So many things have happened to me this year that I know that I’m going to leave things out, but here’s my best attempt at grabbing some of the more memorable events (Remember: You’re memory tends to go as you get older too) that happened while I was 27. I just know I’m going to have to edit this as things start coming back to me…

Being 27: The Good

• I’m Engaged

  By far, the best thing to happen to me over the course of this past year is that I decided to take the plunge. My lovely fiancée, Laurann and I have been together for almost 4 years. The engagement went exactly as I had planned, and I’d love to tell you about it all here, but you’re going to have to wait for a future post for all of the details. I can honestly say that getting engaged was the happiest moment of my entire life and I cannot wait to move onto the “Us” phase of our life.

• Project Management at Work

  As you may have seen in my July post, I’m now a member of the Project Management team at my company and am loving every second of it. There’s a lot of growing that I have to do in this position and I’m facing new challenges daily (Who would have ever thought that coordinating everyone’s schedule for a meeting would be one of them?), and I cannot wait to see what opportunities and challenges come my way this year.

• Building Relationships

  This past year has been all about building and maintaining relationships for me. You never know when fate is going to step in and take someone that you love away from you, so why not REALLY make the most of the time we have? This past year made my family my best friends, and my best friends have become family. I’m still not sure why I’m surrounded by so many wonderful people in my life, but I’m going to take advantage of this blessing.

  I have also decided to let go of the past. People who have previously wronged me are forgiven. It’s time to move on. After all, everyone deserves a second chance. Right?

Being 27: The Bad

• PMP Certification

  I have been wanting to get my project management certification for about 2 years now, but I’m still not there. My initial goal was to obtain it this past summer, but the seasons have changed and I’m still without that ever important piece of paper that validates the knowledge and skills I possess. I remain undeterred and am currently on track to obtain it before the end of 2009.

• Personal Trainer Certification

  Physical fitness is a large part of my life. If I don’t make it to the gym at least 3 nights a week I start to feel a tad grumpy. I wanted to become a certified personal trainer immediately after receiving my PMP certification. Unfortunately, I still have neither. Let’s hope I turn 29 with both of them under my belt.

• Poor Mr. Connery

  Lastly, in the early hours of a cold winter morning I bounded head-on (very slowly) over a rather large curb in my Lincoln MKZ (Mr. Connery). All 4 tires popped upon impact, and I continued to hurdle down a grassy hillside into the drive-thru of a Kentucky Fried Chicken. My wintery adventure came to a rather abrupt halt with the MKZ’s passenger side window parallel to the drive through speaker. KFC’s are not open this early in the morning so my resting place was of no benefit to me. My little offroad excursion ended up costing me 5 hours of missed work and $1200 in repairs, but it could have been much worse. No major parts or pieces of the car were harmed and I narrowly missed hitting a traffic pole as I bound over the curb by less than a foot. Had any of that happened this would have landed in the ugly section.

Being 27: The Ugly

• Truebluetitan

  I’m a bad blogger. Plain and simple. There’s about a million things that I know I want to write about, but it seems to take me forever to write a post so I usually end up not writing them and feeling bad about it later. Over the course of this past year I gave Truebluetitan a new snazzy coat of paint in hopes that it would stir my creative juices, but unfortunately, it didn’t. The result? I wrote a measly 9 posts for Truebluetitan while I was 27. Now I know that many of you are probably reaching for your unsubscribe button after reading that, but I’m giving myself 1 last chance to raise TBT from the ashes. It was once a site worth visiting. It will become that once again. Either that, or it’s plug get’s pulled. I have a year to prove to you, and myself, how important Truebluetitan is to me.

• Being an Entrepreneur

  Life sometimes behaves like a pendulum. At least that’s what mine does. A little over a year ago, being an Entrepreneur was my only job. I lived solely off of the income from my projects. I didn’t make a lot, and it was incredibly stressful, but, my God, was it fun. Nowadays my projects sit on a shelf. Some are revived and some die (ArrivalAlert).

  At the core of everything that is me, I am an entrepreneur, and though some days go by where I may not act like it, I cannot deny the fact that it’s who I am. Though this past year doesn’t do a great job of reflecting that I have a feeling that it’s all about to change.

I’m 28 Years Old Today

When my father was 28 years old he grew into the man that he is today. It was the birth of his rags to riches story which is what continues to inspire me every day. And while I love this life of mine, I am not yet the man that I know I was born to be. This year changes everything.

Turning A Hobby Into Income

Over the past year I have been blessed with several opportunities to photograph some special events and occasions in the Pittsburgh area. It’s one of those things that kind of just fell into my lap that I have taken and run with and has turned my photography hobby into an unexpected amateur-professional source of income.

Shoot Like A Pro Without Spending Like One

While I’ve made some good money shooting these events, it’s not going to replace my day job any time soon. Unfortunately, photography, whether pursued as a hobby or as a career, can be incredibly expensive. Digital SLR cameras can cost as much as decent cars and the amount of accessories that you want/need can easily break the bank.

Luckily, there is a way to shoot like a pro without laying down a large chunk of coin: BorrowLenses.com. I recently read about them on twitter and after several reaffirmations from fellow photographers I decided to rent some equipment from them for an upcoming event. I’m glad I did.

My experience with BorrowLenses.com was great from the get-go. Their site, while a little aged looking, was incredibly easy to navigate and I felt that their inventory contained just about everything that I would need in the immediate future. On top of it all their prices were fair. After many hours mulling over what to get I decided that a Sigma 8mm f/3.5 EX DG Fisheye and a Canon 430EX Speedlite w/E-TTL II would meet my needs perfectly. Due to my procrastination I had to request next day shipping and was quite pleased when the equipment arrived on-time and in perfect condition. My rented Lens and flash were packaged ever so snugly and I was out and shooting with them in no time.

I’m extremely happy that BorrowLenses.com exists and will definitely be a returning customer. If I ever need special equipment for an upcoming event or want to try a lens before I buy it I know where I’m heading first. It’s a great way for photographers like me to get their hands on higher quality, expensive equipment without going into debt. As we all know: debt is bad…m’kay. :)

Sometimes the coolest photos aren’t even planned. This is an action shot of my Lincoln MKZ with the fisheye lens on the way home from a networking event at PNC Park. See it on Flickr

The reason I rented all of the equipment was for the Annual Bishop’s Dinner in Pittsburgh. All-in-all it was a great event and the client seemed happy with their photographs. This photograph was shot from the catwalk high above the attendees using the fisheye lens and flash. See it on Flickr

What’s Your Experience?

Do you have any experience with BorrowLenses.com or another company like them? If so, was it as pleasant as mine? I’d love to hear your thoughts/opinions.

I know that if I’m going to get out debt and stay out debt then I need to be mindful of my budget. Being the avid gadget junky that I am, I wanted an application to keep track of everything for me. Luckily, there are no shortage of applications out there that make this possible. But let’s face it, not all are created equally.

Spreadsheets are old school. There are far too many better alternatives out there to consider. Intuit makes a program that’s been around forever, but there’s nothing intuitive about Quickbooks interface. Despite being a Mac addict, there’s no denying the fact that Microsoft Money is a great application. I used to use it religiously when I was a PC user, but it only runs on Windows and as we’ve already established: I’m a Mac Addict.

Minty Fresh Finances

In September 2007, Mint.com a FREE online money management application broke onto the scenes. The creator, Aaron Patze, developed the site to create a more effortless way to manage money after finding the marketplace’s current offerings to be a tad stale. Just 18 months after Mint’s initial release, over 1 million people have signed up making it the fastest-growing personal finance software ever. Aaron hit the mark.

The Internet? My Finances? That’s Scary.

The Internet is a scary place, and a fool and their money are frequently parted by one scam or another when it comes to the online world. It’s fair for people to be a little timid about seeing all of their assets in front of them online, but I’ve been an advocate of Mint for quite some time now and trust their security. Here’s why:

1. Mint uses bank-level security encryption,
2. You’re anonymous,
3. You can’t transfer money; just view it, and
4. Mint.com quickly alerts you of suspicious activity on your account(s).
5. The list goes on and on. You can read more about it here.

Proud Member Since 2007

I’ve been a minty member almost since the beginning and have loved it since. Who wants to spend several hours a week inputting and categorizing their purchases and income. BAH! That’s for the birds. Mint makes short work of all of this. I pay for everything with my debit card and it all gets categorized intelligently. At the beginning of every month I setup my budget and at the end I make sure I’m in check: painless.

Wait! It gets better: Mint also evaluates your financial habits and recommends ways for you to save. The icing on the cake is that they’re constantly evolving. In 2008, the site went under the knife and came out looking great and working even better. That same year they also unveiled their FREE iPhone app.

2009 looks to be chalk full of minty-goodness as well. The company just launched a beta of their first advice feature, called Financial Fitness. It uses money-saving principles to help it’s user-base make wiser financial decisions. I can’t wait to try it out. Hello…can you hear me Mint? ;)

How Do You Track Your Budget?

So there you have it. Give Mint.com a try. It’s the answer my budgeting woes, and if you’re looking for a solution there’s more than one reason why this might just be yours too. Did I mention that it’s FREE? If it isn’t a good fit for you, I’d love to hear why? Also, what are you using and how?

My First Debts

Like a large portion of the students heading off to college, I had to take out student loans. I’m not ashamed that I had to do so, but I never even thought about how long they would stay with me. They were the first debts that I incurred and will be the last that I pay off. Unfortunately, they weren’t the only debts I had for long. Shortly after taking on these loans, I fell victim to my own ignorance. Others were succumbing to the credit card scammers agents on campus and in true lemming fashion, I followed suit.

“What’s so bad about having a credit card?” I thought. I heard others talk about how they were helping them to establish credit and how they were the key to getting a loan for a new car and/or house. I loved new cars and definitely wanted to be able to buy a house in the future so I needed a credit card to build up my credit now, right? It sounded like a pretty solid plan to me and to top it off, I could buy stuff now and pay for it all later, when I had a real job. So I signed up…for more than one.

The Day I Stopped Accruing Debt

Fast forward now to about a year and a half ago. The school loans and credit cards I had in college were still with me, and a couple more snuck into the mix since then. Several new cars had come and gone by now. In fact, there was another new one parked outside. I even had a plush apartment (complete with all the plush amenities one could want) to come home to every night. I was doing well for myself by most standards. However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t winning.

It was time to get this debt monkey off of my back. My sole source of income was from self-employment, and it was frustrating to watch my infrequent paychecks get divvied up to pay all of the people that I owed money to. How could I let myself get so comfortable borrowing from others? Me, the guy that practically has anxiety attacks at the thought of borrowing a dime from my parents, was borrowing money from all of these companies? It was time for a financial makeover…

The Total Money Makeover

I’m a big believer in not reinventing the wheel so I went in search of wisdom from those that have been in my shoes before. In the past, I found a gem or two in the form of a podcast on iTunes, so that was my first stop. As luck would have it, iTunes came through in the form of the Dave Ramsey Show and The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Success.

Dave Ramsey, the originator of both, was millions of dollars in debt when he was my age and had to file for bankrupcy. Now, twenty-some years later, he spends his life teaching “you to manage and budget your money, get out of debt, build wealth, and live in financial peace”. Thankfully, after months of listening and reading his teachings, I’m happy to say that my outlook on money hasn’t been the same since.

So What’s In Dave’s Secret Sauce?

Nothing. Dave Ramsey’s debt-free plan is simple. There’s no secret sauce and this isn’t a get rich quick scheme. In fact, it’s more of a get rich slow method, and it takes some people a really long time and a lot of hard work and dedication to undo their mess. The nice thing is that it’s a sure-fire path to financial freedom. The only requirements to succeed? Acknowledging your debt, realizing that it’s manageable, and some good hard work. Dave outlines it in these 7 “baby steps”:

1. Start an emergency fund
2. Pay off all debt using a Debt Snowball
3. 3 to 6 months of expenses in savings
4. Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement
5. College funding for children
6. Pay off home early
7. Build wealth and give!

Still skeptical? Don’t believe me? Listen to a handful of shows and see for yourself. Dave offers enough free advice on his show that it’s not even necessary to buy his resources to begin your debt-free journey. Additionally, he advocates tithing, or giving one-tenth of your income back, typically to the church.

Listen in, I’m sure that any skepticism you may have will be lifted. Dave frequently has listeners calling into his show to scream “I’m debt free” when they’ve completed their 2nd baby step. It’s the kind of thing that sticks with you the first time you hear it. Initially I thought “this person sounds insane”, but then I put myself in their shoes and imagined the elated feeling that I’ll have when I’m debt free. It is insane. Insanely awesome.

Town Hall for Hope

Times are tough right now. There’s no denying that. I have friends who have lost their jobs and companies that were once thought to be the backbone of America are now coming to the government begging for handouts. However, there’s still hope. The world is not coming to the end, but today’s popular media make it hard to believe that there’s anything worth feeling warm and fuzzy about.

“I’m an American and I am not participating in this recession.”

I’m tired of it, and so is Dave Ramsey. That’s why he’s reaching out to America by holding a town hall meeting (of sorts) on April 23rd @ 8pm. This nationwide meeting is to provide some realistic insight into the current state of our nation and where we’re going next. Check out his Web site or the groups of people following this event on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media sites at the bottom of the Web site.

The Day I Got Out Of Debt

This chapter can’t be written yet, but I’m ready to write it. With continued focus on my finances and the support and encouragement of a community like the one built by Dave Ramsey I am sure that I’ll be paying off my debt in the very near future. When I do, be assured that I’ll be writing about it here. I’m literally smiling at the thought of the joy that I will feel when I press the publish button when that day comes.

Are you a fan of Dave Ramsey or are you on a debt-free journey? If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts and any details surrounding the trials and tribulations you have faced in the process.

Debt is bad, m’kay?

Many Americans simply view debt as a part of life. People buy things they cannot afford and in the end they’re paying far more than the initial asking price just because they want it now. It’s not just the ignorant that do it, either. I can clearly recall the day when one of my former managers, a man whom I respect dearly, stated “I was born in debt, I’ll die in debt…that’s life.” I was dumbfounded. I had just assumed that someone with his kind of salary didn’t need a credit card, but he was probably much further in debt than me.

Admittedly, I have debt too. I graduated from college in 2002 and am still paying back my student loans. I also bought into the whole “you need to have a credit card to build good credit” thing. Unfortunately, having a credit card meant that I could use the credit card. No more. That ends now, and I plan to use this section to highlight exactly how I’m getting out of debt, including the amazing FREE resources that are making it a fairly painless process for me. More information will fill this section in the coming days.