OK, so maybe the title of this post is a little exagerrated. Of course you can always be fired from a job, relationship, pro bono work, church committee, etc. but if you do these two things, I think you lower your odds by 90%.

1. Manage expectations. If you can manage internal and external expectations on any project or assignment, you can build a relationship with co workers, clients, your partner/spouse.

2. ABC. You probably remember "Always Be Closing" but this is "Always Be Creative." When I hear clients talk about past business relationships, it typically has one common denominator- they were not getting enough ideas.

Number 1 is fairly simple. If you plan, communicate throughout an entire process, and communicate results, you will be effective. Essentially do not go dark on the person you are trying to build a relationship with. If you see a problem coming, notify them. Be honest, be open, and be forward-thinking.

Number 2 is such a stress for people because they say "they are not creative." Creative does not mean you can draw, paint, write, play a musical instrument or even carry a tune. So often we go back to elementary school with the definition of creativity and the reality is you just need to be a problem solver. When you hear a problem, try to solve it multiple ways. Parents do this with their children all the time. Lily (our daughter) sometimes refuses to eat so we ask her to show us her muscles (which she always is happy to do). If she takes a bite, we say "wow I see your muscles getting bigger" so more often than not she takes another bite. It is just a creative solution to the problem.

There are probably many things that stem from these two items but, at the core, these should help you build long lasting personal and professional relationships.

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Within the last few months, a family friend for 20+ years had his wife pass away. A truly beautiful woman in every sense of the word. A kind, gentle heart that several times went out of her way for my family and others. When she passed, at least a thousand people came to the rememberance and I had the privilege of sitting with the family.

Today I called that friend of the family for the first time since the rememberance. It has been 3-4 months and I have been in town a couple times since. Each time I drive past their home I think about stopping and always say "I will do it later." Later never comes and as I leave to head back to Tallahassee I feel awful each time for my lack of action.

The reality is I have a terrible time in those situations. I am not sure anyone "excels" in times of other people's pain but I know plenty of people that are the type that bring food each week, stop by for a chat, or give a simple phone call. I do none of the above. It's not that I do not want to, I envy those people. Today's call was the first step in that direction.

The call was a little awkward- I explained why I called probably 7-10 times. I used the phrase "I was thinking about you" over and over again and decided to talk about Dave Ramsey of all things when we discussed what we had been up to. Battling a mound of debt seems a little insignificant when it comes to coping with the loss of your best friend and soul mate.

When faced with moments of action, I always try and think of my children and how I want them to grow up and act. Its amazing because at my daughter's age (almost 3) when she sees pain, she is persistent and does not forget to ask about it for hours and sometimes remembers days.  Maybe instead of me thinking of how they will act in the future, I need to try and be a little more like them now.

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Project management is truly the offensive line of most fields. If you are not sure what I am talking about with the correlation, the offensive line in football has long been heralded as the "no fame" guys and only get their name called when something goes wrong like a holding call on a touchdown. In most organizations, you have a role that talks to the client, a role(s) that does that work, and- in the middle- is a project mananger. Talking to the client always gets love- client's pay bills. People that build things always get an "attaboy" because they have skills no one else does. But a project manager, a lot of people feel as though they can be plugged in with anyone and great work will just keep on being produced. I am not one of these folks.

If you look at the the PMI website and definitions of project management, you will see several other roles but I find these most crucial:

1. Protect your resources. In my world the resource you are protecting is a designer or programmer from having to read endless emails to figure out what to do. When is a designer is deciphering a confusing email, they are not designing which is what they get paid to do. Plus, it kills their creativity and inspiration.

2. Manage resource workload. Four things cannot be due at the same time. Something has to give or another designer or programmer need to get involved to help accomplish the task. Often problems like this can be avoided at the beginning by taking a look around at what is going on with other projects.

3. Plan projects on budget and within a deadline. A long standing dilemma in project management has been you can have something two of threee ways- good, cheap, and fast. Take your pick of two because all three cannot happen.

From a personal finance perspective does this sound familiar? What about your own job? These three principles go deeper than just a job criteria, they go for solid life planning.

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Since Lindsey and I are going through the short sale process I figured I would finally do a post about it. When we made the decision to short sale the Orlando home, I did some research and had a hard time really finding any stories of people that had gone through it. It seemed when people go through a short sale it is kind of like when someone goes off to serve their country- they just rarely talk about it.

My only guess is shame (and no I do not mean if you serve you have shame). For the most part, your pride takes a tremendous hit. I went through this. I had a 780 credit score at one point in time, always knew my credit would be there for my family, and never paid a bill late. Well...maybe a couple, but it was always an online bill pay coming in a day or two late, etc. I also was always raised to pay my bills and had model parents for finances. So, making a decision to let go was difficult. It was almost like not being yourself anymore and in the eyes of every person that wants to loan you money, you now are no longer a minority but you are the majority of borrowers.

There is another emotion you have in the process that is tied to your home. Your home is no longer a home- it is an investment. All the feelings and memories get trumped by dollars, cents, and sense. A hard thing to do. In our case, we brought our daughter home from hospital there and had dreams of watching the kids play in the pool. We had these feelings even though we have not lived in the home for 3 years. I could not imagine what it is like for a family living in a house and making the decision to throw in the towel.

If you are ridiculously upside down in a house (in our case $150,000), struggling to stay afloat each month, and are considering a short sale opportunity, know the emotion that is going to come at you. There is a reason why you may not read a lot of stories about the process online.

But there is a silver lining and I will talk about that in the next post.

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Last month our power bill hit a total of $475 of which $135 was a loan for the air conditioner. In other words roughly $340 for the power bill. Living in Tallahassee, we pay for sewer, water, gas, and various other expenses in this bill so it is not 100% electricity. BTW, sewer is about $45-$50 a month.

We have a programmable thermostat and our air conditioning habits were as follows:

8AM Wake up: 72 degrees

10AM Leave: 75 degrees

6PM Come Home: 72 degrees

7:30PM Sleep: 69 degrees

For this last bill I changed the thermostat to:

7AM Wake up: 72 degrees

9AM Leave: 76 degrees

6PM Come Home: 73 degrees

7:30PM Sleep: 69 degrees

We saw a $50 reduction in the electricity bill. Yes, I know 69 degrees is bone chilling to some but it is a norm here at the Thompson household.

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For the record, I do not have the ability to hire people but I do have the abilty to send a potential candidate to someone that does. I have now forwarded and interviewed two people that I found on Twitter for employment. One I wish we had hired but the timing was off and another we did. When it comes to what I deem invaluable in a new employee, here is my list:

1. Loyalty. I deeply believe if someone has already proven themselves to be loyal as a vendor, intern, etc. then they will make a great hire.

2. Drive. You must be be able to show you can do something above and beyond. Typically anyone that talks in social media about more than personal tasks and comments about the world with insight, fit this bill.

3. Dependability. This is a hard one in an interview but is closely aligned to loyalty. I normally talk about people that would recommend the interviewee  and why to try and figure this piece out.

4. Create. I am impressed with people that create content in any form. If you have a meaningful blog, can have a good thought in 140 characters, or start your own Facebook member page, I am impressed. Pumping out content is hard enough but striving for meaningful content when no one pays you is impressive.

And as an interviewer, you need to dig deep. I recently saw an image of someone that tweeted to a social media company to hire them. Clever. So, I decided to look at her newly started blog and this is how the first post I saw began- "While Dennis is at the store getting me Tampons (LOL), I thought I would take a minute to write a quick update."

"A" for effort but once you dig a little past the Twitter feed you question the content.

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I am almost 33 years old and have bought 3 homes. I bought my first home pre boom, my second on the tail-end of the boom, and my third at pretty much rock bottom. I have never put more than 5% down at a closing, financed almost every penny, and have even done improvements at the sake of putting down more on a house to appease aesthetics. Here is all I have learned:

1. The mortgage broker has all the power. This person controls closing costs, your payment, and your ability to even borrow. 90% of all costs are affected by the mortgage rate. And with all this power, most likely the mortgage broker is just trying to beat the quote you last received. If you tell them you have a quote for 5%, they will get you 4.95%.

2. Don't buy the first house you see. I have done this twice. One time it was a blessing, the other is a nightmare.

3. Don't get sucked into the "Ohh it is just another $50 a month" routine. This is pretty easy because you are looking at a 30 year mortgage (15 if you follow Dave Ramsey's teachings), a payment of let's say $1,500 and say "what's another $50 a month?" $50 a month is most likely around an extra $5000-$8000 dollars on the purchase price. But spread that $50 out over 30 years and you are actually paying $18,000 after interest.

4. Cash is king. If you haven't picked up from this blog yet then read more blog posts:) Cash will help your rate, conrol your payment, help when taxes go up, help you enjoy your new purchase, etc.

5. Save for at least 25% down on the house. Not only does this help you avoid PMI (private mortgage insurance that actually is required for houses with less than 20% down) it also proves to yourself that you are ready for a home purchase. Crap breaks. Already since I have owned this house I needed a new AC and new duct work for the sweet price of $10,000.

6. Think 10 years out. Man, we NEVER did this. Will you have kids? Will one of you might want to stay home from work? Do you really like your job now? Do you work for a company that has a history of laying people off? If you had to get a new job and have a 20% over entry level salary, what mortage could you afford? 30%? 40%? You get the idea. Think of every possible bad news scenario and think in terms of the house you want to purchase. For example, it may have a pool- do you need a pool service? Can you cash flow pumps breaking? You name it, it may happen. Plan for it.

7. Factor in gas. When I bought my first home, gas was $1.50 or so a gallon. It really was a non factor in a monthly budget but as it went to $3.00 or $3.50 it became a huge budget item. I remember driving all over Orlando for work and it really cut into my take home pay. If you live far from work, think about what an extra $1.00 a gallon would mean to a monthly budget.

8. Don't let beauty overshadow what a house really it is- shelter. Although it is great to have a nice house, it really is shelter and a place to sleep where you have to take care of the bug problem. Don't start a laundry list of changes before you buy the house. If you have a list, probably you should not purchase.

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I want to start providing a recap each month on how we did with our financial journey. Here goes June...

THE GOOD

1. We saved $300 a month on health insurance by signing up for a high deductible plan for the family and have plans on opeing an HSA. The HSA will be fully funded August 1. Feel free to read on the HSA move.

2. We no longer have car payments. This eliminated $320 a month from debt and an overall $13,000 since we started in February helped knock this out.

3. We wrote down where out money should go (AKA a budget) June 1 and never missed a beat. In fact, we ended the month somewhere around $50 under budget.

4. We received an offer on our home in Orlando and the bank and prospective buyer duked it out. Though we just got word on July 1 that it appears the house is going to be sold short-sale style, this can count as June since thos ofer started in that month. This will save about $190 a month and about 1000 times that much on our net worth.

THE BAD

1. We got a little sloppy at the end of the month. We could have been about $100 under budget but we started to get a little happy with the spending.

2. June was to be the first month with no check cards and that lasted 8 days. I had a couple business trips to go on and needed my card and just left it in my wallet. Overall, less than $40 was spent on check cards that was unplanned.

THE UGLY

1. We had to buy a new alternator for Lindsey's car. $550 hit but we paid cash and had received $500 unplanned money for a commission so really no harm, no foul.

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If you have a family, you probably gave it on this quest. If you are single, you probably have no idea about what life is like when you have kids. Healthcare ain't cheap. I am fortunate that my employer pays for myself and, thanks to becoming part of a large corporation, my family's cost went down this year. However, the cost was still $650 a month.

We are a pretty healthy family. Lindsey has taken this year to basically become a model and run in 5K, 10Ks, and in October her first half marathon. Luckily we are blessed with healthy children and I, despite being probably 40-50 pounds overweight, am keeping it together. We go to the doctor for regular annual checkups and that is about all.

Thanks to Dave Ramsey, I started loking at Health Savings Account (HSA). Basically here is how it works-

STEP 1: you must have a high deductible insurance plan which is a minimum of $1,200 if you are single and $2,400 if you are a family. In our case, I had to shop around and leave my employer's plan for my family and I stayed on for myself since they pay. This may be scary because that means you need are going to be leaving $10 co-pays for the most part and will be picking up medical expenses on your own up to your deductible. BUT, hear me out before you bail...

I got three quotes from BCBS:

$3,000 deductible- $480 a month premium for all of us, minus me = $340

$5,000 deductible- $372 a month premium for all of us, minus me = $276

$10,000 deductible- $268 a month premium for all of us, minus me = $190

As you can, the monthly savings will range from $310 to $460 a month. It isn't all puppy dogs and ice creams yet because what happens in the situation of disaster and we need to go to the hospital? See step two.

STEP 2: Open an HSA. An HSA will allow a family to contribute close to $6,000 per year to an account that grows tax free much like a 401K or mutual fund. The difference is that this can only be used for health related circumstances, not a new car. These things have some advantages:

1. It grows tax free and they grow in some of the same options you hve with a 401K (specific funds may vary but the premise is the same).

2. There is no "use it or lose" it. It rolls over each year.

3. Contributions are tax deductible.

So remember the money I am saving in step one? Time to put it to use. Instead of taking $310 (most likely I am choosing the $3,000 deductible) and having a shopping spree each month, I need to get prepared. Remember that deductible? Well, at $3,000 that means we need to go about 10 months before we have enough money to cover the deductible in the event of something bad happening.

QUESTION: What if something bad happens in 5 months? Well, at that point I would only have half of the deductible saved up in my HSA to help. Basically, I would have to set up a payment plan with the hospital. I admit, we are racing a little bit against the clock to get that money in the HSA so we are prepared.

There are a ton of advantages to the plan I outlined above but I wanted to ease some other concerns:

1. Our doctors are in network. That means, regular trips for preventative care are covered for FREE on the plan and we do not have to change from the doctors we already like.

2. Prescriptions have some relief but not as much as my employer plan. The good news is that those qualify as expenses towards your deducitble.

I recommend definitely taking a look. An HSA is a great way to prepare for the future and as you have more money in your HSA, you can increase your deductible and save on monthly expenses.

More to come as I venture down this path but as of August 1, we are off and flying.

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I admit, I am not an overly political person. I wish I was more civically involved and was current on all issues. The reality is I work in a rather dynamic, demanding industry and unless something amazing happens with how a candidate markets themselves (see Obama in 2008) I probably miss it. I can tell you I lean to the right when it comes to money and lean to the left when it comes to anything social.

Thanks to Dave Ramsey I did manage to catch the fact that New Jersey was trying to place a tax on the little over 16,000 folks that make a salary more than $1million a year. Apparently they were attempting to erase $600 million dollars worth of deficit in the budget which was undoubtly created by some form of overspending. All in all, these people were expected to pay an extra $37,500 in taxes for someone else's mistake.

To be honest, I never looked at it like that. I always have been against the argument "ohh they make too much money." That argument is born from jealously and ignorance. The reality is that the majority of us are in some quest to make more money. Some people just state the quest- "man I wish I had more money"- and others actually create a plan and attack it. But I never considered how politicians really are pitting the middle class and upper class against each other and taking no responsibility for their overspending ways.

In 95% or more of the more than 16,000 people's lives,  my guess is these people earned their wealth. Some may have fell into it and others may have backstabbed their way to the top, but these stories are always the exception not the rule. Regardless if you are Democrat or Republican, fiscal responsibility should be a focus of where you vote and no American should be asked to give up their hard earned dollars to help out an incompetent lawmaker.

By the way, if you ever wanted to know the story behind the donkey and elephant, check out C-SPAN.

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For those of you that are single, having the "talk" equates to what I used to refer to as the DTR- defining the relationship. When you get married, you may have a conversation about kids (skipped this, both unplanned), but because of all the stuff you buy together and such you must talk about what happens when someone, or both of you, die.

Lindsey hates talking about death. I am fairly nonchalant about it. Although I know it is a serious matter, I realize I am going to die someday and since I approach everything with some sort of plan, it is just another event that I need to plan for.

One of the greatest surprises of the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University plan is it forces you to have this uncomfortable discussion. Even more importantly, to me, I know that Lindsey now has all the tools to tackle life without me. Not that she is the "get a life insurance check and buy a beach house" type of gal but before this journey I think she would admit that she would have gone through a lot of decision paralysis when it comes to money.

So, our plan is this:

1. She will have 10 times my income from life insurance. Well, kind of. If I drop in the next 6 months it will be 5 times my income because I need to increase the level:)

2. Depending on the kids comfort level in school and community, she will most likely move back to Orlando, FL.

3. She will get a town home. Something with easy upkeep and is relatively cheap. She will pay cash.

4. The kids colleges will be taken care of automatically.

5. When the time is right, she will get a job and start the Dave Ramsey plan on her own.

Obviously this is a pretty high level plan but it gives me great comfort to know that if I fail to wake one morning, my family not only will be financially set, but will also be behaviorly set in some fashion.

Ohh and I told her step 6 was to marry a rich dude.

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Lindsey and I started 30 days collecting all the credit card offers we received based on an exercise by our Financial Peace University leader. Although our credit has taken a hit from the short sale process of our home, that did not stop credit cards however it did feel a lot slower than normal. In fact, we received three letters this month from our current credit cards reduced our limits dramatically. One went from $12,000 to $500 a month limit. Oh well, don't need it anymore anyway:)

Here are the highlights:

1. 16 total offers. That is roughly 1 every 2 days.

2. Citi loves us. They accounted for 7 of the offers.

3. 0% APR led the away with 14 of the offers. Length of 0% offering varied.

4. 85,000 total bonus miles

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Dave Ramsey says there are two people in a relatioship that have two different views to money. One is the nerd and the other is the free-spirit. Like all labels there are varying degrees but at the core, he is referring to one person in the relationship that tends to enjoy numbers, spreadsheets, calculations, research, and all-out discussions about money than the other.

This nerd is me.

Because I was always the nerd with money in any platonic relationship I had, I always thought I "got it." Turns out I just happened to spend more time and surround myself with free spirit types. Probably this has something to do with my ego and always wanting to know more than the next person but I will save that for a therapy session if I have ever have one.

I loved shaving a bill from $100 to $80/month or figuring out a new way to make a buck. What I never stopped to consider was how to drastically change my behavior and more importanly our behavior. Turns out to make the latter happen you need to go hand in hand down the financial path and take appreciation for each others strengths and weaknesses. This was my biggest problem.

I admit- often in arguments regarding money being the nerd became an easy trump card. I could play the "whoah as me, I work so hard and have to handle all of this financial stuff and you can't help anything with this" card with the best of them. It showed absolutely no respect to Lindsey and was immature. It's easy to make someone feel inferior about something when you have more passion, more knowledge, and are just wired in a certain way.

And that is the reality I have started to come to terms with- I like being the nerd. As Chris Rock says (paraphrasing) - you don't get a cookie for what you are supposed to do. You certainly shouldn't get a cookie for doing something in your relationship that you excel at and enjoy when the other doesn't. Recognizing that your strengths are vital to the relationship and that there are a few thousand other things your spouse does really well and you may not enjoy means your relationship has balance, emotional maturity, and respect.

This Financial Peace University isn't just about a financial plan but is about the core of how a relationship needs to work.

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Lindsey and I have officially ditched our checkcards. Such a strange feeling to walk around with basically your driver's license, some insurance cards, your Bruester's ice cream punch card, and a voter registration. OK, so the Bruester's card is not exactly on budget or remotely healthy but it made the cut.

It is estimated that you spend 10-20% less when moving to strictly cash and away from a debit card. Dave Ramsey also often cites a study where credit cards, check cards, and cash were measured during purchase. Cash registered like feeling pain when using the green stuff while a check card registered slightly above a credit card in terms of not caring about the financial result.

We had two issues with checkcards which are probably common:

1. We spent more incrementally. We would set out for the grocery store with a $40 budget and would spend $55. That tends to add up.

2. I would stop off at the grocery store "on the way home" for odds and ends we probably didn't need.

Is it inconvenient? Yes, because I have to get my big butt out of my car and go into the bank each month for cash (we get all cash out for the month at one time). But other than that, we will see how much we save on our budget.

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I have been meaning to write about this for a while now. After I spoke at Florida State University I got asked the "are you happy" question and heard a student say "I want to do what I love, money doesn't matter." Then today on my Facebook feed someone posted the same question.

Though the question is always posed as dichotomous and the answer "both" is too easy, the real answer is that managed money brings happiness. I have never heard someone answer with "money." Maybe it is how they feel, but I think it is social acceptance. No one wants to be known as the jerk that says "give me money" except myself. The only reference I have seen to choosing money over happiness is Boiler Room:

I like to spellout my options even in mythical fake question land:

1. No/moderate money, all the happiness in the world. Chance are I already had this- it was called college. But, if we go with the truest sense of the question which means it is referring to doing a job you love for little money versus a job you hate for a lot of money, you are only happy if you can effectively accomplish your goals on what you make. If you can't, something needs to change- maybe you do a job you hate and one you love to make ends meet. Let's not also forget that if you have a life partner, your goals are not only your goals.

2. Money, and I am miserable. I always looked at this as it doesn't need to be forever. Bust it now so that I have more options later. Everytime I am unhappy at work (and no I am not miserable) I think about how much better I do than a lot of people and all I need to do is set the train in motion, clean up any debts, and then maybe I can change later.

In both scenarios, the focus is on management. Unfortunately we all cannot sit around and do what we love. If we started out our working lives with the outlook that we are all going to do what it takes to define our own success without becoming a burden to our friends, families, and society we would be in a much better place.

Now if only the hippy college teacher would tell you the same.

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The last time I had an hourly job was in high school. In fact, I was such a model employee I had several that lasted from 3 hours to years:) This blog post isn't about the glory days of high school, but rather it was the last time I equated my labor with hours on a regular basis and, more importantly, getting paid for these hours.

In my Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University class last week the focus was on "stuffitis" and eliminating the need for stuff in our lives. Someone brought up a great point- if an item costs $100 and you get paid $10 an hour, that item cost you 10 hours to work for. Was it worth it?

I think salary employees get removed from the easiness of this math. Taking this up a level, let's say you make $60,000 a year. Assuming 25% goes to taxes, social security, etc. you make about $3,750 a month take-home or $23 an hour. So, for every pizza you buy you work about 30 minutes. Then if you are not an out of shape 30 something year old like me, you spend another 30 minutes on a treadmill working it off.

Anyway, think about your purchases that way and you might change your behavior.

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One of the best videos I have seen in a while:

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The story of Dave Ramsey from Dave Ramsey's Facebook page:

I have an unusual way of looking at the world. My wife, Sharon, says I'm weird and truthfully—I am weird. But there's a reason. Starting from nothing, by the time I was 26 I had a net worth of a little over a million dollars. I was making $250,000 a year—that's more than $20,000 a month net taxable income. I was really having fun. But 98% truth is a lie, and that 2% can cause big problems, especially with $4 million in real estate. I had a lot of debt—a lot of short-term debt—and I'm the idiot who signed up for the trip.

The short version of the story is that debt caused us, over the course of two and a half years of fighting it, to lose everything. We didn't tell anyone what was going on, but if we had to do it again, we would learn from the wisdom of others who have been through it. We soon learned that we were not the only ones at the bottom. Barbie and Ken (you know, the couple who appear to be perfect—perfect clothes, perfect car, perfect house) are broke, and I don't take financial advice from broke people anymore.

After losing everything, I went on a quest to find out how money really works, how I could get control of it and how I could have confidence in handling it. I read everything I could get my hands on. I interviewed older rich people, people who made money and kept it. That quest led me to a really, really uncomfortable place: my mirror. I came to realize that my money problems, worries and shortages largely began and ended with the person in my mirror. I also realized that if I could learn to manage the character I shaved with every morning, I would win with money.

I went back to my first love, real estate, to eat and to get out of debt. Along the way, I began another path—the path of helping others, literally millions of others, take the same quest to the mirror.

I formed The Lampo Group in 1988 to counsel folks hurting from the results of financial stress. I’ve paid the "stupid tax" (mistakes with dollar signs on the end) so hopefully some of you won't have to. I wrote the book, Financial Peace, based on all that Sharon and I had learned, and I began selling it out of my car. With a friend of mine, I started a local radio call-in show called The Money Game, now nationally syndicated as The Dave Ramsey Show.

Our company history is full of landmarks leading up to the release of our third best-selling book in 2003—The Total Money Makeover—and we're not slowing down. The Lampo Group now has nearly 300 team members and a variety of products and services to help you reach your financial goals.

Many companies define success based on the dollars coming in, but at The Lampo Group, we define our success by the number of lives changed: listeners getting out of debt, readers taking their first Baby Step and saving $1,000, FPU graduates investing for their future. We learned early on that if we help enough people, the money will come. Our mission statement isn't just lip service—it's our mantra:

"The Lampo Group, Inc. is providing biblically based, common-sense education and empowerment which gives HOPE to everyone from the financially secure to the financially distressed."

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Yesterday for the first time throughout the Dave Ramsey process I had to admit to a close friend that I am incapable of owning a credit card. Granted when we used credit cards we never went on wild spending sprees, we never had $80,000 in credit card debt, but I do know how I behave with a credit card. I make poor choices and it is a gateway to the type of financial life I want to leave behind.

The entire discussion centered around moving to an American Express card to get the rewards and be forced to pay off the credit card at the end of the month. The biggest problem is that it makes my life more complicated because I must be always checking a balance to insure I am not going over budget. I would rather focus my attention on increasing my income, building better relationships, and sharpening my creativity. Cash allows me to do that.

It was hard to say why I did not want to go down the AMEX road. The reality is I have proved for over 10 years that credit cards are a poor choice in my life and I needed a change. That change was made in 2010 and I do not want to look back.

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Home purchased in 2005: $300,000
Home value now: $200,000
Difference: -$100,000

If the home value increases 3-5% per year (the norm was 2-3% before the boom), it would take a minimal of 8 years before the home met its purchase price. If you declared bankruptcy after foreclosure, you can start rebuilding your financial state within 7-10 years and a short sale would even be less. From a business decision standpoint, this makes tremendous sense.

But, not all things are business decisions. Some decisions are of moral or ethical debate. One argument I heard focused on that it is an investment and a contract. If you buy stock, you cannot just walk away from the bad investment without penalty. I take issues with that argument:

1. You can dump stocks the next day if you want. If you buy at $100 a share and the stock sinks to $10 a share, you can take that hit and move on the next day. A home takes upwards of 9-12 months before you are out of the deal with tremendous emotional hurt along the way. You cannot begin rebuilding yourself until someone wants to buy and the bank accepts. Not to mention the bank will not even begin the process until you are 90 days late.

2. I had the cash to buy the stock in the first place (unless it was optioned). Several home owners did not have sufficient funds to buy the homes they purchased. Ridiculous interest only loans aside, thousands of Americans (including myself) purchase with little to no money down and got a 30 year fixed rate. Banks allowed this to happen to themselves for short term gain.

3. Let's say the person lived in the $300,000 home mentioned above for only one year. That means they paid $20,000+ in interest in year one. Between closing costs and first year interest the bank did not do that bad for itself in the deal. Not a really strong argument here but it does show the bank did make something.

Do I fear the consequences of people walking away from bad investments? Yes, but corporations do it all the time. They take risks, mitigate their losses, and walk away often leaving people without jobs and the consumer to carry the debt burden. A home buyer that walks away is creating jobs if anything because there will be a ton of work to do to clean up this mess and make sure it never happens again.

Dave Ramsey says money is amoral, it is what you do with it that makes it good or bad. Making life a little tougher for a bank that made an industry out of bad decisions while trying to better your own family tree should not be a sin.

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