Tag Archives: Personal Finance

April 11, 2012

Where Can I Get A Will?

By Chris LoCurto
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It’s not uncommon for someone to ask us, Where can I get a will? Why? When you begin to get your finances in order and you have something to leave to loved ones, you want to make sure it gets there.

The problem is that many people don’t put a priority on getting a will, so they don’t. And it’s not like it’s that difficult to do. So why am I talking about this? Estate planners tell us that nearly 70% of Americans die without a will.

I have seen both sides. I can tell you the families who lose a loved one who doesn’t have a will continue to suffer with the loss well beyond those whose loved one had a will. Here are some reasons to get one:

  • They’re cheap! - You can get a will from USLegalForms.com for as low as $15. That’s dang cheap! You can even upgrade for a bit more, and they’ll have someone prepare it for you.
  • Consider it a gift - With a will, your estate will be considerably easier to handle. It spells out who gets your assets and what needs to happen. Your family will be going through enough grief with your loss. Don’t throw on top of that the need to fight with other family members or have to split things up in a different percentage than you would like. You can make sure your family is provided for the way YOU want.
  • Do you trust your state?  - If your state has done a horrible job in handling the state’s finances, why in the world would you let them handle your estate? Without a will, they get to decide. And it’s not only where your assets go. If you have children and it’s not spelled out, they decide that, as well.
  • Who really likes taxes?  - Well, I guess there are a lot that do. But if you don’t, having a will can keep your family from paying more inheritance taxes than necessary. You’ve already paid taxes on your stuff, and your family will have to again—don’t let the government heap more on top of that.

So as an individual, you need to make this happen and soon. As a business, we offer all of our team members a free will. Yep. We pay for it. Again, it’s $15!!! Trust me when I say this isn’t an advertisement. It’s a plea.

Question: Do you know someone who did not have a will when they passed away? 

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32 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in EntreLeadership, Leadership, Small Business

November 21, 2011

Why You Need To Celebrate Progress

By Chris LoCurto
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“People are afraid to celebrate winning the battle, because the war hasn’t been won yet.” – Kent Singletary

I was having a conversation with Kent, our Momentum Coach, and we were talking about completing the Financial Peace University (FPU) Baby Steps. That’s when he shared with me the above quote. (Yes, I could have written it into this paragraph, but it’s much better as a stand-alone quote.) He said people (especially men) are hesitant to celebrate accomplishing Baby Step 1 of FPU, which is getting $1,000 in an emergency fund, because something might happen and they would have to use that money.

He pointed out that people don’t celebrate what can be taken away. Think about the kinds of cards you can buy at Hallmark – birthday, anniversary, etc. But you don’t see a “Great job losing 10 pounds!” card. The same thing is true for emergency funds. Something might happen, and they will be forced to pull money out of their emergency fund for…wait for it…an emergency!

But that’s what it’s there for. The sad thing is, people feel like they’ve failed if they have an emergency and they have to use the emergency fund. How is that possible? Well, to be honest, it’s because of the financial roller coaster we’ve all been on with our money since we started our lives as adults. We started using debt. We didn’t watch where we spent our money. We’re a culture that celebrates permanence; therefore, we don’t place as much value on the things that might last only a short time.

According to The Wall Street Journal, 70% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That means that all the money coming in is going right back out again. With life being this tight, any unexpected event is going to be a financial crisis. And what do we do when we have a financial crisis? Well, considering we don’t have cash to handle it, we go into debt. Thus, the pensive feelings when we finally have an emergency fund. These crises leave such deep mental scars that we’re still just waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

We get confused thinking that unless the fund stays at $1,000, we weren’t successful. The truth is, most people have never had that much money in their account on purpose! We also worry that if we have to use the money, and someone finds out, they will look at us as failures. It’s just not true! And if someone does, get that dork out of your life. Look for people who enjoy celebrating milestones.

So what do we do? Here are some suggestions:

  • Celebrate – Make it a point to get excited that you have that money! (Especially you men!) Get up and dance a jig. Or the Hokie Pokie. Or the Macarena. I don’t care, just get happy!
  • Celebrate with others – Again, as humans we are naturally concerned with what others think of us. If you see somebody doing something right, go crazy telling them how well they’ve done. They’ll soon begin to feel it as well. Then it will be okay for them to experience the fun! And don’t be afraid to celebrate the same win again if you have to go backward temporarily.
  • Plan for emergencies – Planning for an emergency doesn’t mean one will happen. It just means you are prepared. What if there is an emergency? What then? Well, since you’ve been working like crazy to protect yourself against emergencies, then it’s okay if you need to use that protection. By the way, stop calling this failure!

Always remember that we don’t get into financial trouble overnight. Therefore, it will take some time to get out. Celebrating the Baby Steps is just a way of saying along the way that you have no intentions of going backward for good. If we do for a time, it’s only for a time.

Question: Have you ever felt this way before, or noticed someone who has? Is there someone you need to celebrate with today?

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September 15, 2011

Leadership Question: Stay Focused Or Grow?

By Chris LoCurto
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Not only is this a great question from Kent, but it’s something that I, and so many others, have struggled with. As an entrepreneur, you want to accomplish as much as you possibly can. There’s a voice inside of you that constantly wants to grow and build more of what you already have. We believe if you’re not growing, you’re dying.

The problem is, many of us have a tendency to get something rolling and then jump to the next shiny thing. If you’re not careful, you’ll pull energy, talent and resources away from the thing that was working to try to grow elsewhere.

Questions to ask are:

  • Is the original profit center profitable? If so, by how much?
  • Has it hit its capacity? If not, what does that look like?
  • Do I have someone strong enough to run it? If so, what’s their capacity?

I think you have to make sure that you have a champion in place and growing what you currently have before you begin to look at other options. Once you have someone who is successful at growing the current profit center, coming up with strategies for future growth, and handling problems successfully,,then I think you can begin to focus on other profit centers.

Keep in mind that you are generating a lot of the energy that’s part of the current process, so you can’t pull away completely. You will have to be even more intentional to be a part of it going forward.

As for the new profit center, as you get that up and going, I suggest you find a champion to run that as well. Someone you will mentor along the way but will eventually take control of it. The best way to grow those leaders is to pay them, and only them, off the bottom line. This will gives them ownership, and they will watch both the top and bottom lines.

As you add individual profit centers, it becomes considerably more important to intentionally lead the profit center leaders. You must find time to make sure they have all they need to be successful. Champions in a position like that may have a tendency not to share everything because they want to show how successful they can be. So be sure to dig deep and hold them accountable.

Also, don’t stop leading at the top. You must make your way into the teams to see what’s happening on the front lines. Sam Walton used to jump in a truck leaving the distribution center and ride with the driver to the store. Along the way he would ask the driver to tell him everything that was going on from his point of view. When he reached the store, he wouldn’t talk with the managers until last. He went through the dock workers and the cashiers and the stockers to see what was going on. Then he talked to management.

While you must set up a level of leadership that you trust, you also have to realize that any point of view from one person is just that, one person’s point of view.

Question: Have you ever seen someone being to spread out in their business?

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22 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in EntreLeadership, Leadership, Small Business

March 4, 2011

You Can’t Have That!

By Chris LoCurto
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Today we are in Kansas City for the EntreLeadership 1-Day event teaching business owners and leaders how to grow and build their business. And I just want to say that I am a capitalist! I have no problem with someone leaving the cave, killing something, dragging it home, and keeping it!

My New iPhone 4 Arrived today! - June 29, 2010

The Bible specifically says the diligent will prosper. If I decide to put my energy into creating a product that changes or enhances lives, and I make money for that, what’s the problem?

There is this crazy idea that you shouldn’t be able to make a lot of money for your hard work. If you do, you should give it all away. Who came up with this idea?

I don’t know who came up with the idea, but I do know who brings it up all the time. It’s always someone who doesn’t have anything. Someone who isn’t willing to work their tail off to obtain a better standard of living.

Someone who thinks that life and money should be handed to them. This is the same person who wants to partake in luxuries but doesn’t want the company who makes those luxuries to have any money.

Question for ya: How would Apple research, develop, and get the iPhone out to market if it didn’t have any cash? “Didn’t a lot of this stuff start in a garage somewhere?” Yes! And do you remember how long it took to get to market? Be reasonable.

Does this mean that I don’t think businesses should give? Not at all. In fact, David Green, CEO of Hobby Lobby, recently gave $70 million to a university. $70 MILLION! Now ya can’t do that if you don’t have any money, can you?

On the way back from lunch today, I saw two people standing in a median, each with a stop sign on a stick that read, “STOP CORPORATE TAKEOVER.” That’s right. Two healthy-looking people, in the middle of a workday, denouncing corporate “greed” to everyone who drove by.

I didn’t see that they were getting much support. After all, most of us were on our way to earn our living by working for those “greedy” corporations who pay us.

I believe most people are not upset about what other people have. They’re upset about what they don’t have. Again, the diligent prosper. If you want more, instead of being jealous of someone else, try working harder. Or come up with other ways to make money.

Don’t be a hater! (That’s street lingo.) I once heard that the difference between jealousy and envy is with envy, you want what someone has. With jealousy, you want what they have, and you don’t want them to have it.

Let’s just work on getting what we want and not worry about what others have, mmmkay? Please share some situations that you’ve experienced.

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March 1, 2011

Celebrating Progress

By Chris LoCurto
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“People are afraid to celebrate winning the battle, because the war hasn’t been won yet.” – Kent Singletary

A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with Kent, our Momentum Coach, and we were talking about completing the Financial Peace University (FPU) Baby Steps. That’s when he shared with me the above quote. (Yes, I could have written it into this paragraph, but it’s much better as a stand-alone quote.) He said people (especially men) are hesitant to celebrate accomplishing Baby Step 1 of FPU, which is getting $1,000 in an emergency fund, because something might happen and they would have to use that money.

He pointed out that people don’t celebrate what can be taken away. Think about the kinds of cards you can buy at Hallmark – birthday, anniversary, etc. But you don’t see a “Great job losing 10 pounds!” card. The same thing is true for emergency funds. Something might happen, and they will be forced to pull money out of their emergency fund for…wait for it…an emergency!

But that’s what it’s there for. The sad thing is, people feel like they’ve failed if they have an emergency and they have to use the emergency fund. How is that possible? Well, to be honest, it’s because of the financial roller coaster we’ve all been on with our money since we started our lives as adults. We started using debt. We didn’t watch where we spent our money. We’re a culture that celebrates permanence; therefore, we don’t place as much value on the things that might last only a short time.

According to The Wall Street Journal, 70% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That means that all the money coming in is going right back out again. With life being this tight, any unexpected event is going to be a financial crisis. And what do we do when we have a financial crisis? Well, considering we don’t have cash to handle it, we go into debt. Thus, the pensive feelings when we finally have an emergency fund. These crises leave such deep mental scars that we’re still just waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

We get confused thinking that unless the fund stays at $1,000, we weren’t successful. The truth is, most people have never had that much money in their account on purpose! We also worry that if we have to use the money, and someone finds out, they will look at us as failures. It’s just not true! And if someone does, get that dork out of your life. Look for people who enjoy celebrating milestones.

So what do we do? Here are some suggestions:

  • Celebrate – Make it a point to get excited that you have that money! (Especially you men!) Get up and dance a jig. Or the Hokie Pokie. Or the Macarena. I don’t care, just get happy!
  • Celebrate with others – Again, as humans we are naturally concerned with what others think of us. If you see somebody doing something right, go crazy telling them how well they’ve done. They’ll soon begin to feel it as well. Then it will be okay for them to experience the fun! And don’t be afraid to celebrate the same win again if you have to go backward temporarily.
  • Plan for emergencies – Planning for an emergency doesn’t mean one will happen. It just means you are prepared. What if there is an emergency? What then? Well, since you’ve been working like crazy to protect yourself against emergencies, then it’s okay if you need to use that protection. By the way, stop calling this failure!

Always remember that we don’t get into financial trouble overnight. Therefore, it will take some time to get out. Celebrating the Baby Steps is just a way of saying along the way that you have no intentions of going backward for good. If we do for a time, it’s only for a time.

Have you ever felt this way before or noticed someone who has? Is there someone you need to celebrate with today?

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January 20, 2011

Aren’t I Your Favorite?

By Chris LoCurto
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If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being on a missions trip…it’s how to negotiate! Okay, I’ve learned a ton of spiritual stuff as well, but inevitably, on each missions trip comes the free day where you go to the local market. Ohhhhhh yeaaaaaaah, shopping at its finest. This is where you can find just about anything carved out of a coconut…or a stump. You can get your hair braided so tight that your grandchildren will have a headache. You can pick up a cross made out of….stuff that you don’t recognize. It’s the day we ‘set free’ the kids that have traveled with us, and tell them to go buy something to bless their parents and supporters.

It’s not uncommon for you to be walking by the huts, which are outside in eleven thousand degree weather, for the seller to wave a fan handmade out of banana leaves at you and tell you that they have air conditioning. It’s quite funny, but you have to realize that these are people trying to put food on their table just like the rest of us. At these markets we would always tell the youth on the trip with us to not just take the first price offered. These folks are used to negotiating. In fact, in most countries other than ours, they are used to negotiating at markets. Therefore, you always figure out what you are willing to pay for the item, go lower than that, and try and negotiate to your price. What’s really funny is watching one of our youth lock onto something that they really want, and they try to negotiate. Once they see you’re sold, they don’t back down. But if you act like it’s no big deal, they will drop the price with every step you take walking away from their merchandise.

“That’s great Chris, I’m sure that’ll help me on my next missions trip. But what can I do with that here?” Well, the truth is, I negotiate stuff here all the time just by asking. The Bible says you have not ’cause you ask not. So ask! Many times at car rental places I have been the sweetest and most charming guy, and then asked for a free upgrade by saying, “Can you upgrade me for free since I’m your favorite?!” The crazy thing is, it has worked more than not. The same thing at hotels when asking for a better room. During Christmas, when a store is packed, is a great time to ask for a discount. Just about anyone is able to give a ten percent discount.

The point is, it’s not that difficult to negotiate a better rate on the things you are buying. Just be realistic,and expect someone to do the same to you. :-)

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January 18, 2011

No, You Can’t Have That!

By Chris LoCurto
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controlfreak

Image by celine nadeau via Flickr

I……am a control freak, when it comes to doing the finances at home. But I have a really good excuse for it! ;-) It comes from a bad situation I was in where I lost everything I had due to trusting someone else with my money. I was young and ignorant…and trusting, and it cost me years of heartache. And because of that, I have had this….thing, where I have to be in control of the finances, knowing where every penny is at all times. That’s not bad is it?

The problem came in when I got married. Now we had two people who did the finances, but one wouldn’t give it up. (If you’re still with me, you know which of us that was.) This became a point of contention because she liked doing the finances. But we were able to come to an agreement. I would do the finances as long as we had two things: a budget committee meeting, and I would bring to that meeting a print out summary of the finances/investments/bank statements, that way she could see exactly where everything was, and have a really good feel for where we were going.

Now, the later of the two is pretty self-explanatory. But if you don’t know what a budget committee meeting is, it’s when the one spouse prepares the budget before the next month begins and presents it to the other spouse. This gives the other spouse the opportunity to inspect it to see if it lines up with what was previously discussed, as well as give input on things left out. I.e., their mother’s birthday is that month and they’ll need to buy a present. There will be a field trip for the kids at school that will cost money. This may mean that some things need to be adjusted if the suggestions add more mullah than is available. If you’re budget is already tight, you might have to not go out to dinner to pay for your mother-in-law’s Snuggie.

Most importantly, you have to come together at the end of each month and plan what’s going to happen next month. It’s called being grownups. And, if one of you is a control freak in the area of finances, this give your spouse the comfort of knowing that everything is in place and is all right.

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January 14, 2011

Wait, Don’t Throw That Out.

By Chris LoCurto
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The Chair (gimpified)

Ken Munday and I were on the way to the airport when he got a phone call from his daughter Maegen. While he was on it, he said something that I had to ask about when he hung up. He said, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

It sounded like a great financial principle, so I asked where it came from. He said that it came from a friend years ago names Virgil Coffee, and it was something he would say from time to time. Ken and his family have carried on that saying as a way of working through financial decisions like spending money for something that you may already have.

In other words, if you’re working through your debt snowball, do you buy a new couch even though you have one that works? It may have a few dings and scratches, but it’s doable. It’s like throwing out jeans that fit really well just because  someone came out with a new style? (Ok, so you can tell by earlier posts that I have a thing for jeans that fit.)

Another discussion came up along these lines a few weeks ago in a meeting where it was mentioned that people used to hold onto stuff to pass it on. Like furniture, families would save it to pass on to their children to start their lives on their own. That way they didn’t have to go out and spend crazy amounts of money, that they probably don’t have, to furnish an apartment or a house. They could be blessed with enough stuff to start building their life and income, and later could “upgrade” if they could afford it. Items would be passed from generation to generation.

What happened to these concepts? Have we become too proud to use something that has some scratches on it? Or take something that used to be in our grandparents’ home? Are we trying too hard to impress our friends when they walk into our home? Or has it just become too easy to go into debt and get whatever we want? Perhaps with the advent of debt and stuffitis, we’ve become a culture who’s too proud to make the financial decisions needed to get us ahead.

Am I saying you can’t have new stuff? Absolutely not! Doing what I’ve been doing for ten years, I’ve had the opportunity to see tons of families leverage debt to get stuff that they want, stuff that they can’t afford, only to end up in trouble with debt down the road. And I wonder if they just had the mentality of, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” where would they be? Just a thought.

Tell me if you agree or disagree. What other great sayings have you heard that have helped you?

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January 6, 2011

Dude…Where’s My Car?

By Chris LoCurto
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Car rental counters of New Chitose Airport
Image via Wikipedia

It’s almost an inevitable question when talking with people who aren’t fully immersed in the FPU plan. When I tell people that I haven’t had a credit card in now eleven years, they have a tendency to say, “You don’t have any credit cards whatsoever?! How do you…rent a car. I hear you can’t rent from most rental car places without a credit card!”

Now, if that’s you, I don’t mean to offend you, but you’re a little behind the times. With what I get to do, I have traveled every year, for the past ten years, more than most people I’ve ever met. (See the Southwest Airlines post to see how many flights.) I say that to then say, I’ve done all of that travel with only two debit cards; a business debit card and a personal debit card. Now, in the early days, it was a little difficult to rent from the companies that charge too much for a car, but why rent from them anyway. The reason they didn’t take debit cards was simple, you most likely won’t upgrade with a debit card. They’ve since realized that they are losing business by not taking them. For the last five or six years, I haven’t found a company that still only takes credit cards.

With that said, there are some things you have to deal with. Most places ARE going to put a hold of a certain amount on your bank account. But again, if you’re following the plan, you should actually have MONEY in your account. It’s usually anywhere from $150 to $300, and it gets removed when you turn in the car and pay for it. At an airport rental place, you most likely can’t rent one way with a debit card without calling first. And, it’s always a good idea to call anyway just to make sure you haven’t found the one branch that’s still stuck in the past. (We almost never actually call and I still haven’t had a problem.) Other than that, it’s the same as with a credit card. The world is changing my friend. The more people refuse to use credit, the more companies will pay attention!

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January 4, 2011

No, Seriously, Stop It!

By Chris LoCurto
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Cover of "Giving (Doing Words)"

Cover of Giving (Doing Words)

Just a week on the other side of Christmas and let me say that I love gifts!!! I love receiving gifts, but I love giving them even more. Giving a gift is like giving a really good hug…only they get to keep the gift with them. (If you kept hugging, that might get weird.) I believe that I’m not alone in this. I know a lot of people who love to give. There’s just something that God put in us that makes your insides warm up when you spend time looking for that perfect thing, you package it in something that says you care, and then put it in the hands of the friend or loved one. Then the best feeling comes when their face lights up with joy and amazement.

While I believe that God put that desire in us to bless others, I also believe that it is a learned trait. In other words, I think you have to actually start giving to experience it to the fullest. “Well, duh! (You don’t get a lot of duh nowadays.) You can’t experience it if you don’t give something in the first place.” True, but what I mean is, while you can experience it once, I think it builds inside the more you do it…like muscle.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, God is the biggest giver of all. That’s the real point of Christmas. God gave, and many times in His Word He asks us to give. He asks us to give to those who truly don’t have. He asks us to give thanks to Him for His provision. And He asks us to give a tithe of our first fruits. (If you haven’t experience this kind of giving yet, you just don’t realize what you’re missing out on.) I believe He asks us to give so that we become better people. I believe He has us to give so that we realize we don’t actually own it. It’s incredible how many times you hear someone brag on a person because of what they gave. Their time, their talent, their capacity.

When you have a spirit of giving, you almost can’t stop. When you know that He owns it all, you don’t have a problem giving it away. There’s an example of this in the Bible. In Exodus 36:3-7 it shows us how the people gave so much of their freewill offerings that Moses had to send out a decree saying, “No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.” CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT?!?! The people of God gave so much that they were RESTRAINED from giving. When you have an eternal perspective, you realize that nothing really has sentimental value.

A dear friend of mine once told me that God has given us all gifts. And to hide that gift from others is like smacking God in the face. Here’s the thing…it has to start with me. It doesn’t matter if anyone else is giving. If I don’t, I can’t experience the gift…and neither can anyone else. The great thing is that when I give, it’s like a big ole hug from God!

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