Month: August 2019

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Three Reasons You Shouldn’t Pay With Cash!

How do you currently spend money? Do you use cash envelopes like a lot of the DFC community advocates? Do you use a debit card? Or do you even use travel hacking credit cards to earn points while you spend?

I used to not care in which medium I spent my money. Now, I make it a point to use travel hacking credit cards only. Here are three reasons why!

First, paying with a cash or even a debit card provides no value to me. There is nothing I receive from paying with cash or a debit card. I am not in a cash tight position. Building a credit card balance in which I pay off every week earns me points I can redeem for travel credit and/or other rewards.

Second, I don’t have any issues with budgeting. I know a lot of people in the Debt Free Community are all about cash envelopes. Yes, you can make a cash envelope look pretty, but in my eyes there is a larger issue if you can’t budget without putting cash in an envelope. I would even go as far as to argue it is easier to budget when spending on a credit card and utilizing certain apps.

Last, paying with cash doesn’t allow you to build up any sort of credit history. If you want to invest at some point in your life, it is important to have a credit history. The largest hit to my credit score right now (preventing me from being in the low 800’s) is my credit history. Paying with cash and/or debit cards doesn’t allow for your credit history to build.

There are many other reasons to not pay with cash, but I wanted to outline some of the most important. I plan to continue paying only in credit cards for the rest of my life. There is no reason not to, at least from my perspective. It is very important to know thyself before making this decision. Don’t switch to credit cards if you have no self discipline in your spending habits.

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Welcome to The Real World! First Job Out of College – About Me – Part VI

If you have missed out on the first five articles, here are the links below:

Part 1: About TheYoungRetireeBy33

Part 2: Developing My Money Mindset

Part 3: Deciding What University to Attend

Part 4: Becoming A D1 Student Athlete

Part 5: Transferring to Arkansas and How I Chose My First Job

My First Real Job After Graduating College

I had made my final decision to accept the job with Walmart’s eCommerce division. It was time to move up to Bethlehem, PA and begin the real world. I was full of nerves and excitement as my starting date began to creep closer.

Instead of graduating and going straight to work, I decided to take a two week trip to Europe with a few friends. And may I tell you, that was the right decision. Here is a picture of me getting some hang time in front of the Colosseum in Rome!

After a fun two weeks in Europe, it was time to come home and head to Bethlehem. Luckily I was a little familiar with the area from traveling to play Lehigh’s Men’s Tennis team when I at Buffalo. I arrived in Bethlehem and prepared myself for the beginning of a long two years.

What My First Job Entailed

A big reason I took the first job I did was due to the responsibilities of the project I would be taking on. As a field engineer in Bethlehem, I lead construction of a $350 million fulfillment center. This entailed managing construction and mechanical installation crews from over 10 different companies.

What did I know about construction going into this? Nada. I definitely learned a ton over the course of the first year leading the construction. I am a firm believer that you create your own fate. I could have thrown my hands in the air and given into the fact I had no idea what I was doing. Instead, I decided to take advantage of this situation and continue learning. It is amazing what you can learn if you have the willingness and drive to learn. My responsibility continued expanding as I continued driving results for the business.

More Responsibility

The physical construction was now completed and it was time to transition my focus. I then turned to designing the workstations our associates would interact with. This was a completely different task that I again had no previous experience with. My main goals were to design cost effective, ergonomic, and efficient workstations. This took 5 months, and during the process I negotiated a $200k discount on the workstations. This was also another thing I had never done. Who thought a young 22 year old could negotiate with a large scale provider of workstations, but I did.

Now the workstations were complete. It was time to again transition to a new focus. This time it became a focus to assist in the development of the Warehouse Management System (WMS). A WMS is a system that manages your inventory within the warehouse and allows you to receive, pick, pack and ship orders. This was an impactful experience. I was able to begin the design of how the Warehouse Management System would work for the entire network.

I began to learn the ins and outs of how a system should work. I would direct the team designing the WMS to develop critical functionality. Helping lead this development allowed me to become a Subject Matter Expert (SME). A SME is well that, an expert at something. This gave me the upper hand and was one of the most critical things that set me up for future success.

How To Create Value In Your Role

I became the go to guy for all the operations teams to come ask questions and solve problems. Teams knew they could come to me, ask a question, and I would listen and then develop a solution. Have you ever heard the quote from Elon Musk: You get paid in direct proportion to the difficulty of problems you solve. I was able to not only identify problems, but also come up with solutions. This is critical to adding value in your company.

Many individuals can identify problems, but few individuals can solve them. You add the most value when you do both. Want to speed up your career? Do both.

Key Takeaways:

  • Identify problems and develop solutions for the problems. Identifying a problem is not going to help you progress in your career at a rapid pace. Go one step further to develop a solution to help solve the problem.
  • Take time off after college before going to work, especially if you plan on being in the rat race for a while. I took two weeks off to explore Europe and it was an incredible experience I wouldn’t change for the world. I recommend doing something similar.
  • Have the drive to be thrown at things you know nothing about and come out with knowledge on the other end. There were many times in my first role where I changed my focus entirely to something I knew nothing about.

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Take A COLD Shower! There Are Massive Benefits

Oh yeah. You read that right. Ready for this weeks challenge?!

Take a cold shower every day this week!

Now let me start with the why first and acknowledging I have more than likely lost 70% of the audience already.

Benefits of taking a cold shower in the morning:

  1. Life is all about doing things that are difficult. Taking a cold shower is a cringe worthy thing to think about. When completing this task early in the morning, you have completed a difficult task right off the bat!
  2. Cold showers promote fat loss!
  3. Cold showers improve immunity by reducing inflammation and increases circulation in your body
  4. Cold showers lower stress and chances of depression
  5. Cold showers enhance your skin and hair! According to cold showers help seal the hair shaft. Being a male I have no idea what that means, but I guess it is a good thing.

There are many more benefits you can read up on that I have not described above. I wanted to provide more context on the benefits before you dismiss the notion. I have listened to some of the most powerful speakers (Tom Bilyeu, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Wim Hof) talk about the power of taking a cold shower. The benefits far outway feeling “uncomfortable” for 30 seconds in the morning.

Are You Up For the Challenge?

So what do you think? Are you willing to take the leap and take a cold shower each morning this week? If you are not willing to take a full cold shower, you can always finish off your shower with 30 seconds of cold water. There is a large benefit even if the “cold” is only felt for 30 seconds. I usually take one deep breath to focus my concentration before the cold hits.

Challenge yourself! Step outside the norms and knock off a difficult thing at the very beginning of your day! You will feel rewarded after getting out. I promise. Every morning I get out of the shower with a bit of an adrenaline rush. See if you get the same benefits.

Key Takeaways:

  • Completing a difficult task in the morning will give you a sense of accomplishment from the get go!
  • There are many psychological and physical benefits to taking a cold shower
  • If you aren’t willing to challenge yourself to do things that are difficult, I guess you can stay with the pack. Be different. Try to do things that make others look at you like you are crazy.