I need to lose weight. I want to lose weight. Sounds believable, doesn’t it? I think I believe it. However, I’m not doing much about it on a daily basis right now. I have had a little success so far, I’m down about 14 pounds since starting this blog, but I still have a lot of weight to lose and my progress has basically come to a stop over the past few weeks. Apparently thinking about losing weight and reading about it doesn’t actually cause you to lose weight!

It’s time for action. I don’t know why I can’t motivate myself to exercise regularly, but that has to change.

I need a plan. I made a plan before, but I didn’t write anything down. Now it’s time to change that. Here is my beginning exercise plan.

• Monday - Friday: 20 minutes on the treadmill, doing intense interval training on M, W, F and doing casual walking on T and Th. I’m also going to do sit-ups and push-ups immediately following my treadmill time, but I need to give that a try to see how to best balance the number of reps and how many days of the week I should do those before I make an official plan.
• Saturday - Sunday: one 30 minute weight lifting workout. I’m going for high intensity, minimal rest with this.

This is my simple plan. I want to start small- this is relatively small, though this is a massive improvement over what I am doing now.

What makes me think I can go from almost nothing to exercising 6 days a week? Well, I don’t exactly know how to answer that except to say that I HAVE to start working out. If I can’t spend about 2 and a half hours a week exercising I won’t be able to achieve my weight loss goals. I have to make exercise a habit.

There is no magic solution to help me start a regular exercise program. I have to take the initiative to wake up 20 minutes earlier and do the exercise. If I feel tired I have to push myself to get on the treadmill anyway. I don’t like the way I feel at my current weight and that isn’t going to change if I don’t do something about it- NOW.

I will use this blog as a source of accountability for my plan. Look for more posts about this over the next week or so. Please share your tips or ideas for getting started and overcoming this first hurdle. Now you can sit back and watch me succeed or fail!

Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, happens to be a billionaire and a blogger. His public persona comes across as a bit wild at times, but I think he has some very solid wisdom behind that. His blog is worth reading (usually) and he wrote a really interesting article yesterday, Warren Buffett, Taxes and the Presidency.

Warren Buffett has been all over the business press recently suggesting that the very rich, those on the Forbes 400 list, are taxed advantageously to the rest of the workforce. That it makes no sense that his tax bill as a percentage of income is lower than that of his secretary or housekeeper.

He is absolutely right.

Is this a fair system? I don’t know if that is the right question, but I think it would be hard to make a case for the above scenario being the right way to do things.

Its also wrong that those who must live paycheck to paycheck find themselves paying the same amount of taxes on consumables as the super rich. That 8pct sales tax on life’s basic necessities is real time cash out of pocket, a far greater percentage of income and much more expensive money than the federal taxes we pay the following April 15th.

This is a brilliant point. 8% on every purchase for people making under $30,000 a year is going to hurt the wallet quite a bit more than it does for the person making $300,000. A consumption tax is often touted as the most fair tax system, but I think it clearly is not (at least not a flat consumption tax without considerations for income).

Right now I hate paying taxes because I feel like I’m giving money to a known crack addict. However much you give, its not enough. They will buy their crack, get a short term high and soon be back asking for more.

The federal government , whether in Republican or Democratic hands is the same way. No matter how much you give, they are always asking for more, more, more. Always spending on the ridiculous, without remorse and without the ability to restrain itself. Just like a drug addict.

If you are going to raise my taxes, I want somethings in return.

Raise my taxes by 1 pct, by every 1 pct you cut federal spending. Your choice of raising taxes on luxury items, or on annual income of 10mm dollars per year or more. Cutting spending means the government needs to raise less which allows you to raise the income threshold on which you charge this “Forbes 400 surcharge”

This is really the problem. Our government is simply out of control with spending money and nothing can change for the better until that problem is solved.

I also have one more tax suggestion that I think will create so many jobs in this country that it really wont matter what else our politicians do.

If we really want to stimulate job creation in this country, take the same approach to small business with fewer than 25 employees that we take to Internet taxes. Outlaw them.

No taxes of any kind on small businesses with fewer than 25 employees. No employer payroll tax. No state or local taxes. No taxes on earnings. Nada. The business owners will pay income taxes on their personal income they pay themselves, but not corporate earnings

Wow! I really like that idea. Mark Cuban for President anyone? 

There is a lot more in the article worth reading and I recommend you check it out. How often can you get the opinion of the super-rich on taxes and things that could actually affect their bank accounts in a big way? Kudos to Cuban for taking the time to write this.

No, that is not a typo. That is exactly what I did. In fact, I just avoided paying an extra $30 on top of that with two days to spare.

I recently took on a new freelance project using Adobe Flex 2. I was mildly familiar with what it could do and I had known Flash fairly well (back around version 5) so I took the job and said I could do everything in Flex (yes, developers generally lie at the start of a project but don’t worry about that). 

The first thing I did was some reading on the Internet and I bought a couple of books. I also signed up for Flex video training at Virtual Training Company Online (VTC).  VTC sells their training sessions either for $99 per course (you own it) or you can subscribe for $30 a month and access multiple courses (you are renting). Obviously, the monthly rate is better if you are going to watch the video in a reasonable amount of time. I signed up and went through almost half of the video in the first week. Then I got busy and sort of forgot about it. When my next payment went through I remembered that I needed to finish watching the course and cancel my account in order to make this a good deal. Well, guess what, another month passed. Now I was up to $90 and I still hadn’t finished watching the course. I made a to-do item, I sent myself an email reminder and I even wrote down a paper to-do - FINISH the video before you make another payment!

I guess my title ruined the suspense…another month passed and I still hadn’t finished the video and I was now up to a total of $120. That is more than it would have cost me to OWN the video and I was still only about half way through. I should have been smart and canceled then. Instead, I wrote more reminders and promised myself I would finish it before the next renewal. Well, today I was sitting at work and for some reason the VTC payment popped into my head. I had that sickening feeling inside- did I really just blow another $30 on something I didn’t even use? I quickly logged in to my account and found that I had two days left to cancel before my next payment. Relief…I canceled and stopped the insanity.

I remember recoiling at the $99 price tag when I first looked at this training course. Now, I’ve spent $120 and didn’t even get full use of the product. I guess I’m too ’smart’ for my own good sometimes. The only lesson I can take away from this is not to sign up for a monthly service in the first place unless you really know you will make good use of it. I am often tempted by low monthly rates only to find myself several months down the road not using the service I signed up for. Just say no in the first place!

No matter how well you have done with budgeting, cutting your spending, and tracking everything it is extremely easy to get bogged down in the daily grind and feel like you aren’t getting anywhere. I believe this is the hardest part of the process. Depending on the size of your debt balance and the size of your income, you could be looking at years to get out of debt, maybe decades.

There are essentially two levels of debt freedom. One is obvious- having no debt at all. The other is being debt free except for the mortgage. This distinction is made because a mortgage is generally thought of as good debt (I don’t agree, at least not on a long term basis), but saving up the cash to pay for a house is rather difficult and most of us end up with a mortgage when we want to own a home. I want to be 100% debt free and that is my goal, but I will feel a lot better about my debt load once I am debt free except for the mortgage.

Right now, seeing my debt balance gives me a sickening feeling deep down and really motivates me to work hard at getting out of debt. I don’t know if that feeling will go away when I am down to just a mortgage (frankly I hope it does not), but some of the pressure should be off by that time. That pressure and sickening feeling can both motivate you and discourage you. You need to recognize that you have these feelings and think about why you feel that way and what you need to do to change your situation. Nothing will improve if you don’t take action to improve it.

You really need to think about what being debt free means to you and most importantly what it means to you in the long term. For me, being debt free is about freedom. Freedom to not take a job because I need the money and it is a tolerable way to pay the bills. I don’t want to settle for that, but at this point in my life I need to make that choice. I have so much debt that I need my ‘day job’ plus extra work to make my way out of debt.

Don’t get all fired up and work hard for a month and then fizzle out. That is exactly how I have started just about every life changing process I have ever attempted in the past. It’s scary to say things are different this time, but things really are different this time. I am going slowly and making real habit changes. Not superficial changes that only last a short while. You can’t succeed by doing that. You need to go slowly, you need to make small changes that you can handle, and you need to maintain those changes. The steps you take toward becoming debt free need to become habits, natural parts of your life that you live on a daily basis. You need a solid foundation. That is why you should go slowly. Don’t expect to get out of debt overnight. Think about how long it took you to get into debt and allow plenty of time to get out.

In this Get Out of Debt Series, I have outlined many tools and methods for making a successful financial turnaround. I believe this series can be the solid foundation you use to support your journey out of debt. Everything I have talked about here is exactly what I am doing and I know that it works. I know that it is now only a matter of time until I am done with debt. Start your journey today and please feel free to post comments on this site or contact me via email if you need help or encouragement along the way.

9 Steps to Get Out of Debt

• # 1 Stop Borrowing Money
• # 2 (a) Why You Should Make a Budget
• # 2 (b) How to Make a Budget
• # 3 Turn Your Junk Into Cash
• # 4 Create an Emergency Fund
• # 5 Live Below Your Means
• # 6 Track Your Spending and Update Your Budget
• # 7 Visual Reminders to Track Your Debt
• # 8 Make Yourself Accountable
• # 9 Be Patient and Don’t Give Up

I’m a pretty easy going guy and I usually don’t get stressed out at work, but the past couple of weeks have been brutal. I have many looming deadlines and not enough time to get everything done.

I realized today that since the stress level has gone up at work I find myself stopping for breakfast burritos or Starbucks on my way to the office. This isn’t good for my wallet or my waistline!

I guess I am trying to self-medicate with food, though I’m not sure how that helps with the stress. I do feel better with a venti latte in my hand (oh how I’ve missed those), but that is short-lived and obviously not a real solution.

I suppose the only real answer it to do something about the cause of the stress- those stupid work deadlines! They must stop! I’ll have to talk to my boss tomorrow and see what we can do to make things easier because things can’t continue like this for much longer.

Well, I’m glad I wrote this, I feel a little better already.  Anyone have any tips for dealing with stress and resisting comfort foods?