What happened last week

Last week I received an email from our home office stating that Dano’s Debtbusters will be ceasing operations in our current format on December 31, 2012. Now that everyone involved has been notified, I can share this with you.

I have spent the last 5.5 years of my life pouring my heart into building and growing this company, and having it all ripped from me breaks my heart. I now have some strong emotions that I need to sort through and I plan to do so privately and productively.

That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news:

Just because I no longer work with Dano’s Debtbusters, does not change the fact that I believe that God has called me and uniquely gifted me to help people with their money. I believe that God is in control and I can trust Him. My life may not make sense and I may FEEL like it is out of control, and often I think things should be done differently – but regardless of my opinion or feelings, God is God and I am not – so I choose to trust Him.

I have known for a long time that I could do this on my own if I had to, I just didn’t want to – nor did I have any indication that I would be doing it on my own today. I still have access to all of the tools that I helped create and I still coach the clients that I was coaching last month, and I will continue to coach them next month. The logos on the documents will change, but the services I provide will not.

I can already look back over the last few months and see how God has been preparing me for this change. I am excited about the future and what God has planned for me and my family through this journey. God never said life would be easy, but He did say I could trust Him, and I will.

I have personally been doing business as Freedom Financial for a few years, and I do not know at this point if I will keep that name or change it as I go forward. Thank you for all of your love and support over the last 5.5 years and thank you in advance for your continued support as my family starts this new journey!

For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11

Why don’t we do Santa? Well, since you asked…

First, let me encourage you to not take offense at what I’m about to say. We don’t judge you if you don’t agree or have a different view point, as most people don’t agree with us. However, these are OUR convictions, and for that, we will not apologize.

Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus, the Christ…We believe that Santa is a distraction from the true meaning of Christmas. For example, when you offer a child the choice of interest between a bright red fat man with flying reindeer who gives them shiny toys vs. a humble baby, the obvious choice is Santa. We do however, tell them about the real person of “Santa” – about his generosity and giving to the needy.

Next, the truth is…Santa is not real. Nor is the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Shrek, Tinkerbell, or Captain America. At the end of the day, if I tell my child that Santa (or Spiderman) is real and he is not, I have not told the truth. We hold integrity VERY highly in our family and believe that agreeing to participate in this fantasy, does not line up with our values.

Personally, as a child, I can remember having friends that get more than me from Santa, specifically friends who behaved worse than me.  I can remember wondering what was wrong with me...after all, wasn't GOOD behavior what got Santa to come?  While this is obviously a selfish reason, I can tell you that it did not help my self-esteem, even as a little girl…  And anyway, isn't the unique thing about a gift the fact that it isn't earned, that it's given?

Further, we believe that the idea of Santa furthers the extreme commercialism and entitlement mentality in our culture. Kids write letters to Santa – who often brings the biggest gift – and this is what they look forward to at CHRISTmas…they gifts they get…what they want. Not only does Santa easily become more exciting than the fact the the God of the universe left heaven to be born into this world so that He could save us, but Santa easily becomes more exciting than giving, serving, and being with family.

So, we aren’t crazy…we may be unconventional, but we are ok with that! We firmly believe that our job as parents is to empower our children and to instill them with the values and qualities that we believe are important – and the bottom line is…Santa doesn’t line up with or fit into our value system.

Merry Christmas!

Is Dano’s Debtbusters a “real” way I can earn extra money?

If by “real” you mean: is it a Ponzi or Pyramid scheme, then the answer is: Yes, it IS real! No, it is NOT a Ponzi or Pyramid Scheme…

Dano’s Debtbusters was founded in 2002 by Dan Sturm in Knoxville, TN. I have been working with Dan since 2006. Until just recently, we have been educating people through our DDB Coaching Program. Since coaching involves sitting down with a family across the kitchen table, we quickly realized that we weren’t going to be able to help enough people that way. People are struggling all over the country and we needed a way to help them.

We have spent the last 7 months taking the Credit Restoration portion of our DDB Coaching Program and created a step by step e-course that anyone can do, from anywhere. Not only did we create the program, but we are offering it for 95% off the retail price. So not only can anyone do it, but anyone can afford it.

Our goal is to become the largest debt education company in the world, and in doing so, pray that we change the way Americans relate to and handle their money. What we need now is a group of people to market our product. We are adding Affiliates to advertise our products across the country. The minimum requirements for an Affiliate are to place and ad daily, 5 out of 7 days a week. If you can do this, you can earn income with Dano’s Debtbusters.

The process of placing an Ad can take as little as 3 minutes each day. If you can copy and paste a pre-scripted ad, you can do this. When a product is purchased because of your Ad, you earn a commission from that product sale. We pay out up to 65% of all product sales. Income potential is unlimited…the more product sales, the more commission earned.

This is the link to my website with a 6min video that you can watch: http://www.ddbllc.com/lsweet02/

Asked: "Why do you do what you do?" ...and I froze

So here’s how it works…if you put me on the spot, while in front of people, I freeze…My face turns red and my mind goes blank, and you get NOTHING!

I tell you that to tell you this…last night I was asked (without warning) to tell a group of people “Why I do what I do.” And I froze. You see, the truth is, I could go on and on about why I “do what I do” but in that moment, I couldn’t say a thing. Needless to say, I haven’t thought much about anything else since then (obviously – I’m blogging about it), even though it’s likely that nobody else even gave it a second thought. It embarrasses me, but it shouldn’t…it’s who I am.

But now I want to answer the question...
I “do what I do” because I feel that THIS is what I’ve been called to do. Second to being a wife to Nathan and a mom to my kids, this is not only what I do, it’s who I am. I started helping people a long time ago with their money…on yellow pads…because they said they needed help. I’ve participated in the “classes” and I’ve lived – I’ve made mistakes with my money; I’ve felt hopeless and confused; I’ve felt like a failure because of financial choices that I (we) made. I’ve also had success with my money. I know what works and what doesn’t because not only have I messed up, but I’ve walked with so many others, to get through what they have messed up.

When I started helping people professionally, I knew this was what I was supposed to do! Has it been hard? Sure – I’ve worked hard for people who have rejected me. I’ve had people be ungrateful and ugly to me. But what I get most is “Thank You” and tears – happy tears. When I can see that I am using what God gave me to change people’s lives, I know I’m where I’m supposed to be.

I “do what I do” because I believe God called me to do it. I “do what I do” because people need me to do it. I “do what I do” because people CAN change their lives and I get to be a part of that. I “do what I do” because I know that people are scared and hurting over their finances. I know that they are embarrassed and feel isolated. I “do what I do” because nobody else is doing it. No one else is telling people the truth with their best interest at heart.

Dan Sturm and I believe that we can change the financial culture in America. We can change the way Americans relate to their money. We are Dano’s Debtbusters. We don’t sell anyone else’s products. We don’t sell your information to companies so they can advertise to you. We don’t get kickbacks from other financial services. We believe in educating consumers and teaching them how to take control of their money.

When someone is ready to change their life, I am honored to be a part of that. I don’t know why God chose me for this, but every day I am humbled for the opportunity to “do what I do.”

Why the Switch to Products?

You probably already know that I am a Debt Coach with Dano's Debtbusters and that we teach people not only how to get out of debt, but how to stay out...by educating them about money. You may have also heard that we are about to launch our 1st web-based education product and you may be wondering...Why the change?


Let me clarify first, that Debt Coaching and Debt Education Products are not exclusive of each other. We have found with Debt Coaching that we just can't help enough people. We know that people go to bed at night and pray that God will help them with their financial problem, and then they cry themselves to sleep. At Dano's Debtbusters, we pray that God sends us! We know we can help people; we have been changing people's lives for over 10 years now.

The problem we face is that there are too many people struggling for us to sit down with all of them, individually! I only "work" 10 hours /week because I "stay home" and raise our kids. Even if I worked "full-time" I am still limited to the Knoxville area, and to 40 hours / week. Now, I’m not the only coach, but there aren’t near enough of us to help enough people.

That’s the problem, here’s our solution: We have started the process of turning our Debt Coaching into Debt Education Products that are available to everyone. We are still available for coaching, but with web-based education courses, tools and products, we can help everyone! Not only can we help someone across the country from us, but we can also change the world!

Our goal is to become the largest Debt Education company in the world! We are on a crusade to change the way Americans relate to their money. You see, we already know that money won't solve money problems. We already know that you spend every penny you make, and if you made more, you would just spend it too! We know that the word “budget” scares you, but we at DDB know, that a budget will FREE you!

Hey America! If you are ready to change your life financially, we are ready for YOU!

Watch for information about how you can be a part of this!

How did I pay $1.31 / gallon for gas this morning, you ask???

The Kroger / Shell deal:

Kroger does fuel points…for every dollar you spend at Kroger (excluding alcohol, cigarettes, etc.) you earn 1 fuel point.  When you accumulate 100 fuel points, you can use your Kroger card at Kroger gas pumps, or at any Shell station and receive $0.10 / gallon off of your fill-up.  You can redeem up to $2.00 discount at a time (previously $1.00)

Kroger also offers (everyday) 2X fuel points when you buy gift cards from them (excluding Kroger, Visa prepaid, and a few others).  For example, if I buy a $25 gift card, I receive 50 fuel points.  If I buy $25 in groceries, I receive 25 fuel points.  A few times each year Kroger offers 4X fuel points on gift cards, so  $25 gift card, earns you 100 fuel points.   The last time they offered this, we were buying a play set from the Home Depot, so we picked up the gift cards from Kroger first.

Here’s how we earned so many fuel points during May:

End of year teacher gifts, birthday gifts, and graduation gifts.

I got my husband a $15 Subway gift card (Subway is his “back-up” lunch sometimes) giving us 60 fuel points.

I bought myself a $15 Starbucks gift card earning us 60 points.

We knew we were going to spend over $100 at the Home Depot, so we purchased a Home Depot gift card from Kroger which earned us 400 fuel points.

We also bought $300 in Shell gift cards, giving us 1200 fuel points.

Our regular groceries earned us around 450 fuel points for the month.

We racked up a little over 2600 points in May.  We used 2,000 points today and recieved a $2.00 discount when we fille up.  The next fill-up we can use our remaining 600 points and recieve a $.60 / gallon discount.  We took both cars (to maximize the number of gallons purchased at the discount) to the pump, scanned our Kroger card first, and then used one of our Shell gift cards.

Here’s my advice on buying the gift cards – only buy them for stuff you know you will use.  It doesn’t do you any good to spend $500 on gift cards to save $50 at the gas pump… However, we always try to buy gift cards from Kroger (because we shop there anyway) if we know we are going somewhere.  We usually buy Shell gift cards as well...Shell is where we buy gas anyway.  They have a big selection…iTunes, a lot of restaurants (fast food and sit down), Gas, Jiffy Lube.

Points accumulate in the same month, but don't accumulated from month to month but you have until the end of the following month to use points.  I can use my May points during May and June.  July 1st, they expire.

Here's a link to Kroger's website for more details...

Gift cards: 
http://www.kroger.com/gift_center/gc/Pages/default.aspx

Fuel Points:  ...I can't get the Fuel Points link to open...but if you go to "In Store" and select "Save on Fuel" from the pull-down menu, you can check back later.  I know it exists, I've read it before!

An update on Kids & Money

So, the 5yr old earned his first $10! I supplied him with a few DDB envelopes, and we got to it… He put $1 in his “Tithe” envelope. He put $2 in his “Savings” envelope. He put $7 in his “Spending” envelope and off to Target we went!
He was a little sad when he learned that most of the toys (Legos anyway) were more than $7. What he really wanted was the $90 Star Wars Lego set! I told him he could have it, after about 15 more “$10”s.
He settled on a Lego set for $5 & change. He was proud to hand his dollars to the cashier, and was proud to tell everyone that he had earned the dollars that he spent to buy the toy.
One of the hard things for me, was being in Target and watching my child “really want” an $8 or $9 toy when he only had $7. Even though the goal is to teach him financial responsibility, in that moment, I wanted to cover the extra dollar or two for him, so that he could have what he wanted...I like to make my kids smile as much as anyone else! However, I had decided (before we went in the store) that I would not do that. Nathan & I decided that in order to teach him not to spend more money than he has, we can’t allow him (while we still have the control) to spend $9 when he only has $7. We also don’t want to teach him that mom & dad will just pick up any extra cost that he may incur…irresponsible kids become irresponsible adults, after all.
He has since earned another “$10” and has decided he wants a $27 Light Saber. We have been talking about how many more “$10” he needs to earn, in order to buy that toy. We have also introduced him to Craigslist – where he can give away less of his dollars to buy the same toy, used.
It’s also been a good way to tell him how much things cost. When he wants something in the store, we just tell him how many dollars it costs and that he is welcome to spend his money on it…
So far, our efforts to teach him about money are going well!

So, we're teaching the kids about money...

I think that one of our jobs as parents is to teach our kids to become successful adults. Dr. Phil used to say (and probably still does) that you aren’t raising children, you’re raising adults. So, here’s my conflict…

First, I don’t think kids should get an allowance for doing chores. Nobody pays me to pick up after myself, to clean or to cook. I believe that as a member of this family, each person has responsibilities and should contribute to overall value of life for our family. While I can’t expect the 2yr old to clean the toilet, I can expect her to put her dirty clothes in the hamper.

Next I will say that it is the parent’s job to teach their children about money. People don’t do a bad job of managing their money because they are stupid, they do it because no one taught them what to do. My kids will not learn to give and to save if I never teach them. Nor, can they learn the value of a dollar, if they don’t have practice using dollars.

So here’s what we have come up with after talking to different parents about what they do. Our 5yr old has a list of behavior / tasks to do each day. Each behavior / task that he completes earn him a “star” (a sticker) At the end of each day, if he has earned all of his possible stars, he earns $1. When he earns $10, he will give $1 to the local church that we are part of, he will save $2, and he will have $7 to spend. Then, when we go to the store and asks for a toy, we can start the conversation of how many dollars he has vs. how many dollars it costs to buy the toy.

Right now, his behavior / tasks are things like: brush your teeth & comb your hair (the 1st time you are asked), do your homework (takes 5 minutes), good behavior at dinner time (he knows what this means), put shoes, jacket, & backpack away, etc. We have already begun to change his chart around so that it somewhat challenging, but still do-able. We will continue to change it to be consistent with his abilities.

Again, I don’t really believe we should PAY him for doing these things, however, money that can buy toys is incentive, and allows us to teach him how to handle his money.

I would love some feedback / opinions. What do you do? What have you tried? What works at your house?