Keeping Myself Accountable

It is already the end of another month, so I will again keep myself accountable by updating you on my goals.

Financial Wellness 

By the end of 2013, we would like to pay off over 20% of the current outstanding debt on our house.  To do this we will need to continue to work together with our finances  find more opportunities to earn and save more money.  We have also considered looking at selling our house, since we probably have a larger house then we really need. 

UPDATE:  We are still on pace to do this and more.  We updated our financial records and made some progressions and are on pace to be able to be complete debt free by January 2017.l  I believe we will continue to work with gazelle intensity to get out of debt early and continue building a legacy. 

Occupational Wellness 

One of my goals this year is to have portfolios prepared for every one of my students showing their specific progress based on the Humanities IB-MYP Objectives for 6th grade.  In order to do this, I will need to continue to stay organized and make sure to be given specific and meaningful feedback on all major assessments throughout the year. 

UPDATE: I have continued to do this. 

Physical Wellness 

I have many physical wellness goals this year.  One of my goals is to participate in an organized run/race every month of 2013.  Another one of my goals is to complete the entire week of RAGBRAI in July. 

UPDATE: I have not had to have surgery yet.  I hopefully have another appointment tomorrow or at least get some good news to be able to bike even though running and jumping may not be cleared for awhile.

Environmental Wellness 

One of my goals in 2013 is for William to complete the "Leave No Trace" requirements for cub scouts to learn the importance of taking care of our environment. We will work with William to learn to be intentional with doing things outdoors and indoors to help protect our planet. 

UPDATE:   William only has to do a presentation with a poster to his pack to complete the requirements.  He will likely do this at the pack meeting in May.

Intellectual Wellness 

My goal for 2013 is to read at least 100.  As Charlie Jones said, "Five years from today, you will be the same person that you are today, except for the books you read and the people you meet."  I want to read some good books, so that I can be a better person five years from now. 

UPDATE:  I have currently read 34 books in 2013 and am working on several other ones.  I am ahead of the pace needed to meet my goal right now by 2 books. 

Emotional Wellness 

I will continue to blog about my throughs and feelings at least once a week throughout 2013. I will also post additional content on my blog's facebook page.  

A friend shared a great idea on facebook that our family has decided to put into action in 2013.  We will be keeping a "Good News Jar" to write notes of all the good things happening this year to open up and read on December 31st, 2013.   

UPDATE:  I have written more notes in the Good News Jar as well as started to create a journal of 1000 Gifts.  You can read more about this on a previous post.

Spiritual Wellness 

After finishing reading the Bible again in 2012, I plan on starting over in 2013.  In addition to reading the Bible, I will be using Tony Dungy's The One Year Uncommon Life Daily Challenge for my personal quiet time in 2013.  Another spiritual wellness goal of mine for 2013 is to begin weekly devotionals as a family at least 5 days a week using Bruce Wilkinson's Family Walk.

UPDATE:  We have started a new marriage small group study called "Staying in Love".  It is a four week study that we are spreading out until mid-June.  So far it looks like a great study. 

Build Your Legacy

On my previous post I talked about the experience of going to a Dave Ramsey Live event, today I will talk about what the event was about.  Dave Ramsey and his daughter, Rachel Cruze, spoke to a packed Civic Center about "Living a Legacy" and how to win with money using biblical principles.  The whole event was not about becoming rich, but how we can be better stewards of God's money to be able to leave a legacy for our family, community and the world.  Dave started reviewing his baby steps that I have talked about in previous posts.  To check them out visit his site here.

Dave laid out 5 Biblical principles for winning with money and building a legacy.  

1.  Get on a Budget

• You need to make your money behave and live life intentionally.   
• To be good stewards of God's money we need to tell our money where to go instead of wondering where it went.  

2.  Get Out of Debt - Normal is broke - be weird! 

• The borrower is slave to the lender.
• Our income is our largest wealth building tool, we need to stop sending so much of it to the bank.
• Use the debt snowball and gazelle intensity. 

3.  Build Quality Relationships

• You have to communicate with your spouse if married.  Money is the number one cause for divorce in America, don't let it be a problem in your marriage. 
• Help kids build decision-making muscles and teach them the importance of giving, saving and spending.  
• Be kind and honest in all of your relationships.  

4.  Save and Invest 

• You need to save for three reasons 
• Emergency fund - prepare for a rainy day
• Purchases - you need to pay cash - use a sinking fund
• Wealth Building - to leave a legacy and be able to help others

5.  Build Wealth and Give

• Giving turns you into a more generous person and therefore you will have more opportunities because people like being around generous people. 
• Wealth allows you to help people in your community and world - no one would have remember the good samaritan if he only had good intentions. 
• God loves a cheerful giver!
• Legacy building comes in four parts - Dave Ramsey's new class, The Legacy Journey, will help people through these. 
• Now - Fix your current situation (emergency fund, pay off debt, pay cash)
• Then - Set yourself up for the future (sinking funds, retirement)
• Us - Changing your family tree (college funding, life insurance, teaching how to handle money, leave an inheritance) 
• Them - Help those in your community and world (Give lots of your wealth away in ways that can make a impact for God's Kingdom here on Earth)

I also wanted to remind you all about my giveaway of a copy of Dave Ramsey's The Total Money Makeover book that is signed by Dave!  Enter by May 4th.  Some of the options allow you to enter daily. 

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My Dave Ramsey Live Experience

Last night my wife and I had the opportunity to attend Dave Ramsey's live event "Building Your Legacy" in Des Moines  The room was filled with energy as Dave and his daughter Rachel shared their story along.  They taught through Biblical principles on how to win with money so that we can leave a legacy not only for our children and grandchildren but also our community and world.  If you ever have a chance to attend a Dave Ramsey Live event in your area, you need to do it!

After I bought general admission seats, Anna (my wife) bought us backstage experience passes that allowed us to come a couple hours before the show to meet Dave in person in a smaller intimate setting, have some light snacks, and get a autographed copy of Dave's book The Total Money Makeover.  It was great to be able to have a few moments to talk with Dave and get a quick picture snapped.  We were perfectly positioned to hear Dave talk about a couple of things and get to meet with him first.  The Dave Ramsey team had him running like a machine to get around the room to everyone before running over to the FPU Coordinators Rally.

Since we also had tickets to the coordinator rally we hurried over to the Renaissance Savory hotel for that event as well.  Dave's team knows how to take care of those who volunteer for him.  If I had to compare the two events I would say that the coordinators rally was way cooler.  There were more people so you had less one-on-one time with Dave, but his team went all out for their coordinators.  At the event they served food, gave each attendee a gift bag with a book, shirt and gave each person VIP seating for the main event.  Rachel and Dave both took time to address the crowd from a stage and microphone and talked to people about how much they appreciate what we as coordinators do.  It was an amazing event!  

Toward the end of the coordinators rally we again ran back to the Civics Center to join the backstage experience group before we were escorted back to our seats.  The timing worked out perfectly and we ended up with in the front row just off center to watch the evening on life and money.   The evening lasted for about an hour longer than we had estimated and are very grateful to our friends who volunteered to watch our son during the event.  I will write a blog post later this weekend about the content of the main event.

Since Anna and I both had backstage experience tickets, we both ended up with signed copies of The Total Money Makeover.  We decided to give one away to the readers of this blog.  To enter to win complete some of the offers in the rafflecopter at the bottom of this blog.

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Time to START!

Have you ever had a dream for your future? Have you ever wanted to experience an awesome life? Want to wake up every day looking forward to the work your do? The problem most of us face is that we get stuck in the comfortable place called "average" and don't every get started on the path of "awesome".

In Jon Acuff's latest book, Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters, he lays out five stages that everyone has to get through on their road to awesome. Those stages are; Learning, Editing, Mastering, Harvesting and Guiding. Throughout the book Jon talked about avoiding common excuses we all make, steps to find our true purpose and most importantly how to get started. 

You can download chapter one for free and then purchase the rest.

One of my favorite parts were the practical steps to put into action immediately along each stage of the road to awesome.  I am looking forward to implementing the principals into my daily life.   I loved the book and Jon Acuff's style of writing that is both powerful and humorous.

Disclaimer - I volunteered to be part of a launch team for the book after following Jon Acuff for some time. I received an advanced ebook to reed and write my review but was told what to write or required that a review be positive.

The Legacy Journey Preview

I have been asked to host a preview class using Dave Ramsey's brand new curriculum "The Legacy Journey".  I am looking forward to previewing this with a small group of people on Sunday afternoons beginning April 28th.

This new class takes FPU to the next level and especially is for those who are on babystep 3 and beyond.  Here is a short video from the Dave Ramsey team to highlight what the class is about.



This class has seven brand new lessons that will be taught by Dave Ramsey and his team "that will lead class members to legacy of their own." Here are the lessons that will be taught.

SNARES AND DARES

Dave covers what the Bible has to say about wealth and faithful stewardship, and he debunks some toxic beliefs society has about wealth.

THE PINNACLE POINT

Learn how to invest wisely. Get the pros and cons of stocks and bonds, mutual funds, annuities and real estate investing.

THE LAW OF GREAT GAIN

Discover the keys to contentment and learn how to figure out how much is enough. Dave teaches you essential giving ratios to increase generosity.

THE ROAD TO AWESOME

Learn the five stages every life goes through. Jon Acuff covers purposeful living, mastering your talents, guiding others, and more.

SAFEGUARDING YOUR LEGACY

Dave’s daughter Rachel Cruze joins him to share how to live and leave a legacy with your family and future generations. Learn the importance of choosing blessings over curses and ensuring your future is protected.

GENERATIONAL LEGACY

Dave shares a kingdom perspective on material possessions. Learn the keys to basic, successful estate planning and generational wealth.

CALLED TO GENEROSITY

God is a giver. Discover how you can become generous His ways and use the resources God gives you to further the kingdom for generations to come.

If you would be interested in joining my class let me know!

Investing Tips

Concerned about investing or how to invest?  Here are a few tips that we should all follow for investing.

1. Make sure to start investing after you have your emergency fund in place and have get your financial house in order by paying off your consumer debt. 
2. Only invest in things that you understand.  You need to understand the risks and what you are investing in. 
3. Start as soon as possible and invest regularly.  Small chucks over time will really add up with the power of compound interest.  Allow time to work for you and be a consistant saver. 
4. Make sure to spread your money out between multiple types of investments.  You need to diversify so that a negative slip in one area doesn't hurt all of your investments. 
5. Pick what is right for your circumstances and your goals and stick with it for the longterm unless your circumstances change. 
   
6. Don't pay attention to the ups and down of the market.  Try not to listen to the news reports of how bad or great things are today.  You are investing for the long term future and you only lose when you quit when the market is down. 
7. Do you best to shop around to keep the cost down.  Compare fees and other expenses.  You cannot predict the future in returns but you can make sure to do your research to make the best purchase possible and save money in upfront costs. 

What other tips do you have for being a smart investor?  

Speeding Along

I cannot believe we are already 1/4 of the way through 2013.  It is the beginning of another month and time to update the progress on my goals for the year.

Financial Wellness 

By the end of 2013, we would like to pay off over 20% of the current outstanding debt on our house.  To do this we will need to continue to work together with our finances  find more opportunities to earn and save more money.  We have also considered looking at selling our house, since we probably have a larger house then we really need. 

UPDATE:  We are still on pace to do this and more.  We updated our financial records and made some progressions and are on pace to be able to be complete debt free by April 2017.   I will also begin teaching my 3rd FPU class through my church on Sunday, April 8th.

Occupational Wellness 

One of my goals this year is to have portfolios prepared for every one of my students showing their specific progress based on the Humanities IB-MYP Objectives for 6th grade.  In order to do this, I will need to continue to stay organized and make sure to be given specific and meaningful feedback on all major assessments throughout the year. 

UPDATE:  We have not had a major assessment since my last post, so this is still on tract to be completed.

Physical Wellness 

I have many physical wellness goals this year.  One of my goals is to participate in an organized run/race every month of 2013.  Another one of my goals is to complete the entire week of RAGBRAI in July. 

UPDATE:  I have an appointment to likely schedule surgery tomorrow.  This I hope will be step in the right direction for my broken foot to heal so I will be able to be ready to participate in RAGBRAI in July.

Environmental Wellness 

One of my goals in 2013 is for William to complete the "Leave No Trace" requirements for cub scouts to learn the importance of taking care of our environment. We will work with William to learn to be intentional with doing things outdoors and indoors to help protect our planet. 

UPDATE:   William had almost completed all the requirements.  Our goal is to finish them by the April pack meeting.  We just need the weather to cooperate to be able to create a Leave No Trace service project and then he will create a poster to demonstrate his learning to display at the next pack meeting.

Intellectual Wellness 

IMy goal for 2013 is to read at least 100.  As Charlie Jones said, "Five years from today, you will be the same person that you are today, except for the books you read and the people you meet."  I want to read some good books, so that I can be a better person five years from now. 

UPDATE:  I have currently read 29 books in 2013 and am working on several other ones.  I am ahead of the pace needed to meet my goal right now by 4 books.  I have slowed down my reading a little with other things going on, but am still on track to complete my goal by the end of 2013.

Emotional Wellness 

I will continue to blog about my throughs and feelings at least once a week throughout 2013. I will also post additional content on my blog's facebook page.  

A friend shared a great idea on facebook that our family has decided to put into action in 2013.  We will be keeping a "Good News Jar" to write notes of all the good things happening this year to open up and read on December 31st, 2013.   

UPDATE:  I have written more notes in the Good News Jar as well as started to create a journal of 1000 Gifts.  You can read more about this on a previous post.

Spiritual Wellness 

After finishing reading the Bible again in 2012, I plan on starting over in 2013.  In addition to reading the Bible, I will be using Tony Dungy's The One Year Uncommon Life Daily Challenge for my personal quiet time in 2013.  Another spiritual wellness goal of mine for 2013 is to begin weekly devotionals as a family at least 5 days a week using Bruce Wilkinson's Family Walk.

UPDATE:  I have continued using my two devotionals for personal time and feeling a stronger connection with God.  In March we decided to split the family devotionals into one that is for Marriage that Anna and I are completing together and one for William.  It is going well and hope that we can continue to put God as the first priority in our lives.