Everybody Loves Your Money

When will people quit falling for these scams?

A LONELY postal worker has landed himself in huge debt – after handing over £130,000 to a string of internet scammers.

Shane Symington started sending cash to the fraudsters in 2007 after he was contacted by a woman claiming she needed funds to help her sick mother.

The trusting postie agreed and started sending money from an inheritance he had received when an elderly relative passed away…………..

Shane, Shane, Shane.  No alarms went off?  Since when does the FBI ask for their victims to fund their investigations?  I feel sorry for you but I’m disappointed that nothing ever seemed “off” with this whole deal.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2131643.ece

Companies are planning on being in the giving mood on inauguration day.  Here are a few of the goodies that you can pick up for free next Tuesday:

Krispy Kreme:

Stop by Krispy Kreme and choose your favorite donut.  No charge

Starbucks:

You’re obviously going to need to wash that tasty donut down with something so why not stop by Starbucks and sign up to volunteer for 5 hours somewhere?  There’s a free cup of coffee in it for you and you’ll be doing a good thing for your community.

If you are excited about the inauguration and wish you could be there, maybe watching it in a movie theater for free will suffice.  MSNBC has partnered with a select group of movie theaters around the country so that people can get a great view of the inauguration with popcorn and a soda.  It’s first come first served so don’t delay if you’re interested:

http://www.msnbcevents.com/

Without a doubt one of my favorite parts of participating in the personal finance blog arena is reading the great stories of people that have awakened to the lunacy of carrying lots of debt and have changed their habits to grab hold of their financial lives.  One of the first people to do this was NCN @ No Credit Needed.  I can remember sending him a note sincerely congratulating him when he paid off his last debt.  I really felt happy for him and was impressed with the huge turnaround he had made.  Fast forward to today and there are many more people blogging about the progress they’ve made in converting from someone who carries lots of debt to someone that has a fat bank account, or at least is now building wealth instead of pedaling as fast as they can to keep the collection agencies away.

Here are a few of the people out there who have made life changes that have given them back control of their finances:

NCN @ http://www.ncnblog.com/ is debt free and is helping others work towards their goal with NCN Network.

Tricia @ Blogging Away Debt only has $5,999 left to pay off on her credit cards.  She started the journey owing over $37,000.

JB @ Adventures in Debt is working off over $27,000 in debt.

LisaClark @ I Will Be Debt Free is working off a hefty chunk of debt “UK style”.

Twinsmom @ Blessed By Twins is working off $13,000 in debt.

These are just a few examples of the MANY people that are blogging about getting out of debt.  Thankfully when I started this blog a few years ago we weren’t trying to work off debt, but this blog has forced me to look much more closely at how we spend our money and has kept us on a cash only spending basis.  It’s easy to see how many people have ended up with more debt than they intended.  Life seems to throw a lot of curve balls at each of us.  Just this week we spent $1000 on the Jenn Air range that went out in our kitchen.  If we didn’t maintain a decent sized emergency fund we would have been forced to use credit.  The good news is that once you pay off the last of the debt and start building even a modest savings balance, your finances get much easier and a lot less stressful.

If you want to take a look at a lot of other people’s debt, click over to the No Credit Needed Network.  You will see a ton of links on the right hand side of the page that link to each person’s financial goals and where they are at with them.  Let the voyeur in you peek through the window in to other people’s worlds.  It’s really quite interesting.