(This is part of an ongoing series about how YOU, a resident of Charlotte North Carolina or any other place in the country, can become debt free and financially independent using a simple plan and process known as the Total Money Makeover. You can review the previous posts to catch up on everything you have missed.)

Like I said in yesterday’s post, we are ALMOST ready to dive into Dave Ramsey’s 7 steps to a Total Money Makeover, but before we do there are just two more hurdles for us to jump! Yesterday we talked about the first hurdle = Ignorance. If you missed it you can simply scroll back and read it.

Today we’ll just be talking about the second hurdle = “Keeping up with the Joneses
Hurdle #2: Keeping Up with the Joneses – The Joneses Can’t Do Math

Try to remember that funny little phrase every time you see your neighbor, friend, or co-worker come home with a new car or new suit… “The Joneses can’t do math.”

Also remember this = radical change is required for a money breakthrough. If we are not doing well financially then obviously we have to radically change our habits.
Dave Ramsey always says it a little stronger than I do, so let me quote him: “Continuing to do the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.”

Basically we all have to decide to really go for it and we can’t hang on to ANY of the myths we have discussed in the previous posts or it won’t work.

Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina.

(This is part of an ongoing series about how YOU, a resident of Charlotte North Carolina or any other place in the country, can become debt free and financially independent using a simple plan and process known as the Total Money Makeover. You can review the previous posts to catch up on everything you have missed.)

In yesterday’s post we looked at some financial advice when it comes to our insurance.
Now, we are ALMOST ready to dive into Dave Ramsey’s 7 steps to a Total Money Makeover, but before we do there are just two more hurdles for us to jump!

Two More Hurdles: Ignorance and Keeping Up with the Joneses
Today we’ll just be talking about the “Ignorance hurdle” and in tomorrow’s post we will discuss the “keeping up with the Joneses hurdle.”

Hurdle #1: Ignorance – No One is Born Financially Smart

Here is an encouraging statistic: the average family will make two million dollars in a lifetime! With each family making that much money, there is really no reason for any of us to be financially unstable!
The reason some of us are not in the best financial shape is not because we don’t make money, it’s simply because we’re ignorant of how to handle our money. Ignorant doesn’t mean stupid, it just means there is stuff we don’t know yet!

The way to jump this hurdle is to overcome our ignorance! Read something about money at least once a year. I think this is a good and very reachable goal to have. You can start with Dave Ramsey’s simple book – The Total Money Makeover, or something else you may be interested it.

We don’t need to become financial geeks, but we do probably need to spend more time on our 401K and budget than this year’s vacation plans!

Dave Ramsey gives us this advice: “What you don’t know won’t hurt you” is a stupid statement. What you don’t know will kill you (financially).
So, let’s not get tripped up by the financial hurdle of ignorance.

Make sure you check out the next post about the 2nd (and final) hurdle we need to jump before moving on to the 7 baby steps.

Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina.

(This is part of an ongoing series about how YOU, a resident of Charlotte North Carolina or any other place in the country, can become debt free and financially independent using a simple plan and process known as the Total Money Makeover. You can review the previous posts to catch up on everything you have missed. In this post we are discussing some insurance advice.)

During our current times many people are trying to figure out ways to SAVE MONEY! They want to know where they can cut expenses, etc… Some of you may have thought of dropping some of your insurances, but there is some insurance you can’t afford to be without!!!

Here are some things you can do though.
For auto & home insurance – have HIGH deductibles to save on premiums. With high liability limits these are the best buys.
Life insurance – purchase 20 year level term insurance equal to about 10 times your income. Term insurance is cheap and the only way to go. Never use life insurance as a way to save and invest money!
Long term disability – 32 year olds are 12 times more likely to become disabled than to die by 65! So this is even MORE important than life insurance! Buy this insurance at your place of employment! Usually you want to get coverage equal to 50-70% of your income and you can get it at a fraction of the cost.
Health insurance –> medical bills are the #1 cause of bankruptcy! #2 is credit cards! Get HIGH deductibles. Also a HSA (health savings account) is great to save on premiums. It is a way to save for medical expenses in tax free savings account.

OH, this is free = *You need to do a will! 70% of Americans die without a will!!!

Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina.

Yesterday and today are all the games in the sweet sixteen of the NCAA Tournament for the men’s college basketball tournament.

This year’s tournament has been awesome so far - complete with upsets, buzzer beaters, and great games! It has been so crazy that after the second day of games (which was after the whole first round of the tourney was complete) there was not one single perfect bracket!!! WOW! With over five million entries to the ESPN bracket challenge, not one person had picked every game right even in the first round!
My wife on the other hand is a genius. She is leading the bracket challenge we are in. She is in first place! And she is in the 99.9 percentile of the whole nation! She is right up there in the top of all those over five million brackets. My wife is a genius!

Tonight, in about five minutes in fact, the Carolina Tarheels are taking on Gonzaga in the sweet sixteen. The winner will move on to the Elite Eight to face the mighty Oklahoma Sooners with probable national player of the year Blake Griffin. They beat the wonder boys - the Syracuse Orange tonight who stormed through the Big East tournament a few weeks ago.

My prediction is that Carolina will roll over Gonzaga tonight. The Heels are simply too powerful for the Zags. Hansbrough, Lawson, Green, Thompson, Ellington, Davis, and the rest of Roy Williams’ boys will prevail tonight! See you in the Elite Eight!

Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate.

Nightline is a show I do not usually watch. I guess it comes on every Thursday after the local news on ABC… around 11:30 PM. It is similar to 20/20 and those type of shows.

But tonight I made sure to watch it and also record it on my DVR. I was really excited to see someone in tonight’s show. Mark Driscoll is the pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle Washington. It is one of the fastest growing churches in America that he started ten years ago. He has become VERY popular and has even been on different national TV shows four or five times in the past two months.

The debate and title of the show was “Does Satan Really Exist?” Driscoll’s debate partner was a woman named Annie Lobert who leads an organization titled “Hookers for Jesus”. She is a former Las Vegas call girl whose life was radically changed by Jesus and now she leads a ministry to rescue women from this type of lifestyle. These two were on the side that there is a literal and personal Satan as talked about in the Bible.

On the other side of the debate were the famous Deepak Chopra and Bishop Pearson. Pearson is basically an unknown and was deemed a heretic by his former church in Tulsa Oklahoma. Deepak Chopra is not a Christian but a “spiritual author” and just a really intelligent guy. He was pretty arrogant about his intelligence in the debate.

You can see the replay of the debate online.

Nightline tonight was hosted at Mars Hill Church where Mark Driscoll is the pastor.

Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate.

I love hot wings! Buffalo wings, chicken wings, whatever you want to call them… I LOVE them. I fell in love with wings when I was in high school. My dad and I used to ALWAYS go to Buffalo’s when it was in Monroe North Carolina off of Highway 74. It was in an old western saloon type restaurant. Then it turned into Tumbleweeds and it only went downhill from there.

Then when I went to college and fell even more in love with wings. But I always missed Buffalo’s. There was only another one in Atlanta, Georgia. In college I lived in Pensacola, Florida. Near the Naval Base there was an amazing wing place called Kooter Brown’s. A lot of us guys from college used to go to Kooter Brown’s on many Monday and Thursday nights. EVERY Monday and Thursday night was “All you can eat” wings for only $9.99! Really AWESOME deal and it included a basket of fries covered in “Kooter Dust”. It was a good replacement for Buffalo’s but just not the same.

FINALLY Buffalo’s has moved back to Charlotte North Carolina! I was so excited when I saw the commercial on TV that Buffalo’s was back in Charlotte. They moved into a shopping center in Balantyne off of Conlan Circle.

It is officially called Buffalo’s Southwest Cafe. Me and three other guys ate there tonight. The wings were OH so good. You need to visit on Tuesdays because they have their wing special for only $.39 per wing!

Charlotte North Carolina. Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate.

Matthews is a very fast growing suburb of Charlotte North Carolina.
This past Saturday I took a group of kids to Pump It Up party zone in Matthews North Carolina. It is a great place and is located off of Monroe Road near the Sardis Road intersection

Pump It Up is “The Inflatable Party Zone” - they specialize in private, indoor parties with GIANT interactive inflatable play blowup “rooms”. They are kind of like “bounce houses” but really take it to the next level! They are like the biggest things I have ever seen!

They had one blow up zone that was an entire basketball court! That one was really fun for the kids (and for me). It had walls that were “bounce-offable, and floors that bounced everyone WAY up in the air so everyone could slam dunk the ball.

Their website describes themselves as “A Pump It Up party is a fun and unforgettable event for ages 2 to adult! Surf our website for more information, or give us a call.”
The people there are very nice and they make it so convenient to work with them. We got to use their party room for 30 minutes too. We got all this and two hours in the party zone (with the inflatables) for only five dollars per child! That is an awesome deal for a day of fun for kids!

I was completely tired out by the time it was over (and still am a little sore from all the jumping around)!

Charlotte North Carolina. Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate.

Today is my Mom’s birthday. My Dad, and my wife and I, and my grandmother were all at my parents house to celebrate her birthday!
My Mom actually lives in Mint Hill North Carolina which at times is not even seen as a difference between Charlotte North Carolina.

They actually live in Farmwood between Lawyers road and Lebanon road right in Mint Hill North Carolina. Farmwood actually connects across Lebanon and all the way to the corner of Idlewild road and Margaret Wallace road. This is the newer part of Farmwood. So, it is kind of like one BIG neighborhood with two sections. In fact it is THE biggest development in the Carolinas if I am not mistaken. I know for sure a few years ago it was the largest housing development in North and South Carolina.
There are some very nice homes for sale in Farmwood right now.

Anyway, this is where my mom was on her birthday this year. And of course like we love to do we all went to Outback Steakhouse to celebrate her birthday as well. We usually go to the Outback in Matthews North Carolina (which is right next to Mint Hill) which is in Matthews Festival that also connects to Sycamore Commons. Both of these are off of Independence Boulevard and between Highway 51 and Sam Newell Road.

Outback is one of my favorite my Mom’s favorite restaurants. The waitress brought her a complimentary birthday ice cream sundae that was very good. The whole team of servers sang their Outback version of happy birthday to her.

*It was a great birthday for my mom here in Charlotte and Mint Hill and Matthews North Carolina.

Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate.

A lot of people in Charlotte North Carolina and around the country are saying that because of the economic crisis we are in… “IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD!” or “the sky is falling!” or silly things like that.

Bad things do happen. A lot of times bad things happen and we have no reasons or ideas for why they are happening? Bad things like death, sickness, children dying from hunger and disease all over the world, people going bankrupt, people losing their jobs, families having a lot of fear and not knowing if they can pay the bills they have to pay…

No doubt YOU have either lost your job or know someone who has lost their job recently and their is a lot of uncertainty in the air.

*So, the big question is what do you do or think when there is NO sign of God in your life at all? Or no sign of Him in all these bad events from your vantage point?

Good question, huh? You definitely want be at Ridge Church in Matthews over the next three Sundays. Ridge Church is discussing exactly that question! What does God have to say about all these things that are happening in our world and in YOUR life? Does He say anything or is He silent?

You can come to Ridge Church off of Highway 51 in Matthews to experience this awesome new series called “He’s Still* Got the Whole World in His Hands.”
You will leave with HOPE in God even in these uncertain times!

Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina.

Tonight my wife and I went to the Charlotte Checkers hockey game here in Charlotte. The Checkers are a great ECHL team. The ECHL is a professional hockey league that is similar to the Triple A minor leagues in baseball.

The Checkers have been in Charlotte North Carolina for many years - since I was a kid. They used to play at Cricket Arena/ Independence Arena/ “The Old Coliseum”/ Bojangles Arena (whichever name you know it by).
But now the team has “moved on up” and they play in Time Warner Cable Arena and share it with the Charlotte Bobcats!

The Checkers have always been a great team in their league. They have won their league championship several times and used to be even dominant. They are not quite as dominant anymore, but they have made the playoffs four seasons in a row including this season in which they are ranked in third place in their conference currently.

My good friend works for the Charlotte Bobcats and he was able to hook up my wife and I with tickets to the Charlotte Checkers game tonight against the number one team in the league - the Florida Everglades!

It was an AWESOME game! The first two periods went scoreless in fact. During the second intermission, one of my other friends got to play one of the new songs he recently wrote for the whole arena! That was pretty cool. I didn’t even know he was going to be there!

I can’t wait to tell you about the third period of the game - but I’m going to do it in tomorrow’s post. Check it out tomorrow…

Charlotte NC. Charlotte NC Real Estate. Charlotte North Carolina. Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate.