$ $ $ D E B T F R E E S T A T E G I E S E Z I N E $ $ $
June 2005

Tips and Strategies on reducing debt and accelerating income
growth, guiding the subscriber to true financial freedom.

Dr. John Scott Herrington, editor

"Our goal, with each issue, is to give you a strategy or tip
that will save/make you money immediately, allowing you to
accelerate your income, reduce debt, and spend more time with
those you love."

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**Please pass this ezine on to others you feel may benefit**.

>DFS C O N T E N T S

1) DFS Strategies - "Summer Fun and Debt Elimination"
2) Debtinators - 7 Strategies for Income Acceleration
3) Feature Article - "But I Don't Have Any Debt." (Wake UP!)
4) Time is Money - "Three Steps for Positive Goal-Setting"

>DFS S T R A T E G I E S

SUMMER FUN AND DEBT ELIMINATION
by Anthony Manganiello

Well summer is finally underway. This is a time of year that
you begin to spend a lot of time outdoors. And while it's
exciting to have more hours of sunlight and more opportunitites
to get out of the house...you need to keep some things in mind.
Typically, when you're out of the house you have a tendency to
spend more money. That stop at the ice cream stand or that trip
to the ball game. I know from personal experience that in the
summer months I tend to carry more cash around with me than
during the winter months. When there's snow on the ground, and
on the streets, I have less desire to be anywhere but home in
contrast to when the sun is shining and I don't need a coat. And
the more I'm out of the house, the more money I spend. While
your debt elimination system is NOT an austerity program, it
does require discipline. with that in mind...here are a few
suggestions.

1. Plan For Recreation. Satisfy the temptation to enjoy the
summer months by planning little jaunts ahead of time. Take a
look at the calendar and pick some things you would like do. I
find that this gives my family something to look forward to and
thereby makes it easier to endure the time periods between
activities.

2. Take Advantage of Nature. I spend a lot fo time with my
kids at the parks in my neighborhood. It's fascinating that,
when it comes to children, it's not the money you spend "on
them"-- it's the time you spend "with them." It doesn't
cost a penny to go to a public park and this is where we
have a lot of fun.

3. What About Vacations? If you're planning on taking a
vacation this year, plan wisely. Take advantage of the
competition over your travel dollar created by the dot com
companies. If you're planning on flying, check out
www.travelocity.com or www.lowestfare.com for good rates on
airfare. You can look into www.priceline.com but be prepared to
have limited options regarding the time of day you plan on
traveling. Priceline.com gives you the ability to bid for price
of your plane tickets, but they tell you what time of the day
you're flying. This can be difficult if you have small children
who are on a schedule. Furthermore, with Priceline.com you have
to provide a credit card number (and you know how we feel about
credit cards) at the time you enter your bid. This means that
if they meet the limited criteria you've entered, you're stuck
with those tickets. Even if you're flying out at 6:00 AM.

4. Don't Forget Your Reward Program. If you have instilled a
reward program in your debt free system, as suggested, you can
pick a time to use your Accelerator Margin to reward yourself
instead of paying down debt. Let's say you have an Accelerator
Margin of $600. As a reward for reaching one of your debt
elimination milestones, take that money and use it to fund your
vacation. This means you vacation is paid for in cash and you
won't be faced with the grim reality of paying interest on
airfare and hotel rooms. It may take a few months to fund your
vacation this way, wut I guarantee that it feels better to pay
cash!

We want to help you keep focused on the light at the end of the
tunnel. That's the day when all your debt has been eliminated
and the money spent each and every month to make debt service
payments is yours to keep. For many people the end of the
tunnel means as much as a one hundred percent increase in net
monthly income.


>D E B T I N A T O R S -7 Strategies for Income Acceleration
(Saving your hard-earned money!)

1. HOME MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR.
Do It Yourself. Do the simple things around the house such as
painting, scraping, and cleaning maintenance. For example, 80
to 85 per cent of a house painter's cost is labor. Your local
library has plenty of home maintenance books that can answer
any question you may have.

2. FOOD.
How 'bout that good ole' home cookin'!! That's right, eat at
home. It's ok to treat yourself with a meal out periodically
(or as a reward for sticking to your debt elimination plan),
but don't let the local McDonald's or restaurant be your main
meal source. It's much cheaper to cook your own meals AND much
better for you. Besides, it's a great time to get the family
together to talk.

3. CLOTHES.
When is the best time to buy a winter coat? Not during October
and November. Now is the best time to buy a winter coat. The
selection may not be the best, but if you find something you
like, it is likely to be MUCH cheaper now than when old man
winter has already set up shop. Buy out of season.


4. AUTOMOBILE.
Never, EVER ... EVER buy a new car. Two years up the road it
will be worth little more (or less) than half its original
cost. Buy a two year old car. The car will still be in
excellent condition and problems will most likely have been
identified and fixed. However... be sure to have your friendly,
trustworthy local mechanic check out a pre-owned car before you
buy. And buy from someone you know and can rely on.

5. ENTERTAINMENT.
Don't pay 6 or 7 dollars (or more) to go to the movies. If you
must have that movie experience, go to the matinee where it
could be as much as 50 per cent cheaper. Better yet, rent a
movie! It will only cost you about 3 bucks (or less). Add a
bowl of popcorn (at just a few cents rather than a few dollars)
and you can have a nice evening with those you love and save 20
bucks.

6. YOUR HOME.
Pay off your mortgage as quickly as possible. Why? Over 30
years, you are going to pay twice as much in interest as you
are for the original cost of your home. Talk about money in
THEIR pockets! And forget this argument that it is a good tax
deduction. Since when is it better to pay a dollar to get 28
cents back! (I'll gladly give you 28 cents for your dollar.)

7. FINANCIAL MATTERS
Where does all that money go?! Well, there's one way to find
out. Carry around a notebook and pen and keep track of the cash
you spend. It may seem like a pain, but ask yourself just how
willing are you to cut back on your expenses to eliminate your
debt completely. Try it for two weeks. You'll have a better
grasp of where your money is going and how you can cut back in
some areas you hadn't considered. You will be surprised.


>F E A T U R E A R T I C L E

"But I Don't Have Any Debt." (Wake UP!)
by R. David Williams

When I speak with people about true financial independence, one
of the very first statements I hear is, "but I don't have any
debt." The media, Madison Avenue, and financial institutions
all across our country have convincedus that having a mortgage,
car payment, and now home equity loans, are all just normal
every day expenses. Sure, eeryone realizes that credit card debt
is the "bad debt," but they also believe those other items are
a necessity.

In January of 1999, my wife and I had just refinanced our
mortgage for 30 years at the incredibly low rate of 6.75 per
cent. As a graduate of one of the top ten business schools in
the country with a degree in finance, I was proud of the fact
that I only had a mortgage and was leveraging my debt to it's
fullest to take advantage of the mortgage tax credits and to
free up my capital for better investment opportunities.
However, I read something that started me on a journey that has
changed my life forever. You see, I had never thought about the
possibility of eliminating my mortgage (in five to seven years)
and opening up a whole new world of opportunity.

My wife and I began our debt free system in April of 1999 and
the expected results were incredible. We are going to save in
excess of $163,000 and our morgage will be paid off by May,
2005. Our projections for investments are over 2.8 million
dollars in the same period of time that we would have been
paying on our mortgage. Now when I did the calculations and
compared the expected capital appreciation on the accelerator
margin vs. paying off my debt first and then investing, the end
results were almost identical. But here is where I really
benefit. In 6 years my personal net worth would be almost
$150,000 more than if I followed the traditional model. You see,
the capital acquired through traditional investing would be only
slightly more than the remaining mortgage balance on our home.
This is what I call true financial independence. In less than 5
years I will be completely debt free and able to pursue any
lifestyle that I want, because I will have significant net worth
and no debt obligations.

Mortgage payments, for most people, are a fact of life, but
make no mistake about it -- this is real debt and the kind of
debt that could have the most significant impact on your life!


>T I M E I S M O N E Y

Three Steps for Positive Goal Setting

By: Dr. Donald E. Wetmore

As I conduct my Time Management Seminars all over, my
audiences consistently tell me they want more out of life.
Almost everyone I speak with has a yearning for improving
several aspects of their lives. They have dreams and goals
about their future as yet unrealized.

Many come to the end in life with those visions unrealized,
pictures in their minds only.

Achieving goals helps us to get the "want to's in our lives.
Life ought to be more than just achieving the "have to's".

I offer three important tips to help increase the
probability of achieving your dreams, getting more of what
you want in your life.

1. Put your goals into writing. There is something powerful
about writing out what you want, getting your dream out of
your head and on to a piece of paper. It then seems more
realizable. It's a stonger affirmation of what you are
working towards rather than having a vague, wispy notion
floating around in your head.

An even stronger tool is to prepare a goal scrapbook.
Nothing fancy. Get a three-ring binder and fill it with
notebook paper. Then get a picture of each your goals and
paste them into your new goal scrapbook. You ca go to the
car dealer and get a brochure of the new car you want. Visit
a travel agent and pick up brochures of your ideal vacation'
s destination and add that. Clip a picture of your dream
house out of the newspaper's real estate section and add
this as well.

Then, each night, review your goal scrapbook and see a
picture of what will surely be coming to you. It's like
viewing a crystal ball and seeing your future.

2. Quantify your goals. Many do not get what they truly want
in their lives because they are too vague about what they
want. It is not enough to say, "I want more money" or "I
want to be rich". Instead, if you write, "I want $10,000",
you now have a clear target to shoot for.

3. Set a deadline. Did you ever set a New Year's resolution
and never achieve it? Most people have. And most people fail
to achieve their dreams because they did not include a
deadline with their goal. Deadlines move us to action.

When we fail to include a deadline for our goal, when we
commit to achieving it "as soon as possible", the goal winds
up in our "as soon as possible" pile of things I will do
another day, which is probably never. Why? Because we all
too much to do and not enough time to get it all done. The
items that have deadlines for completion tend to bubble up
in priority and importance so that we take action and
achieve them.

Having written out the goal, placed a picture in our goal
scrapbook, quantified it, and set a deadline, we can now
break that goal down into its little component pieces so
that achievement becomes realistic and manageable.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
No goal achievement is a leap across some huge canyon. Many
are intimidated and driven away from going after what they
really want in their lives for fear they will have to take a
giant leap across that canyon and, hey, what if I don't leap
far enough? Disaster.

Let's say you have a goal to get an additional $10,000 in
savings two years from today. Make up a picture of your new
bank statement two years from now showing the additional
$10,000 in your account. The goal is in writing. It is
quantified and a deadline has been set. Now you can break
that goal into its little steps for achievement.

To get $10,000 over the next two years requires getting an
additional $5,000 per year. A year is made up of twelve
months, so that means you need to get approximately $400 per
month. A month is made up of four weeks, so that's $100 per
week. And a week is made of, let's say, five business days.
That's $20 per day. (I have not added in interest to these
calculations just for simplicity.)

I don't know about you, but the notion of going out in the
world tomorrow and getting an extra $20 is a whole lot more
realistic and certainly a whole more doable than getting
$10,000. Getting the entire $10,000 is the leap across the
canyon. It scares me. $20 is the single step. That's
something I can handle. Now the goal seems realistic and is
realizable.

But until you write out your goal, quantify it, and set a
deadline so that you break it down to its small steps, it
will forever appear to be too big a stretch and therefore
unattainable. But every time you follow these three steps
and break the goal down, you will always find that you have
within your control what it takes to accomplish that next
step. And once you begin, you are on your way!

Get your free copy of "The Top Five Time Management
Mistakes" that outlines the five things you must avoid to
be a really successful time manager. To get your free copy
now, email your request for "mistakes" to: ctsem@...

Dr. Donald E. Wetmore
Professional Speaker
Productivity Institute
Time Management Seminars
60 Huntington St., P.O. Box 2126
Shelton, CT 06484
(800) 969-3773 (203) 929-9902 Fax: (203) 929-8151
Email: ctsem@...
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