For whatever reason, you may think that you need to get a Personal Loan. You may have a lot of other debt that you’d like to consolidate, or you might just need some funding for an idea of yours. I wouldn’t recommend just taking out such a loan in order to buy something foolish, but in certain situations it could be beneficial to your financial situation.

It also doesn’t really matter what your current credit situation is. You may have poor credit, but when you’re looking to turn your finances around you have to start with where you currently are. Of course you’ll want to make sure that the new loan makes good financial sense, but even Bad Credit Personal Loans could be something that will help to turn your financial situation around.

This was a guest post I wrote for another blog, but thought that it would also be well served here.

Growing up we never really had a lot of money. I wasn’t aware of any of the specifics concerning the family finances, but I knew we didn’t have a lot of money to just throw around. As I grew older I remember telling myself that money wasn’t going to be an issue for me and that I wanted to be rich (whatever that meant at the time). While I was in college I remember still having this goal somewhere in the back of my mind, but I wasn’t doing anything about it. It wasn’t until the summer before my senior year of college (I was on the 5 year plan) that my mindset actually started changing, and I began working towards this goal that I had vaguely set years before.

The Internship

During this summer, I took an internship position with an Aerospace company as an Electrical Engineer since I figured it would be a good way to get my future career started. The internship was in another state and lasted for about 3 months give or take. Up until this point, everything I had learned in school was very theoretical and in the context of academia. On my internship I caught a glimpse of the “real world” and that products are engineered in order to sell them and make a profit. I also realized that there was more to life than just “what do I want to be when I grow up”.

I was also making more money on this internship than I had ever made before, and frankly didn’t need all of it. This got me to wondering what I should be doing with what I had left over. I went to the library and checked out all sorts of personal finance books, investing books, how to get rich books, and anything else that was remotely related. I didn’t read all of the books all of the way through since I was after the main content and not a plot-line or the experience. I was fascinated by everything that I read and just soaked up everything concerning 401k’s, savings, IRAs, the stock market, the bond market, and even a little about real estate (something I would learn about more a little later). I knew that I had a lot to learn and that not every source agreed with one another. It was a great learning experience and was sort of the springboard into personal finance.

Back To School

When I got back to college for my last year, I registered for a few business classes alongside my remaining engineering classes. I took an accounting class and sat in on a finance class. By far my favorite class was an Entrepreneurship Lecture Series where successful entrepreneurs would come in and talk about their experiences and how they did what they did. I absolutely loved the class and what I gained from their experiences. So, as an engineering graduate, my favorite class ended up being a business class… go figure.

I have since gone to work full-time for the same Aerospace company with whom I did my internship, and am looking forward to going back to school full-time to get my MBA since the business, investment and personal finance world thrills me. This is how I came to be so interested in personal finance and ultimately start a finance blog of my own. It wasn’t just one experience, but a collection of experiences that led me in this direction. So what was/is your experience? How did you develop an interest in the world of personal finance?

I think it would be a valid assumption to make that most people are carrying some form of debt. From mortgages, car loans, student and personal loans, to credit cards, their are a lot of ways that you can get yourself in debt. Unfortunately there aren’t as many different ways to get yourself out of debt. Let me be perfectly clear with this:

The only way to get out of debt is to pay back the money owed.

I’ve seen and heard many different plans or tactics that are supposed to help get people out of debt, but they at best de-emphasize the fact that you have to pay back what you’ve borrowed. You can do 0% balance transfers from credit card to credit card, and while this can lower the associated finance charges, it does nothing to reduce the actual balance owed. You can also take out some sort of home equity loan to pay off and consolidate other debt, but this again doesn’t actually reduce any outstanding balance. It’s merely another way to shift the debt and reduce finance charges.

Many people are also wanting to refinance their homes, which can be a good move depending on the reasons behind it, but it may not be the best thing for your finances. If you’ve had your mortgage for a number of years and decide to refinance, it’s very possible that you could lower your monthly payment. Just remember that you’ll also be pushing the final payoff date further into the future and in turn paying even more in interest.

Whatever fancy tactics and strategies you may hear about that are supposed to be some debt elimination magic pill, remember that the only way to eliminate your debt is to actually pay off the originally borrowed principal balance.

Quite a while back I talked about the importance of having and being able to increase your free cash flow. As a reminder, your free cash flow is the portion of your income that is left over after you’ve paid all of your necessary living expenses. Many people also refer to it as their discretionary income, but instead of just spending it at your discretion on whatever you feel like, you need to start putting it to work for you.

Since it is your “free cash flow”, you can choose what you’d like to do with it, and there are a lot of different options available. You also need to realize that many of the available options can be considered good but not necessarily the best. Only you can decide for your situation how to best allocate your free cash flow, but it will require some thought on your part. So here are a few of my thoughts on the subject, and in my opinion, there are two main things that should be done with any free cash flow that you have:

1. Save up X number of months worth of living expenses as a security blanket, emergency fund, or whatever else you’d like to call it. I personally have the goal of a one year emergency fund, but again, you decide what’s right for you.

2. Buy investments that in turn produce more cash flow. By doing this, you’ll continually be increasing the amount of available income that you have with which to pay your living expenses and eventually become financially free. Investing for cash flow is in contrast to investing for capital appreciation which excludes most mutual funds and other traditional investments.

The reason for the focus on cash flow is because that’s what we live on. Even with a traditional retirement plan, people hope to accumulate enough over their working life which will produce enough income to live off in retirement. So it’s imperative to mind your free cash flow and find ways to increase it. And as always, I’d love to hear any comments that you have on the subject.

As many of you may know, we’re going to be moving in the next couple of months since I’ve decided to go back to school. This is going to take us from St Louis out west to Phoenix. As you might also imagine, there are a lot of things that need to be taken care of before, during and after such a move. It doesn’t just happen overnight.

So to assist anyone with their long distance moving needs, Relocation.com wants to provide many different resources. You can find moving companies, search for apartments or homes, or find information on mortgages. It’s a place that can give you ideas help remind you of some of the important aspects of a move.

A note for the site itself though is that there are a few broken links in the Career and Jobs section as well as no information on the Selling a Home page.

Last night we got together with some friends and played the game Cash Flow 101 developed by Robert Kiyosaki, the guy who wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I got the game for my birthday about a year ago and had never played it until last night (it can be difficult to get others interested in a game about investing), and I have to say that it was a lot of fun. All four of us who played seemed to really enjoy it and learn something from it as well. If you ever get the chance to play it, I would definitely recommend it. And now for the rest of the weekend edition:

1. Fiscal Musings Throwback (FMT): Since I’ve already mentioned the subject of cash flow above, I thought I’d bring back a post I wrote about a year ago entitled, How much is enough? I often hear people talking about some magic number they need to have saved by some date, such as retirement. But why not focus on the cash flow that your investments will produce instead of some dollar amount? Eventually you’re going to need the income anyway.

2. Another FMT: Everyone wants to be rich, but here are 4 Reasons You’re Not Rich. I’m sure there are many other reasons, but you can start with these and then go find some more.

Chances are that you’ve already seen the new five dollar bill, but if you haven’t already, you should be on the look out for it. By visiting the above link you can check out some of the new security features and check out the new design.

The new bill has more of a European look to it than any previous bills. The most telling feature of the bill is the big purple number five on the back of the bill in the lower right hand corner. Many people seem to think that it’s a little odd, but I don’t really mind it. It’s supposed to help people differentiate it from other bills at a quick glance.

It isn’t anything that’s going to change the way you handle your finances, but I thought you should be aware of the change. So don’t be alarmed when you see the big purple five. You can save it just like any other bill.