If you have not checked out MiB lately, you owe it to yourself to spend a few hours catching up. When not debunking the 25 most outrageous money myths, Hank is developing really cool widgets that try and give you a true value of your blog based of traffic, links, etc. He is even hosting a huge contest, along with Free From Broke, in which you can win the following prizes:

$125 in cash

Books
How to Finance Your Invention or Great Idea

The Boss’s Survival Guide

One of the ways to earn additional entries into the contest is to discuss “The Things That I have Learned This Year”.

Over the past year, I have come to realize that my family is the most important thing in the world. When I was in my 20s, I had one goal; make money so I could retire early. What I failed to understand is that if I did not have such a wonderful family, retirement would not have been as wonderful as it will be.

Weekends are now filled with games of “Chase”, which involves me running after my 2 year-old son, pretending that I cannot catch him, playing with Thomas the Tank Engine, throwing a Nerf football, and watching the Veggie Tales.

And to be honest, I could not be any happier!

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Getting out of debt really involves a few basic steps.

1. Stop incurring new debt - If you continually buy things that you do not need and cannot afford, you will never accomplish this goal. The primary reason your debt is out of control is because you keep adding to it. You do not need credit cards. Period! If you cannot pay for it in cash, you do not need it. Your grandparents did not need them and neither do you.

2. Establish an emergency fund - The excuse most people have when talking about needing a credit card is that they only use them “in emergencies”. It is funny how that $5 coffee from Starbucks, or that 6-pack of Kronenburg becomes an emergency on your way to work or home. Save up $1,000 for true emergencies and then you will not have any excuses NOT to cut up your credit cards. This can take a few weeks, or a month or two, so have patience. Ideally, cash should be used for emergencies, not credit.

3. Develop a Debt Snowball - Dave Ramsey has developed an effective, yet simple, method to reduce debt faster.

• Order your debts from the lowest balance to the highest balance.
• Determine an amount of money to pay toward debts each month.
• Pay the minimum payment on all debts except for the one with the lowest balance.
• Attack the debt with the lowest balance with any extra money that you receive.
• When that debt is eliminated, do not change the monthly amount used to pay debts, but apply all additional funds to the debt with the next smallest balance.

While these steps may seam simplistic, I can personally vouch for their effectiveness. During the 13 weeks that my wife and I attended Financial Peace University, we eliminated $6,000 of consumer debt without an increase in pay. These simple steps work. Following them can help you to become financially free.

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Normally, this would not be a problem, and I actually encourage this type of rationing, but at $4.10/gal, $20 will only last a few days. I have heard that it is even worse in North Carolina. In Asheville, city officials have had to close parks, recreation centers, and even some schools. I guess I cannot complain too much.

According to AAA, the Carolinas should have received large shipments at major terminals a few days ago. I am not sure if that happened or not, but we should see some relief in a couple of days.

Are you experiencing any shortages in your area? How much are you paying for regular gas in your area?

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While working on my debt snowball, I have tried to earn extra money many different ways. I have written a couple of posts for Smorty and Review Me, sold things on eBay, had a yard sale, taken surveys at Cash Crate and surfed the internet via Swag Bucks.

All of these methods have worked well and I have been able to make a few extra dollars to send off to my student loan. One method that I have not really tried yet is affiliate marketing. As I am a big believer in doing a ton of research before trying anything, I set out to find an affiliate program that would work well for me and this blog. I do not want to try and sell a ton of crap that I would never buy myself. I actually found The PepperJam Network on another blog and decided to give it a try.

The main thing I like about this program is that they have quality vendors. You can sell products for VistaPrint, GoogleGoldMine, Text-Link-Ads, etc. Additionally, Pepperjam has a nice referral program; which I see as a great opportunity to make money by referring your readers to join. You can sell products AND make money on every person that you refer. I think it is something like $7 per referral.

Go check it out and if you like what you see, sign up using any of my affiliate links (banners). I would truly appreciate it. Did I mention it was FREE to sign up!

Join Pepperjam Network today!

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A month ago, I registered to become a member of SwagBucks. As a registered member, each time you perform an internet search via their search engine, you can win swagbucks (think digital dollars). The search results are pretty relevant and are derived from Google and Ask.com. You do not win dollars each time you search, but I usually win about 5 times a day. You can win additional dollars by referring your family and friends. I cannot remember who I signed up under, but now they are winning each time I win.

Once you have accumulated a few dollars you can redeem them for some pretty nice prizes (gift cards, books, gaming systems, rare baseball cards, etc). Earn 50 swagbucks and you can redeem them for a $5 Starbucks card. Win 45 swagbucks can get you a $5 Amazon gift card. You can even save up for a really nice 19 inch HD Flat Screen TV. Like I said the prizes are really worth your time.

Here are a few tips that I use to help “win” more swagbucks:

• When I visit my favorite blogs, I usually type the URL directly into the swagbucks toolbar. This results my desired website showing up first in the search results AND gives me a chance to win.
• Clear your cookies if you have not won after 10 searches. I find that this helps tremendously.
• Use Long-tail keywords in your search. I have found that I can win multiple swagbucks at once if I search for something like “personal finance and budgeting” vs “finance”.
• Realize that you will win about 3 to 5 swagbucks per day. I have never won more than that in one day.
• Save your swagbucks for really good prizes. Do not waste them on small items.

Ready to earn extra money online? Click the banner below and sign up now! When you sign up you will automatically earn 3 swagbucks. Let me know if you sign up so I can thank you!

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While stumbling around the other day I found a pretty decent site that reviews Phentermine.  According to this site, research has proven that you can lose 10 - 15% more weight when using this product versus using a placebo.

My main problem with these types of products is safety. What is the risk-to-benefit ratio? I prefer to make my errors on the safety side. Again, I tend to use the internet the starting point for my research.  This review does a decent job of explaining the weight-loss benefits and the associated risks. If you are thinking of using weight-loss products, do your research first.

If you do not have time to do your research, do not buy or use the product.

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According to Yahoo, crude oil dipped below $100 a barrel today for the first time in 5 months. A few months ago, it was at $147. Does this mean that gas prices will be dropping by approximately 50%? Will we be paying $2 a gallon again?

 Of course not, and guess what, most people will not even care.

Instead of doing anything about it, we will continue to drive our SUVs, 30 miles each way to work (in the snow - grandpa reference), while drinking our $1.75 20 oz. cola or our $5 Starbucks coffee. We will visit the local gas station once a week and merely shake our heads that it now cost $70 to fill up the Ford Explorer.

Sometimes our refusal to care is so bad that we do not even ask for what should rightfully be ours.

Did you know that the IRS has increased their fuel reimbursement recommendations to $0.585 cents per mile? For every mile that you drive your personal car for your employer, you should be receiving 58.5 cents. Are you getting this? Or is your company still paying 48.5 cents (the rate from 6 months ago)?

Why do we let the prices of items go up faster than we demand them to come down? Why is it OK for the consumer to continue to pay for gas as if a barrel of crude still cost $147? I am not sure why we allow this, but we do?

What do you think? Why is it so easy to raise prices but so difficult to reduce them once the price of the underlying commodity comes back down? I would love to hear your opinion on this.

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Contest URL: 20s Money
Prize: $250 American Express Gift Card
Deadline: September 21, 2008

There are 6 different way to enter the contest. All are easy to do and will probably take you about 5 minutes!

1. RSS Subscribe To 20s Money
2. Stumble This Page
3. Write A Blog Post About This Contest
4. Leave A Comment Telling Me About What Content You’d Like To See On This Blog
5. Goto SmallBlogging.com And Signup For the Email List
6. Get a Bonus 4 Entries For Completing All of the Above

Personally, I completed all 6 tasks in 7 minutes. If I win that comes to $2,142.86 per hour. Now too bad!

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In a time, not too far in the past, I had been known to buy a few state lottery tickets. I would drop down $2, thinking that maybe, just maybe, I would get lucky and I could actually catch up on my bills.

Of course, that day never arrived. I think in the 50+ times I have played, I have NEVER picked one number correctly. Not even one lousy number! What I failed to recognize is that on my quest for quick cash, I ignored a sure path to wealth. The secrets of the rich do not exist. Sounds principle of wealth management do exist.

While reading MyOpenWallet, I first read about Ray Otero. This guy spent $30,000 last year of lottery and scratch off games. Thirty Grand! The real kicker is that he only makes around $40,000 and supports his wife and two kids.

Someone should really talk to this guy. Come on NYTimes! Quit running stories on these people and offer to help them. Find local CPA who will sit down with him and walk him through the basics. Explain to him the odds of actually winning. Teach him and allow him to retire one day with diginty.

Get him connected to the internet and direct him to a few really good blogs on personal finance. Frugal Dad, My Investing Blog, Bible Money Matters, and Get Rich Slowly should get him started.

Just don’t stand there and let him spend 75% of his income of lottery tickets.

How much money do you spend on the lottery? I hope it is not too much!

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