Have your home protected from further damage by covering broken doors, windows and any damage to your roof or exterior. If you choose to do any temporary repairs or site protection yourself, be sure to keep track of all of your expenses. Your insurance company expects you to do this to minimize further damage.

Plastic sheeting, plywood, lumber or other materials can be used to seal or protect property that has been exposed by the storm. Take pictures to document damage then make temporary repairs that won’t endanger your safety.

 Stay away from dangerous situations better handled by professionals such as downed power lines, trees that have fallen, and similar things that can impact not only property loss, but personal safety as well.

 Take many photos immediately after the storm. Take video. Take copious notes. Catalog the age, quantity, model, value and manufacturer of everything you feel is damaged. Detailed record keeping will pay off down the road if your claim is processed. Never throw any damaged personal items away until your insurance company can determine its’ replacement value.

 Contact neighbors and friends within your area. Ask them if they have storm damage, who insures their home and if they are filing a claim. Check in on their progress and compare notes from time to time. This is all information that may be helpful to you should your insurance company not handle your claim to your satisfaction.

 Never sign any agreements with a contractor until you completely understand the implications

 Guard against spoiled food. When in doubt, throw it out.

Do not drive unless it is an emergency. If the power is out, traffic lights will not be working. Stop signs and street signs may be blown away. Streets will be littered with debris. Washouts may have weakened road and bridge structures.

Take precautions to prevent fires. Lowered water pressure in city main lines and the interruption of other services will make firefighting more difficult.

Prepare a detailed inventory of damaged or destroyed property. Include a description of the item, date of purchase, cost at time of purchase, and estimated replacement cost.

In my last blog (part 2 of 4), I outlined the importance of attracting the right talented people to your company.  You cannot develop talented people if you do not first attract them to the organization.  For more on attracting talented people to your organization, please read part 2 of this blog series.  Now let’s move on to developing the talented people in your organization.  Before I begin sharing some of the things I have learned, let me make something clear:  Only in the past few years have I begun to see some significant progress in this area; before that I was headed nowhere on this subject.

When you have the right talented people on the team, managing and developing them is pretty easy.  Give them vision and mission, encourage them, set objectives with them, strategize with them on achieving those objectives, resource them, and GET OUT OF THEIR WAY!

Vision & Mission:  Proverbs 29:18 (NASB) states that “where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained.”  If you look at your organization and it is a bunch of people running around confused and scared with no sense of direction, there is a good chance there is no Vision!  Your vision as an organization answers this simple question:  “Why are we here?”  “What is our purpose?”  This vision provides clear organizational direction and is foundational to developing a unified effort.  Your mission answers the question: “What are we doing?” and “Where are we going?”  The following is the Vision andMission at Box Insurance, which may help you in crafting your own if you have not done this already:

Box Vision:  To bless and prosper our owners, our employees, our clients, and our carriers while using our resources to advance theKingdom ofHeaven.

Box Mission:  To grow in protecting our clients, to derive satisfaction and enjoyment from our work, and to operate profitably and efficiently.

Encourage Them:  Hebrews 3:13 says “encourage one another day after day, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”  We want our employees to work with passion and with all their heart.  If we do not encourage them, their hearts will harden towards their work, which leads to apathy.  Have you ever looked at one of your employees and said “Man, that person is so talented yet they have no passion and are apathetic towards their work!”?  When I start to think this way about a person, a question I ask myself is this:  “Am I encouraging that person?”  Usually the answer is NO.  What does it mean to encourage someone?  Quite simply, it is this – Give them Courage!  When you pour courage into people, they go forth courageously.  I want people in our operation to go forth with courage and passion in their daily work.  Let us build people up by letting them know who they are in Christ, how capable they are, and acknowledging their important role in our organizations.  Do this as often as you can with a goal of doing it daily and watch what happens in that person as well as their work.  I personally am weak in this area and have had the good fortune of being able to vastly improve in this area (mainly because I had nowhere to go but up).  My nature for a longtime has been very critical, which comes with a driven perfectionist mentality.  If you have ever had to work for a driven perfectionist, I am sorry.  Working for a person with this mindset is not uncommon because they are often very successful and thus end up at the top of organizations.  They rarely enjoy their work and it is very difficult for people under their supervision to enjoy their work.  However, we can change as leaders and “we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.” 

Set Objectives & Strategize with them:  These high caliber people that you have attracted need to know what you expect from them and what you want them to accomplish.  It is important to have clear short term and long term objectives that they have a part in setting.  Once the objectives are clear then encourage them to develop strategies for achieving these objectives.  If you are strong in the area of strategy, then schedule some time with them to strategize on how they can achieve their objectives.  I love strategy and there are few things I enjoy more than rolling up my sleeves and developing a strategy to achieve certain objectives.

Resourcing Them:  It is frustrating for a talented person to not have the tools and resources available to them to be successful.  When you make the investment to attract and hire the right talented people, make sure you are prepared to invest into the necessary resources for them to be successful.  Whether it is sales or operations, we make it an objective to provide the best technology, support, and staffing in order for our people to succeed in the marketplace.  For a sales person, this may mean some discretion in marketing expenditures to take advantage of opportunities.  For the service team, it may mean some software that will allow them to perform more efficiently.

Get Out of their Way!  One of the most simple, yet difficult things to do is just back off.  Talented people suffocate under micromanagement.  When I micromanage a person it tells them the following:  “I do not trust you” and “I think you are stupid”.  Talented people need some room to run and make mistakes so they can grow as a person and as a leader.  Let them run with a clear vision that you have set forth for the organization as well as a clear mission (whether short term or long term).  When they mess up, don’t rush to correct them but rather come along side them and encourage them towards where they need to end up.  When they fail, let them know about your own failures and that you did not make it to a place of success through the green fields of perfection.  Talented people will rejoice in your failures and it will embolden them to get up and go for it again after they fall down. 

Because our employees read these blogs, I am not at liberty to talk specifics; however, in conclusion I can share with you a few things that may help.  I have micromanaged and discouraged (take courage away) people on our team (especially from 2005-2008) and it not only lead to great turnover, but it set the stage for a one man band!  Have you ever listened to a one man band?  Sometimes they do alright, but they are never as good as a great band with different instruments and members playing in perfect harmony.  When you tear people down and hover over them, they will take no risk and retreat into a place where they do not get beat down.  This will set the stage for a leader to stoke their own ego by thinking “well if anything good is going to happen here, I am going to have to do it.”  This leader may well be very talented and can perform at a high level; however, the organization will never progress past that person’s output.  This is a great recipe for a small business to stay small and have a bunch of frustrated supporting roles.  Listen! Don’t get overwhelmed if you have a mess on your hands.  Take a step back and figure out why your organization exists and develop clear Vision.  Ask some people that are close to you and your organization.  Having clear Vision and then clear Mission is the starting place for developing your talented people.

In my last blog (part 1), I outlined the most important responsibility of the president of a company (no matter what).  That responsibility is the Who in your company, the employees.  The President’s number one commitment must be focused on who is representing the company.  I outlined some of the blessings that come from being great at the Big Three: Attracting, Developing, and Retaining talented people.  I also committed over the next three blogs to provide some of the keys that unlock the big three.  In this blog, I will be focused on the first and most critical of the big three:  Attracting the Right People to your company.  If you do not attract the right people to your company, then no amount of development will change them into the right person and you certainly won’t be concerned with retaining the wrong people.  Therefore, attracting the right people is simply foundational to having a great company.  If we do not commit ourselves to this as leaders, then we will never reach our potential as leaders or as a company.

I am definitely growing in this area and certainly do not have it mastered, however, over the past three years, we have had a major shift in this arena and are getting more and more consistent with hiring great people.  I think it will be much more encouraging to the reader as well as educational to take a look at my significant failure in this area as a younger less mature leader between 2005 and 2007.  Beginning in 2005 I assumed leadership over a team of three and a half people that were focused on small business and personal lines insurance (now called our Family Unit).  Between late 2005 and early 2008, we had employee turnover of 200% on this team.  That’s right, we turned every position over twice in a period of less than three years.  When you boil this down and try to understand what was happening, there was one common denominator in all of this: ME.  When I analyzed each person that we lost, I found that my failure in one of the Big Three was always at the center of the reason.  For example, I hired one person early in my leadership that was a desperate hire and ended up disastrous from there.  We had a person that filled a critical position who provided us with several months of notice that they were moving to another state.  Instead of moving quickly to interview qualified candidates that could be hired and then trained by this person before they left, we drug our feet and hid our head in the sand.  By the time that person left, we still had not hired a person to replace them.  This put us in desperate situation.  We hired a person who when they left told me this “Dustin, you and I are like fire and water working together”.  We left things with mutual respect, but the fact is I put someone in a position that they had no chance succeeding at because of their skill set, personality, and strengths.  For such a key person, we now average around 6 weeks in our hiring process; back then, we took three days and often times made an offer in the first interview.  Even on entry level positions, we now take around two weeks from the first interview until the offer is made.

During this time period, we hired some great people.  Those people are still with us today.  However, they were two out of ten or more – there was nothing we did that attracted them.  If you hire enough people you will get some great ones and they will be the reason you are doing ok.  However, if you can learn to hire nine out of ten great people, then you will thrive in good times and bad!

By the time 2008 came, I was tired and beat up with personnel issues.  I had basically thrown my hands up; I had not lost my desire to have a great company, but I sure was at a loss of what to do to get great people.  I started saying things I hear all the time in the market place as an excuse for not having great people:  “we are too small to attract talented people,” “all the good people have jobs and their companies are not letting go of them,” “there just aren’t hard working talented people anymore, “young people aren’t willing to start at the bottom anymore; they work six months and think they need to start running the company.”  Any of these sound familiar?  I was certainly guilty of thinking many of these things.  I wanted to put things in place that attracted talented people to our organization.  I started asking myself and the Lord a question:  “What attracts talented people to an organization?”  The answer hit me like a freight train!  Talented people growing and operating in their strengths attracts other talented people.  Talented people want fulfillment from their work; they want to progress both personally and professionally.  They demand a work environment that promotes development and progress as well as a culture of respect and recognition.  This led me to a sobering revelation:  I as the leader of the company had to learn to operate in my strengths and become the kind of leader that attracted the talented people. I am not saying that I have accomplished this in its entirety (or even close), however, I am saying that since I received this revelation, I have heavily invested in becoming a better leader.  I have also dedicated myself to operating in my strengths and to stop operating in areas of weakness.  This is very hard for a leader of a small business.  Leaders of small businesses are used to doing everything and having their hand in everything.  I learned that this is the recipe for remaining a small business.  I made a commitment to stepping back and releasing areas of our business to people who had strengths in that area and guess what happened:  you got it, we got a lot better in that area.  One of the great book series that helped me make this significant change were Patrick Lencioni’s management books.  Through these books, I ended up writing down 5-6 areas that I needed to manage in our organization.  These things played to my strengths and were things only I could do for our organization.  Guess what number one and number two are on the list?  Hiring great people and developing our great people are numbers one and two.  I recommend StrengthFinders 2.0 for understanding and operating in your strengths.

I want to include some guidelines on the hiring process, however, if we jumped to the hiring process without addressing core leadership issues, then we would be merely addressing symptoms and not root issues.  When we hire a person for any position they are interviewed by their potential supervisor for competency as well as fit.  The interviewer takes good notes and makes a decision as to whether they will have a second interview.  We typically test a few areas of competency relative to the position.  If they are to have a second interview, the notes are released to the second interviewer and the candidate is required to complete a Myers Briggs Personality test.  This test will allow us to see how their personality profile will fit with the existing personalities in our organization as well as on their team.  For example, if we see that their personality profile is going to cause a lot of issues with team chemistry or if we have too many of one type (ie extroverts), then we are cautious to tip that balance.  There is no good or bad personality, however, there are personalities that are not good fits for certain positions (ie strong extroverts are often times not a good fit as internal accountants working alone).  There are also certain personalities that do not work well together.  The second thing we test is the candidate’s strengths.  StrengthFinders 2.0 costs around $10 and will let you know the candidate’s top five strengths.  We analyze whether or not the strengths that this person has are a fit for the position for which we are interviewing.  There have been times when the strengths were not a fit for the position, but we made them an offer for another position that they did fit.  Once again we are looking to see if these strengths add to the strengths of the team and will work in a complimentary way to make the team stronger.

Once it is time to complete the second interview we are interviewing for cultural fit.  We are looking to see if this person will align with our company values and mission.  We are looking to see if this person will represent us the way we want to be represented.  There have been times when the person made it with flying colors through the first interview and had a personality and strength profile that was solid, however, when I conducted the second interview for cultural fit, I did not feel that their value system was a fit and I was not comfortable with how they would represent our company.  As the president of a company, you have to decide how involved you are going to be in the interview process.  As a company of 15 people, I am involved in every hire as an interviewer.  I can see where companies of 100 plus people with higher turnover in some of the entry level positions cannot do this, however, a president needs to draw a line where they are involved in the interview process for certain level positions.  I encourage presidents to be involved in as many positions as possible.  There are a couple more things that I do personally for positions of leadership.  I also encourage our managers to do this with all of their candidates.  My wife (Alicia) and I take the candidate (and spouse if relevant) out to dinner to get to know them outside the work environment.  This does two things:  1) It allows me to observe them and get to know them in a less formal setting giving me another glimpse into their personality; and 2)  It allows my wife (who is much more discerning than me) to get a feel for the person and their spouse.  If my spouse has a check about the person, then it is over.  Finally, I spend time in prayer asking for guidance in the hiring decision.  I am aware that the decision to offer a career to someone is not only significant for our organization, but also for their life.  One’s career is a very significant thing and if I mess this up, it not only hurts us, but it hurts the person hired.

In conclusion, a small recap may be useful.  Excellent hiring practices are important, but will not overcome foundational issues where talented people cannot thrive.  We first must have a culture and leadership (that means us) in place that attracts talented people.  This will require us to continuously focus on improving as leaders.  In the midst of that we need to be excellent gatekeepers as to who is coming into our organizations.  Utilizing multiple interviews with focus on competency and cultural fit along with personality and strength profiling are good starts to improving in the area of hiring.  Also, I strongly encourage some type of interaction outside of the formal interview process if possible to provide another look at them.

I am a big advocate of budgeting. Whether you make $2,500 per month or $25,000 per month, budgeting is the blueprint for how your money will outlast your month.  Few people would ever build a building without a plan or blueprint (see Luke 14:28-30).  Yet countless people try to steward their finances without a balanced budget.  I am convinced that spending less than you make for a really long time is one of the keys to creating substantial wealth.  Budgeting helps accomplish this.

I think this result is merely a side benefit that stems from the primary purpose of budgeting.  So what is the primary purpose?  The primary purpose is NOT to cramp your lifestyle, or to help you track your expenses, or even to create awareness around your spending habits—although some of these elements are included.  The primary purpose of a budget is to get you to intentionally control and change your behavior.

Without careful planning, the natural inclination is to spend a little bit more than you make.  If you don’t believe me, consider what you did with your most recent raise.  If you didn’t make a plan for that increase, it has been spent month after month and you likely have little to show for it.  A budget helps give that money an intentional purpose aligned with your goals and beliefs.

Budgeting is really a very simple task.  However, when I ask new clients for their monthly budget what I typically receive is a list of:

• their income
• their recurring expenses (mortgage, electric, water, insurance, phones, car, etc.) with approximate costs, and
• a big “everything else” category.

This is not really a budget—this is an accounting of money spent, and a pretty poor one at that, I might add.

To budget, there are really only three things you need to do:

1)      assign jobs to your dollars (mortgage, entertainment, groceries, etc.)

2)      track monies spent

3)      stop spending when the category is empty

If this is your first crack at budgeting, you may have to alter your categories a bit during the month, but that’s really it.  Now, like with all plans, the key is in commitment and execution—so stick with it!

Now, I’d like to briefly address the small percentage of you who’ve been able to live below your means without a budget.  This was me.  Yes, I admit it, I’m a recovering miser.  What budgeting has done for me is provide freedom to spend money without guilt.  If there’s money left in the eat-out budget, then let’s go out!  It’s also been good for my marriage in helping us steward our resources together and with a common goal.  Finally, it has led to a more generous lifestyle because we are able budget in a “blessing account” for blessing others.

If you are not currently budgeting, I would strongly encourage you to give it a try.  Feel free to ask questions or share your budgeting successes below.

Whether your business is made up of five people or 500 people, the most important job of the President does not change.  Regardless of your industry, the most important job of the President does not change.  No matter if you are in a recession or an economic boom time, the most important job of the President does not change.  The responsibilities of a President are vast and include all areas of the company from client relations to vendor relations, from accounting to technical product issues, and all of these areas can exhaust a President quickly.  However, there is one area that will make or break every company without exception and is worthy of any President’s time:  it is the Who in your business.  Who is it that is representing your company?  The employees.

The people we hire and the people we develop and the people we lead will be the reason you are a great President–or will be the reason you are not.  I did not always understand this and my leadership suffered greatly.  I thought strategy and product innovation were the keys.  If everyone would just do what I said, it would all go well.  This resulted in a very stressful environment for our employees as well as very heavy and unnecessary burden for myself.  It also held us back in accomplishing our best because we were not harnessing the talent of our people.

Over the next three months, I will share with you what I have learned about attracting, developing, and retaining talented people.  Each blog will focus on one of these three key areas to having great people on your team.  I want to share with you some of the benefits we have been experiencing since 2008 when we began applying some of these best practices regarding the people who make up our team.

Peaceful Work Environment: While it is not perfect, since we began hiring and pairing people together on teams based on their personalities and strengths, we have seen the contentment along with the work relationships increase drastically.  It has resulted in a peaceful and productive work environment.

Great Competence: We have the most competent people we have ever had.  I had a friend tell me the other day “Dustin as I walk through your office place, I just observed such confidence in the team and you could just tell they were very good at what they do and they knew it.”  While it was a great compliment to our team, it told me that we are getting the right people on the bus and getting them into the right seat on the bus.

Great Productivity and Growth: Talented people require an environment where they can accomplish great things and operate in their talents.  Releasing our team members to accomplish great things has resulted in far greater productivity than we could have ever accomplished with people just doing what I said.  There are many areas of our business where the people leading those specific areas have better ideas and know how to execute those ideas better than me.  If I did not empower them to operate that way, we would miss out on that improved productivity and we would eventually lose that talented person to someone who would value their talents.

A More Productive President: By getting out of the way and allowing talented people to operate, I find that I have time and capacity to focus on the areas where I can best serve our company.

At the end of the day, the President needs to be keenly focused on hiring, developing, and retaining talented people that will fit well in the company’s culture and compliment the existing team.  We will talk about better ways to do this and what we have learned in this area.  I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas in this area – please add your comments at the bottom.

1.  Walk your house and look for water as well as any discoloration occurring in the ceiling to make sure you do not have any leaks; if no, then you do not have an emergency.
2. Do not do business with any of the guys walking the street promising you the world.  Most of these guys are storm chasers and have no accountability to the local community and some of them are complete crooks.
3. A good rule of thumb to determining if you have damage to your roof from hail is to look at neighborhood cars that were parked outside.  If they have hail dents, then you may have damage. 
4. Contact us and ask for an inspection from the insurance company.
5. At the same time, call on a local, dependable roofer who carries general liability insurance (roofing is a very risky business and they need to carry insurance in case they cause damage).
6. We recommend Frazier Roofing as they have been in the metroplex since 1978 and have performed re-roofing for Box Insurance Clients for years with very satisfying experiences.  They are also on the Box Partner Program (if you have your Box Premium Rewards Card you can receive some free insulation by using them).
7. I recommend having your reputable roofer present when the insurance adjustor makes their visit, that way if there is damage, all parties are on the same page and progress will be made much quicker.  Also, if there is a disagreement, then all parties are there to discuss and reconcile. 
8. Also, it is important to know your deductible (most deductibles are going to be 1% of your limit of insurance for the house).

ONCE AGAIN, BEWARE OF STORM CHASERS!  THEY CAN REALLY CAUSE A LOT OF DAMAGE AND ARE NOT ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR WORK!

For more information on the dangers of hiring under-insured & unqualified roofers  Click Here to read our Winter 2010 Newsletter

 From looking at the title, you might be thinking this blog is about Chik-fil-a and their brilliant marketing campaigns.  However, that is not the case.  This is an article about why I am a huge proponent of consistent and disciplined investing.  The following story illustrates the power of this idea.

 There once was a farmer who wanted to diversify so he set up an automatic draft to invest $1,000 in cows every month.  The first month cows were selling at $1,000, so he purchased one cow.  The next month, the price of cows had fallen to $500, but the farmer stuck to his commitment and purchased 2 cows in the second month.  In the third month, the price of cows had fallen even further to $250, but it was harvest time and the farmer was too busy to notice, and his auto-draft went in and he purchased 4 cows.  In the fourth month, cows mooooved their way back up to $500, so his investment bought 2 more cows.  Finally, in the fifth month the price of cows really hoofed it back up to $1,000 so he bought one cow.  So over the entire five months the farmer had invested $5,000 and owned 10 cows (1+2+4+2+1=10) now worth $1,000 each or $10,000!  So he doubled his money, and the price of cows never got above where he started purchasing them!

 Now, obviously this is an oversimplified and extreme example, but it displays the power of having a consistent, disciplined, and ongoing investment strategy.  Proverbs 13:11b says “…whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow.”  I see numerous benefits to following the principle set forth in this verse and having monthly automatic investments set up:

1. It helps take the emotion out of investing and ensures that you won’t forget or fail to follow through.
2. It helps instill discipline, because the money is automatically invested and can’t be spent elsewhere.
3. It forms a good habit by having consistent savings built into your budget.
4. Although your budget may feel it when you first implement a strategy like this, eventually you won’t even notice the money being invested and will be practicing good stewardship by living below your means.
5. It ensures that you adhere to sound investment principles, by causing you to buy more cows when the price is low, and less cows when the price is high.
6. And, finally, it will help you better stomach the inevitable downturns in the market, because the day you invest you actually want the market to be down so you can buy more cows!

 These are just a few of the reasons why I encourage people to set up systematic investment plans.  Whether you are buying shares of cows or shares of Apple (stock that is) this concept is something I encourage.

“Yes.”  That would be my answer to the question, “Should I invest my assets for preservation or growth?”  People often think that the two are mutually exclusive.  However, I will submit to you that investing with a preservation mindset actually positions you to have sustainable growth in your account value over a long period of time.  So let’s discuss this preservation mentality.

Preservation is one of the tenants that Box Financial Advisors was founded upon, it’s even in our tag line.  We are a protection oriented firm.  This mindset is part of the Box DNA.  Box Insurance Agency exists to ensure that its clients are protected, and Box Financial takes this same approach.  This is not to say we won’t make recommendations to invest and grow your money, but in our mind the return OF your principle is more important than the return ON your principle.

 Now let’s get into some of the mathematical truths supporting our preservation approach:

1. A 50% loss in a portfolio requires a 100% gain to get back to even.
2. A 10% gain followed by a 10% loss (or vice versa) results in less money than you started with.
3. A portfolio with consistent 6% returns can result in more money than one which averages 7% with volatility.

 Some of you see those stats, and are willing to take me at my word that they are accurate.  Others aren’t sure, but don’t want to read a discussion on the mathematics behind it, so you default to hesitantly accepting them.  Those of you in these first two camps can skip the link.  However, for you engineers out there who want me to prove it, you can click here.

 However, there is more than just math behind this rationale; it also addresses client emotions and mankind’s tendency to overreact.  A portfolio that is able to avoid the drastic downswings makes it easier and more likely for a client to stick with the program and reach their desired goal.  Even the best plans are useless if abandoned, and by having accounts that avoid the big dips you increase the likelihood that the plan will be executed and adhered to.

 Finally, there is a stewardship element involved in protecting the downside.  Most of the time, people take undue risk in their portfolio because they want to see their money grow quickly.  Proverbs 21:5 says, “The plans of the diligent lead to profit, as surely as haste leads to poverty.” The lesson of the tortoise and the hare should not be forgotten, slow and steady often wins the race.

Should I pay off my mortgage early?  This is a question that I frequently get, so I wanted to address it here.

Industry pundits typically say that paying down or paying off your mortgage early is rarely a good idea.  They will reference the current historically low interest rates, the fact that mortgage interest paid is tax-deductible, and the potential for rising home values to conclude that you would be better served by investing extra monies rather than paying down principle.  This strategy backfired in the recent past as the country went into recession, but now that signs or growth are showing I assure you this advice will start to abound again.

 Although I can follow the logic of their arguments, I want to present the other side.  First of all, let me say that paying down your mortgage should not always be your highest financial priority.  Paying off consumer debt (think credit cards), establishing an emergency fund, and contributing to a retirement plan with a company match should almost always take higher priority.  However, if you have these items addressed, what should you do with that next disposable dollar?

 With that out of the way, let me ask, how valuable is the peace of mind and freedom that comes from being debt free?  It’s impossible to monetize these feelings, but let me assure you their value is substantial.  Proverbs 22:7 says “the borrower is servant to the lender.”  How true this statement is.  Every month, without fail, that mortgage payment must be made—and having that recurring obligation can weigh heavily on your mind and emotions.  And I’m sure anyone who has ever been late on a mortgage payment will testify how they felt hounded like a servant to get caught up!  Another concept contained in this proverb is that a mortgage can be a heavy ball and chain.  How many people have wanted to start their own business, take an extended vacation, or go on a prolonged mission trip to serve, but their mortgage payment kept them tied down?  Once again, you can’t assign a dollar figure to these missed opportunities.

 Having established that there is emotional capital and freedom to be gained from paying down your mortgage, let’s look at some of the financial elements.  Most people have at least a portion of their assets invested in short-term, liquid instruments.  At the time of this writing, the national average 6 month CD rate is 0.71%.  The national average 30 year fixed mortgage is 4.99%.  Rather than investing your safe money into another CD, you could get more bang for your buck by using a portion of that to reduce your mortgage!  You “save” 4.99% in interest paid instead of “earning” only 0.71% in interest received.  That’s over five times greater return on the use of those dollars!  Imagine that being done over the course of several years and you can see how quickly this adds up.

 Let me conclude with a disclaimer: a specific recommendation for you can only be made by looking at your exact circumstances.  Please contact me if you’d like to discuss your situation to find out specifically if it makes sense for you.