Please click here for detailed information about the No Credit Needed Notebook.

The following is “Page 3″ of the No Credit Needed Notebook.

The NCN Notebook is still in ‘alpha’ stage - and I invite you to leave comments for improvements.

Inventory Of Financial Accounts

While my wife and I work together to create our monthly budget, she’s not really involved in the day-to-day management of our retirement, investment, or savings accounts. So, if something were to happen to me, she would need a handy guide to all of our various financial accounts. I created a very simple, very easy-to-use, Inventory Of Financial Accounts.

I update the Inventory three or four times a year. I print copies of the Inventory. I take one copy to work, I put one copy in our filing cabinet, and I give one copy to a trusted friend. If something were to happen to me, my wife could use the Inventory and access our retirement, savings, and investment accounts.

If you are looking for an easy way to keep track of your financial accounts, check out the Inventory Of Financial Accounts.

Click here to download page 3 in the format of your choice -

Open Office Writer Document Page 3

Microsoft Word Document Page 3

Click here to see an image of page 3 -

Please note - Make sure that you don’t just leave this piece of paper lying around the house. A piece of paper (or a computer file) with bank account numbers and passwords could potentially be misused!

Please click here for more information about the No Credit Needed Notebook.

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My wife and I went to town today to do a little Christmas shopping. We went to four different stores, and at three of them, I was offered, “a discount for signing up for our store credit card.” Each time, I politely shook my head and said, “No thank you.”

What I really wanted to do was shout, at the top of my lungs, “Stop asking me if I want to apply for your silly credit card!”

I do not want to borrow money from you.

I do not want to make payments to you.

I do not want to give you my personal information, including my mailing address, so that you can stuff my mail box with advertisements.

I do not want to teach my kids that ’swiping the magic card’ is how we ‘pay for things’.

I do not want to put my social security number on a form and then hand it to a part-time worker who looks as if she hates her job, hates me, and hates being at work.  (Edit:  After reading this post, I felt like this line was a bit harsh - but it comes from a real experience that I had today with a cashier who actually said, within earshot of 15 customers, “I hate this job!”.)

I do not want your credit card.

By the way, have you ever wondered WHY stores are so eager to give you a discount for signing up for their credit card? Because, they know that if you have a BRANDED credit card, a credit card that can ONLY be used at a certain store, that you will more likely to shop at that particular store. In other words, they give you a ONE-TIME discount, and then you become a “customer for life”.

While in one store, I counted ELEVEN people who were filling our credit card applications. My head almost exploded.

When I first started this blog, I would write about how much I hated credit cards. “Sophisticated” readers would leave comments about how “they paid off their balances each month” - and I felt some pressure to reevaluate my anti-credit card stance. But, after watching the sub-prime mess unfold and reading hundreds of articles (and emails from readers) about credit cards - I am convinced, more, now than ever, that credit cards are dangerous.

I realize that there are people who pay off their balances each month, and a select few that use credit cards and actually “make” money (from rewards, points, etc.) but I would submit that a larger number of people, perhaps even a majority, are burdened down with tremendous amounts of credit card debt.

For every person that I know who benefits from using a credit card, I know a dozen who feel trapped under the weight of high balances, payments, fees, and interest charges.

It’s funny to me that whenever I write about not using credit cards, I get comments about ‘not being responsible enough to use a credit card and pay it off each month’. For the life of me, I’ll NEVER understand what is MORE responsible than SAVING up enough money to buy a thing and then buying the thing with CASH

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My wife and I are going to get up early in the morning, take the kids to a friend’s house, and go out shopping for a few final Christmas gifts. I did most of our shopping online. My daughter wants a Nintendo DS Liteso I ordered her one from Amazon. This will be her ‘big gift’. My little boy wants, and I quote, “one car and one big dinosaur”. I hope he wants toy-versions, because that’s what he’s going to get!.

We are expecting our third child in April. The room that will serve as the ‘nursery’ is actually our old dining-room - and it doesn’t have a proper closet - so, we are going to purchase a ‘wardrobe’ for that room. The wardrobe will be our gift to ‘each other’. (I never can think of anything that I want, so I’m happy with whatever she might buy for me. I always splurge a bit and buy my wife lots of presents.)

I usually take the kids to the store, early Christmas Eve, and we buy “Mommy Gifts” - little things from the dollar store - and then we take them home and wrap them. My daughter LOVES to shop for Mommy - and now that my son is a little older, he’s getting into the act as well. The kids have “their money” - and they enjoy spending it on their mom.

Christmas is, without a doubt, my favorite day of the year. We spend the night with my wife’s parents - and we all wake up by 4AM! We open a few presents, eat a little breakfast, open a few more presents, eat a little more breakfast, and so on, until all of the presents are opened. My wife, the kids, and I then bundle up, get in the car, and head over to my parents’, for more presents, more breakfast, and more fun! Basically, we spend about 6 hours eating and opening presents - and I love every minute of it.

One cool thing about being debt free is that I can enjoy giving gifts, and I don’t have to worry about ‘how I’m going to pay for them’. Plus, because I have created a Christmas budget, I don’t have to feel guilty when I spend money. Instead, I can pay cash, spend the money in my budget, and enjoy the day. Plus, when other folks are getting credit card bills in January, I can be funding my 2008 Roth IRA!

I hope that you have a Merry Christmas - and I hope that you are making plans for a debt free 2008!

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2007 has been an amazing year for me, NCN, and my site, No Credit Needed. I thought that it would be fun to take a month-by-month tour through my favorite posts from the last year. If you are a new reader, I hope these posts will give your a sense of who I am, where I’ve come from, and where I’m trying to go. If you are a long-time reader, thank you for your support.

Here are a few of my favorite posts from May of 2007

May 1 - Philosophical Reasons For Not Borrowing Money (Or Using Credit Cards)

May 4 - Money Management Resources, Tools, Books, And Websites

May 4 - Welcome Clark Howard Fans And WSB TV Viewers - Click to see my interview with the local ABC News affiliate!

May 6 - Getting Out Of Debt: 10 Ideas About How To Begin

May 14 - How To Sell Baby Clothes On eBay - This popular post was picked up by Consumerist.

May 19 - Breaking A Goal Down Into Micro-Goals

May 28 - 10 Ideas For Creating A Better Budget

May 29 - Annual Expenses: When Dividing By 12 Doesn’t Work

May 30 - The “Once A Month, Check It” Technique For Avoiding Expensive Repairs And Saving Money

Throughout December, I’ll continue to highlight my favorite posts from 2007.

If you haven’t done so, please consider subscribing to No Credit Needed. (It’s free!)

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The members of the Money Blog Network (myself included) are writing posts about year-end money moves and I thought that it would be appropriate for me to write a post about a subject near and dear to my own heart - debt reduction.  While preparing to write the post, I was reading through the No Credit Needed archives, and I came across this post from December of 2005.  Here’s an excerpt.

I put another 200 dollars towards debt re-payment.  (I received some cash as a gift Sunday!)

I then grabbed my old checkbook register and looked up that $200 dollar deposit.  The $200 was an unexpected Christmas gift I received from a friend - and I used every dollar of it for debt reduction.

Getting out of debt requires two things - dollar bills and determination. 

Instead of rewarding yourself with a new purse or a new television, determine to direct those dollar bills towards debt reduction.

(If you don’t have a mini-emergency fund, consider using any year-end bonuses or cash gifts to establish said fund.  I suggest a mini-emergency fund of $800 - $2000, depending on the size of your family.  After establishing your mini-emergency fund, begin aggressively reducing debt.)

There are several methods for reducing debt, including:

Make minimum payments on all accounts and aggressively repay the account with the LOWEST BALANCE.

Make minimum payments on all accounts and aggressively repay the account with the HIGHEST INTEREST.

Make minimum payments on all accounts and aggressively repay a group of accounts (all credit cards, all student loans), spreading out extra payments among all accounts in a specific group.

Each method has its pros and cons.  I chose method 1, focusing on the account with the LOWEST BALANCE.

After selecting a debt reduction method, get a jump-start by using any year-end bonuses or cash gifts and begin to attack your debts.

If you receive a cash gift  - Deposit the cash in your checking account and send a check to the next creditor on your debt reduction list.

If you receive a year-end bonus - Deposit the bonus in your checking account and send a check to the next creditor on your debt reduction list.

If you receive a gift that you do not need (or want) - Return the gift for cash or store credit.  If you receive cash, deposit that cash in your checking account and send a check to the next creditor on your debt reduction list.  If you receive store credit, assign that credit to a particular budget category.  (Let’s assume you receive a credit for $50 from Wal-Mart.  Assign the$50 credit to your “grocery” category.  Send a check for $50 (the amount now covered by the store credit) to the next creditor on your debt reduction list.)

If you receive a gift that you cannot return (and do not need or want) - Consider selling the gift.  If you do sell the gift, deposit the proceeds from the sale and send a check to the next creditor on your debt reduction list.

My wife and I spent two years living on a very, very strict budget.  We made the decision that we were going to get out of debt - and we did.  For us, we treated every dollar, every extra, as an opportunity to reduce our debt and reach our goal.

Were there times when we struggled to stay on-plan?  Were there times when we spent more than we had budgeted for?  Were there times when we got frustrated and just blew it?  Yes, yes, and yes.  But, we regathered ourselves and we moved forward.  Why?  We were determined.

Instead of waiting for 2008 to begin your debt reduction go ahead an attack your debts, now!

Visit the Money Blog Network for more year-end money moves.

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I received an interesting email today. “Julie” asks -

Hey, NCN, why did you start blogging about debt reduction in the first place? And, now that you are debt free, do you get tired of writing about debt reduction?

Well, “Julie”, I started No Credit Needed because I was looking for a way to connect with like-minded people. In fact, when I started the blog, I didn’t really know that there were other “personal finance” blogs. I just thought that it would be cool to share my journey with the world - and I hoped that I might be able to find folks who liked to talk about debt reduction. I considered No Credit Needed to be a kind of ‘online journal’ - a place for me to share my thoughts and ideas.

In April, I’ll celebrate my third year of blogging. I must admit, I’m amazed by the number of people who visit my site, leave comments, and share their own stories. I am, quite literally, just a regular dude. I have a great wife, two awesome kids, a job I love, and friends that I enjoy - and yet, every week, thousands of folks stop by to read what I’ve written.

Do I ever get tired of writing about debt reduction? No way! Sure, my goals have expanded beyond debt reduction, but I still enjoy writing about debt reduction and debt repayment.

Now that I’m debt free, my goals have evolved. Personally, I want to learn more and more about personal finance, and I want to provide for my wife, my kids, and our futures. As far as the blogging goes, I hope to continue to connect with my readers, inspire them (a little) and be inspired by them (a lot).

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