You know, if you read financial blogs and related websites, you’ll occasionally see those stories about how a family or an individual dig themselves out of massive debt after years of hard work and due diligence.

They’re usually good stuff.  Sometimes they can be dramatic: after losing a loved one, John Doe fought the insurance company, restored his family name and wiped the family debt; sometimes they can be inspirational: after losing her job at the local company, debt started piling up for single mom Jane Doe, but she continued to work hard and eventually found financial independence.

The truth is, debt reduction and elimination doesn’t have to be a news story, blog entry, or topic of the week.  If you’re anything like me, you simply realized your debt got a little bit out of hand, readjusted your lifestyle and worked towards getting rid of those nasty bills.

That’s mainly the reason why I haven’t written about my debt all too much on this blog — it was caused by stupid reasons, and it came as easily as it went.

I don’t mention this now as to brag about how awesome I am in getting rid of $10,000 of credit card debt.  Far from it.  I mention this because if your life situation is anything like mine, you can most likely get rid of whatever debt you have within a reasonable amount of time too.

Here’s the story: I was about 19 year-old.  I had an online business selling car parts and I worked part-time at Bank of America after school hours.  Despite an income of about $30,000 per year (after tax), I quickly racked up a credit debt of about $10,000 when I was 20 year-old.  I wish I can blame it all on tuition but I had Cal Grants covering my state university cost and portion of my rent.  Heck, I even shared the apartment with two other high school buddies.

So what happened?

I simply lived beyond my means. I frequently ate out, went on trips, and lived the lifestyle of a bratty college kid.  It was all fun and chill until I woke up one day, looked into my checking account of about $24.85, saw the credit card balance over $10,000 and realized I have a slight problem on my hand.

Months later, Cal Grant cuts back dramatically on the amount I was awarded with as the tax filing came rolling in, and Bank of America closes the department I worked at and laid everyone off.  With less income to combat the sudden rise in financial responsibility, it was a classic case of getting screwed by your own stupid decisions.

So what did I do?

I moved back home and opted for the hour and half commute.  Rent was the same, but you’d be surprise how much you can save if you stop living the “lavish” college lifestyle. As I glance around my room, I saw the massive amount of crap I had amassed (especially obvious after a move) and literally stopped buying crap — hence the stupid blog name.

Gone are the days of eating out each night, and taking trips I couldn’t afford. I made a simple budget, figured out my credit standing, transferred my balances to lower promotional rate offers, ditched the poor credit card usage habit, started piling money into the highest interest debt — and within a year I was credit card debt free (still had the car loan but that went its way a few years later).

My situation is of course easier than many others that may be in debt.  Although I lost about a third of my income from the Bank of America job, I still had a pretty decent income for a 20 year-old.  Beyond rent, school tuition, car payment, and car insurance, I didn’t have other financial obligations.  And so as mentioned earlier, I made a conscious decision to live within my means and soon the debt went away.

Looking back, the real difference and turning point was my attitude with regards to money.  I had this silly notion that I can always make more money “later” and it’ll all be peachy.  But when things started getting tough, it quickly became apparent that I’ll never get ahead if I continued being financially irresponsible.

If your situation is anything at all close to mine, if you’re a college student seeing an increase in your credit card balance and a lower amount in your savings account, it may be time to look at your financial standing to see if something is amiss.

Don’t worry, I won’t get too preachy about how you should change your financial lifestyle — after all, it’s really up to you to make a conscious decision to bring about change.  If you’re already on your way to getting rid of your mundane debt, more power to you.  If you don’t think you have a financial problem (even though you might), eh, maybe you’ll realize it years later. Maybe not.  Its your life and you know it best.  As with many other things in life, we learn best from our own personal experience.

For those of you with the simple consumer debt, know that it can go away as easily as it came.  Take heart in that these aren’t debts accumulated due to life changing situations such as medical emergency, serious job loss, or the loss of a family member.  Know that you don’t have to make a dramatic shift in your lifestyle to get rid of the debt.  If you make a conscious decision to combat the debt, the debt reduction will happen — and before you know it, you’ll be picking up healthier financial habits along the way.

photo credit: mjpeacecorps

Just saw this on CNN at four in the morning: a latest survey released by ComPsych Corporation shows that nine out of ten Americans are losing sleep over financial worries.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m staying up to teach this 12-year-old kid in Australia who’s the real king in Call of Duty 4 — how dare he knifes me while I’m refilling my bowl of Cap’n Crunch!?

Here’s the survey break down:

• 30% worry about cost of living
• 29% worry about credit card debt
• 14% worry about mortgage payment
• 13% worry about retirement savings
• 3% worry about childrens’ tuition
• 3% worry about health care costs
• and 8% aren’t losing any sleep

And here’s the amazing interactive poll:

[poll=5]

Frequently getting overage charges from your cell phone plan? Billshrink.com may be able to help you sort through hundreds of different cell phone plan and help you find the best plan to save you money.

Billshrink is pretty easy and straightforward to use. Choose the service that you want to compare (wireless or credit cards), input your calling or spending pattern and Billshrink will spit out a list of possible alternatives.

You can also get a bit of phone usage analysis and better accuracy on cell plan comparison when you upload your phone bill to Billshrink. The site didn’t work too well for me as I already have a low price, discounted T-Mobile plan through Freelancer Union. The monthly bill of $36.85 is also a bit off since my plan was recently pro rated. If you have a regular consumer cell phone plan, you should definitely see better saving results.

As you can tell, I don’t use too many minutes or text messages. Lack of friends and all.

Heck, most of the calls is from the probational officer. Damn you James, I’m staying away from trouble, stop forcing me to call you already…

Features of Note:

• Get quick cell phone usage analysis by importing your bill. See who you call the most and which calls are costing you money.
• Sort through different plans from across different networks and choose the best rate.
• Estimate additional cost for extra features on cell phone plans.
• Compare and contrast best credit card for your spending pattern.
• Let Billshrink “watch your back” and get notification when better rates and service are available (plans and credit card terms changes all the time).
• Choose the type of phone you want to use and get even more specific comparison for plans that support the phone.

Billshrink can work fairly well if you’re not satisfied with your cell phone plan or not earning the proper rewards from your credit card spending. If you’ve already went through the process of doing heavy research to get the best cell plan or credit card — then Billshrink wont really help you save additional money (most likely the case if you’re reading a personal finance blog).

The credit cards comparison section is very detailed in terms of how they calculate the rewards; whether its point or miles, Billshrink converts them all into dollars so you can better compare the offerings.  Problem is, how the calculations are presented can be a bit confusing. If I had to re-read some details a few times just to understand how the calcuation works, then others that are less financially geeky may not be willing to take the time to understand the differences.

Despite that minor drawback (and I’m sure they’ll tune the site as time pass), BillShrink can be particularly helpful for the less research inclined. If BillShrink can continue to provide fast, easy, and objective recommendations, then it has the potential to establish itself as the place to go for service recommendations.

Pros:

• Best for people looking for quick ways to identify best service for them.
• Easy to use, especially if you import your cell phone bill.
• Notification service lets you know if there’s better offerings out there.

Cons:

• Credit card comparison calculations are a bit confusing.

Refreshing to see sound advice from a large investment management company during troubled times.

It’s a week or so old, but sound financial advices are timeless (woo super cliché).

From [Vanguard views on recent market events]

With one of the largest investment bank declaring bankruptcy; the largest insurer needing a federal bail out; and the largest thrift in the country putting itself on the auction block — if this isn’t an appropriate time to reference a relatively obscure sci-fi work, then I don’t know what is.

More crappy jokes on a crappy blog aside, seeing hundreds of billions of capital wiped out within a day or two is definitely no fun.

As it is now, it’s easy for the rest of us to make irrational decisions from fear and anxiety. But for most of us average Joe, now’s certainly not the time to make panic driven decisions. Yes, it would have been nice to reallocate your retirement and investment accounts a week ago — or hell, earlier this year — but we can’t always make investing decisions after the fact.

The list of current to-do’s can vary depending on your situation, but if you’re concern, it doesn’t hurt to double check your FDIC and SIPC coverage limits on your various types of financial accounts.

Since I’m too much of a wuss (and a moron) to give out further advice, for more resources, check out links to other personal finance bloggers on these matters:

• What you can do about today’s economy – Ramit from I Will Teach You To Be Rich gives a quick 3 minute video on what you can do, with some cliff notes for those busy bees.
• Want To Bail On Your Stocks? Answer 2 Questions First – Jonathan from MyMoneyBlog gives us a timely reminder on selling during troubled times.
• Worried About Your Saving Accounts in Problem Banks? – SVB from The Digerati Life shows some food for thoughts if you have accounts at problem banks.
• FDIC Insurance Coverage Limits – Jim from Blueprint for Financial Prosperity goes over FDIC coverage limits.

Just wanted to be hip and cool and use “f’ing” for once in the headline.

• Six Things More Expensive Because of Marketing -  From Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Headline is pretty self explanatory, from black pearls, bottled water to diamonds, marketing has been injecting pseudo-value into various products since the dawn of the consumer era.
• Amazon Prime Review: 5 Reasons to Try it Out if you Shop Online – SVB from The Digerati Life takes a look at Amazon Prime and list some reasons why it may be worthwhile.  Personally, like SVB, I’m willing to wait. I don’t think I’ve ever spent the extra beyond standard shipping for anything I’ve bought online.
• Avoiding shopping temptation – Plonkee writes about the slippery slope of heading to the store for a particular item, only to spend more than intended. My solution? Never leave the house.
• Money Matters for All Ages (PDF eBook, 581 KB) – Can’t recall if I’ve ever linked to this eBook, but a very complete guide on personal finance from 16 personal finance bloggers.

P.S. My mom says I’m totally cool.

Well that title couldn’t possibly get any longer.

Here’s a few informative read that I’ve found while cleaning out my bookmarks. Since I hardly give out link-love (because I’m a selfish jerk like that), you know these are interesting reads.

With an endorsement like that, how can you not click-through?

• An Intro to Ethical Consumerism – Sasha talks about being conscious with your spending dollars. Two concepts were mentioned: positive buying in which you support business or organization you believe in, and moral boycott, in which you avoid those that you don’t.
• Know Thy Enemy – Understand the Salespersons Tools – Jim goes over some of the tactics a salesman use to potentially get you to buy things you don’t need or at prices that are hardly favorable. A good read if you’re stepping into a car dealership soon.
• The Case Against Roth 401k – The Finance Buff makes a case against the Roth 401k. Some factors include avoiding high state income tax and not having the option to convert from Roth to traditional. If you’re making a decision on your 401k choices, read this post and the discussion at the Bogleheads forum so you can be better informed.

Lastly, Jim has a timely free eBook for recent graduates: College Grad Money Guide. A very simple five chapter guide on how to get a solid foundation with your money for our recent sheepskin holding peeps.

1. You have too much to do today.
2. You think you can always make more money later.
3. You didn’t know it was important.
4. You think it’s too complicated.
5. You can always pay someone else to worry about it.
6. You’re filthy rich.
7. Your parents are filthy rich.
8. Your significant other is filthy rich.
9. Your parents didn’t seem to care, so why should you?
10. You think you’ll hit the jackpot eventually one day.
11. You just received a large windfall and you’re sure it’ll last forever without problems.
12. You don’t believe money is important (it’s not, but life isn’t free).
13. You didn’t realize retirement is just a few years away.
14. You didn’t think about the fact that you’ll retire one day.
15. Your retirement is decades away, you can always worry about it later.
16. You were brought up to not talk about money openly.
17. You were never taught to care about it.
18. You’re in high school, why should you care?
19. You’re in college, you’re too drunk to care.
20. You just finished college, you’re too busy working (or finding a job) to care.
21. You’re about to propose, there’s too much going on to care.
22. You just got married, now it’s even more complicated to care.
23. You have kids. You’re seriously too busy working and raising your kids to care.
24. You don’t know how to talk about it with your significant other.
25. You’re positive you will always be in good health and always have job prospects.
26. You believe in your income source and job security.
27. You believe that social security will be enough.
28. You believe that your children will take care of you when you retire.
29. You believe that your significant other will always take care of you.
30. You’re just too damn tired to care.

Are there may more reasons? You betcha.

Been putting off starting that retirement account because it seems too complicated?

Call your company’s human resource department and have someone walk you through setting up a 401k. Next, have your personal information ready, visit Fidelity or Vanguard’s website, and open up an IRA today (doesn’t matter which one, just open one). It seriously only takes about 15 minutes to open and fund an account. You can figure out what to invest in later — the important part is taking the first step.

Been putting off talking to your loved ones about your financial worries?

Sit them down and talk. The difficult conversations are always the most important ones. Sure, it may not be easy, but the alternatives can sometimes be much worse. Your parents may lose their house. Complications may lead to divorce. You might have to bail your kids out later. You might have to ask your parents to bail you out. You might have to start all over again — at age 57.

For every reason to not care and to not do anything, there are hundreds more reasons to care and to do something about your personal finance.