First off, this will be an actual blog. Over the past year or so this site somehow turned into an Amazon.com associate site, promoting all of their products. This was not my original intent when I created Debtslaying. The new and improved Debtslaying blog will return to all things related to helping you reduce your debt.

At one point in my life my family was in $40,000 of consumer debt, I know the burden that debt can cause and the stress it can put on your relationships. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and the change has to start with you. Anyway……. back the changes I’ve made and will continue to make.

What to Expect

There are 3 main area’s that I will be concentrating on and they are as follows:

1. Controlling the money that you already make. – It is amazing how much waste there is in our daily, weekly and monthly spending habits. I’ll be showing you how to spend your money wisely and save for the things you want instead of buying everything on credit cards (what a crazy concept?).

One thing to note though I am NOT a huge fan of frugal living. Getting excited about saving .50 cents on a $10 item is not my idea of time or money well spent. I will try and avoid the “buy your clothes at a thrift shop” type of posts.

2. Earning More Money- This has been a huge part of the debt slaying process for me and you don’t do it by delivering pizza. Which I did for 6 months before my daughter was born and it sucked, not to mention the weight gain.

Blogging on this site and my weight loss site make up a small but important percentage of my income. I’ll be showing you how you can start your own blog, get traffic, build relationships, make money etc, etc….all that good stuff. I am also working an ebook that will show you step by step how to start making a lot of online money from the ground up, it took me a long time to figure it out but it has been very rewarding. So stay tuned for that.

3. Avoiding scams, rip-offs and bad deals- There is a lot of crap on the Internet and you need to be careful in who you trust and what you do online. I enjoy peeling back the layers of a deal and showing people how things really work, what you actually are signing up for and why it’s important to stay away from them. 

Comments

In my misguided efforts to profit with Amazon I turned off all comments, basically losing touch with all my readers and other bloggers in this Finance/Marketing Niche. Comments are back on and I will hope to engage in some great discussions with you from this point on.  (No Spam please as I already get your emails for Viagra and great Biz ops from Nigeria)

2 Years and only 15 posts?

Where are all the previous posts? you maybe asking, well during the upgrade and move I kinda lost most of them. I managed to salvage a few of them but 80+ or so are gone for good. Not that big of a loss really and gives me a reason to start a new.

Lets Get Social

Let’s get social, social (sung to the tune of “let’s get physical” by Olivia Newton John but it doesn’t work so forget it). If you direct your attention to the sidebar under the “stay connected” heading you will see all the different ways to keep in touch with me and get updates on what I am working on.

Last But Not Least

Posting frequency has always been sporadic at best on both sites, but I am going to be aiming for regular weekly posts, you never know though it could be daily or every other day. I guess you’ll just have to keep coming back to check for updates or better yet sign up for email updates below.

Why The Debt Snowball?

This is a very popular method for reducing your credit card debt. It’s taught by many financial experts and credit professionals, and for good reason. This method is part math and part emotion, which is also why it’s popularity is increasing.

There are 4 basic steps to follow:

Step 1: List your debts in order of outstanding balance and not by interest rate. If 2 balances are roughly the same you can put the higher interest rate card above the one with the lower interest rate. List your smallest balance first and the largest debt last. Like this:

1. $1100 – Min payment $35
2. $3250 – Min payment $98
3. $6000 – Min payment $180
Total payments: $313

Step 2: Add up the minimum payments on all the cards. From the example above the total minimum payments would be $313. Now commit to increasing your total debt payments by at least 25% to 30% more or $100 whichever is higher. For $313 as your beginning minimum payment total a 30% increase would be $94 extra, so lets round that up to $100. You would commit to paying at least $413 every month towards your credit cards.

Step 3: Start making the minimum payments on all your credit cards with that extra 25-30% or $100 going to the debt with the smallest balance. Continue to do this month after month until the first debt has been completely paid off.

1. $1100 – Min payment $35 + $100 = Monthly payment of $135
2. $3250 – Min payment $98
3. $6000 – Min payment $180
Total payments: $413

Step 4: Once your first credit card debt has been cleared, you are going to take what was it’s minimum monthly payment plus the 30%/$100 extra payment and add that to the minimum payment for the next largest debt on your list.

1. Paid
2. $3250 – Min pay $98 + $35 + $100 = Total Monthly Payment of $233
3. $6000 – Min payment $180
Total payments: $413

Continue to do this until debt#2 has been full paid and then repeat the process for the final debt. Your Monthly payments on the last debt will be the full $413 that you have committed towards reducing your total credit card debt.

Helpful Hints

1. $100 should be the minimum amount you commit to in extra debt payments. This will help you eliminate your debt much quicker. If you are on a fixed income or can only scrap together $50 or that is alright as well. Anything over and above the min payments will benefit you, but make an honest effort in trying for the $100 mark.

2. Throw your pocket change into a bowl or dish and every month add that on top of your payments, sell stuff on ebay, take a second job or just give up your morning coffee and throw all that extra income towards your debt snowball. Every little bit helps.

3. Contact your credit card companies and let them know what you are doing. Some companies might take any extra payments and apply the towards your future monthly payments. Let them know that these extra payments are to be applied directly to the principal.

4. Once a debt has been paid off take time to celebrate it, reflect on what you have accomplished and think of new ways to contribute extra money to the next debt. This can be great motivation for tackling the larger and more time consuming debts.

I have owned quite a few of these credit cards in the past with cash back rewards ranging from 1% to 5%. I have never profited anything from these cards. I started out with great intentions and a plan to make money by getting back a portion of what I spent every month. On paper this is a solid plan, but in reality it came back to bite me.

I’m a modest spender normally and generally only use my credit cards for major purchases. I use them when the amounts are too big to pay with Interac or if I don’t want to carry large amounts of cash on me. This was fine for a while, I was able to make the payments on time and not accrue any interest. The plan was working, I was making money from the cards instead of the other way around. This wouldn’t last.

My first mistake came at the grocery store. I usually carry cash and stay with in my budget, but this trip put me over by about $50. Since I had already made a little cash from my cash back card from the last few months I made the stupid decision to pay by Credit Card……..

An innocent enough purchase but for whatever reason I didn’t pay it off right away and had to pay $5 in interest on it at the end of the month. Big deal right? I was still ahead on the rewards.

I started getting used to buying everyday items on my card with the intention of paying it off at the end of the month. Gas, Groceries etc.. Like I said before I am normally pretty conservative with my shopping but somehow I had justified to myself that the “cash back” incentive had more value than paying with cash for the items. I was able to keep it up for a few months before things got out of had.

It’s funny how the unexpected have a way of happening, well unexpectedly. My wife lost her job and our household income was cut in half. Budget cuts had to be made and soon we were stuck just paying the minimums on the credit cards. Goodbye cash back, hello accruing interest.

The worst part was that we were struggling to pay for things since we didn’t have the cash, eventually we were using the cards out of necessity. That got us into a huge hole that took years to climb out of.

Now am I saying that the reward cards caused the problem? NO, I understand that it was my choice to buy what I did and to use the cards to do it. But, if I hadn’t of had those cards to begin with I wouldn’t have had a pile of ever growing debt to deal with.

It’s the lure of the “cash back” offer that I have a problem with. Not just cash back offers but all reward incentive programs that encourage you to buy things on credit. Most ads for these cards actually encourage you to use them for everyday purchases.

Now you’re probably thinking, “Hey, I’m a smarter than this guy, I won’t make the same mistakes he did.” Maybe you’re right and maybe nothing will happen to you, you’ll be able to pay off the balances without an issue. But my question for you is this: Why Take The Risk? In all likelihood the interest you’ll pay (at rates ranging from 14.99% to 22%) will be far greater than the rewards you’ll receive.

My advice to you is this: Avoid reward incentive types of credit cards all together. If you absolutely need to have a credit card then you’d be much better off in holding one with a very low interest rate rather then the reward cards, which almost always come with higher than average rates to begin with. (how do you think they pay for the rewards???).

Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this so please leave a comment below and let me know what you think.

For the most part nothing, other than the person sending you regular emails with content and promotions/offers related to what every niche they happen to be a part of. This is the norm and one of the reasons you gave them your email in the first place.

Some of these lists can get pretty big and this presents another opportunity for the list owners to make some extra money. They can do this by either selling the email addresses on the list altogether or break it up by specific demographics (i.e gender, location, age) or the latest 1000+ people to sign up.

Where Do They Find The Buyers?

There is a site called Nextmark.com and it is one of the biggest sites for buying and selling mailing lists. This includes telephone lists, email address lists and home address lists. Currently there are over 60,000 different lists available which is crazy if you think about it and I’m sure that I am on many of them.

There is a feature that allows you to search for different mailing lists by keyword. In the example below I searched for lists related to “weight loss” and the #1 result was a shocker!

I am not going to post the name of it here but let me tell you that I was disappointed to know that they were offering up email addresses for sale.

Is This illegal?

Well, no buying and selling mailing lists is perfectly legal as far as I know and very useful for charities and non profit organizations. But… In my opinion I consider this a form of SPAM. When I buy a product or opt in to someones subscriber list, it’s my understanding that I am only giving permission for that person/company to contact me. Otherwise it’s unsolicited.

Final Thoughts

Before a few days ago I never knew that this was how some list owners operated. Being a list owner myself I know how valuable my subscribers are to me. They have put there trust me and I will honor it by never selling their email address to anyone.

Like I said with 60,000 plus mailing lists odds are pretty good that your email address it up for sale somewhere.

Have Your Say!

Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Am I wrong about buying/selling mailing lists or maybe I’m not understanding the whole process? Have you ever bought or sold a list yourself?

The answer, is Penny Auctions and they’re popping up all over the Internet.

Before you sign-up though I thought I would give you a breakdown on how these sites make money, how you can win more stuff for much less and which site offers you the best deal.

How a Penny Auction Works

Penny auctions work very much like an eBay auction. Items are offered up for users to bid on, with each bid increasing the price of the item until the person with the highest bid is declared the winner. There are 3 key differences though.

1. Obviously as the name suggests, all bids are in increments of a penny.
2. New items are offered up every few hours and are not posted by users.
3. You need to sign up and purchase bids in advance.

Once you have successfully won an auction your account is charged the amount of your final bid plus a shipping cost to ship the item to you. These shipping costs vary depending on the size of the item you have won. Larger items such as a barbecue will cost more to ship than a gift card. The shipping charges are very reasonable and closely reflect the actual shipping fee paid to the postal service, unlike some ebay auctions shipping is not where the auction sites make their money.

Unfortunately most penny auction sites only ship items to residents of the United States, plus Hawaii/Alaska (for an additional charge).

How Penny Auction Sites Make Money

Most penny auction sites operate on a “pay for play” system. Meaning that in order for you to bid on the items up for auction you need to buy bids from them. For most sites the average cost to buy 1 bid is $1 .

So every time you place a bid for a penny it is actually costing you $1 from your account. This is where the auction site is making their money and are able to offer high end items for such a cheap price.

Lets take a look at a recent auction from Bidcactus.com for a $50 Starbucks gift card. This auction had a total of 383 bids when if finally ended. The winner ended up paying $3.83 plus $4.97 for shipping, a total end cost of  $8.80 for $50 worth of Starbucks goodness.

Good deal for the winning bidder but an even better deal for the auction site. Since Bidcactus only charges .75 per bid (see how to get free bids below) they would have made $287.25 for a gift card that costs them $50.

A handsome profit which is how they are able make this a viable and legitiment business.  This auction was actually on the high end. I have seen a ton of gift card auctions end with .05 to .20 winners.

Best Penny Auction Site?

There are quite a few sites to choose from but my personal favorite is Bidcactus.com for a few reasons.

1. They have one of the lowest bid prices at only .75 each compared to other sites that charge $1 or more. 

2. Wide range of items up for auction, everything from gift cards to flat screen TV’s there is something for everyone to bid on.

3. They offer beginner auctions, where only new people that sign up or users that have just a few wins under their belts are allowed to bid on.

4. Bidcactus offers great promotions that allow you to get free bids and bids at discounted rates saving you even more money on the items that you want.

Those are just a few of the reasons why Bidcactus is my top pick but there are many more. They are a reputable site with tons of testimonials from winning bidders and accreditation from the Better Business Bureau with a good standing record, which is more than I can say for some of the other penny auction sites online now.

Bidcactus.com Promotions

Sign up with Bidcactus and claim your free and discounted bids below. (these will be updated)

Purchase any bidpack between 2am – 7am (eastern time) and receive 5% off your total purchase. Use Code “NIGHTOWL”

Purchase any bid pack between 6pm – 8pm (eastern time) and receive 5% off your total purchase. Use Code “EVENING”

Purchase a 50 Bid Pack on Friday between 4pm – 7pm (eastern time) and receive 5 bonus bids FREE!

$10 off your first winning bid – Use Code K2T88C or K2T8BC

That is basically it, if you are a resident of the United States Sign Up today if you don’t have an account already, come back and leave a comment and let me know all the great stuff that you’ve won.

Here are what I believe to be the 3 best reasons to cut up the plastic and start paying with cash again.

1. Discounts

Retailers are charged fees by various financial institutions for the ability to accept credit and debit cards. Sometimes it is a fee per transaction and other times it is a set monthly fee. You can bet that they are going to find a way to pass those fees on to you. Weather it’s a simple price increase or a 25 cent fee added at the time you swipe your card, they will charge you for the privilege of using your plastic.

Besides the fees retailers are charged there is the time it takes to collect, store, reconcile and process all those little transaction slips. Cash all but eliminates that.

You can save a lot of money by just offer to pay for the item in cash. The key to this is to offer 10% less (at least) than the retail price and pull out the cash right on the spot. You can almost always use the power cash to negotiate a better price.

2. Easier to stick to a budget

When you are on a tight budget managing your spending using debit cards may seem like a good idea but you are actually more likely to overspend and blow the budget.

There is something about handing over the cash that stings a little; it no longer becomes just a number on your monthly statement. You can physically see that you have less and that alone can be enough to spend it a little more wisely, even make you question if you really “need” that item that you can’t live without.

3. Security

Credit card numbers are stolen thousands of times everyday, and if your card numbers are stolen the thieves will withdrawal cash or make unauthorized purchases right up to the limit. Many times you are covered and not required to pay back the stolen money but you do have to have your cards replaced and many times there are forms that need to be filled out in order to prove that you are innocent.

This also happens to debit cards, and a simple everyday transaction can result in your bank account being wiped out.

So that is it and remember as long as you aren’t carrying around a briefcase full of money, cash is a much safer and cheaper way to pay for those everyday purchases.

(Click to Enlarge)

*NOTE* You will notice that there is no mortgage listed above. While it is considered a debt, for your own sanity it’s best to concentrate on your smaller consumer debt first.

Getting Organized

Sometimes your credit card statements aren’t up to date, especially if you are continuing to add to them or are making more than one payment per month.

It’s important to call the number either listed on your statement or the back of your card and get the most recent balance.

You can organize your debts however you like, by monthly payments, interest rates or total by creditor. There is really no right or wrong way.

Know Your Numbers

Many people don’t know what their total debt is. Ignorance will almost always lead you deeper into debt. By being conscious of your debt and knowing what you owe you will be in a better position to stop it before it gets out of control.

Your Debt Plan

Now that you know what your total debt is, you can start to develop a plan to get it paid off as soon as possible. After all that is the goal right?

One of the most effective ways to eliminate your debt quickly is by utilizing a debt snowball. You can read more about how to properly use the debt snowball here.

Name.com is constantly changing their promo codes. While old ones expire they are replaced by new ones. So here is a list of the latest name.com promo and discount codes as of March 20th 2009.

Latest Name.com Promo Codes
Renew .com .net and .org domains for only $7.69 using promo code: NPENBY – No Longer Working

New .com and .org domains for $7.99 using promo code: LORENA – No Longer Working

Renew .com .net and .org domains for only $7.69 using promo code: SAUDADE

New .com and .org domains for $7.95 using promo code: IPANEMA – No Longer Working

That’s it so far. I will keep updating these codes as I find them. I have saved a ton of money on over 20 domains using these codes.

UPDATE:
These are working as of May 12th 2009

Save .99 off a new .com or .net domain using promo code: PIRIGUETE – This is no longer valid

Save .90 on renewals of .com or .net domains using code: EATATCHANS

Get a new .com or .net domain for $8.25 using coupon code: GREENBOW – This is no longer valid

Get a new .net domain for $7.25 using promotion code: HTESROB I used this 2 days a go to register huggiesdiapercoupons.net – This is no longer valid

*Update June 3rd 2009*

Get a new .net domain for only $7 using name.com promo code – parkhill – This is no longer valid

Save .59 on a new .com or .net using promo code – washpark – This is no longer valid

$8.20 for a new .com domain registration using name.com promo code – stapleton -This is no longer valid

Update September 2009

$8.19 for a new .com domain registration using name.com promo code – diptera

Renew your .com .net or .org domains for only $8.25 using name.com promo code – chilopoda

I’ll post more as I test them.

Enjoy.

I was surprised to learn that in the US some states don’t offer lump sum payouts on lottery winnings rather opting to go with a large one time payout. I guess it comes as no surprise that this opened the door for investment companies to come up with their own programs for capitalizing on lump sum lottery winnings and taking a chunk of the cash as profit.

With in our groups discussion we had a few questions about how the lump sum payouts actually work. I thought that I’d do a little research and find the answers myself. Below are the answers to our 5 questions about lump sum lottery winnings.

1. How much of the money do we get to keep, assuming a $1,000,000 winning?

Answer: I went online to get a quote from one of these investment companies and got a response back in 5 minutes, they really wanted my money. After a few questions they came back with the quote of roughly a 20% fee. That seems a bit high but I guess it is reasonable if they are forking out $800,000 cash. This is negotiable though as the lottery winners we are in control, there are many companies that what this kind of business.

2. Do we have to sell the whole amount all at once?

Answer: No, we can split up the lottery winnings payouts however we like. So we could sell 50% of the annual payments and still receive a large sum of the lottery winnings plus get monthly payments. The payment splits are really up to you and the investment people they seem to be pretty flexible.

3. What kind of fees hidden or otherwise are we going to have to pay?

Answer: Apparently none. The lender is responsible for dealing with the court fees and paperwork nothing else out of pocket for us. Sweet.

4. Can’t we just go to the bank and sell it to them?

Answer: Nope. They don’t do structured settlement payments. At least not at my bank, and my bank rep said most other banks won’t either as it is not a simple transaction. She also recommended that we get our own lawyer to go over the paperwork before signing anything. Smart lady, that’s why my money is with you 

5. What lottery#’s are we going to play to win all this money?

Answer: Quick picks, keeping track of everyones personal picks is a pain and so many people use the same low numbers (birthdays, anniversaries etc…) that you end up with a ton of duplicate numbers. Save your birthdays for your own personal tickets and keep them out of the group numbers.

There you have if folks, the low down on lump sum lottery winnings. I seriously hope you have to reference this info once you win the lottery, just not on the same draw as me :)

Step 1

Get a student loan and ask for more than you need.

Post secondary education is a very valuable asset and a worthy pursuit; unfortunately this can come with a very large price tag. I wasn’t fortunate enough to qualify for a scholarship and had to foot the bill on my own. Lucky I managed to avoid taking out a student loan and went to a local college where I could afford the tuition (barely). Many of my friends are still paying off their student loans today.

Student loans can burden you for many years after you graduate and if your chosen career doesn’t work out it could take you a very long time to pay the loans back. If you can find a similar program at a local college or university seriously consider attending and save some big money and stress. (if you have kids set up a college fund for them now and ease the burden later)

Step 2

Get a credit card and use it for everyday purchases.

I used to buy groceries, gas and convenience store items on my credit cards with the intention of paying them back right away. While I did manage to collect some big rewards I managed to accumulate a small balance each month that seemed to grow bigger every week until I could only afford the minimum payments.

Many people will tell you to never get a credit card, and for many people that have poor spending and budgeting habits such as I did when I was younger that is sound advice. If you are not an impulsive buyer or use it for everyday purchases though a credit card may in fact be beneficial in helping you build a good credit score. A good credit score is essential if you want to buy a home in the future and not get a terrible interest rate. That is if you are planning on getting a mortgage.

Step 3

Leasing a new car

My first car I ever owned was leased, it looked great and I loved it. After about a year or so the novelty wore off and I was stuck with a 1 year old car that was worth much less than I owed on it. 4 years after that and I decided to buy it out (with borrowed money of course), for about $1000 more than it was worth and then had to pay to have it certified. It took me 8 years to pay for this new car, not to mention the thousands of dollars I paid in interest. Avoid leases and payment plans, if you need a car buy used and save up for a new car.

Step 4

Buy a house with a 25 year mortgage

Did you know that you can buy a home with $0 down? I did and I almost lost it. After a few months I was in over my head.

As a rule you should aim for no more than a 15 year mortgage and put down at least 25% of the purchase price as a down payment. You can get away with 20% in some cases, other than that you should rent and save until you have enough. When it comes to payments if your mortgage payments are more than 40% of your gross monthly income, you can not afford it. (I would go even lower and limit it to 35%

Step 5

Don’t pay a cent for a year – Furnish your new home on store credit

Those deals seem great at the time and you have every intention of paying off the furniture (couches, TVs, kitchen appliances) before the year is over but sometimes life gets in the way and at the end of it you don’t have enough to pay it all off. Then they get you for the whole amount plus interest (28 % for the whole year. ouch).

That happened to me on my first LCD TV I purchased $1400 turned into $1820 after interest and fees. Save up for these big purchases and pay for them in cash. You would be amazed at the deals you can get just by pulling out a wad of cash and making an offer to pay for the item on the spot.

That is basically how you can a mass a huge amount of debt in a relatively short amount of time. I realize I left out the wedding and the kids but those came after I got my financial act together.

The scary thing is that this is the route that millions of people are taking these days and they are in for a major shock when the debt gets so large that the “consumers” will get “consumed” by the payments until they lose it all or make some major lifestyle changes.