Playing From Behind

In sports, most teams (or individuals) prefer to score first, score quickly and score often. They don't like to fall behind. Playing catch up puts more pressure on everyone, and it becomes easier for mistakes to creep in.

By contrast, most individuals find themselves, by virtue of debt, playing from behind, financially speaking. And we've done it on purpose. We take out huge mortgages, followed by not one, but two car loans, student loans, credit card debt and very possibly a Home Equity Line of credit. Is it any wonder why we feel insecure. We are constantly working to catch up to our spending. Millions of people are one accident, one illness, one lay off or even one flat tire away from financially crashing and burning. Talk about stress!

There is a better way. Stop borrowing. Eliminate your debt. Live debt free. Play from the front and WIN! Sound crazy? We did it. So have many others. It takes guts. But it sure is fun when you're done.

Found Some Common Sense

Found this bit of common sense in dealing with Household Budgeting and finance. I think you'll like it too. Common sense is becoming a rare creature. You can also click HERE.

We Interrupt This Broadcast...............

..............to bring you this breaking message: Brittan and I have a new grandson. His name is Glenn Douglas Burton Docherty. Yes, that's a lot of names, but at 9 lbs, 12 oz, he's a lot of boy.

We're so proud, as are his sisters, Kaya, Lana and Zoe as well as our daughter, Denise and son in law, Rene. Well done!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.....

I'm Repeating Myself Again

They say that happens when you get to a certain age. Well, here I am. I've hit a 'certain age' and I'm about to repeat myself. At least I'm going to repeat myself about the current Banking Problems.

The Democrats are blaming the Republicans (and capitalism in general) and the Republicans are blaming the Democrats. Hmm...you'd think it was an election year or something.

But the fact is, the root of the current Banking crisis is Greed, and our love of credit. The banks never should have gotten involved in subprime lending and investment banks never should have started buying the notes. The present situation shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. I've predicted it for years. And I'm an idiot! If a simpleton like me could see the danger, why couldn't others? My guess is, they could see it just fine, but greed kept them counting their monopoly money.

We reap what we sow. These institutions have sown seeds of bad loans and they've reaped a harvest of debt so plentiful they've buried themselves in the fruit of their labors.

And I say the Government should not bail them out, we should let the markets correct themselves. Government bailouts will only delay and sustain the problem.

For what it's worth, the current banking problems have resulted in only a fraction of the bank closures as the 88-92 banking crisis. But this is the age of the internet, the blogger and the day trader. Bad news is magnified and hyped like never before. Add in a dose of election year fever and a storm is brewing.

There are other contributing factors, like the oil price bonanza, but they were only the triggers or catalysts to bring down the house of cards on it's foundation of sand.

For those who have lost homes and dreams, I genuinely feel pain. I know what it's like to lose everything. I remember being 37 years old hand having all my worldly possessions in a suitcase and a carry on bag. I had no home, no job, no car, no money. But there is hope for you.

1. Trust God and do good and He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37)
2. Stop borrowing
3. Stop relying on the Government. Take charge of your own future.
4. Work hard.
5. Live on less than you earn
6. Start an emergency fund
7. Get out of Debt
8. Save for a downpayment of at least 20% before you buy
9. ONLY accept a fixed rate mortgage. Don't listen to any other sales pitch...ever.
10. Don't borrow more than you can afford. $25% of your take home pay MAXIMUM. Don't listen to any crap about 44% debt to income ratio.
11. Seriously consider saving up until you can pay CASH for your house.
12. Pay your mortgage off early.

Ok, that's enough advice for one post. But I assure you, I'm right. I know from my failures and I know from my successes.

Now back to the banks. I'm sorry for the people who will lose their jobs, but for the institutions and their poor decision making, my sympathy pool has run dry.

Ok, I Take it Back!

If you recall, a couple of days ago I praised the Main Stream Media for publishing a pretty good article on money management. Today I am retracting my praise, because I found this little nugget on the same website and it really chaps my hide.

I have a variety of complaints,but the primary one is the nonsense that we need to keep raising a FICO score. What we need is to start a revolution that considers criteria other than FICO in making certain decisions about people. FICO is simply a record of how we've managed debt. But what if we've been successful and don't need debt? The priorities are all wrong. It's just one side effect of an economy built on credit and debt. Shame, shame, shame.

There are some other subtle errors in the article, but it is the under lying message that I resent. So.... boo, media. Boo, boo, boo.

New Toll Free Number

Even in this day and age of email and text messaging, it's still important to be able to be contacted by phone. I have no idea why we didn't do this before now, but we've added a new toll free number to the ways we can be contacted here at IOU NO MORE and at "Sam Burton Presents", our Seminar and Workshop division. The number is: 1-888-367-5988.

Wells Fargo Made My Blood Boil!

We have our mortgage with Wells Fargo. We've been pretty happy with that division of the bank. We got a good rate and they communicate very well and very frequently. But the retail banking side of their operation just about put me back on my blood pressure medicine.

We got our mortgage rate as a part of our relocation package with my employer. After the account was set up, the mortgage office asked if we'd be willing to discuss checking and savings accounts with the retail side. I said, "sure".

The gist of the conversation was, because we had a our mortgage acct we could also get a free checking and savings acct. I said, "what the heck. Why not." As it turns out, only the first 6 mos were free. Now there's a $25 monthly fee. Never was that discussed. Never. I asked specifically, because I won't open an account that has fees. I don't need to.

So I called them today to complain and they said there was nothing they could do except reverse the monthly fee this one time. I disagreed. I assured them that there was one other possibility. They could close my checking and savings accounts. They complied immediately. They didn't want to try and save me. Why? They can't make money off of me if I don't pay fees. And apparently the interest rate on my mortgage isn't enough for them. End result: I am done with Wells Fargo. They lied to me and I can't do business like that. Grrrr................