Weekly Bible Verse – A Departure
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. Psalm 139:13 (NIV)
Wait – what does that have to do with personal finances? On the surface, nothing, I guess. But I’m going to use it to celebrate the birth of my fourth child!! My wife gave birth to our third daughter last week and we are so excited to welcome her and her chubby cheeks into the world! (It’s also the main reason there haven’t been that many posts here at BFN lately)
Now, sure this does have personal finance ramifications. For instance, it’s another mouth to feed, more clothes to buy, more diapers, wipes, etc. On the other hand, we do get another exemption on our tax return. Of course, all of that is trumped by the big ticket items such as medical bills, health insurance, college tuition, a wedding some day, and so on and so forth.
But I’m not worrying about any of that right now. Allow me to share a bonus verse with you:
Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward. Psalm 127:3 (NASB)
A gift from God? A reward from Him? I like the sound of that! I’ll worry about all the financial changes later (to be honest, these are the reasons we’ve been saving up and why we created an emergency fund in the first place) but right now, when I look upon her chubby cheeks and perfect round little face as she sleeps contentedly, I wholeheartedly agree with Psalm 127:3: she truly is a gift from God!
God bless and have a great week…
Guest Post: How to Help Thy Neighbor in a Recession
The earthquake in Haiti was a sobering reminder of how important it is to help our neighbors in their time of need. But unfortunately, the country’s anguish hasn’t relinquished the suffering many face right here in the United States.
The recession in particular has had a lasting effect on many Americans, leaving some in the unexpected position of needing help versus giving help. So if you’re in a position to give, this is a great time to show that you truly know how to “Love Thy Neighbor” by offering help to those you know and love – and those you’ve never met – who are struggling through this harsh recession.
Give Money
One of the most direct and effective ways to help those in need is to give money. Whether you’re offering money to a loved one or donating to a local charity, giving cash out of your pocket makes available a number of assistance options, including buying clothes and food, paying bills and more.
Donate Clothes, Food and Even You
If you feel that you’re not in a financial position to offer money, there are plenty of other great ways to give what you already have in your home. For instance, you could:
- Donate your clothes and complimentary items:
Organizations like the Goodwill and Salvation Army are among the many that would love to have you to donate clothes, blankets and bedding that you no longer need. After you donate, the organizations sell the items then use that money to help members of their community, making your donation well worth it. - Donate food: If you have canned goods in your home, you could donate food to local churches or community organizations. Or you could contribute to larger organizations that contribute to community food banks, like Feeding America.
- Donate you: While you may not have money, clothes, food or other miscellaneous items, you do have blood to give. Donating blood is a simple process that could save many lives. Even more, some organizations actually pay you for your time and contribution. It’s definitely worth the 30 minutes you may be giving up.
There are other ways to donate as well, including offering tools and supplies to Habitat for Humanity, which helps rebuild communities by restoring or building new homes from the ground up.
Educate Your Neighbors
Another great way to give to those in need during the recession is through education. Whether you’re good filing taxes, managing money or writing resumes, there’s someone who could benefit from your expertise.
Here are some particularly interesting ways that you could volunteer your time to people right in your neighborhood:
- Help find employment: You may know someone who is not very Internet savvy but needs to find work. If you’re knowledgeable in this area, you could help locate job opportunities by connecting them to online unemployment resources, including job boards, social networking sites and great career advice blogs. Simply setting up online accounts could make the difference in finding a job, so why not offer your expertise to give a neighbor another shot at employment?
- Teach personal finance: It’s more than possible to save money during the recession. If you believe this and are doing it yourself then you could help a friend or neighbor do the same. By teaching personal finance budgeting, you could offer an invaluable resource that would be useful, not just during the recession, but for years to come.
There are plenty of other ways to offer your personal expertise, including providing knowledge on credit reports, helping to fill out mortgage applications, or even teaching how to invest. However, if you’re looking to volunteer with organizations, this volunteer website is a great place to help you match your interests to various organizations’ needs.
The satisfaction of helping your neighbor is one that you should not overlook. By giving to someone in need during this recession, you are indeed fulfilling the greater purpose of serving your fellow man and making this world a better place.
BFN Giveaway: Win a Premium Membership to BeDebtFreeAmerica.com
Last week I shared a debt repayment calculator site and today I’d like to share another one that you might find interesting. This week, let’s take a look at BeDebtFreeAmerica. Also, Chris, the creator of BeDebtFreeAmerica, has donated a certificate for a free Premium membership at the site so let’s take it a step further and run a giveaway, too. Check out the bottom of the post for details.
What is BeDebtFreeAmerica?
BeDebtFreeAmerica is a “debt elimination tool” that can help you optimize your debt repayment schedule. It seems to work in the standard manner you would expect from such a site. You enter all of your debts and their associated information (balance, interest rate, etc) and the software creates a customized, and customizable, plan for you to efficiently pay them all off.
Multiple Reports
BeDebtFreeAmerica provides the user with multiple reports so that can keep on top of your plan and how it is proceeding. You can view the details for one debt at a time, or a detailed list of every debt, monthly payment, interest paid, balance remaining, or just the stripped down basics of what to pay each month. For people who like to look at data a bunch of different ways (ok, for nerds like me) this is a handy feature. Click here to check out a sample account.
The tool appears to use the interest rate method for determining to order of payoff (pay off the highest rate loan first) but the site states that sometimes it chooses to give a smaller debt higher priority in the payoff list a la Dave Ramsey’s debt snowball. It does provide what I consider to be a nice feature in that you can manually adjust the order the debts are paid off if you decide that you really want to pay off a specific debt first (or last, I guess).
Free “Kick-the-Tires” and Premium Memberships
I like that BeDebtFreeAmerica provides free access as well as a premium membership. Even the premium component currently only costs $30 for a lifetime membership though, so it’s not exactly big bucks we’re talking about. The free component provides the basic functionality but you are limited to four debts and it limits some of the capabilities. For instance, with a premium membership, you can modify interest rates and add extra payments at any time and can view all of the reports (you only get the basic report in the free account). Check out this comparison for more details.
Overall this looks to be a pretty nice tool and I’d recommend you take a look at it if you are in need of the assistance. The ability to try it out via the free membership is a great way to delve into it and take it for a test spin.
Win a Premium Membership
But why settle for the free membership when you win a premium membership! If you are interested in winning a premium membership to BeDebtFreeAmerica, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post. Tell us how many debts you are going to pay off with its help….or if you don’t feel like doing that, then just say it’s none of our business!
To Review:
- Leave a comment below
- Updated: The giveaway will close Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 11:59 PM EDT.
- I will randomly select a winner using random.org . The winner will be announced February 10th and I will contact you via email – so please leave a valid email address in your comment.
- Good luck!
Weekly Bible Verse – Wise People Save
In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has. Proverbs 21:20 (NIV)
Once again we see how extremely practical the Bible turns out to be in its wisdom and advice. Why should we save some of our income and resources each month? Is this something we really need to worry about? Of course, most people would probably say it’s a good idea to save (though saying it and doing it appear to be two very different things in our society nowadays!). Now we see that this is much more than just simple common sense, rather it is Biblical wisdom!
Depending on the circles that you run in, you might have heard it said that you should not “presume” upon God (that usually means you shouldn’t go into more and more debt assuming that God will bail you out of whatever money problems you bring upon yourself). Maybe you know it as the story of Joseph shielding Egypt from seven years of famine. Quite possibly images of Dave Ramsey railing about the importance of an emergency fund run through your head. Maybe thoughts of your Grandmother’s advice to save up for a rainy day come to mind. Or you might have read it to your kids as the fable of the ant and the grasshopper. However you heard it, it means the same thing and it comes from the Bible – wise people do not “devour” all they have, instead they save up for their future needs (to keep Murphy from moving in your spare bedroom as Ramsey might say).
God bless and have a great week…
Check Out SeeBeyond2020.com – Online Debt Repayment Calculator
As I come across interesting and/or helpful sites on the web, I try to pass them along in the hopes that you might find the interesting and/or helpful as well. Through my personal experience, I’ve seen the freedom that comes with being out of debt and after taking Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, I’ve seen the power of the debt snowball as a tool to accomplish that goal. Along those lines, this online debt repayment calculator was brought to my attention: SeeBeyond2020.com.
SeeBeyond2020.com is a subscription service that attempts to provide you with a plan to get out of debt in the shortest amount of time possible. Now, this is not some debt consolidation deal or anything along those lines. Instead, it simply provides you with a plan to apply your current payments to your various debts in the most efficient manner to reduce your overall time until you have paid off all your debts and save you some money (hopefully a lot of money). You can see their little “How it Works” section for a bit more detail. Probably the most interesting thing to investigate if you are considering the service is an actual example plan.
As I mentioned, this service is a yearly subscription service. And it appears to me that you don’t really get an overall, comprehensive plan. Instead, I think that you get a monthly email telling you exactly what to do that month with each of your current debts. For full disclosure purposes – I have not used this service so I can’t offer any personal recommendation one way or another. In this case, I’m just pointing out a service that you might be interested in investigating. One other note if you are a big Dave Ramsey fan – I was not able to tell if this service followed Ramsey’s debt snowball technique for getting out of debt. Frankly, I doubt that they do but I am not sure. UPDATE - per the comment from Roger below, see that SeeBeyond2020 uses a hybrid snowball/avalanche method for determining your payment plan.
If you have used this tool, please leave a comment to let us know how well it worked for you and your overall impression and recommendation.
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