The Nuts and Bolts A Giving Challenge

The Nuts and Bolts: A Giving Challenge

By Keith Bunn Jr.

I want to tell you a story that happened last week. While at work, an elderly lady came up to me on her scooter with a problem. The lever on her scooter that makes it go forward and reverse had come off. The 2 bolts that hold it on, fell out and got lost and she wanted to know if we had bolts to replace them.

To make a long story short, I found bolts that worked and put them in for her. The only problem was, they came out out of a package of 195 piece nuts and bolts. Even though the package wasn't expensive, she only needed 2 bolts and I didn't feel right to charge her the $5 the package cost for just 2 bolts, so I just told her not to worry about paying for the bolts.

Which led to a moral problem for me. I couldn't put a package of 195 nuts and bolts back on the shelf knowing it only had 193 pieces in it. So the only solution was for me to buy the package. Again, it wasn't expensive. It was only $5. But it was the only solution. Now, the lady is happy to have her scooter fixed, the store got their money, a future customer didn't get cheated buying a package that was short pieces, and I was happy to have helped someone out. All that for $5!

Now I didn't tell you this story to brag in any way shape or form. I told you this to challenge you. I challenge you to get your finances in order enough to do some spontaneous giving, no matter what the dollar amount is. Like a woman I read about who bought a airline ticket on the spot for a single dad and his daughter. That ticket cost her over $700 and she did that happily.

I've said it more than once, giving is the most fun you'll ever do with money. So who's for excepting my challenge and give like never before. You won't regret it.

Why I Do This

The reason I do this is to inspire and give hope to people. To make them think about their finances, whether they are young or old, so they can win financially.

If you find any of this information useful, please share it with others. You can also find more money news, facts and ideas, on my Facebook pages. I'd be grateful if you followed me. Thank you!

You have an opportunity to do so much more Part 2

You have an opportunity to do so much more: Part 2

By Keith Bunn Jr.

Part 2: Married Service Members

As any married couple will tell you, being married can be tough at times, but it is my opinion that being married while serving in the armed forces is even tougher. It is already a fact that money issues are the #1 cause of divorce in this country, but when you add the stress of having to move often all over the world and being separated for long periods of time, the odds of having a successful marriage drops significantly.

This topic was not as easy as I thought it was going to be. I found myself having dozens of thoughts of what I would and wouldn’t do over and over again going through my head. So the simplest thing I came up with was to do some bullet points that I thought would help both your marriage and your finances.

•  Communication: As I stated before, money issues are the #1 reason couples get divorced, so if you and your spouse talk to each other and get on the same page about your money, that opens other doors of communication in other areas of your lives, which in turn sets a good foundation in your marriage. With all the different ways we can communicate with people today, it is more important than ever to learn how to communicate with the person beside you in life.
  
•  Sacrifice: The civilian world can’t even begin to understand all the sacrifices a military family must endure, especially these days. With that said, what I’m about to suggest will seem small in comparison. You need, as a family, to learn to sacrifice some small things in order to win big in the future. Sell some stuff to help pay off debt and develop a plan to live on less than you make by trying to live on your base pay only. Service men and women who receive Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), Basic Allowance for Separations Rations (BAS), and Cost of Living Allowance (COLA), just to name a few, can find themselves dependent on those funds to live on and can later find themselves in a pinch when they get deployed somewhere and lose one or more of those allowances. Buy used vehicles instead of new. And also, rent homes instead of buying or live on post when possible. This will save you and your family a lot of headaches, as well as money, when you get orders to move.

•  Plan: Where do you and your spouse see yourselves 5 to 10 years down the road? You need to dream about where you want to be and plan on how to get there. There is a lot of uncertainty in the military. Making plans on what you want to do, grounds you to your family and helps you make decisions when some of that uncertainty surfaces.

•  Serve: This alone falls directly on the service men and women themselves. Serve your family with the same honor, commitment, and a sense of duty as you do serving your country. The military isn’t always a safe work environment in peace or at war, so make sure you have your affairs in order. Make sure you have a Will, make sure that your family knows exactly what needs to be done and how to do it if something were to happen to you. Don’t buy a lot of stuff with payments on it just because you were off somewhere defending us. You and your family have sacrificed enough without the extra stress of possibly going broke if something were to happen to you.

I have seen a lot of service men and women hurt themselves and their families financially because of making selfish and childish decisions and racking up debt in the process. You don’t deserve that! With the topic I laid out in Part 1 of this blog series and with the bullet points above, You have an opportunity to do so much more, in both your marriage and finances.

Why I Do This

The reason I do this is to inspire and give hope to people. To make them think about their finances, whether they are young or old, so they can win financially.

If you find any of this information useful, please share it with others. You can also find more money news, facts and ideas, on my Facebook pages. I'd be grateful if you followed me. Thank you!

You have an opportunity to do so much more Part 1

You have an opportunity to do so much more: Part 1

By Keith Bunn Jr.

This morning’s posting is to my fellow service men and women out there...

Folks, there isn't a DAY that I don't kick myself for not getting more out of the time I was in the service. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud that I served, and I'm glad that I got to see and do all kinds of things all over the world, but there is one area I wish I would have done better on & that's in the financial area.

As some of you may or may not know, I was in and out of the Army for a total of 8 years and I've served as both married and non-married in my active duty days. So I will break down my financial "regrets", so to speak, in both those areas separately in a two part blog series. 

Part 1: Non-married Service Members

This is where I have my biggest regrets, because as a single soldier living in the barracks, I really did have it made! I know you may not think so right now but you do. You have a roof over your head, a bed to sleep in, three meals a day provided in the Mess Hall, all your medical, dental, and vision care provided, as well as all utilities provided. All that is FREE!!  A lot of people out in the civilian world don't have that. I understand that this varies for you from time to time, depending on if you're in the field training or somewhere in the world on combat duty, but you have an opportunity that most of us out here in the civilian world and some of the married service men and women don't have, and that is, you can bank and/or invest just about your whole paychecks. You don't have to buy a brand new car with a payment attached to it, you don't need to party your tails off each and every free night you have, and you don't need to buy all kinds of crap that you just have to pack up anyway every time you get deployed somewhere.

Now I did some checking on the current military pay scale and the base pay for an E-1/Private with 2 years in the military is $1,599.90 per month. If you just took $400 per month, every month and invested that in good Growth Stock Mutual Funds for just a three year tour of duty, which would be $16,852. That still leaves you with just under $1,200 a month to live on. Or you could invest $1000 each month for three years, which would be $42,130! In either case, you still have money left over to buy other items you need to live on every day.

Now here’s the thing, experts that are way smarter than me have said that if you are to be a true investor of your hard earned money, you should leave it alone for five years or longer to get the full benefit of the investment. So let’s say after the three year tour was up and you stopped putting money into that investment and never touched it until you were 65 years old. For the $400, that would be worth just over $1.3 million and for the $1000 that would be worth just over $3.3 million. Now here’s the kicker… These numbers are for an E-1 for 3 years. You’re not going to stay an E-1 that whole time unless you‘re just a loser, and even then, you should make at least E-3. And what if you were like a friend of mine who made it to E-9 and retired with over 20 years under his belt. Those numbers would be significantly higher, plus receive your military retirement! These are the things no one told me when I was in the military, but now wish someone did. 

I would very much like to hear the input of the retired and/or active duty soldiers out there about what I’ve posted here today. Also, if you’d like to run your own numbers of what you’d like to invest and where you’d like to be at retirement, I have put a link to the investment calculator I used.

Why I Do This

The reason I do this is to inspire and give hope to people. To make them think about their finances, whether they are young or old, so they can win financially.

If you find any of this information useful, please share it with others. You can also find more money news, facts and ideas, on my Facebook pages. I'd be grateful if you followed me. Thank you!! Part 2 coming next week!

What can Credit Buy you that Cash Can't

What can Credit Buy you that Cash Can't?

By Keith Bunn Jr.

Back in the Day

Before I was doing all this financial coaching stuff, I was never really concerned with what my credit score was. I didn't care what was on it, good or bad. If I tried to get a loan of some kind and was denied, it was no big deal. I'd just figure out another way of doing what I wanted to do.

But I have borrowed money plenty of times in my early years. I've had a mortgage, I've had a couple of credit cards, and a couple of car loans. I even financed a 50 foot section of chain link fence, a gate, and gutters on my house from Sears once. So don't think I'm that guy who has never had debt or loans and keeps telling you that credit is bad, never borrow money, because I've been there, and done that.

Credit vs Cash

So it was towards the end of last month I was thinking, what can credit buy you that cash can't? Now you would think that this would be an easy thought process, but it really wasn't. I mean, if you really think about it, when you are talking about material things (cars, homes, toys, etc...) and possibly trips, like vacations. Cash can buy all that, just as well as credit can. Can we always get what you want, when we want it with cash? No, not always. Depending on what we want and how much it cost, it may take awhile to save for it.

So what can Credit Buy that Cash Can't?

After thinking about it for awhile, I came up with four things that credit can buy you that cash can't, and its probably not what you'd ever think of.

1) Credit buys you a FICO score: There is no way to get a FICO (credit) score unless you use credit to get it. When we use cash, that doesn't get reported to the credit bureaus.

2) Credit buys you Instant Gratification: As mentioned above, we can't always get what we want, when we want it when we use cash. Sometimes we have to be patient when using cash. But if you look up the meaning of the root word 'gratify', it means, to afford pleasure to. And it is my belief that if you can afford it, you have no need for credit, but I'll give this one to credit anyway.

3) Credit buys you Risk: When we buy something on credit, we open the door to risk. We the chance of something greater happening to us that normally wouldn't when we use credit. Example: when you lose your job, how are you going to make the car payments, etc... When you use cash to buy things and you lose your job, you don't have worry about creditors coming to get your stuff.

4) Credit buys you Stress: Or should I say, more stress. As mentioned above, we have added stress when we are worried about someone coming to take away our stuff when life came along and smacked us. When we use cash, that stress never comes around. Yes, there is some stress when there is a job loss or something like that, but not as much when you know for a fact that your stuff is yours and not someone else's.

Well, those are the things that I came up with that credit can buy you that cash can't. If you can think of some other things, I'd sure love to read them. So let me know what you came up with.

Why I Do This

The reason I do this is to inspire and give hope to people. To make them think about their finances, whether they are young or old, so they can win financially.

If you find any of this information useful, please share it with others. You can also find more money news, facts and ideas, on my Facebook pages. I'd be grateful if you followed me. Thank you!

The Rich Rule the Poor

The Rich Rule the Poor

By Keith Bunn Jr.

Judging the Rich

We've all heard it before that the rich people tend to rule over the poor people. That has been said for centuries. It was even said more strongly during our last recession and even as recent as our last presidential election. And in most respect, that is a true statement.

Now, don't get me wrong. This blog post isn't going to be about bashing the rich. In fact, I think that most wealthy families and/or individuals are good people who are judged too harshly solely based on that they have some money. And before someone judges me and my family, for the record, we're not wealthy at all. I just happen to know some wealthy people. I know their character and their heart. And for them, and others like them, to be judged as a whole the way that they are these days...  well, it's not really fair. 

The Book of Proverbs

Where I'm coming from with all of this, is a piece of scripture from the book of Proverbs. Now before those of you who are not religious start rolling your eyes, get mad and stop reading, I ask that you continue to read and hear me out with an open mind.

The scripture goes... "The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is slave (or servant) to the lender" Proverbs 22:7. Now let's unpack and break this down for a bit. Let's take the first part, "The rich rules over the poor..." As we already said above, this is mostly a true statement. The wealthy are the ones who make just about all our rules, laws, and regulations we have to live by. And I'm sure you would all agree that no matter what government agency is made up to close the gaps between the classes in our culture, we will always have the poor among us.

Now for the second half. And it's this half that I really want you to think about. "...and the borrower is slave (or servant) to the lender". Obviously this part is talking about borrowing money from something or someone. One of the definitions to the word "slave" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is a person who is strongly influenced and controlled by something. I think we can all agree that this is a true definition. Because when we borrow money, especially from a financial institution, we are "strongly influenced and controlled by" the contract we sign before we're given the money. This is also true when we borrow money from family and friends. Our emotions are all wrapped in the process of paying them back, sometime even more so because they are family and/or friends. That is why those relationships are stressed or destroyed when the borrower can't pay what is owed.

The Take Away from this Scripture

What gets me about this scripture is that it doesn't matter who you are, how old you are, what business it is, what church it is, what school it is, what government it is, etc... this scripture is 100% true. When you borrow money, you are being ruled by someone, and in all reality, you are a slave to that debt until it is paid off in full.

What do you think? Do you think this interpretation of Proverbs 22:7 is actuate?

Why I Do This

The reason I do this is to inspire and give hope to people. To make them think about their finances, whether they are young or old, so they can win financially.

If you find any of this information useful, please share it with others. You can also find more money news, facts and ideas, on my Facebook pages. I'd be grateful if you followed me. Thank you!

Budgeting 101 Part 4

Budgeting 101: Part 4

By Keith Bunn Jr.

Irregular Budgets

A lot of people who have irregular incomes, think that there is absolutely no way they can do a budget. I mean, how can you make a budget, when you have no idea how much you're going to make that month, right? Wrong! 

If you have an irregular income, you need to live on a budget more than everyone else.

Allocated Spending Plan

What you do if you don't have any other income coming in, except for the irregular income is, you sit down and make a list of everything you need to spend money on for the month you're working on the budget for. Once your list is complete, start placing numbers beside the items listed. Number 1 for the most important item and so on, until you reach the bottom of your list. Now I can help you with the first 5 items on your list... Food, Utilities, Shelter, Transportation, and Clothes. Your Four Walls. Most people make enough money to at least pay for those 5 items. When you have gotten as far as your money will take you, you stop. Any items left over either don't get paid right now or you pick up a second job, sell something or take on some overtime to pay extra on those items.

Irregular Income plus Extra

Now, if you have an irregular income plus an extra income coming in, either from a working spouse or extra job, you start your budgets with the portion of your household income that is constant. You write out your budget as I explained in this blog series, once you've gone as far as you can with that income, then you start up your Allocated Spending Plan. This time, your list shouldn't be as long and it shouldn't start with the Four Walls. Instead, what you should ask yourself is, "If I had one more dollar, what would I spend it on?" Then you put a one (1) next to that item. Then you ask yourself that question again, "If I had one more dollar, what would I spend it on?" And place a two (2) next to that item. Keep asking yourself that question, until again, you have gotten as far as your money will take you, and stop.

Budgeting isn't the easiest to do at first, if you've never done it. In fact, you're going to make a lot of mistakes in the beginning. That's OK! Keep working on it! It normally takes an average of 90 days before a budget starts to work. There will be items in your budget that you think you don't spend so much on when you really are, and vice versa. That's OK! Adjust those dollar amounts where they have to be adjusted.You can do this!!! So keep plugging away and make every dollar count! You'll be glad you did!!

Why I Do This

The reason I do this is to inspire and give hope to people. To make them think about their finances, whether they are young or old, so they can win financially.

If you find any of this information useful, please share it with others. You can also find more money news, facts and ideas, on my Facebook pages. I'd be grateful if you followed me. Thank you!

Budgeting 101 Part 3

Budgeting 101: Part 3

By Keith Bunn Jr.

There are different scenarios of budgeting when you're married and you both bring in a paycheck. Example: you both can get paid weekly and on the same day. One of you can get paid weekly while the other can get paid every 2 weeks. Another way would be that you both get paid every 2 weeks on the same day. And lastly, you both get paid every 2 weeks, but on opposite weeks. Julie and I have done just about all these different ways you can get paid and were still able to get our bills paid and pay down our debt. Here's how we did it.

Paid on the Same Day

If you get paid on the same day, no matter if it is every week or every other week, combine your incomes and place them on the top of your sheet of paper like I described in Budgeting 101: Part 2 and work your 4 Walls, other bills, envelopes, and Debt Snow Ball. Obviously, if you both get paid every 2 weeks on the same day, you'll have 2 sections on your sheet of paper instead of 4, but it is worked the same way.

One gets Paid Weekly, the Other Every 2 Weeks

This one is fairly simple. Again, you will need to divide your sheet of paper into fourths. If the spouse that gets paid every other week gets paid on the 1st and the 15th, then those weeks you will combine your paychecks and work your plan. The other 2 weeks where there is only one paycheck that week, you write that amount down on your sheet and work your plan as far as your paycheck can go.

Paid Every 2 Weeks, but on Opposite Weeks

Julie and I lived on this pay style for quite some time. If you get paid this way, it really isn't any different than getting paid every week. With the exception of having a different income amount every other payday on your sheet of paper. Just write down what you got paid on that payday and work your plan.

Extra Paydays, Bonuses, and Overtime

For those of you out there that get paid every other week, there is a couple times a year you get an extra payday a month. Don't just blow that money. Have a plan for it! If you are up to your eyeballs in debt, you might want to put most, if not all of it towards your Debt Snow Ball. The same go for bonuses, and overtime. Have a plan for those too, but don't count on them. Because unlike the extra payday we just talked about, bonuses, and overtime can come and go at anytime.

Why I Do This

The reason I do this is to inspire and give hope to people. To make them think about their finances, whether they are young or old, so they can win financially.

If you find any of this information useful, please share it with others. You can also find more money news, facts and ideas, on my Facebook pages. I'd be grateful if you followed me. Thank you!