Welcome to Tomi Dou – the Way of Wealth. A new section in the Mercer Adventures.
Us at Wickaninnish Beach 2014
A while back I was having lunch with a good friend and I was sharing how within a month we would be debt free, having paid off all the student loans, credit card and credit line debt. We had been fighting the battle for the better part of 10 years, were finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and it wasn’t a train!
My friend then shared his ongoing struggle with debt and I encouraged him to declare a “debt jihad” a holy war against debt. He said he’d like to but he just wasn’t sure where to start. I shared some of the things that we had done like making sure we never paid for data on Kana’s iPhone, negotiating a lower rent with our landlord and learning how to save hundreds of dollars per year on groceries.
He said “Bro you should blog this! I’d follow along and I am sure others would too.”. I said I’d think about it. That night I awoke about 4:00am and was restless, tossing and turning thinking about my good friend’s ongoing struggle knowing countless others were out there struggling too…I got up, made a bunch of notes in my journal and decided that I would take up the challenge to document our family’s journey…
- our recognition that we were slaves to debt unable to make the kinds of decisions we wanted to
- our frustration at being unable to help others the way we wanted to
- the ways we learned to wage war on debt
- the ways we learned to budget and bring spending under control
- how we learned to save even while paying off debt
- our continuing journey to learn how to invest our money while paying the minimum of fees
All of which, in time, will lead to prosperity not only for us but for our kids, our grand kids and beyond.
DISCLAIMER! Kana and I are not good bloggers. We are not money experts, we are not financial advisers and we don’t have all the answers. All we have is our stories, our stories of how we learned to become disciplined in our spending, to bring income and expenses under control so that we could get to the starting line of Tomi Dou….being debt free. Where we go from here we aren’t 100% sure…but it will be an adventure for sure. Won’t you join us?
