Back to the Real World

It feels good to be back at home after being at work for a few days straight. The hotel was amazingly nice and being around so many people with so much money was both depressing and inspiring. It was like living in a parallel universe where people go in and fold the toilet paper on the roll into a little tip every hour and where you are rubbing elbows with people who made $7 million dollars in just one year. Its depressing because you know that they could pay your debt and would never notice that the money was ever gone. Inspiring because you see how these are normal people and perhaps you can do it too.

I saw the guy who co-authored the Millionaire Next Door. I was looking forward to hearing him talk but ended up being bored out of my mind. I felt like I was in a college lecture hall as he was talking about his book. If you've already read the book than you pretty much already know what the guy is about (living below your means, love what you do, etc). On the other hand, I was blown away by Nido Quebin who wrote "Stairway to Success". Wow, talk about motivational. He managed to get people pumped up without being cheesy or corny. It makes me want to have him on speed dial every time I get discouraged to remember to keep truckin on.

That is the problem with those motivational speakers. The effects are usually only temporary. But I am still psyched that the debt keeps going down, I'm close to being under $9,000! As soon as I got back I did my taxes and figured out that I paid waaaaay too much on my taxes. I was really trying not to. I used the IRS tax calculator to see if I was overpaying so I could adjust it but it said I would only end up with a $200 refund so I never changed anything. Come to find out that after I did the federal file that I should be getting back $820 and $120 from the state. It will be nice once I get the money to be able to put it all towards my debt but it would have been even nicer to have had that money earlier so it could have already been paid down!