid off my debts and loans and was able to build up enough credit to buy the vehicle myself without my mother co-signing.  I didn’t pay for it all in cash, I would have liked to (our next vehicle will be in cash) however I was able to put it on a 0% financing so all my payments went directly to the principal.  It sure felt good to actually accomplish something like that all from a picture.

So that’s why we have pictures and words of affirmation around our house.  When you come into our condo you’ll see words like “Overcome”, “do the opposite of the masses”, “The best is yet to come”, “Play Injured”, “Are you living a dream, or just living your life”, “Break through the wall of fear”, “The Guthrie’s are all in” and more.  We believe these things motivate us and give us a dream.  Then you’ll see stuff on our fridge like pictures of Kelowna where we want to live, Wineries, because we love wine, in my office you’ll see a picture of a Breitling Chronomat B01 watch because that’s the watch I want, you’ll see magazines with inspirational things in them that relate to us.  It’s these things that keep our dreams alive.

It’s so important to do this whether you are building this business or not.  This what i’m writing about is part of the 95% of what we do with World Wide Dreambuilders.  The 5%, the Amway Global portion is the vehicle for the 95%.  You need a dream, goals and passion so that you have something to work towards.

We’ve got BIG dreams, and so should you!

Mission Hill Winery in Kelowna

Mission Hill Winery in Kelowna

 

Time To Get Serious With Debt

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We sat down with your Platinum upline Christine to discuss tackling debt.  She has an amazing story where she has pretty much gone from rags to riches.  She just retired from her job over a month ago where she now has more residual income coming in then she ever made working for “The Man”.  Anyway we had some discussions with her around debt and wanted her to help us reconfirm what we had learnt from the Richest Man in Babylon book as well as her personal experiences.

One of the biggest teachings from this book was pay yourself first.  Pay yourself 10% of your income and put it into savings or into a float of some sort to help you out for those one off emergencies or unexpected purchases.  This is something I was taught from my parents long long ago and I’ve always done it.  So that’s nothing new, but something you SHOULD be doing.  The second thing that I’ve never done was how to pay off debt.  The way to successfully do this is to use 20% of your paycheque and put that towards debt.  So in effect you are living off of 70% of your paycheque.  This might make your budget tight however take a good hard look at your situation because I bet you are not gaining anything on your debt situation.  We are implementing this starting tomorrow when I get paid.  10% right into savings as always and 20% onto debt.  You’ll be amazed as you plot out your debt how fast you’ll be able to pay it off if you commit to 20%.  Is it going to be hard? yeah it probably will and I’ll update you on the progress and let you know how it goes.  Another way to help from overspending is to take out cash and pay for everything with it.  If you use debit or credit cards you easily lose track of how much you are spending and 9/10 you will not make it.  So pay with things with cash.

Lastly, reward yourself when you pay off a portion of debt.  Say you close off a credit card.  Go celebrate that.  I’m not talking about a 4 week holiday to Europe.  But maybe a nice dinner with a good bottle of wine.  Or it can be as simple as rewarding yourself with a new outfit or new shoes.  We need rewards which help keep us interested and give us something to strive for.  Without it we won’t feel accomplishment.

Anyway I hope that might inspire you or help you and like I said I’ll make sure I update you on the progress.