Ordinarily, marathons of this caliber sell out their participant tickets very quickly and this event was no exception.  Lucky for me I was a able to join a charity team that guaranteed me participation in the race.  The Diabetes Action Team is a charity that raises  money for diabetes research and as a condition of my participation I will also need to individually raise $1000 by the time the marathon rolls around.

Because of this you can bet your ass that I am taking this very seriously.  If I am putting time and effort to raise money, then I will also need to put time and effort into training my body to complete the marathon.  The last thing I need is to show up and not finish the race like a jackass!

I already consider myself  a “good runner,” yet lately I’ve been slacking off when it comes to my fitness.  It’s been a little over two months that I’ve last got off my butt and ran two days in a row.  I need to get back on track and fast!

Tonight, while I did not got out and run, I did start doing the INSANITY workout program.  My plan is to hit my body from two angles – I will work on my core and fast twitch muscle fibers, then I’ll include some long distance running.  I’ll be honest, INSANITY is no joke.

I know, I know you may be saying, “don’t hurt yourself, Charlie!”  Well, I think I’ll be alright.  As long as I listen to my body, I think I can keep myself from any harm.

So again, this is T-1 of my journey to get back in shape, do my part in raising money for diabetes research, and run/finish a marathon for the first time in my life.  This is something I’ve always wanted to do – I’ll finally get a chance to do it two weeks before my 28th birthday.

Stay tuned as I put up posts and pics with my progress as I get closer to T-90!

Default?

Yes, default!  Like a person who just walked away from paying a mortgage they couldn’t afford, the U.S. will not be able to pay it creditors after this week if the government drops the ball.  So why do I care?

Let me give you a bit of background on my situation.  A couple of months ago, as I was reading through a couple financial websites, I got the crazy idea of investing in the stock market.  Keyword – investing!  Well what I ended up doing is perhaps better known as speculation.

I would say I have a pretty good credit rating as I’ve maintained a credit history since the day I turned 18.  With a only a few minor hiccups in the last 10 years, I’ve managed to pay off my obligations on time.  That is why I decided that I’d be a good idea for me to borrow money to invest in the market.

Bone head move, right?  Maybe, but hear me out!

Here’s my logic:

The plan was to borrow 10 grand and make a big splash in the market.  So I applied for a loan from my bank and quickly got approved for a $5,000 consumer loan with a 10.99% interest rate (high I know, but I thought it out this far).  Next, one of my credit cards was offering balance transfers with a 0% interest rate for 12 months.

So I took a cash advance on another credit card and immediately transferred the balance to the credit card offering the 0% interest on transfers.  I instantly had 12 month interest free loan worth $4000.  Consequently, I ended up investing $9,000 instead of the initially planned $10,000.

The $9,000 dollars was invested into some pretty legitimate companies, so in this regard I can say that I was not speculating.  For example, one of the companies I invested in was Berkshire-Hathaway, Inc (BRK.B).  But I digress!  In order for this plan to work out as planned, I need to pay the $5,000 initially borrowed from the bank as quick as possible in order to minimize the debt charges and limit the liability on any profit I may make.

Two months into my plan, it looks like the interest payments will be very minimal.

That’s the good news!

The bad news is this debt ceiling battle shows no signs of letting up and in just a few days the U.S. will likely default on it’s debt obligations.  Because of this, my stock positions are down almost $500 or 6% in the last month!  If the U.S. does default then these numbers might very well be much higher!

I’m not worried about my investments as much as I’m disappointed that I didn’t see this coming fast enough for me to wait until the dust settled to invest my money.  People stand to make a lot of money from this looming financial disaster – one of them could be you!  What do you think?

Hi, just want to take this time to welcome any readers to my blog.  I’m in the process of writing some new intriguing content for you guys!  Still trying to figure out what the niche to my blog will be, but for now please enjoy what I currently have posted.

Please leave a comment and feel free to email me via the Contact link at the top of the page!  If you’d like to know more about me, go here!

Happy Blogging,

Charlie Mosez

I know for me personally, travel is way up there on my list.  I joined the military to travel the world, yet after seven years it has only brought me to Southern California, Hawaii, Iraq and Japan.  Not saying that I’m not grateful to have experienced these places, I know many people would love to be in my shoes, but I want more!

This January, I accompanied my girl to visit her family on the island of Saipan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianna’s Islands.  Although, technically, this place is not a foreign land as a territory of the United States, it sure felt like I was somewhere far from what I was used to.  It got me thinking – experiencing a new land and somewhat different culture motivated me to want to do whatever it took to experience new places.

So, in late April of this year, I finally applied for my passport!  This, of course, is the absolutely first step to world travel.  You cannot go anywhere without a passport, unless you are on military travel orders!  And less than 1% of Americans travel on those, but I digress.  I have been in Japan for about a year and a half and have yet to visit Tokyo.  This is unacceptable!  I have to get there and I have to get there soon if I want to be serious about seeing the world!  This is my first stop until I venture out into other countries.

I haven’t been to Tokyo mainly because it is fairly expensive to get there from where I live and lodging is no bargain either.  As irresponsible as I’ve been with my finances since arriving in Japan, I understand that it would have been unwise to visit Tokyo without being properly prepared.  Therefore, I have set a goal!  I will be in Tokyo in order to climb Mount Fuji during the Independence Day weekend 2011!

My first order of business in order to make my trip to Tokyo happen:

I will pay off the remaining balance on my credit card.  It is roughly $4800!  I have about six weeks to make that happen!  It will happen.

Secondly, I will prepay for the entire trip except for food and entertainment of course.   I have found that you spend more frivolously when you do not have a plan or place to stay prior to arriving.  I know this from finding myself in this predicament in Osaka and Fukuoka.  Never again.

In order to facilitate my goal, I have already cut $46.89 from my monthly expenses.  I will be making additional cuts from my discretionary spending.  The goal is to cut $3000  from the $4800 by the 15th of June.  If I can keep this pace, then I will be on track and can therefore make all my reservations for this trip long in the making.  I will keep you posted.  I will make this trip happen!

I do have to tell you that this book is massive!  I was expecting something similar to the size of The 4-Hour Workweek, but instead received something like a full version of Webster’s Dictionary!  Hey, well what I have read so far has been pretty interesting.

I didn’t actually read any of the reviews before nor after the book was released simply because I read The 4-Hour Workweek and am an avid reader of Tim Ferriss’ Blog.  I knew the book was at least going to include some ideas worth my reading time.  I can tell you from what I have read so far that I’m really finding the read to be absolutely intriguing and I cannot wait to give some of the ideas in the book a try.

I can tell you this – I intend to give this book a try and see how I can benefit from it.  I will be posting some future entries detailing my course through the Slow-Carb Diet, which is detailed in the book, among other experiments.  Time to pick up the book again.  Stay tuned for the latest!

This is why I feel like such a failure sometimes when I just can’t get myself to implement what these writers are advising.  But perhaps maybe it’s not even necessary to do everything exactly as it’s laid out by other people.

Different people have different lifestyles, different income and come from different cultures.  Generally, what will work for someone else is not the one-size-fits all solution.  Really!

But, what I’m actually trying to say is that it is probably in your best interest to not let the fact that you’re having a tough time implementing  what you’ve read on someone else’s blog.  Instead do what you think will work for you and your lifestyle.

I recently took some time to come up with ideas on what exactly would work for me and put the thoughts on paper.  Below is the list of the five simplest/most difficult things that would work for me:

1.   Just like “the first rule of fight club is, you do not talk about fight club!”  The first rule of doing what works for you is to actually DO what works for you!  Maybe not the best analogy, but you know where I was going with that.  Ha!

2.   Spend less than you make.  This is probably the simplest of concepts dealing with financial fitness, but also the one that almost everybody trying to reform their money habits falters in achieving!  Your success to spending less than you make can greatly improve if you just simply created a budget.  Of course, a budget is not the end all be all to spending less than you’ve made.  However, if you at the very least attempted to live within the budget you set, your overall spending would be reduced.  It’s worth a try.

3.  Automate your finances.  Now, I know that there are many people on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to the topic of automating your finances.  The argument against automating your finances is a valid one in that a person becomes detached from their finances almost completely except for the portion that is available for discretionary spending.  If you ask me, this is an advantage!  If you could allocate your entire income to paying your liabilities and your investments up front, how much better would you feel about spending the money left over on anything you want?  It would definitely not feel like I was doing something wrong – that’s for sure!

4.  Save and invest as much as possible.  Create an emergency fund and pad your IRA without even thinking.  This step becomes simplified when you actually automate your finances.  If you put money down towards your savings and investments before you ever touch a single penny towards your entertainment, your savings start to grow without much effort on your part.  This is also commonly referred to as paying yourself first!

5.  Insure YOURSELF.  This is a must do if you can afford it.  Without insurance, medical, disability or otherwise, you may get stuck with very expensive hospital bills in the case that you get sick or hurt.  Even worse, if you become disabled and can no longer work it may be even more difficult to make money to pay those hospital bills.  The government will only assist you so much.  The situation would become bleak if you really look at it.  Do yourself the favor and buy yourself that peace of mind!

Well there you have it – the list of the five simplest/most difficult steps to financial fitness.  Well, at least for me!

What will you be doing to improve your financial fitness?  Remember that no matter what you do, make sure it is something that you think will work for you.  Believe me; it will save you from kicking your own ass when you can’t accomplish what someone else has laid out for YOU to do.