www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zNq3y7c-r8

I share my coin finds with my dog winston.

© 2011, Dustin Evenson. All rights reserved.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfQRx2ndRfE

I opened a box of bank-rolled cents and this is what I found:

21- wheats from the 40s and 50s

24- 2009s

6 Canadian cents

I also like to collect nice “red” cents and s cents.

© 2011, Dustin Evenson. All rights reserved.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phdx-tpGGYM

I searched a box of hand-rolled cents and this is what I found:
3 wheats, 2 Canadian cents, 1 dime, and I also collect all 2009 lincoln cents and 1968-1974 s cents. I also look for any good “red” cents

© 2011, Dustin Evenson. All rights reserved.

This involves going through rolls of coins from bank A and returning the coins preferably to a different bank, a dump bank. This prevents me from searching through the same coins again.

I am looking for the following:

Lincoln Cents

• pre 1934
• 1934d
• 1938d
• 1938s
• 1939d
• any 1943
• 1949s
• 1955s
• 1955-DDO
• 1960-sm dt
• 1960d-sm dt
• 1965-1971-rd
• 1968s-1974s
• 1969d-1972d-rd
• 1970s-sm dt
• 1972-DDO
• 1982d-sm dt zinc
• 1984-doubled ear
• 1992-close AM
• 1992d-close AM
• 1995-DDO
• 1998-2000-wide AM
• all 2009
• 2009-extra thumb

© 2011, Dustin Evenson. All rights reserved.

Save $1000 very fast for emergencies, if that seems like a large amount especially if you have never saved a dime before set a goal reasonable for yourself. Even having $300 set aside to use only when that trip to the dentist arises will be a sigh of relief knowing you didn’t dig your debt grave deeper.

Where do you keep that new money burning a hole in your pocket that you can’t touch?

I’ve found these to work well for me:

1. Cash – most places take plastic but some repairman only deal with cash and if there is electrical outage in your area of the country, cash is still King! Keep it in a separate envelope in a hiding spot from the kids. Offers no interest rate.

2. Savings account linked with checking account – transfers into savings are easy and can be automatic, the less you think about the money, the less you miss the money. Offers very small interest rate.

3. Money Market Mutual Fund – less liquid, but less temptation to be spent frivolously, some accounts offer checking-writing privileges in larger withdrawal amounts. Transfers take longer to complete. Offers very small interest rate.

4. Combination of all methods – based on the size of your emergency fund and your willingness to spread out your monies over different mediums, this method may work best.

Personally – I hedge 1/10th of my emergency fund with silver bullion. So for me every $250 I save, I make sure $25 of that is invested in silver rounds. This helps protect against inflation while my dollars are being stored and waited on for use, if inflation happens I don’t lose as much of my buying power because I go trade in my silver for inflated dollars and buy my $5 loaf of bread with ease and peace of mind.

What strategies do you use when saving for a rainy day?

What works? What doesn’t work?

© 2011, Dustin Evenson. All rights reserved.

Are today’s and tomorrow’s economies going to pieces, how can you be faithful to your future?

Set up a budget.

Start by tracking your expenses and income sources. Along with this, give yourself goals to determine where you want your money to go. Assign each dollar a category and track for one month the actual results.

When you track your spending habits it gives emotional connection when the money is spent. After some time you will realize what categories you have under control and which ones need some work and discipline.

Next divide your expenses into fixed vs. flexible categories and create a minimum living column (i.e. if a spouse lost a job).This should list the minimum payments on monthly debt, also including forgoing optional spending routines like haircuts, date nights, and restaurants.

Then list your normal maximum living expenses with all the normal payments and optional luxury categories.

When I first got married we went through two periods where we had two sets of loans and expenses but only one income source.

First when we were married my wife did not have a job and we had to draw on personal savings to offset the lack of income.

Later when my wife who is a teacher was unsure of her rehiring we had to anticipate a layoff by living minimally.

It is amazing how little we could live on and how wonderfully we are blessed through the ups and downs financially. Budgeting definitely prepared us and made it possible to live minimally.

Now we readjusted our budget yet again to look at how we can capture extra money from our budget to accelerate our debt payoff. First we shifted our thinking into breaking down when our bills and debts are paid to either the first half of the month or the last half of the month.

We then synchronized this with our automatic withdrawals going towards our emergency fund or savings. This planning allows us to coordinate when everything is paid without overdrawing from our checking account.

Just this last week we decided to adjust the budget, living minimally with a maximum income source, with the purpose of throwing all the extra money towards debt.

It’s exciting to think that in the next months we will be contributing a little less towards savings, cutting back on our wasteful spending and dramatically reducing our debt.

The power of $180 extracted from the budget plus the $100 extra going towards debt already, gives us a real force, $380, to crush our debt and give it no power over us.

Have you assigned every dollar with a name?

Do you have a plan to live minimally if necessary?

How much can you come up with to fight off debt that you did not know you had?

I came up with $180/month. Can you beat me?

© 2010, Dustin Evenson. All rights reserved.

I read Dave Ramsey’s “Total Money Makeover” when my dad gave it to me as I was exiting college and thinking of applying for my first credit card. Needless to say, I eventually got the credit card, but Ramsey’s book made me take a second look at the traditional ways of going about purchasing big items such as a vehicle or house, and set my fiscal mind on the right path.

I say free from debt and live richly because it is relative to everyone in their own lives. You may not be 100% debt-free, say your house is still being paid off or your student loans still have payments due for another 15 years but if your consumer debt is zero you can do some really awesome things.

Also you may never be rich by the world’s standards but if you live “richly” you may have financial independence, and may be giving back to your community or church, giving is powerful and comes back to you ten times over.

The 8 Ways to be free from debt and live richly

1. Set up a budget
2. Start an emergency fund
3. Set up a debt reduction chart
4. Complete a larger emergency fund
5. Take money from debt payoff towards retirement
6. Fund children’s college and replace vehicles and furniture
7. Pay off mortgage earlier than expected
8. Give back to church and community

The reason I chose 8 steps is the number 8 represents a new beginning, a new week begins on the 8th day, it’s the number of grace.

As we look at these steps they are to be looked at with a circle in mind. Going back through the steps will reinforce new habits, show you things that have slipped through and give you encouragement along the way.

© 2010 – 2011, Dustin Evenson. All rights reserved.

1. Look at yesterday

2. Look towards tomorrow

Both are pivotal to your self development, as we experience TODAY, we can learn from yesterday’s experiences and draw on the past or we can adjust our attitude towards tomorrow, which is anything that is not behind us or things we are presently experiencing.

Essentially there is NO today, only the past and the future. We must apply our virtues and learn from our vices.

But there is a NOW. We apply the lessons learned in life to the future but experience them in the NOW. God describes himself as the “I AM”. He is the very embodiment of the present. He wants us to call on him to live a life centered around the ideas of peace, hope, and mercy.

I have peace in my life, knowing no matter what disasters or trials I am experiencing, Christ’s peace is left with me.

I have hope that no matter how depressed this life gets, I can hope the the one who has taken my depression upon himself and given me hope for a future, an eternal home, peace away from suffering.

I have mercy that flows and is new every morning. I do not hold grudges or go to bed angry because God’s grace is new every morning. Freedom from the bondage of sin. I am free to live a new life in Christ. If I sin, I have forgiveness. What a wonderful feeling.

I take these three with me in the present.

Peace, Hope, and Mercy. These tools of Christ’s love poured out on the cross for me and for you are gifts from God, nothing earned or bought. God drops you off a dock and you are drowning. You can’t swim or even grab a hold of a self-righteous ring of rescue. You are powerless.

Christ alone has the power and works forgiveness in the hearts of sinners wherever they may be in life. Whether living in the past or tunnel vision of the future preoccupies, Christ has a time and place for forgiveness to work.

Peace, Hope, Mercy…

Happy Reformation Day (31st) and ALL Saint’s Day (1st)

© 2010, Dustin Evenson. All rights reserved.

1. Budgeting Money- The horizontal time line of money
2. Reducing Debt- The downhill slope of money
3. Building Wealth- The uphill climb of money

The foundation is laid when you outline where your money is coming from (income) and where your money is going (expenses). Creating a monthly graph showing the change over time between the two categories will track your financial behaviors for the month

This data will show you if you are living within your means, what wiggle room you have to pay down debt and/or build wealth.

Next add a line for your monthly debt payments. Only include car, student, consumer debt and mortgage payments on this line. The goal is for this line to go to zero over time.

The next line to add is the amount of money you are saving or investing each month. Do not include the total accumulated but the monthly contributions made.

The last two lines are just fillers for your chart. A monthly passive investment income line will motivate you showing you the progress you are making to financial independence. The moment this passive income line crosses over the expense line you are financially free.

The last line is just as important. The charitable contribution line tracks the monthly progress you are making to give back to God for all he has given you. Shoot for 10% but don’t be surprised if you start out slow and end up accelerating past 10%.

Here are the ups and downs my wife and I have experienced thus far:

This basically shows if we are living within our means, it looks like we had some big swings, but the normal months show that the outflow equaled the inflow.

I just charted this in about 10 minutes by taking the last 16 months bank statements and recording the deposits (roughly our income) and the subtractions (essentially our expenses).

In the months ahead I will start a separate chart based on giving and saving since these amounts would seem like outliers on the bigger chart. Get your calculator out and start graphing to get a handle on your personal finance foundation.

© 2010, Dustin Evenson. All rights reserved.

With gold setting all-time highs on the stock market, and advertisements screaming for your attention to turn to gold, what is the meat and potatoes behind the concept of gold investing and hedging. I am not an expert on gold, but I am going to point out my conclusions I have drawn about gold and silver.

1. Gold Investing

With gold at an all-time high, why would anyone want to buy it? Well most believe since the price of gold is higher it will go higher, making the investor money. If everyone is buying then naturally the price is driven up. I would be a contrarian investor and sell all the gold I had during these high times. The fact is gold has made all the gains of the modern era in the last decade. We are at a historical high, all it can do is go down. If everyone is doing one thing I’m gonna do the exact opposite.

The fact is the value that gold has, it’s buying power, is the same as it was during the renaissance. That one ounce of gold coin could be you a nice ring or suit just as it can today. There is no special value to the metal itself, the hype begins with inflation fears.

2. Gold Hedging against Inflation

Gold is primarily thought of as a tool to hedge one’s investments. To hedge against inflation means as inflation goes up the price of gold goes up. So one would be losing money because the dollar based investments they own would be going down, the value of gold would be going up.

The Federal Reserve’s interest rates are so low that we may be in a period of deflation, as interest rates are increased eventually along with the printing of money which continues to accommodate the US growing debt, inflation is bound to happen.

When the government keeps passing bills to spend money they don’t have they will do two things. They can raise money by increasing taxes and/or by printing more money which is a tax itself because it creates money and reducing the buying power of the money in our pockets.

With gold already up without inflation officially here, the gold gurus would say put your money in gold, the dollar will be worth nothing, hyperinflation is coming. If gold is high today, will it be higher tomorrow? If everyone gets on the bandwagon the yes the demand will drive it higher. Let me tell you the practical conclusions I have learned from gold hedging and it begins and ends with gold hedging and hoarding in hyperinflation.

3. Gold Hoarding for Hyperinflation

Hyperinflation by most economists is generally described as a inflation that reaches over 50% in one month’s time. This most famously happened to Germany after the collapse of Nazi Germany after World War II when the German money became useless.

People think if hyperinflation occurs they will need something to barter with for bread and water. The problem lies in what is the reference point to determine what a loaf of bread costs. If the dollar is dead, and we based our gold’s worth per ounce on the dollar, how do we determine what the value of our gold is.

I began hoarding silver a while back for future bartering purposes, but after watching a video of a man going into a LA mini mart to buy groceries with silver, he still had to convert it into dollar value. The light went on for me, sell my silver while it is high.

The last thing about hyperinflation is that it will likely never happen, as long as we have the strongest military in the world, our dollar is safe.

© 2010, Dustin Evenson. All rights reserved.