Sinopsis
The Follow Me out of Debt podcast is an easily-digestible show that's brought to you once a week, every week. Tom has taken the advice from well-known authors and show hosts, including Dave Ramsey, Clark Howard, Ramit Sethi, and Suze Orman - and is combining them into his own personal strategies to show you what works (and what doesn't) to get out of debt and get into prosperity.
Episodios
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FMOOD 0364: What's New This Month (November 2019)
02/12/2019 Duración: 09minIt's time for a monthly check-in to discuss what I've been up to as it relates to getting out of debt and getting into prosperity. I think that it's a good idea for us to touch base once a month to see where things are at on my personal journey to get out of debt and get into prosperity, and hopefully it inspires you to continue forging ahead with your goals as well. God bless.
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FMOOD 0363: We All Make Mistakes
25/11/2019 Duración: 13minEveryone makes mistakes. The key is to allow ourselves forgiveness for those mistakes. We might be able to forgive others easily, but sometimes we don't forgive ourselves as easily. The key to moving forward is to move past the bad decisions that we've made in our past. Once we stop clinging to the past and look to the future, only then can we break the chains of debt. God bless.
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FMOOD 0362: Be Water, My Friend
18/11/2019 Duración: 11minEmpty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. -- Bruce Lee
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FMOOD 0361: Why We Do What We Do
11/11/2019 Duración: 14minWhy do we do the things that we do to get out of debt, and why is this such an important question to ask ourselves? If we can define our reason why we do what we do early on, we'll have a much greater chance of success. Define your why, determine how you will execute your action plan, focus on one debt at a time, and use the reason that you started your journey to keep you motivated and to give you the fuel that you need to finish the race. God bless.
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FMOOD 0360: Debt Settlement Reviews
04/11/2019 Duración: 06minHave you received a letter in the mail asking if you want to participate in debt settlement? Many times, the letter or the commercial that you see on television or hear on the radio about this particular topic might also be referred to as debt relief. In any case, this is rarely a good idea. I would never recommend that someone actually signs up for these types of programs because they usually do not end well. Rather than going down this road, I would instead recommend getting to work. Think about ways that you can work harder or smarter to get yourself out of this mess. Fill out applications for part-time work if you can. Communicate with your creditors if you're in a tight situation at the moment. Your creditors don't want you to sign on with a debt relief or debt settlement agency, either. In most cases, they would be much more willing to work with you directly since that is still an advantage to them if they will eventually be paid the full amount owed to them. God bless.
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FMOOD 0359: What's New This Month (October 2019)
28/10/2019 Duración: 12minIt's time for a monthly check-in to discuss what I've been up to as it relates to getting out of debt and getting into prosperity. I think that it's a good idea for us to touch base once a month to see where things are at on my personal journey to get out of debt and get into prosperity, and hopefully it inspires you to continue forging ahead with your goals as well. God bless.
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FMOOD 0358: Debt by Design
21/10/2019 Duración: 13minDiscover today how credit card companies and other similar entities try to keep us in debt and why. There are many different ways that credit card companies will utilize different perks, fee discounts, rate discounts, and other schemes to make us not only feel that their credit card is part of our financial well-being but will also be something that we should get used to using on an ongoing basis. The simple truth is that credit card companies and similar entities do studies on the purchasing habits of most people, and they target those people who fit their ideal profiles accordingly. It truly is a data game, and we have to realize that when we get an offer in the mail or in our inbox, it's not meant to be an invitation to be friends. It's almost always a targeted marketing strategy to rope us into being yet another source of revenue for them. It's time to take back control from these credit card companies, personal loan companies, and similar entities. It's time to change the rules of the game in our fav
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FMOOD 0357: How and Why to Focus on One Debt at a Time
14/10/2019 Duración: 13minWhy should you focus on one debt at a time? The quick and easy answer to this question is that it is much easier to process smaller bites of something rather than taking everything on all at once. When we hone in on that one debt that we're tackling right now in particular and give it our focused attention, we'll find that we'll have an easier time directing our financial resources towards paying down and paying off this debt at a faster pace. It's not a bad thing to look at the big picture occasionally to know where you're at in your walk with paying off debt, but it's not a good thing to make that your only focus. You have to process one piece of the puzzle at a time, and only then will you find yourself making headway towards accomplishing your bigger goals. If you haven't done so already, please take a few minutes to head on over to iTunes to leave a rating, leave a review, and subscribe to this show. Doing so helps other folks easily find this show so that they can join us in our journey to get out
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FMOOD 0356: Your Debt Diet
07/10/2019 Duración: 13minIt's time to go on a financial diet. Akin to realizing that you've put on a few extra pounds and want to go on a diet to lose some weight, we can come to the realization that we've taken on too much debt and now need to decrease the amount that we owe. It's one thing to go on a diet, but it's a completely different thing to define the why before we begin. A lot of diets fail simply because they're restrictive by nature. The natural tendency is to go back to those foods that we're restricted from eating at some point in time. Diets are far more successful when we focus on the desired end result, or in other words, focusing on why we're doing what we're doing. For many of us, that result might be what we see in the mirror. For others, it's a matter of better health in general. Whatever the case may be, the same is true from a financial health standpoint. When you're in over your head in debt, it can be quite scary. Along those same lines, we can put ourselves on a debt diet and define the why and visualize
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FMOOD 0355: What's New This Month (September 2019)
30/09/2019 Duración: 11minIt's time for a monthly check-in to discuss what I've been up to as it relates to getting out of debt and getting into prosperity. I think that it's a good idea for us to touch base once a month to see where things are at on my personal journey to get out of debt and get into prosperity, and hopefully it inspires you to continue forging ahead with your goals as well. God bless.
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FMOOD 0354: How to Increase Your Credit Score (And Why It's Important)
23/09/2019 Duración: 17minYour credit score is more than just a number that financial institutions use to offer lines of credit or loans. The credit score for most people is an important number because there are other entities that will use your credit score to help them to know a little more about you. Two good examples of this are insurance companies and prospective employers. If your credit score is good, most insurance companies will allow you to pay lower premiums for auto and other types of insurance. Poor credit scores may require a higher premium for insurance. While that might not seem to be fair, this is common practice in most cases. Employers might also pull your credit and view your credit score in order to get an idea of whether or not you might be more prone to participating in risky behaviors, and that ding on your profile in their records might be enough to prevent you from being hired. While you are in the process of getting out of debt, tune in today to find out how you can raise your credit score at the same t
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FMOOD 0353: You Are Not Your Debt
16/09/2019 Duración: 09minWhatever you do, don't let debt define you. You are a completely separate entity from your debt. As a matter of fact, you are the one who will be putting that debt in its place, and this is going to happen sooner than you think with the right mindset. Before we get into that, let's discuss what happens when we've been in debt for a long time. When we have been battling debt for a while, or maybe not battling it at all, we can start to identify with that debt. We allow credit cards, loans, and other debt instruments to simply be a part of our lives to the point where we feel that they are just supposed to be there. That's not the case at all, and as a matter of fact, the opposite is true. We were never called to be in debt, but rather, we were called to be free of debt completely. I've got good news for you. You will find your way out of this debt mess, and you will soon find yourself in a position of power and control again. Envision yourself as a general marching your army into battle against an enemy, a
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FMOOD 0352: Why Paying with Cash Matters
09/09/2019 Duración: 11minWhen forming our spending habits, using cash is an absolute necessity. It is usually difficult to truly change our spending habits if we've been accustomed to using credit cards for a while and try to transition to only using our debit cards. Plastic is plastic is plastic, and until you get yourself accustomed to the feel of using paper money and coins on an almost consistent basis, it may be challenging to break the habit of defaulting to pulling plastic out of your purse or wallet, whether that's a debit card or a credit card. Another huge benefit of spending with cash instead of credit cards or debit cards is that we will usually spend less. We will keep our attention focused on our planned list of items that we've intended to buy, and we'll be better able to ignore the endcaps or the clearance racks that are positioned strategically to grab more of our hard-earned resources. If you would like to listen (or re-listen) to other episodes pertaining to the importance of using cash, give a listen to episo
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FMOOD 0351: What Your Starter Emergency Fund Amount Should Be
02/09/2019 Duración: 13minHow much should your starter emergency fund amount be? Many times, you will hear that your starter emergency fund should be $1,000. Is that really enough for you? Is that even something that you can realistically attain in order to get started? As I've said many times on this show, there is no cookie-cutter approach to personal finance. This is yet another example as to why we can't apply the same template to every individual person's unique situation. It's absolutely necessary to take it up a notch and apply a ridiculously easy formula that will help you to determine how much you should have in your own starter emergency fund. Your homework assignment after listening to this episode is to take a good look at your own starter emergency fund. If you're just getting started, see if you can apply this formula to get to where you need to be. If you've already had your starter emergency fund in place for a while, perhaps it's time to revisit it and see if you need to make some changes. In either case, you will
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FMOOD 0350: What's New This Month (August 2019)
26/08/2019 Duración: 11minIt's time for a monthly check-in to discuss what I've been up to as it relates to getting out of debt and getting into prosperity. I think that it's a good idea for us to touch base once a month to see where things are at on my personal journey to get out of debt and get into prosperity, and hopefully it inspires you to continue forging ahead with your goals as well. God bless.
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FMOOD 0349: Fear Can Be Your Friend
19/08/2019 Duración: 13minThe emotion of fear can be a source of panic, or it can be a good friend nudging you towards accomplishing your goals. The decision is completely up to you, and it almost completely depends upon the lens that you use to view fear to certain stimuli. Whether you are on the instant knee-jerk reaction to fear side of the spectrum or on the more analytical side of processing a situation to its fullest, you can learn to use fear as a catalyst to accomplishing your specific goals. Those goals can be large or small, and of course, those goals can include getting out of debt and getting into prosperity. It is up to you how you choose to process this fear, and you have the opportunity to turn fear into a powerful ally, if you choose to do so. God bless.
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FMOOD 0348: The Golden Spending Rule
12/08/2019 Duración: 15minIf you can't afford to buy it twice, then you shouldn't buy it. If you follow this simple rule, it will make your purchase decisions better aligned with your overall goals to get out of debt and get into prosperity. It's very easy for us to make a decision to buy something by thinking about whether or not we can afford it. Many times, we either consider the amount of cash that we have available to us or we consider how much available credit we have on a credit card. Rather than thinking about this on a single level, we should expand on this and apply some critical thinking concepts. I'll go over some ways that I've learned to apply the golden spending rule to help make better spending decisions, and I'll also include a great tip on how to expand on this concept even further. Doing these things will help you to keep more of your hard-earned money in order to apply these resources toward debt, and this of course will help you to get out of debt and get into prosperity that much faster. God bless.
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FMOOD 0347: When You Have a Bad Day
05/08/2019 Duración: 17minWhat is the best thing to do when you're having a bad day, week, month, or even a bad year? That first sentence sounds like the song from the TV show Friends, doesn't it? The reality is that many of us aren't sipping coffee in a coffee shop with our friends as life simply happens. We're in the trenches, and we're dealing with the day-to-day battles that will eventually wear on us. We're not promised a perfect life, even as Christians, so that means that someday, we'll have a bad day. When this bad day happens, it has the potential to creep into extending into several days before we realize that we're now experiencing a bad week. The problems may never be fully resolved and will have time to fester, so now we start creeping into a bad month. Before you know it, we might be fully immersed in a bad year, and it may continue even from that point. The good news is that there is help available to end this cycle, and I want to guide you through the steps to discovering the four essential methods to turning aro
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FMOOD 0346: What's New This Month (July 2019)
29/07/2019 Duración: 14minIt's time for a monthly check-in to discuss what I've been up to as it relates to getting out of debt and getting into prosperity. I think that it's a good idea for us to touch base once a month to see where things are at on my personal journey to get out of debt and get into prosperity, and hopefully it inspires you to continue forging ahead with your goals as well. God bless.
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FMOOD 0345: When to Fix a Vehicle and When to Buy Another
22/07/2019 Duración: 15minWhen is it appropriate to repair a vehicle as opposed to purchasing another? If you haven't had to ask this question yet, you will likely need to eventually. I recently had a situation where I discovered that while my vehicle is still drivable, I will eventually need to incur a somewhat costly repair in order to keep my vehicle roadworthy. Sometimes our situations with our vehicles might be a little different, though. Perhaps your vehicle may drive just fine but you find that your vehicle needs other repairs in order to pass a state inspection, for example. In any case, when we come to the point where we need to decide whether or not a vehicle repair is worth the expense as opposed to buying another one, there are certain things that we must do in order to maintain a level head throughout the process. First and foremost, we need to be sure to not quickly react because of panic. It's all too easy to hear bad news about our current vehicle and head over to the dealership. This is especially problematical if