Follow Me Out of Debt | Get out of debt and get into prosperity!

Do you care too much about what others are thinking? This can add a whole new level of complexity while you are trying to accomplish a goal, such as getting out of debt or any other goals that have to do with improving your personal financial situation.

This really comes down to human nature. We all want to be liked and accepted. When we come across resistance from others when we express our ideas or goals, we naturally want to give up and just go with the norm to stay in line with everyone else. The problem with this is that everyone else is likely having financial difficulties that they simply don't talk about. You are unaware of their situations, and it won't help them if you give up on your own goals.

Instead, it's better to stick to what you had decided to do in the first place. Be proud of what you are attempting to accomplish. Realize that someday those same friends or family members that are seemingly against your strategies and plans will see the results of your work. That will be what will stand out in the end, and it may be enough to convince them to be more like you without you needing to say a single word.

If you know someone who may benefit from this show, please feel free to share it by sending them to http://followmeoutofdebt.com. If you're on Twitter, follow me at @fmoodpodcast for all of the latest tips, updates, and strategies to get out of debt and get into prosperity.

I've heard about the Pomodoro Technique before, but I have never actually looked into trying this until recently. I did several searches on Google, and I found a wealth of information on this topic. If there's one thing that I've learned over the last several years, it's that no matter how rich you are or how much wealth you have acquired, you can't purchase time. Time is not a commodity. It's not for sale. We all get the same amount of time in any given day, no matter how much you've got sitting in your bank account. That reason alone is why I am truly excited to try the Pomodoro Technique.

This technique was developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. He used a pomodoro timer to break down work into 25-minute intervals. After you've completed the 25-minute work session, you are rewarded with a short break. After several 25-minute sessions, you have earned a longer break. You reset your pomodoro count and start all over again, possibly with a brand-new task.

I love to try anything that sounds like it will help me to be more efficient, and this technique seems to be something that will really prove to be worth implementing. I'm also looking forward to being able to see how many pomodoro sessions it will take for me to complete certain tasks. From this data and analysis, I should be able to better plan my day by getting better at estimating the actual time that it will take for me to complete my tasks and goals.

By the way, I started using the Pomodoro Technique just a short while ago working on the final editing and publication of this particular episode. So far, this technique rocks. I highly recommend that you try it for yourself. If you do, tweet me @fmoodpodcast and let me know what you think. I'll be following up on this topic on a future podcast episode after I've had some time to give this a good trial run myself.

Superheroes do not exist. Sorry, Superman fans, that's just reality. However, nobody is stopping you from being a superhero of personal finance. You can be a hero who stands proud and tall above all of the rest. All you need to do is take your goals seriously, and make sure that you are handling things in the same way a superhero would do it.

First, you need to own up to the problems that you see. Whether that problem is too much debt, not enough savings, not enough income, or all of the above, you have to be the one who owns this problem so you can take care of it. Once you own up to the problem and identify the situation, the next step is to take action. You don't see movies with superheroes where the superhero sees trouble and simply sits to see if the problem will go away on its own. Instead, the superhero is attacking the problem head-on and comes away to save the day.

Unfortunately, too many shows about superheroes do lead us to believe that a problem can be resolved quickly, shortly after the superhero arrives on the scene. That's usually not the case in real life, so you need to be the type of superhero that can be in it for the long haul. You may win some battles, but you have to have the perseverance to win the war. This is an important factor that sets superheroes apart from your everyday average Joe (or Jane). A superhero can stay in the fight as long as necessary because winning the battle in its entirety is a non-negotiable outcome.

If you know someone who may benefit from this show, please feel free to share it by sending them to http://followmeoutofdebt.com. If you're on Twitter, follow me at @fmoodpodcast for all of the latest tips, updates, and strategies to get out of debt and get into prosperity.

There's a lot to be said about morning routines. Setting your alarm a half-hour earlier or even an hour earlier will help you to set the entire tone for the day by getting yourself out of bed and completing your morning routine.

The morning routine in of itself can be pretty much anything that you want to do to get your engines running right off of the bat. For me personally, I enjoy meditating right after I get up for the day. Meditation helps to ground me, and even though it seems like this wouldn't help to feel more awake, for me it does. It's only five to ten minutes of meditation, but once I'm finished, I'm already off to a good start of the day with a clear mind and focus.

I'll retire to my prayer room after mediation to spend some time in prayer and read the Bible for about ten minutes or so. I leave feeling connected, thankful, and appreciative of the day ahead. I follow up with stretching and light exercise. Once I've finished with my light exercise regimen, I do some more stretching. This really gets the blood flowing, and at this point, I am usually fully wide awake after just ten short minutes of light exercise and stretching.

I eat a light breakfast and spend some time updating my journal and doing some reading. I finish all of this and feel much better than I do compared to the days when I blow off my morning routine. I don't always do all of these things in this order, and sometimes I may not get to everything on the list. The point is that it's not about what is done during the morning routine but having a morning routine to begin with. It's truly a great way to start your day and win the day.

If you know someone who may benefit from this show, please feel free to share it by sending them to http://followmeoutofdebt.com. If you're on Twitter, follow me at @fmoodpodcast for all of the latest tips, updates, and strategies to get out of debt and get into prosperity.

If you truly take a good look at yourself, are you being a little too risk averse? Are you leading a safe and careful life rather than taking some strategic risks? Not taking calculated risks in life can lead to a boring existence that may come with a large dose of regret down the road.

It's understandable that we want to be careful, especially when we're in the process of paying down our debt and trying to save every penny we can in order to apply towards our debt payoff goals. However, you don't want to pass up opportunities to start a business or doing something else that can actually boost your income in the short or long term.

I'm not saying that we should go into debt in order to start a business or join some other venture. What I am saying is that if opportunities come up, we need to do our due diligence, consider all of the facts, and make a decision as to whether or not to act on an opportunity or an idea based on a strategic risk assessment. Don't simply brush it off to the side just because you may be taking a risk. Risk isn't a bad thing as long as it makes sense for your particular situation.

If you know someone who may benefit from this show, please feel free to share it by sending them to http://followmeoutofdebt.com. If you're on Twitter, follow me at @fmoodpodcast for all of the latest tips, updates, and strategies to get out of debt and get into prosperity.

Today I read a great article from Erin Cullum/Popsugar US. The article was an informational article about some things that we may not know about our local Aldi store. I can definitely say that while there were some items mentioned that I knew about already, there was also plenty that I learned for the first time.

If you haven't done so already, I highly recommend checking out your local Aldi store if you've got one in your area. We have an Aldi store nearby, but we didn't think to go there for years after we moved into the area. Now that we've started to go there, we shop there almost exclusively for all of our groceries. We save a ton of money on our grocery bills, but that's not all that Aldi grocery stores have to offer.

Aldi has in-house test kitchen chefs who periodically review the quality of their products before they hit the shelves. It's not just some of the products; they test every single Aldi product. I think it's great that they go out of their way to make sure that the products that they carry are as good as , if not better than, competing national brands.

Their return policy is phenomenal as well. They offer a double guarantee, meaning that they will exchange a product if you're not satisfied as well as give you your money back along with the exchange. They work with local community organizations to contribute items to food banks, and they encourage their employees to be active to volunteer within their communities. Their exclusive brand food products are void of MSG, artificial coloring, and partially hydrogenated oils.

With all of this in mind, why wouldn't you give your local Aldi store a quick look? I can say that in most cases, once you start shopping at Aldi, you likely won't go anywhere else for groceries ever again.

If you know someone who may benefit from this show, please feel free to share it by sending them to http://followmeoutofdebt.com. If you're on Twitter, follow me at @fmoodpodcast for all of the latest tips, updates, and strategies to get out of debt and get into prosperity.

Sometimes you end up taking a few steps back on this journey out of debt, but that doesn't mean that you can't make up for it by taking several steps forward once again. When we fall behind on things or stop our progress towards our goals completely, we need to get ourselves back on track. Believe it or not, this happens more often than you realize and to tons of people, myself included.

I found several things that weren't exactly running smoothly with our household's personal financial situation. Communication is key in a marriage when it comes to money, and I have been feeling lately that the communication between my wife and me hasn't been on par. It's not that we're not working on the budget and trying to save money, it's just that the headlines aren't being brought out into the open and discussed as needed. I don't need to talk about every single detail with her, but I do need to get better at providing her with high-level overview headlines that she can easily refer to throughout the month to see where things are at.

It's okay to press the reset button sometimes. It's okay to revamp things a bit for the greater good of your own get-out-of-debt plans. If you identify an issue and don't address it, you'll end up causing more harm than good. It's best to realize that there's a problem, address it properly, and get back on track.

If you know someone who may benefit from this show, please feel free to share it by sending them to http://followmeoutofdebt.com. If you're on Twitter, follow me at @fmoodpodcast for all of the latest tips, updates, and strategies to get out of debt and get into prosperity.

Have you ever added more layers to a decision than what was absolutely necessary? Do you overthink things or muddy the waters unnecessarily with too many details, and you end up not making a decision at all?

Rather than going through every possible scenario and making things more complicated, it's best to focus on getting the simplest answer and going from there. That way, you can take action as is appropriate. Even if you find later on that you're on the wrong path, you can always change course with lessons learned.

This concept isn't just related to paying off debt or making other decisions related to personal finance. You can also utilize this way of keeping things simple in almost every decision that you make. You'll get more accomplished because you will take action faster once you've made a choice on whatever question it is that you are pondering.

If you know someone who may benefit from this show, please feel free to share it by sending them to http://followmeoutofdebt.com. If you're on Twitter, follow me at @fmoodpodcast for all of the latest tips, updates, and strategies to get out of debt and get into prosperity.

I've found myself doing this before. I get desperate for a few extra dollars in a particular budget month where I found myself in the red. The emergency fund is just sitting there, so I justify borrowing from the savings by telling myself that I'll just pay it back the following month. This isn't a good habit to get into, and it can turn into a very slippery slope once started.

When we do this, we train ourselves to use our designated emergency fund or sinking fund as a crutch. We allow ourselves to believe that our savings account is extra money that's just waiting around for us to tap into. We forget that we've already earmarked these resources for an emergency or for a sinking fund. We've already defined what the money is supposed to be there for, and we must stick to what we had designated in the beginning when the money was originally placed into the account, intentionally separate from our standard checking account balance.

Is borrowing from our savings from time to time better or worse than using a credit card? That's a good question. I would answer it like this. Whether we fall back on a credit card or on our savings account, we're effectively doing the same thing: we're using something else as a crutch rather than focusing on fixing our budget so that we don't need to use other resources other than what we are supposed to be using for our monthly expenses.

If you know someone who may benefit from this show, please feel free to share it by sending them to http://followmeoutofdebt.com. If you're on Twitter, follow me at @fmoodpodcast for all of the latest tips, updates, and strategies to get out of debt and get into prosperity.

You need to be intentional and have the right levels of focus and intensity towards accomplishing your goals. Are you lax with your debt payoff strategies? Are you letting 0% interest rate credit cards lie around without paying them off because it's still 0% for another year or so?

It's really easy to get into that mode where you tend to ease back on your debt payoff. You take your foot off of the gas pedal, and you lose the intensity that you once had. Nobody's saying that you shouldn't have fun, but you need to plan your fun as opposed to blowing off debt payment obligations that you've already planned just because you've got a vacation coming up.

You can take a break from debt payoff if there's a reason and an end game that has already been defined. Let's say you realize that your vehicle is getting by on borrowed time. You know that you'll have to replace the car someday, but you're not sure exactly when that will be. You want to save up for that replacement vehicle purchase in order to avoid car payments. This is a great strategy, of course. Go ahead and feel free to do this, but once that vehicle has been purchased, you have to get yourself back on track with debt payoff with as much intensity as you had before.

Again, you need intensity, you need focus, and you need to be intentional. If you have all three of these components working for you in your everyday push to become debt free, you will be successful.

If you know someone who may benefit from this show, please feel free to share it by sending them to http://followmeoutofdebt.com. If you're on Twitter, follow me at @fmoodpodcast for all of the latest tips, updates, and strategies to get out of debt and get into prosperity.