Thanks for visiting! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to the DvC RSS feed. Debit versus Credit posts regular business and financial news, personal finance articles and everything related to investing, saving, debt and business. Subscribe to the Debit versus Credit feed so you can stay up to date on the latest posts. You can also receive updates via e-mail.

My employer is a big supporter of the Children’s Miracle Network and their One Darn Cool School program which they support in conjunction with the Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Every year we hold numerous fundraisers in order to raise funds for this program, which provides educational materials and instruction for children unable to attend school regularly due to their stay at the Phoenix Children’s Hospital. It’s a great program and really provides a lot of fun and educational opportunities for the children who, due to health conditions, are unable to attend their regularly scheduled classes.

Every year for the past several years my employer has held a CMN Bowl-A-Thon in an attempt to raise funds for the Children’s Miracle Network. It’s been very successful for the past few years and this year will hopefully be better than ever. I have the opportunity to participate this year in the CMN Bowl-A-Thon and I’m hoping that I will be able to raise a nice sum of money to donate. I’m looking for people to sponsor me in the CMN Bowl-A-Thon.  In return I’ll be sure to take plenty of pictures and maybe even a video or two of the Bowl-A-Thon and post them here at Debit versus Credit.  You’ll be able to get a good laugh out of it and you’ll feel good for helping to brighten a child’s life.

All you have to do to donate is either send me money via PayPal or if you’d prefer to donate via cashier’s check or money order you can do that as well by sending an e-mail to joseph[at]debitversuscredit[dot]com and letting me know you’d like to donate.  If PayPal is your preferred method (you can send payments through paypal with either a credit card or your bank account information) then you can send the money to joseph.mcclellan@gmail.com. If you have any questions at all then feel free to send me an e-mail.

For more information on the Phoenix Children’s Hospital and their partnership with the Children’s Miracle Network please visit their website.

Here’s some awesome news and something I am excited to be a part of.  Daily Blog Tips has just kicked off the very first Blogging Idol competition.  Blogging Idol is a competition between (as of last count) 96 bloggers to see who can gain the most subscribers between today and the end of July.  I’m absolutely thrilled that I am able to be a part of Blogging Idol and I hope that Debit versus Credit can make some great gains between now and the end of the month with its subscriber count.

If you’re new here and have not had a chance to read through all of my previous posts then go ahead and check out some of the following links to see what sort of content you can expect to receive on a consecutive basis by subscribing to Debit versus Credit.

What I Learned In Mexico: Business Negotiation
The Worst Years of My Financial Life
My 33% Savings Plan
How Your Credit Score Defines You
Oh, America…

I’m writing this post with the hope that I will gain your support for this competition! All you have to do to show your support is either to subscribe to my RSS feed or subscribe to Debit versus Credit by e-mail.  It will only take a minute and you can be sure that you will receive constant updates with all of my newest blog content!  You can alternatively subscribe by e-mail by filling out the form below:

($10,112.01)

That’s a large number.  A much larger number than I thought it would be.  That number right there is how much we have paid on our primary Visa credit card this year.  I should explain something.  We don’t carry credit card balances on a month to month basis.  When I get a credit card bill I do everything I can to pay it off.  So far I have been successful.  Right now my success is just about to run out of steam.  In order to pay off this card we have to use a sizable chunk of our “short-term” savings.  Granted the bill this time around is not so bad.  Only about $1,700 dollars.  It’s all basically my Mexico trip right there.  Studying abroad does not come cheaply and it especially does not come free.  It was all worth it though.

The point to this whole post is that the wife and I are worried about draining our savings account.  We are hoping to buy a house in about a year and that savings account is going to be our down payment.  Naturally we’d like to keep a sizeable chunk of money in there due to this being the case.  With that being said we have decided to put ourselves on a strict no-spend diet.  In order to keep ourselves sane this will not apply to the small amount of mad money we get on a monthly basis, but other than that cash we will not be spending any money on any unnecessary items.

Enter the Wealth Tracking Tools

I’d like to make sure that I’m actually building wealth over time.  As I already mentioned we’re looking to purchase a home in about a year and we’d like to be prepared for such.  With that being said I’ve decided that after months of procrastination it’s about time that I start using some tools to track our progress (or lack thereof) with our financial goals.  Starting later this week I’ll be posting on a regular (monthly) basis updates to our net worth and other relevant financial tracking numbers.  Of course I’ll be using Excel to create these spreadsheet tools.  Hopefully with our increased vigilance of following our budget we will be able to accelerate the wealth building process.  One can only hope.