A new business that isn't anything new

So how come everyone buys and sells on eBay? I do both of course, like every other person on the planet. I buy things like camera batteries and memory cards and small things that I can always find for pretty cheap. I sell the old stuff in my house that I need to get rid of so I can pay off my debt.
But what I really wonder about are those Power Sellers. Those people that seem to have tons of items for so much cheaper than I can find them anywhere. How does that work? I mean I looked up a few things online because I was thinking about doing an eBay business... but I can't seem to find anything that is even worth it! I found tons of liquidations sites etc that you have to buy 30 of something to get the deal, and you can still find it cheaper on eBay!
I am amazing and wonder who these power sellers know to get their great deals!
I knew one person who sold Coach purses on eBay and did pretty well, but he had a friend who worked in distributing Coach so that made it easier for him. Do I need to know someone to get a good deal? Even with the internet are personal relationships grounds for a better price?
Hmm... I wish I had answers!

Podcasts

Staying at home with my son is wonderful but can get somewhat lonely when I'm home all day by myself. I recently started listening to Dave Ramsey's radio show, because I don't want my son to watch TV until he's around 2 years old, so radio works out great!

We have XM radio because my husband travels so much for work, and I record Dave Ramsey. I wanted to listen to something else besides his show (because it only lasts so long without commercials) and I looked for some podcasts.

I found some great podcasts, along with some not so great ones. Here are a couple of the ones that were very well put together and interesting.

Terry Savage Money
http://www.nbc5.com/money/6371520/detail.html

Entrepreneur.com (and magazine) Podcast
http://www.entrepreneur.com/podcast/index.html

An Entrepreneur.podcast with interviews with great people
http://www.venturevoice.com/

New Decisions on the Roof!

My husband and I just decided to not put a new roof on yet. We are going to fix around the chimney where it was leaking a bit but otherwise the roof is A-ok! (besides some missing shingles of course). I don't think insurance is going to give us any money, and I think we should wait until we NEED a new roof. Heck a lot more shingles can fly off before it does damage! (not that I want that to happen of course!)

But that means we are paying more money on the student loan instead of saving for the roof. Yay! I just made a $2,250 payment to the student loan. I forget how good it feels to write a big check to my debt! I still have $18,204 left but I made it under the 20k mark! Woo!!

Our plan so far

We had a baby about 5 months ago. We started Dave Ramsey's plan in March of last year when we found out we were pregnant. I really wanted to be a stay at home mom at that point but I made 2/3rds of the income. (I made about 90k per year and my husband about 50k) We had car loans, student loans, HELOC, and no money in the bank. We had paid off our credit cards that previous year and didn't really use them often, but our monthly expenses were very high. Our house is also 250k, and we put 25k down on it so we owed 225k. We made a point not to get the largest house we could afford because I hated my job and I wanted to quit. Still it never seemed possible to quit!
Once I found out we were pregnant we went crazy on debt. We sold our brand new Honda Civic (19k loan) and bought a $9,000 Jeep Cherokee. We paid off:

Cherokee $9,000
Honda Element $8,000
Citibank Student Loan $3,500
HELOC $25,800
Total = $46,300

That's a lot of debt! We did that from March until August by living only on my husbands salary and him working his butt off to make more money. Oh and living on beans and rice! We still had a $23,000 student loan of mine left, but I was worried about finances when the baby arrived and not having a safety net especially when i was thinking of quitting my job.

I called Dave Ramsey to ask about what I should do. I thought I should save up my fully funded emergency fund for the baby, and then pay off my student loan. Of course that doesn't go with the baby steps but I wanted security! He suggested I pay off my student loan (of course!) then go back to work for a few months until I could get a fully funded emergency fund. We didn't do that though! Sorry for not doing the advice Dave!

We ended up saving over 21k for our emergency fund. It's still in the bank account right now. I did go back to work for a few months and paid off some of the student loan, but I hated having my son in day care and I was sick of working knowing I was going to quit so I left. (We also had been saving and bought a car with cash right before I quit as the Cherokee seemed to have tons of problems and was a gas guzzler).

I know I didn't follow the normal baby steps as I still have debt and an emergency fund but I feel better. Especially with the new roof we need! I also just saved up 12k for a hills and valleys fund because my husbands income varies from month to month and we don't know how much he'll end up making most of the time.

So that has been the plan so far! My goals now are to increase my income, get that roof, and finally pay off that student loan. Then we'll be debt free except for the house! Then we start saving for retirement. I am so excited about that because that is how I plan on becoming a millionaire!

New Roof

We have really high winds at my house. REALLY high winds, like 70 plus miles per hour. We also have two 30 year shingles on our roof. Why two sets of 30 year shingles? Because whoever installed them, installed them both incorrectly. So even though we have two, which sounds likes it's better than one, it's not.
So high winds + incorrectly installed shingles = flying shingles that end up stuck in the ground a few inches. It also means dealing with the insurance company! This has happened twice in a year. So we are getting estimates on a new roof. For shingles that are rated high enough for the high winds we have it will be about $12,800. WOW that's a lot of money.
I have no idea how much the insurance will cover but most likely they will just repair the damage and not give us a new roof. Thank goodness for the emergency fund!!

Net Worth

Since last year when I started Dave Ramsey's plan, I have paid off a ton of debt. Someday I'll go through the whole list and how much we paid off! But recently I looked at some old files from my college personal finance course. It's a personal balance worksheet. Really it just calculates your net worth.

Well back in '03 while I was a junior in college my net worth was a whopping -8,314. I even owned my own house at that point and apparently had no equity in it. (I thought I did but when I sold it I had to pay 2k out of pocket for the buyer to take it!!) Here are a few pieces of what my previous balance worksheet said:


Bank account balance 2,200
Retirement Accounts 5,700
Mutual Funds 1,032
House 70,000

Credit card balances 3,000
Balance due on auto loan 29,000
Mortgage 68,000

So here it is not even 4 years later and here is part of my balance worksheet now:

Bank account balance 41,000
Retirement Accounts 17,482
Mutual Funds 3,064
House 250,000
Credit card balances 0
Balance due on auto loan 0
Mortgage 191,000

Much Better!!!!! My Net Worth is now $111,273. Most of that has been earned in the past year or so because of my paying attention! I never spent a lot on clothes or going out to eat or anything material before, but I was in debt up to my eyeballs with car payments and loans etc. So a lot happens in a few years. Now if I can just get that same rate of increase for the next 4 years!

Giving for knowledge

I am going to a graduation party this weekend. She was a great friend in high school and she is just finishing up college. I haven't seen her very much in the past 4 years but she still seems the same nice person I knew really well back then. For her present I bought her Dave Ramsey's total money makeover... I love the book. I'm not so sure she will love the book. We've never discussed finances at all, and I feel like I am going out on a limb to give it to her. But I LOVE the book. That's why people give some gifts right? It changed my life so she should read it too? I don't know how well this is going to go over. I hope it won't be too insulting!
I just wonder if anyone likes receiving gifts like this? I've never experienced a gift like it before so I have no idea! :)

Working hard for my money!

I quit my job a little over a month ago. I made great money but the stress was so high and it was hard to have my son in daycare. I worked as a project manager and made about 90k per year. At 25 I thought I was doing pretty well! My husband makes about 50-60k, so we drastically cut our income. I even calculated I could have paid off my house within 4 years (over 190k!) if I kept my job. I bet I would have become a millionaire a lot faster if I still had it! But I couldn't do it anymore. There are more important things in life than money.

Though ever since I quit my job I have been thinking about being a millionaire even more! I keep thinking it is so possible now. My husband is self employed and it makes me want to do something on my own to make a ton of money! Currently I work 20 hours a week for eepybird.com. They are great people and my friends so it works out well. But I can't help but thinking I should be working for myself! I have SOO many ideas for businesses and I just can't pick one. So right now I am going to try to work on my husband's business. He is a professional juggler so it might be a bit hard to help! Right now I'm trying to call people to get more shows. More show = more money!

I've read a ton of ways to make extra money and I have some ideas of my own too. Once I can get a list together I will try to post some!

Happy Mothers Day!

Today is mother's day and my first real one! My son is just 5 months old. We started our total money makeover last year when we found out we were pregnant. In that time we paid off a ton of debt, saved up a ton of money and took the plunge for me to stay at home with my son. (well work at home part time also). I feel like since we started dealing with our debt we have had a plan and know where our future is going. It is a great feeling!

I have also been trying to get my friends and family on board. Most think we are crazy. We are the type of people that don't go out to eat, and tell everyone it's not in our budget. People feel bad for us, like we're broke, and they pay for it. Which I think is extremely funny, I mean I don't want them to, but hey! if they don't take my advice and offer me money for free why would I not take it? They can feel bad for me all they want, I'm going to have a million bucks one day!

Today I actually let my parents borrow my Dave Ramsey book. I told my mom how nuts about personal finance I was and she said she never knew. It's funny that I don't talk about something that is such a big part of my life. I told her I might want to be a personal financial counselor someday, and she was surprised. I never want to bring up our finances because I know my parents are not well off, even though I know they try their hardest to always help out, and buy us things (even when I know they shouldn't!). I feel like we are doing so well now with a large savings in the bank and they live paycheck to paycheck. But that is one of the reasons why I wanted to bring it up. I know if they tried to get rid of their debt they could! They are so smart. But why would they take advice from me? Dave Ramsey called it the powdered butt syndrome, once you've powdered someones butt you don't want to take advice from them! I told my mom about the powdered butt syndrome and asked if dad would ever read the book. She said he would probably enjoy it, and she told me a saying my dad just read, "Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit!".

Not sure what that has to do with being debt free, but it is quite funny. :)

Nikon D60

We have been budgeting for about a year and I feel like it's going pretty well. We have our own money each month to spend on whatever we want. I really really want a Nikon D60 digital SLR camera... but they are about $600... and I get $50 bucks a month.
So for 1 year of not buying anything for myself I could get it! That's kinda crazy though right? I mean I guess I have expensive tastes and all, and I already have a regular 7.2 megapixel digital camera, but I want this one! I know paying off debt is important and I don't need the camera so I am going to save up.
I am at 181 dollars right now (from birthday money and monthly budget money!) and I just won 50 bucks in a contest. June is coming up so I'll have another 50! heh, and that means I am almost halfway there. I guess good things come to those who wait for a very long time! I hope I don't want anything else in the mean time, or change my mind!!

My First Post!

I am not a very good writer. Actually I'm a horrible writer, which is why this blog is about money and not about writing! Please excuse the over! use! of exclamation! points!

My goal is to be a millionaire. I don't think it's that unreasonable right? I don't mean crazy go spend money on everything millionaire. I just want to have a net worth of a million dollars (or more!). So I am at the start of my journey as I am no where near millionaire status right now. I just turned 25. I am a wife and mother, and I am obsessed with money and finances for some reason. Currently I am trying to get out of debt! I heard you need to get out of debt before you start to build wealth! ;)

So here is my hopefully daily blog about how I am going to try to do that. Whether it's discussing my numerous business ideas (I can't seem to pick one!) or chatting about how much debt I can pay off this month, I'll be talking about money!