interview with no debt plan

No Debt Plan is about getting and staying out of debt with a plan. Kevin, the author, is passionate about budgeting, saving for the future, and using goals to reach financial freedom. You can subscribe to his blog by RSS or email.

This interview is part of a new feature he’s developed called Subscriber Swap Saturday. The basic idea is to get the subscribers of one blog to subscribe to the other blog for at least a week, just to try it out. After a week if you don’t find that blogger’s content enticing, drop it. The hope is that over time you will find several writers that you weren’t familiar with who provide meaningful content to you. You can read more about Subscriber Swap Saturday at his blog, and you can read his interview with me here.

So here is my interview with Kevin – my questions are in bold.

Given the recent economic conditions, do you think it’s time to stop telling people not to go into debt and instead maybe focus on telling people how to do it safely?
While I can definitely see the appeal of that… and it is inevitable for some folks that have put themselves in bad situations… I’ve got to say no. I can never justify purposely getting into debt. To me that seems like giving up. You can always cut something, always get a part time job, always start a blog, always rent out a room in your house, etc. I believe many Americans simply can’t imagine life without television or a cellphone or DVR service or going to the movies. When you cut down to the true basic necessities, life isn’t all that expensive.

What one NON-financial book (or person, or television show, etc.) most influences your thinking about personal finance?
Oh wow, that’s a tough question. I would have to say reading or watching stories about professional athletes (and lottery winners) that blow all of the money they suddenly end up with influences me. Every time I hear a story like that I think, “I wish they would give me my shot at that. I would show everyone how to take one lucky day and make the money work the rest of my life.” The next thought that crosses my mind is I should become a personal finance guru to professional athletes. I wonder who is currently doing this…

What keeps you up at night?
Other than voluntarily staying up way too late? I actually sleep pretty well at night. There was a time last year that I slept horribly because we thought someone had tried to break into our house — it took me months to get past that. I also occasionally worry that I’m not doing enough — haven’t finished this on the to-do list, or haven’t completed that for the budget, etc.

What lets you sleep at night?
Having an amazing spouse. That and planning well. We have a one month buffer for our expenses saved up, getting us off of the paycheck to paycheck mentality. I’m not worried about that next bill that is coming around the corner. Having a significant amount of savings and a large amount of free cash flow each month also helps me sleep well.

Your computer has a mysterious malfunction and you can only access 3 financial sites for the rest of your life. What are they?
1. Vanguard – for our Roth IRA accounts
2. CNN Money – not the perfect news site and I was going to say Google Finance, but GF would require me to click to other sites that I wouldn’t be able to access.
3. My own blog – so I can continue to write and (hopefully) earn an income from it

photo credit: hiddedevries