When Alex and Priya Thompson got married, they weren’t just blending their lives—they were also blending their debts. Between student loans, credit card balances, and a hefty car loan, their combined debt totaled nearly $78,000. Like many young couples, they felt the constant pressure of monthly payments eating into their income. Despite working decent jobs—Alex in IT and Priya as a marketing associate—they found themselves living paycheck to paycheck.
This is how Alex and Priya turned their financial situation around
“I remember the day we added it all up,” Priya recalled. “It was terrifying. We knew we had to make a change, but we didn’t know where to start.”
How I Paid Off $12,000 in Credit Card Debt Using the Snowball Method
When I was a college student, I received my first credit card offer. I didn’t know it at the time, but that one credit card would lead me down a financially destructive path and eventually to $12,000 in credit card debt. It took me three years to dig myself out of the financial hole I got myself into- and I learned many lessons along the way. I now want to use what I’ve learned to help others on their debt pay-off journeys.
I believe anyone can get out of debt, no matter how impossible it may seem. I know what that hopelessness feels like, but I also know what it feels like to finally be debt-free after years of drowning in credit card debt. I hope my story inspires you and gives you the confidence you need to start paying off debt so you can have a more secure financial future.
Women, Invest In Your Financial Literacy
This is a guest blog from one of our readers. Please enjoy the post which talks about her financial mistake, that she did while staying in India, and the learning from that incident. Even though the incident took place in India, this might happen to you in any country. So, special attention is needed when you invest your hear-earned money.
My name is Seemantani Sharma. I am a 30-year old Ph.D. in law student at a prominent Australian university. So far life has been good. I have lived in three countries, traveled to several countries for business, have a career which I enjoy, have a great family and a decent net worth for my age.
How I Got my Faulty New HP Laptop Replaced
This is my experience with HP laptop computer replacement. I always had HP laptops, some fascination with HP you may say. The previous one was dying after 6 years. All tricks to speed up failed.
I needed another one as the blog wouldn’t have otherwise survived.
I don’t blog from work laptop so I was desperate about a new personal computer.
How I Gained Confidence with My Finances
Confidence can only come with knowledge and skills to put that knowledge to good use. When you are financially confident you can afford to live worry free. A confident spender knows how to make the choice between thing A and thing B. Similarly, a confident investor has a fair idea about risk and return that could arise from a particular investment. So in order to be successful in managing finances, you need to be confident with your abilities.
I recently partnered with Capital One as part of its effort to reimagine the banking experience and their goal of empowering people to feel more confident with their relationship with money.
A CFS sufferer who wants to retire by 33
This post is from a guest author Benjamin Davis is the man running the show on From cents to Retirement. While doing his Ph.D., he developed CFS and fearing he could not work much longer, he decided to create passive income streams to be able to retire early. His future goals including owning 100 rental homes in the next years and turn his blog into a reference blog for early retirement, inspiring others with his own story. Enjoy the post
I was born in Portugal, to an Italian and Canadian family. My family worked hard for me and my brother to go to college, so we always valued education in the family. In 2012, I decided to do my Ph.D. abroad and having multiple offers in hands, I eventually decided to go to Germany. I took a research position which would allow me to do my Ph.D.
Our Mortgage Shopping Experience
I bought our first home by taking a leap of faith. In a series of posts, I will write about my buying experience, the lessons I learned, and best practices. In this article, I will describe how I shopped for a mortgage loan and compared 10 different banks while sitting in my office cubicle.
People often tell stories of extensive and hectic mortgage shopping that involves going around banks, making phone calls to bankers, and so on. Even my colleagues had to go through hours and hours of research and travel to find the best mortgage.
However, I only spent an hour searching for a mortgage loan using my method. I did not make any calls, and instead, I received 10 calls from bankers on my cell phone.
Advantages of Living in a Small Home
Here I am again with another personal story. This is about our small 2 BHK apartment. Over the last couple of months an urge to buy our first home started to develop in me. All my friends, even the ones who came to this country from India are now home owners. Even my sister-in-law is a home owner too, in Houston. Lately were questioned by many about it. They even started making guesses about our financial situation, or the lack of money.
This is a strange situation to be in. It becomes very difficult to explain people who ask the same question multiple times. They simply think paying rent is waste of money. Some even calculated the amount of rent we paid in last 8 years and thus the money we wasted. Yes, we paid rent without building equity on a property of our own. but we did save on things we would otherwise would have spent money on.
The Year in Travel 2013
This post is inspired by JD Roth’s post, who indirectly (and unknowingly) inspired me to start this blog. Even the name of this blog was inspired by JD’s earlier blog “Get Rich Slowly”. Coming to the point,since we love to travel, I thought ending the year with a note on our travel performance would be a good move. And doing so, I can be somewhat more personal to you. In summary, 2013 was a good year for us with respect to travelling. We went to as many as 5 places in last 12 months!
Amazing view on New Orléans Swamp tour
I get 28 days of paid leave in a year, so managing 5 destinations to travel to is not a bad performance, right? Usually we travel to our home country, India, every two years, and when we take an India trip, most of those 28 days are used up. We are planning our next India trip in Oct-Nov 2014 so, 2014 is unlikely to be a good year for travel.
What Type of Investor I am?
Over the weekend I have been pondering over investment. We haven’t invested in a new account since opening and funding our first peer-to-peer lending account with Prosper. Ever since I bought a certified preowned BMW, three weeks back, I was having it in my mind constantly; What if I invested the money instead? How much money had I lost actually,as it was not only that I had to get away with $25,000 cash, but I lost potential income on the money.
OK, no more ranting about the car, although it was not a brand new car. Let’s focus on the investment aspect of my finance now. I have taken a few quizzes on the net, to determine the type of investor I am. The purpose was to gauge self progress and to check whether I am the type of investor I wanted to be at this age. Those survey’s all unite to declare me a risk tolerating investor, which I would have told about myself without taking those quizzes anyway.
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