My mom and I went down to Marietta’s National Cemetery today to take pictures so that she could do some research for a novel she’s working on now. I think I got a few quality shots 
Here are a few of my favorites:
The last one there i thought was a little comical…. 
Maranatha!
–Michael
Lastnight a bunch of us went bowling
We played “Crazy Bowling” for our second game, where you are assigned a certain way to bowl the ball each frame. It got rather out of control. It started with Shane punting the ball (yes, punting a bowling ball), then moved into sliding down the lane past the foul line and finally ended as Morgan “He-Manned” (threw it over his head) the ball about 3/4 of the way down the lane. Here are some pics:
Pretty darn good time.
Now I’m working on a new project- You cant have the link yet, but If you think you have any sort of theological or Ministry “Specialty” or even just love history or theology or anything and would like to write something about it, PLEASE let me know i’d love to use you and plaster your name and work up on the internet
Finances coming later today!
Grace and Peace!
–Michael
Well, the overlying response from everyone toward the blog has been a very interested reaction to my Financial Situation
I’m very glad to see that people actually think me wise enough to be worth reading. Thank you.
Once I’ve completed going through my goals and such in a few days, I’ll begin giving advice I think essential to any financially successful person. If that sounds interesting, check back on a regular basis!
So for today, I’m gonna go through a rough outline as to how I plan to accomplish my Short Term Goals.
Short Term Goals
- Begin Maxing out my IRA contributions ($417/month)
- Strictly adhere to my Income Allocation procedures
- Reestablish a diversified position in the market of over $2K
Alright.
1. The beauty of a Traditional IRA is that it comes out of pretax money. The beauty of my age and income rate is also that I will end up keeping all of my taxes at the end of the year (most likely) because I wont end up falling into a tax bracket. So I’ll start by setting aside 42% of my monthly income to this IRA. It lessens my tax liability (because I’ll only be taxed on the remainder(total income-$417=taxable income)) and helps assure me a retirement. I’ll also be going to Wachovia this coming week to discuss different IRA options.
2. I will be strictly adhering to my income allocation procedures. This begins this month. How can I keep myself accountable on this? Well, the majority of my foolish spending is done while with my beauty of a girlfriend (what can I say, I’m a softy 
) So I’ll be sitting down with her and working out a budget and income allocation procedure for both of us. This way, we can both find “Official” methods toward dealing with our income and attack it as a team. I’ll post the results of that meeting as soon as it happens.
3. This is probably the most difficult of my short term goals. For two reasons, 1. It cant be done immediately; and 2. I have no real plan set for this yet. It will simply take saving and investing. I would prefer to do the investing in two chunks of $1000. I had about a $3000 position in the market, but due to non-financial reasons It has disappeared; So I want to redevelop this. I think I may start an on the side business and simply devote all income from it into the investment fund. I’ll keep updating on what that will be.
Maranatha!
–Michael
Well Katie, Sarah, Scott and I went up to blue ridge to find a super sweet cliff jumping spot a friend of ours told us about. It was about 100 miles from the house not counting the 5 mile bike ride each way as well as the additional walk once the bikes became more of a burden than an asset. So after all of this, still no sweet spot So we just swam in the river instead. Quite a drive, and adventure, for a swim in the river! We left at about 10:30am and got back about 8:30pm. Quite an adventure…
Oh yes, and yesterday we had another meeting for Reveal! Went great We’re making some awesome progress, and we set out the vision for Reveal yesterday. It’s looking outstanding!
Oh yes! and I’d like to thank Jory for being the first of my friends to comment on this blog! Gracias mi amigo!
Maranatha!
–Michael
Katie and I are annual pass holders at the GA Aquarium, so we made a quick trip downtown today and spent a few hours at the aquarium.
Here are some pics; my financial goals were posted earlier in the post below
Those are a few of my favorites If you didnt already know, I’m an avid amature photographer
Maranatha!
–Michael
Without a a set of goals, it becomes incredibly difficult to accomplish anything. As soon as you get your “dreams” written out though, you’ll find they become much more realistic.
Here are my tenative Financial Goals:
Short Term Goals
- Begin Maxing out my IRA contributions ($417/month)
- Strictly adhere to my Income Allocation procedures
- Reestablish a diversified position in the market of over $2K
Mid Term Goals
- By 20, be earning pretax $2500/month from my business ventures
- By 22 have $10,000 in personal account set aside for down payment on real estate
Long Term Goals
- By 26, be set for retirement (having maxed out my IRA for 7 Years)
- Be earning $100K per year from my personal business ventures
- By 30 Have $1 Million in liquid assets
In order to reach financial independence and any considerable wealth in the future, I’ll need to start my planning now. In order to build up any sizeable wealth I need to start my accumulation now by setting money away into an IRA, savings, personal investments, etc.
So here is my plan:
First let’s look at Dave Ramsey’s “7 Baby Steps” toward building wealth.
I have completed those in Green- I haven’t completed those in Red.
$1000 to start an Emergency Fund
Pay of All Debt using the Debt Snowball Method
3 to 6 Months of expenses in savings
Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRA’s and Pre-Tax retirement
College Funding for Children
Pay off Home Early
Build wealth and give! Invest in mutual funds and real estate.
Now take notice that two of them are blue, because I am still working on them
I will be opening an IRA on Monday. If you can max out your contributions to your IRA each year between 18yrs old and 25yrs old, you’ll be set for retirement. So how much do I need to be setting aside for this? A little less than $417 per month (a max of $5000 per year). That’s short term goal number one.
(Goals from here on out will be in bold. Short term blue, mid term green, long term red)
1. Max out my IRA contributions each month ($417 per month)
I also need to start putting away more money for my personal savings. In order to be safe in this economy, I want to have 6 months of income put away in case of unemployment, increase in expenses, etc. So I need to start putting money away toward that. This is secondary to retirement though, as I will have plenty of time for that after 25 (when I’ll be making much more money)
So I’ll update more thoroughly total goals tonight- but here’s a quick run down of my income allocation:
40% – IRA
14% – Gasoline
6% – Food
25% – Uncle Sam (Which I should get back at the end of the year)
15% – Spend on miss katie and me
My tithe comes out of extra income I find and a charity account I’m starting
I’ll be posting again soon with a more comprehensive list of goals.
Maranatha!
–Michael
Well my day started beyond awesome. Brett, my roommate, and I decided to go to Goodwill on a book run and found something incredible. It was awesome- Check it out:
38 volume set – Brittanica’s “Great Works of the Western World”: From Plato to Homer to Aristotle to Niche to Newton to Augustine to Archimedes to anyone you can think of. Absolutely incredible. How much did we pay?
$15.51
A philosopher’s dream
Then I spent the evening at my girlfriend Katie’s house. Some pretty wicked storms came through and hit and I got to help her parents clean out the front yard after this:
Alright: Now for the part of the post I’m excited about. I’m working on putting together my financial goals.
I’ll post a much more specific outline of exactly what they are, outlined by short, mid, and long term; but for today- I’ll give you an idea of what im working out. I spent the day going through Dave Ramsey’s baby steps as well as putting in a few of my own tidbits of financial flare and searching through different IRA programs.
Happily I can say I have disemboweled the first two of six baby steps and am well on my way to defeating the third.
I hope all is well on your front and that you have had another wonderful day!
Maranatha!
–Michael
Day 7 of Improvement:
Got the articles section as well as each individual articles pages updated
Tonight Danny and I went to IHOP (The International House of Prayer). It was my first time there, and it was quite the experience. Here is the best picture I was able to snap away while sitting near the back of the room soaking in the atmosphere.
This was the first exposure I had ever had to people speaking in tongues. I have always been a skeptic, but the genuine, worship filled atmosphere of the room was a very neat experience It was absolutely outside of my “comfort zone”, and I loved it.
A very neat experience seeing how people from “around the world” or even just around the corner in Cartersville find themselves worshiping God.
Maranatha!
–Michael
Sorry for the delay there Ladies and Gentlemen.
Between Finals week and end to summer for my work at XZone (the Junior High Ministry at Hillside United Methodist Church that I am interning for), I was forced to put a pause on my 30 day update for TheisticThinking. I’m moving again now though, and the improvements are back.
The Podcast Page is up and running! If you have podcasts you would like posted (that are theistically relevant), shoot me a message, post on here, email me, etc.
XZone’s 10 Most wanted yesterday was awesome. Got to go as a business man with my girlfriend Katie as my lovely assistant. The day before we had our last Backyard BBQ; below is a picture of one of the students as a newspaper knight:
Yesterday many of the guys went Golfing. We all threw $5 into the pot and donated half of the pot to Reveal. We played best ball and Austin and I did pretty well coming in last place
Hope you’re all having a blessed day!
Grace and Peace!!!
–Michael
