Save for the Holidays now

So, it’s the beginning of March and I’m going to ask you to think about holidays. Specifically, I’d like for you to think about the last holiday season.  Were you able to buy the gifts for everyone that you wanted or needed to? Did you host Christmas or Christmas Eve dinner?  Did you have a budget?  Did you go overboard?  Did you put it all on a credit card?  Are you still paying off the balance of that credit card?  

I’d like for you to think about next the next holiday season.  Would you like to be able to pay for everything in cash, keep to a budget and not have a balance on your credit card that lasts into the spring?  

I give you the Holiday Club account!  For those of you who don’t know, most banks and credit unions offer an account that you can contribute to throughout the year to save for the holidays.  The beauty of the “Holiday Club” is that you cannot withdraw the money from the account during the year.  It’ll be automatically transferred to your checking account sometime before the holidays.  Our bank transfers the money on October 1^st but the date differs depending on the institution.  

I set up an automatic transfer from our checking account to our holiday club account every payday.  To determine that amount, Andrea and I agreed to an amount we would spend on each person we buy for, added in the Christmas Eve dinner (including wine, beer and Manhattan ingredients) and divided that sum by 26 (the number of times we get paid a year. Your number may be different depending on how often you get paid or when you start saving).  Come the holiday shopping season, we know we’ll have enough money to pay for everything in cash and have a relatively stress free holiday. 

Help alleviate some of the stress of your holiday season, plan now and budget for it.  It’s really quite simple. 

Disability Insurance - Protect Yourself

What would happen if you were to die tomorrow?  About half of Americans have protected their families if this were to happen. What would happen if you were to become disabled?  Would you be able to put food on the table; pay the mortgage; keep the lights on; put gas in the car?  Unfortunately, roughly 75% of us are not protected against disability.

According to disabilitycanhappen.org:

• Just over 1 in 4 of today's 20 year-olds will become disabled before they retire.
• Over 36 million Americans are classified as disabled; about 12% of the total population. More than 50% of those disabled Americans are in their working years, from 18-64.
• A typical female, age 35, 5’4", 125 pounds, non-smoker, who works mostly an office job, with some outdoor physical responsibilities, and who leads a healthy lifestyle has the following risks:
• A 24% chance of becoming disabled for 3 months or longer during her working career;
• with a 38% chance that the disability would last 5 years or longer,
• and with the average disability for someone like her lasting 82 months.
• If this same person used tobacco and weighed 160 pounds, the risk would increase to a 41% chance of becoming disabled for 3 months or longer.
• A typical male, age 35, 5’10", 170 pounds, non-smoker, who works an office job, with some outdoor physical responsibilities, and who leads a healthy lifestyle has the following risks:
• A 21% chance of becoming disabled for 3 months or longer during his working career;
• with a 38% chance that the disability would last 5 years or longer,
• and with the average disability for someone like him lasting 82 months.
• If this same person used tobacco and weighed 210 pounds, the risk would increase to a 45% chance of becoming disabled for 3 months or longer.

As you can see, people become disabled more often than you might have thought!

When you are shopping around for disability insurance you’ll want the policy to include:

• A payout of 60% of your gross income. Typically, an insurance company will cover as much as 60% of your income.
• Coverage that lasts until age 65 when your retirement benefits will kick in
• “Own occupation” coverage.  “Own occupation” pays you if you can’t do your current job as opposed to “Any occupation” which pays you if you can’t work at all.
• A 60 to 90 day waiting period before your benefits begin (a longer waiting period can lower your premium). 
• A guaranteed renewable policy.  This means that as long as you pay your premium on time your coverage will not change until your termination date of the policy.

Believe it or not, accidents are not the cause of most disabilities.  With improved medical care the leading killers, cancer, heart disease and stroke are now among the leading causes of disability. 

Please, protect yourself and your family!  Disability insurance can be expensive but consider the following:

• A study, by the Housing and Home Finance Agency of the U.S. Government, found that 48 percent of home foreclosures were the result of disability 
• A study, by Harvard University, showed that disabling medical problems led to nearly half of the bankruptcy filings in 2001.

Why be debt free?

The number one reason to be debt free is to free the most important wealth building tool you have, your income.  The average person pays over $600,000 in interest over the course of their lifetime.  If you freed yourself of the debt you have incurred and live a debt free life, that $600,000 could go into your bank account as opposed to your creditors.  

People fail to consider the risk of having debt.    They’re too worried about keeping up with the Jones and need to have to have the latest car, clothes, television, etc.  “I’ll just finance it,” they say.   Before they know it they’ve financed a home with a mortgage balance of $240,000, a car with a loan balance of $30,700 (two thirds of American households have 2 cars),  4 credit cards with a combined balance of $10,600, and an education with a student loan balance of $20,000.  If you think this is extreme, this is the average American!  

If your debt grows too large you can’t manage to pay your creditors, you won’t be able to keep the electricity on, you won’t be able to put food on the table, perhaps worse, you could lose your home.   

Unfortunately, too many people are under a mountain of debt right now.  These people are struggling for a way out and are mentally weighed down, being harassed by creditors and collection agencies or worrying that their houses may be taken from them.  

Have you ever heard of car being repossessed that didn’t have a car loan? Have you ever heard of a house being foreclosed on that didn’t have a mortgage?  I’m guessing no.  Free your mind from the stress of debt and free your income to build wealth. 

Welcome!

My name is Brendan Barry (affectionately known as "The Beast" in my family). In 2006, I decided I'd had enough of being in debt. I decided I'd had enough of living paycheck to paycheck. I decided it was time to make a change! It was time to get my family's finances in order!


My wife, Andrea, and I hired a financial advisor. She was nice enough, showed us a basic budgeting form, helped us open a brokerage account, allocated our money, and helped us buy life and disability insurance. However, she didn't teach us HOW to budget, she pushed universal life insurance when I insisted on term and I seemed to have a better grasp of how to invest our money than she did.  It just didn't seem right.


During one of our visits with our advisor, I gave her some information I had discovered during some research and suggested we reallocate our portfolio. After researching on her own we all agreed to reallocate our money. At that point, I realized no one cared about our money more than we did! I had a decent handle (thanks to Benjamin Graham's "The Intelligent Investor") on the investing portion of our financial life but I was clueless as to how to budget, how to get out of debt, build our wealth and protect our wealth.


I searched Amazon for a book that would show us the way. I finally came across "The Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey. This book was the road map I'd been looking for. I believe this book is an amazing foundation and highly recommend it. 


I've always been interested in finance but I've learned that my true passion in life is personal finance. I find myself listening to personal finance podcasts, reading personal finance books and magazines and constantly thinking about our financial situation.  I help my friends when it comes to financial decisions they're facing. I'm helping my friends and I love it! 


I hope my site helps you to learn how to budget your money, pay off your debt, build and protect your wealth. I hope it's the guide you've been looking for.