Archive for September 2006

There is POWER in writing things down!

Have you ever told someone that you would do something, and then forgot to do it? That has happened to every one of us.

I remember going to visit a customer that had experienced a quality issue with one of our products. I had a belief that we had not been notified in a timely manner about the quality issue. I was WRONG. This customer pulled out a book and rattled off at least 10 times that he had contacted our team about this exact issue! He had NAMES. He had DATES. He had TIMES. He had the Greenwich Mean Time in which he had contacted them. He had EXACTLY what he had relayed to each individual. There is POWER in writing things down!

By the time he had gotten to relaying to me the fourth call he had made, I really was not interested in hearing any more! I just wanted OUT OF THERE. Why? Because I did not have it written down. My team had not written it down. As a result, we had seriously inconvenienced a customer, and we had look foolish doing it. There is POWER in writing things down!

With this blog, I embarked on a journey to write about personal finances. I wanted to help others improve their own personal financial situation. The end result? I am personally learning more about finances. Why? Because I am writing it down!!! There is POWER in writing things down!

God had approximately 40 authors WRITE THINGS DOWN. Why? Because there is POWER in writing things down!

Write things down! Use the POWER!

Moving Costs – If you ever move …

Moving costs money.


Here are some questions (answers below):

  1. How much does it cost to rent a one-way 26′ box truck for 5 days and unlimited miles?
  2. How much does it cost for boxes?
  3. How much does it cost for the fuel to get from point A to point B?
  4. How much does it cost to rent a car tow dolly?
  5. Have you thought about furniture pads?
  6. How much does it cost to get your old house ready to move out of?
  7. How much does it cost to get your new house ready to move in to?
  8. If you are selling your home, how much does it cost?
    1. One-way rentals are FAR more expensive than returning the rental to the spot you picked up the truck. General costs for a one-way rental is between $1,300 and $2,500.
    2. Boxes. Wow. Moving boxes that you purchase run anywhere from $150 – $500.
    3. Fuel? Depends on the average gas prices. 26′ box trucks get HORRIBLE gas mileage – between 4 and 7 mpg. If you get a diesel, you can expect to get between 8 and 12 mpg.
    4. A car tow dolly will run you around $200
    5. Furniture pads are very cheap. Around $10/dozen. Get at least two dozen more than you think you will need.
    6. Depends greatly on the condition of the home. If you’ve maintained things well, it could be $500 or less. If you haven’t maintained things well, it could be a LOT more.
    7. Depends greatly on the condition of the home. If you negotiate effectively, you can have the house handed over in great condition.
    8. If you use a realtor, selling fees on a home generally run between 4% and 7%. If you sell your home yourself, you can do it for somewhere around $1,500.

Does God want you to be rich?

So I was briefly reviewing the web pages that I check daily, and I found this article on The question being asked is, “Does God want you to be rich?

Very interesting question, indeed.

The question is often asked. It is interesting to see it being approached by Time Magazine.

I would like to ask the question another way. Does God want you to be poor?

In financial counseling, I have never personally encountered anyone who became poor because God made it that way. There is this one man I have read about in the Bible. His name was Job. You can read about him here. After all of his wealth was stripped away, he still honored God. In the end, God blessed him even more in the last days of his life than at the first.

I do not know how often God lets individuals become poor on purpose (like Job), but I have seen example after example after example where poor decisions have been made that led to the person or couple becoming financially strapped.

Let me list some “poor” decisions.

  • A car financed for 6 years with payments that really can not be afforded. Especially when the vehicle insurance, license plate, and property taxes also go up with the new vehicle.
  • A house with a payment that consumes 50% of take-home pay.
  • A piece of furniture or a ATV that they could not pay cash for and so it was financed for 4 years at 20% interest.
  • Not having an emergency fund with at least $2000 in it. How realistic is it to believe that there will never be a financial emergency in our life?
  • Not thinking about purchases overnight. They are talked in to making a purchase of something they did not NEED by a very talented salesperson. So they bought and now they are paying. (Timeshares are very spur of the moment decisions that are many times a BAD deal.)
  • Not putting money away for the children’s college. If you really do want to help your children out with college, you really should start saving for them. They really are growing older every single day and they will be 18 and headed there before you know it!
  • Not putting money away for your retirement. The word “tire” is in retirement because someday you are going to be very “tired”! If you do not put away money, you will be working when you are very “tired”!

I could list MANY more …

I believe that God has given us this thing called “common sense” and this other thing called a “brain”. He created us in His image. He wants us to think about things. He equipped us to be able to think about purchases and how we should handle our money.

If we truly stopped and thought about our purchases and our overall money management, we would be able to avoid being poor. We could even achieve wealth.

To get it, we need only understand these three things:

  • God is in control
  • We are the managers of our money. We are in control of where our money goes.