Debt milestone: less than $10,000 left

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Debt milestone: less than $10,000 left

I hit another milestone today: my total debt is under $10,000! I’m heading toward a seven-year low mark and I’m just doing full-on battle with the beast.

Since studying abroad in college, I’ve carried credit card debt. It ballooned when my income increased, a typical example of lifestyle inflation. Two years after graduating from college, I bought a brand new car and my student loans came due, all within the same summer.

See that big spike in the chart below?  Yeah, I’ve been recovering from that since 2005.

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Review: Simple Fitness Habit Week 1

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Review: Simple Fitness Habit Week 1

What if dietary and fitness habits were truly simple? To find out if that’s possible, I signed up for Simple Fitness Habit from Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.

Simple Fitness Habit is a self-paced course. I signed up for the Gold level so that I’d get four months of access to articles, accountability forums, tracking forms, and several bonuses like the Marathon Roadmap and Scott Dinsmore’s Live of Your Passions ebooks. I’m especially looking forward to Dinsmore’s ebook, as well as the Kettlebell Barbell Hybrid Program and monthly expert webinars.

The program is made up of three modules:

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The Burning House Project: My List

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The Burning House Project: My List

On Tuesday, I blogged about the Burning House Project. The challenge is simple: If your house was burning down, what would you grab?

Many people have actually experienced this type of tragedy, whether from fire, flood, tornado or hurricane and many did not have a realistic chance at grabbing anything but themselves and a few basics. For those of us who have not had this experience, it’s a privilege to try this thought exercise under non-emergency circumstances.

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The Burning House Project

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The Burning House Project

Check out The Burning House Project: “If your house was burning, what would you take with you? It’s a conflict between what’s practical, valuable and sentimental. What you would take reflects your interests, background and priorities. Think of it as an interview condensed into one question.”

I love the challenge and intensity of this site!

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The Day After Thanksgiving

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The Day After Thanksgiving

It’s Black Friday. Or Buy Nothing Day. Or Flannel Friday. Or Block Friday. What the day after Thanksgiving is depends on your perspective. Let’s start with that last one.

There’s an amazing company, Holstee, that wrote the Holstee Manifesto and sells really great products, from clothes to cards to mounted Holstee Manifesto posters.  Check out their page today and you’ll see they’re diverting traffic immediately to Block Friday – away from their blog and even their sales page.  [Update 11/30/15: that link no longer works, sorry!]

They explain that Block Friday “started as a way to remind ourselves that even as we begin the holiday shopping season in earnest, we can still be mindful of the way we’re spending our time and money. What are you Blocking Friday for this holiday season?”

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Food Stamp Challenge: Day 7, Finances and Reflections

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Food Stamp Challenge: Day 7, Finances and Reflections

Alright, I’m crunching the numbers on this Food Stamp Challenge, called 3SquaresVT in Vermont. As a single person, I’d be eligible for food stamps if I made 185% of the poverty level, which is $1,723/month gross. I may then be eligible for up to $38/week in benefits. That would be $152/month for groceries. Here’s how it would work for my personal finances:

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Food Stamp Challenge: Mid-Week Check-In

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Food Stamp Challenge: Mid-Week Check-In

This Food Stamp Challenge, called 3SquaresVT here in Vermont, to live on $38/week of food was not at all easy. I blew it in so many ways.

Day 4 (Wednesday) was a relative good day. I ate half an apple for breakfast, with coffee, cream and sugar. I ate the beans, rice and veggies that I’d prepared in advance for lunch. I skipped snacks and sodas at work, and then had sesame tofu for dinner.

Unfortunately, I had a coffee pot malfunction in the morning and lost a lot of coffee. I looked at the bag of grounds and looked at what was left in the pot of coffee. I decided I couldn’t really waste the coffee, so I filtered the grounds out of the pot and drank what I could.

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