Dog Days Of Working... I Mean Summer!

We have a busy month upon us here at the Grant household. Jake has five weddings to photograph in the next four weeks, which means that in between each wedding he will have lots of photos to develop. I have my first Fitness Challenge Group to manage, plus learning the ins and outs of my new business venture, and preparing for next month's Challenge Group. On top of that we have several family functions to attend, a half marathon to train for, and our regular jobs.

Whew! Just writing all that makes me want to take a nap!

But when life gets busy I just have to stop and remember what my goals are, and remind myself that it is just for a season.

We desire to live debt free, and if that means taking on extra work to get there than we are willing to do it.

We desire for me to be a stay-at-home mom—once we are blessed with kiddos, that is—and if that means trying to start up a new business than we are willing to do it!

We desire to bless others financially, whether giving through our local church or supporting a missionary, and if that means taking on extra work than we are willing to do it!

You get the idea.

We have prayed and sought after what God wants for us at this point in our lives, and we have come to a place where we are willing to accept whatever He sends our way. So while this month may be super busy for us, we are thankful for His abundant blessings. Plus, I'm planning a fun date night for this Friday because we are in need of some "couple time."

What are you willing to do to be out of debt? Cut the cable? Take on part-time work? Stop eating out? Commit today to doing something about your finances, and let us know what it is in the comments below!

Keep pinchin' ;-)

Don't Be A Toadie

It amazes me sometimes just how deep, and how often, people get into debt. I'm not pointing fingers. I'm guilty of this. Just ask my wife. People like me who enjoy spending money are always in danger of spending too much. The discipline of reeling ourselves in takes time and practice.

I'm sick of being in debt. It's one of the main reasons I've decided to strive for debt-free living with "gazelle intensity," as Dave Ramsey says.

But there's another reason I want to be out of debt: I don't want to be a toadie.

Humans are like toads sometimes. You put them in a frying pan and turn up the heat, and the little toadie will cook to death because he doesn't sense the gradually rising heat (or so I've heard. I don't think MythBusters has done an episode on this yet. PETA probably won't let them). Just like that poor little toadie, those of us who attract debt just sit there as the mounting threat of debt builds around us. We start to sweat under the pressure as the heat rises. It takes a lot sometimes to realize that that sizzling sound isn't a barbecue. It's our butts!

You can always tell who the toadies are too. They're the ones living in a run down trailer with a six different satellites attached and a brand new 4X4 parked out front. They're the ones with high blood pressure. They're the ones who can barely afford to pay the rent, but go to the movies every week, buy gourmet coffee every morning, and eat at restaurants like they're going out of style.

UrbanDictionary.com defines "toadie" as someone who is a side-kick, a tag-along, someone who does the dirty work. Like people with too much debt—they're not walking around with a credit card in their pocket; it's the credit card that's walking around with a toadie attached, tagging along, spending and spending and spending. The dirty work.

I don't want to be a toadie. I don't even want to look like a toadie. When people look at my house I want them to see evidence of a good steward. I don't want to be embarrassed by my purchase history. I'm done living in the frying pan of debt collectors.

Keep pinchin' :-)

Jake's Take: Hoosiers - Just Start Shooting

Deriving financial insights from today's blockbusters and yesteryear's classics.

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My wife will be the first to tell you that her husband is very weird. There’s two things about me that are fairly odd that, frankly, not even I understand.

1. I hate professional sports, which is strange because I grew up in a family of people who were always rooting for someone—Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics. Even my sister likes sports more than me.


2. But I love sports movies. I find them to be some of the most feel-good and inspiring movies around—A League of Their Own, The Rookie, Major League.

So, yeah. Hate sports. Love sports movies. Weird. I know.

It’s kind of a paradox then that I would derive any kind of insight about anything from a movie like Hoosiers, but, let’s face it, Hoosiers is one of the best sports movies ever made, and it contains a great life lesson. It's an oldie, but it's worth seeing if you've never seen it.

In the film, Coach Norman Dale, played by Gene Hackman, coaches a small Indiana high school basketball team all the way to the state championships against all odds. At the finals he walks his team into the gymnasium where they’re going to play the final game. The new gym is huge. A basketball palace, far bigger and more impressive than any gym the tiny high school team has ever seen. It’s not what they’re used to. It’s intimidating.

Coach Dale pulls out a tape measure and has the boys measure the height of the basket and the distance to the foul line, and points out that it is precisely the same as back home. Don’t worry about the size of the gym, he says, just play your game.

Dani and I led a Financial Peace University class at our church this winter, and it has opened our eyes to the wide range of financial backgrounds that people come from. Some people have debt that they can easily pay off within six months or a year; others are facing decades of work. But it pays to remember that no matter how big and scary your situation is, the financial steps to get out of debt are the same no matter what:

• build your emergency fund
• use the debt snowball
• gazelle intensity!

And these steps never fail to help when you use them. When you employ the right practices, it won’t matter if the stadium is a basketball palace or a small Indiana high school. You’ve got the tools. Now start shooting!

Keep pinchin’ :-)

Jake's Take: Rocky - The Way Winning Is Done

Deriving financial insights from today's blockbusters and yesteryear's classics.

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There is hardly any other film series that has been as good, or inspired more generations with its tear-jerking rags-to-riches tale of love and determination than the boxing epic Rocky. One can extrapolate countless life lessons from the ground-breaking original 1976 film, and the five sequels that followed—lessons for business, morality, integrity, relationships—but when it comes to money management, one lesson holds the title.

It is a well-known Hollywood tale that when Sylvester Stallone wrote the original script for Rocky, numerous studios wanted to buy it as a starring vehicle for big name actors like Burt Reynolds, James Caan, and Ryan O’Neal. But Stallone, even though he was penniless and out-of-work, refused to sell the script without a guarantee that he’d also star in the film. Much like his character Rocky, he was determined to go the distance no matter what. Eventually he got someone to bite, and the film went on to win dozens of awards including the 1977 Oscar for Best Picture.

Rocky is the ultimate story of determination, of a man whose drive to win pushes him beyond his limits. In the film, Rocky takes a beating against boxing's champion Apollo Creed, and just when the crowd and the judges, and even Apollo himself, think Rocky is going to go down and stay down, he rises again.

It’s what Dave Ramsey calls it “gazelle intensity.”

Paying off debt is rarely a one, two punch. It’s 15 rounds with Apollo Creed. Along the way there are going to be setbacks, black eyes, broken noses, pain, and tears, but, as Rocky says: “It ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.”

Keep pinching’ :-)

Jake's Take - Money Morals from the Movies: Babe

Deriving financial insights from today's blockbusters and yesteryear's classics.

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If you’re going to slay debt with “gazelle intensity” and build wealth like no one else, you’ve got to not be afraid to be different. In fact, you sort of have to embrace it, because, honestly, there's going to be some people who think you're pretty weird.

That’s the wonderful lesson we get from the touching 1995 comedy Babe. Based on a 1983 book by Dick King-Smith, Babe tells the story of an orphan pig who is chosen for a “guess the weight” contest at a county fair. The winning farmer, Arthur Hoggett, brings him to his farm where the poor little pig is told by just about all the other animals that he is worthless, that pigs have no purpose in life other than to be eaten by humans.

Determined to prove that pigs are not worthless, Babe sets out to learn from Farmer Hoggett’s border collies the practice of wrangling sheep. The sheep dogs laugh at his silly idea. The other animals laugh as well. When Babe goes to the sheep dog trials, an entire stadium of people laugh at him, too.

But you know what’s cool about that movie? Never once does Babe the pig question himself. He’s naive, for sure, but he knows he’s different. He knows that what he’s doing isn’t typical or expected of him, but he does it anyway. And in the end, he wins.

We can all learn a lesson from Babe, or “Pig,” as Farmer Hoggett calls him—if you’re going to be different, be it proud. Sure people may think you’re strange, but hold your head up high in the midst of the naysayers, because, guess what, you know something they don’t: today you’re living like no one else so that tomorrow you can live like no one else.

Keep pinching’ :-)

How We Went From Eating Out A Lot to Not

When Dani and I first got married, I remember telling her that I wanted a weekly food allowance. I was so used to eating out—and really enjoyed eating out—that I couldn't imagine a week going by without having some Subway or Pizza Hut at some point during the week.

Naturally, she didn't like this.

After we took Financial Peace University I realized there was going to be some areas that we'd have to cut back on, and eating out was one of them. Sigh. I wasn't happy about it, but I figured I'd at least see how it goes. At first we budgeted about $50 a month for restaurants. Depending on whether we got a $12 pizza or a $25 dinner at 99's, we could eat out about two or three times a month. Then one of our bills went up and we had to scrape together an extra $10 a month, so the restaurant budget went down to $40. It continued to drop as the months ticked by.

After about a year of this, I had become more accustomed to not eating out. I still had my personal money which I could splurge on pizza if I wanted to, and my boss would occasionally buy lunch for the office, so I was still getting my "restaurant fix," though I had weened myself from it significantly.

Then came the day where Dani and I were looking at our monthly allocated spending plan and we realized just how much money we could put toward our mortgage if we cut out restaurants entirely. And so our budget for eating out went back onto the chopping block, except this time it didn't come back. R.I.P restaurant budget. We'll resurrect you some day :-(

Dani and I have become determined to get out of debt as soon as possible. We've found the "Gazelle intensity" that Dave Ramsey so often talks about, and we're putting it to good use.

I tell this story because I think it's valuable for people to understand that we didn't become the "penny pinching rappers" overnight. It took months and months of discipline and compromise. The things we're doing today to cut back on our spending were unthinkable a year ago!

If you're considering doing this penny pinching thing too, ease into it. If you bite off more than you can chew you run the risk of getting frustrated and discouraged before you even get off the ground. Yes, sometimes you need to make drastic life changes to get out of debt. Yes, you need to be willing to discipline yourself and compromise on many of life's luxuries. But take your time. Slow and steady wins the race.

Keep pinchin' :-)

It's The Jake 'n' Dani G. Show On WLTN

Dani and I had the unique privilege of being on an hour-long radio show this past Friday to talk about our "Penny Pinching" rap video, getting out of debt, Dave Ramsey, and our faith... oh yeah, and Batman.

During the interview I butchered my explanation of Dave Ramsey's term "Gazelle Intensity," but the point remained the same even if some of my facts were wrong. Dave coined the term "Gazelle Intensity" after reading Proverbs 6:4-5, which says, "Give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids. Deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter..."

A Cheetah can run about 75 miles per hour, and it can hit that speed in less time than most sports cars. It is the fastest animal on earth. In a straight-line run, a Gazelle doesn't stand a chance, which is why the Gazelle has learned to bob and weave and run in circles until the Cheetah gets too tired to continue the pursuit.

FACT: The gazelle is only caught by the cheetah 1 in 19 times. (This fact is correct. Dave Ramsey says so.)

And Dave's point is this: when you're struggling to break free from the suffocating noose of credit card companies, student loans, and bills, you need Gazelle Intensity. You've got to dig down deep and find that inner determination to fight like your life depends on it. Think of all you could do if you were free from your financial burdens—save, invest, build for your children's future.

It took a while for Dani and I to find that intensity, but once we did it became a game: "How much can we save this month?" "Do you think we can come in even further under budget?" Battling debt with "Gazelle Intensity" has became fun, but it is not always easy. At times, it's still something we have to fight for.

Here are a few snippets from our radio interview on WLTN 96.7:

—Batman Shirt Friday (2:19)
—The Importance of Budgeting (2:30)
—Going to the Extreme to Save (3:24)

And if you haven't seen our rap video, here's why we're almost close to being in the vicinity of nearly famous: Penny Pinching Rap.

Keep pinchin' :-)