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By Kevin M
 Last week yet another of those struggling-on-a-six-figure-income stories came out on the web, but this one was at least a little bit more tolerable than such accounts usually are. The writer provided some hard numbers that gave some credibility to the claim making it, I think, a decent point to debate.
An income of $100,000 per year puts a household in the top 17.6% of highest earning households nationwide, which is to say that earning that much money isn’t average, and it isn’t middle class. It’s somewhere in the upper tier. Not rich necessarily, but most definitely in the financially blessed region.
It’s hard to be sympathetic when you see such statistics, yet part of me understands this woman’s “dilemma”. Most of me, however, feels other factors are at play.
Continue reading Struggling on a Six-Figure Income →
By Dave Kelly
In the 1987 film “The Untouchables”, Kevin Costner played legendary lawman Elliot Ness and Sean Connery was an Irish beat cop named Jim Malone. When Ness and Malone first meet, Malone asks Ness, “What are you prepared to do?” He wanted to know how far Ness was willing to go to stop Al Capone and the illegal (at the time) alcohol trade in Chicago.
Later in the film, Malone is ambushed in his apartment and shot by a machine gun. Ness gets to him just as he is about to die and Malone grabs him by his lapels and with his dying breath shouts, “What are you prepared to do?”
WOW!
Imagine right now that I am Malone, minus the shooting and bad Irish accent. As you consider starting your own business, making a career change, or pursuing any dream, I am asking, “What are you prepared to do?”
Continue reading What Are You Prepared to Do? →
By Kevin M
 Ask anyone who’s succeeding in their own business the question, ”What is the most important trait for success?” and you’ll probably get a few different answers. Education, talent, connections, being in the right place at the right time… luck! I think there’s at least some merit to all, but while each of them might represent a step in the right direction at some point in the process, none—with the possible exception of talent—are likely to sustain you over the long haul. And even talent won’t get the job done if it isn’t consistently applied.
All of us have an opinion as to what drives success, but if I have to pick one trait that stands above the rest, it’s relentlessness. I credit that trait as the single most important one that enabled me to go from washed-up mortgage originator to a self-employed professional blogger in under three years.
I had no special talents, no specific education and no connections that would have made the journey worth considering, let alone likely, but the one thing that I did have was a commitment to succeed at it no matter what happened.
Why is relentlessness so powerful?
Continue reading The “Secret” to Self-Employment Success →
By Kevin M
 Pssst…wanna lower your cost of living—I mean really lower your cost of living and do it for good?
Ditch your car. No, I’m not kidding, ditch your car!
Most people cut costs by trimming along the edges—clipping coupons, reducing eating out, eliminating vacations and the like. But sometimes that isn’t enough. You can cut all of those and still end up with a tightly stretched budget, one that doesn’t allow much room for savings and investment, for debt pay down and payoff, or for a plunge into the career unknown—a major theme on this blog.
It comes down to a choice between micro- and macro-frugality–do you cut your smaller expenses across the board, or do you target two or three of the biggest? For most people, housing is the biggest single living expense, but cars are a comfortable second. For many, cutting or eliminating car expense is far easier than making the same choice on a home.
How much can you save by not owning a car?
Continue reading How Much Can You Save by NOT Owning a Car? →
By Kevin M
 I’ve written much on the subject of credit cards—mostly that they aren’t your friend, but more like having an enemy living in your own camp. I’m not backpedaling on any of it; credit cards have been the enabler that has led many to financial ruin. But are there times when you’re better off having a credit card?
Absolutely. Even a zealot like me is prepared to admit to that.
There are at least five reasons why having a credit card is a “must”—just as long as you don’t overdo it by running up your balance and applying for- and loading up on- more cards. (No, credit card rewards isn’t one of them—I’ve never bought that argument.) Used responsibly, there are situations in which a good credit card is well worth having.
Continue reading Five Reasons You DO Need a Credit Card →
By Kevin M
Do you ever find yourself wondering—perhaps when you look at your paycheck or even your W2–I make a good living, why don’t I have more money saved up?
You might look at your income and your regular expenses and think that you should be saving more, but somehow it all seems to just disappear, almost as if there are termites gnawing away at both your wallet and your checking account. And perhaps there are a few termites infesting your finances. Call them “stealth expenses”—stealth because we usually underestimate them—if we even notice them–expenses because that’s just what they are.
We all have fixed expenses that we know only too well—house payments, car payments, student loan and credit card payments. There are also day-to-day survival expenses, like groceries and gas. We’re very familiar with all of these, but it’s those others, the variables, that slowly suck the life out of a budget. Those are the stealth expenses, the ones that aren’t always so easy to measure or even to prepare for.
”Where does all my money go?”
Continue reading Are “Stealth” Expenses Killing Your Budget? →
Guest Post by Jodie McDonnell
 Many people across the United Kingdom fall victim to financial strife, often due to factors that are out of their control. A loan—when taken out for the right reasons—can help individuals who are in need of money for obtaining a mortgage, car loan, or other loan among other things.
Even more important is getting the right loan, a loan that will solve your problem and not make your financial situation worse. In order to do that, you need to approach borrowing with the proper attitude and a few tools that will help you to get the best deal to work within your circumstances.
Many times the reason people get into credit difficulty happens at the very time a loan is taken. The person could have been borrowing more than he could afford to repay, or doing so with stiff repayment terms he could never meet. You’ll only have one opportunity to prevent that from happening, and that’s when you are applying for the loan. It is therefore critical that you get this right at the very beginning when it counts most, and that means getting the very best loan you can.
Continue reading Get the RIGHT Loan for Your Needs →
By Kevin M
 One year ago—just about to the day—I took my first stab at this topic in Why Earning More Money is More Important than Frugality. It was one of the most popular posts I’ve done in the two years that I’ve had this site up and running. It seemed for a while that I’d covered the topic as thoroughly as I could imagine, but the subject has hit the blogosphere with a vengeance in the past couple of weeks stimulating additional thinking.
That doesn’t mean I’ve changed my original thoughts on frugality—quite the opposite. I’m now even more convinced that I was heading in the right direction on the first go round. My comment on Len Penzo’s 100 Words On: Why Frugality Has Its Limits made me realize that the subject is even more important than I imagined and that it’s time to take it on with some fresh ideas.
Continue reading How Frugality Becomes Counterproductive →
By Kevin M
Last week in The Power of Saying NO we covered how to free up your time and energy for more productive activities by making more frequent use of the word “no”. By saying “no” to the constant requests for help, participation, interaction and other forms of engagement others will draw us into, we can keep ourselves focused on our main goals.
Today I want to cover another common time and energy drain–multitasking. This has to be one of the most over worked phrases in the English language, and perhaps the most draining of all activities. What it mostly implies is that in order to be efficient, we need to spread ourselves wide and thin to do the jobs of several people.
It’s easy to see why multitasking is popular with employers—the more jobs they can get fewer people to do, the less staff they need. That translates to lower payroll and, in theory at least, a healthier bottom line.
But here’s what multitasking does to the individual and, by extension, to the organization:
Continue reading The Fallacy of Multitasking →
By Kevin M
 Have you ever noticed that truly successful people have little trouble saying “no”? They may do it politely, but they do it and do it often. And they’re on to something.
“No” is a control word, a word that has real power. When we use it, we’re in control. When we don’t, we’re open to the control of others.
By saying “no”, we guard our time, our efforts and even our money. When we say “yes”, or even “maybe”, it can mean open season on all three. If you’re a “yes-junkie”—a person who feels compelled to say “yes” to nearly any request for help from nearly anyone—you might be your own worst enemy.
If we’re going to get anywhere in life we need to focus on what it is that we do best. Life is multi-faceted, but we all have two or three things that are especially important, and that’s where being able to say “no” is critical. It’s the little word that when spoken emphatically gives us the space we need to do what we do best.
Learning to say no—and meaning it—frees you up to move on to the next order of business, to that thing that moves you forward in your life. Is it any wonder that successful people master this concept?
Continue reading The Power of Saying NO →
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General: Any information in regard to money, credit, personal finance, or in regard to any other monetary topic, provided or shared on OutOfYourRut.com is presented for information and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. It is intended to provide general information only and does not constitute personal financial advice in regard to your specific circumstances...MORE-->
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Struggling on a Six-Figure Income
By Kevin M
An income of $100,000 per year puts a household in the top 17.6% of highest earning households nationwide, which is to say that earning that much money isn’t average, and it isn’t middle class. It’s somewhere in the upper tier. Not rich necessarily, but most definitely in the financially blessed region.
It’s hard to be sympathetic when you see such statistics, yet part of me understands this woman’s “dilemma”. Most of me, however, feels other factors are at play.
Continue reading Struggling on a Six-Figure Income →