Personal Finance Interview with Man Vs Debt

I’m doing two part interviews with bloggers on two of my personal sites. I’m excited to have Baker from Man Vs Debt answer a few of my questions on this new project. The first part is here on Green Panda Treehouse. The second part is on Vega Baja Productions. If you’re a blogger and wouldn’t mind being interviewed, please feel free to contact me.

• Adam, could you tell us a little about yourself?

Sure, I’m 25, been married for a little over 2 years to my high school sweetheart, and have a 13 month old daughter.  I’ve had lots of “occupational” experience in my young life, but have recently settled in on freelance writing and blogging, as my passion of choice!

My wife and I have recently sold all of our possessions and are moving to Australia with just our backpacks (and baby).  We plan on doing some frugal traveling for as long as we can stretch it.  We are balancing this with our personal War On Debt, which is now down to only student loans!

• What motivated you to begin blogging about personal finance?

I love it…  Really that was about it.  I’m super passionate about personal finance, in general, but also with getting out of debt specifically.  I’ve been wanting to get started for a year or so, but finally just took the plunge.  I’m kicking myself for not starting sooner.  The community has been overwhelmingly supportive and I really love networking and writing the blog!

• What are your favorite personal finance books?

Without questions, two have changed my life more than any other.  First, came Your Money or Your Life, which then led me into Dave Ramsey’s radio show and The Total Money Makeover.  As you can tell from my basic views on personal finance, these books struck a chord deep down inside of me.  They helped me quickly and effectively turn around my financial life.

• What do you hope to accomplish in the next year with Man Vs Debt?

To be honest, I have pretty big goals.  I would love for Man Vs. Debt to be THE destination for people looking to passionately and aggressively eliminate their debt.  I hope it also will inspire people to take control of their lives and use any new found freedom to really tackle their dreams head on.  For us, right now, this is traveling.  However, different people have different objectives…  Ditch your debt, and live intentionally…  That’s the basics!

• If you received a tax free $10,000 check, how would you spend/save it?

Right now, it would go into our emergency fund with our other roughly 15k worth of funds.  This fund is important to us right now as it will help bring the gap between our move and finding employment opportunities.  As soon as we secure a safe place to live and any decent employment, we will be dropping our reserves and immediately applying the access to our student loans.  So 99% of the time this would help punch out the bottom 2-3 student loans!

• What topic do you notice your readers gravitate towards?

I think my readers enjoy several different topics.  Firstly, I don’t set out to write controversially, but rather just very passionately.  This often can generate some deep discussions about credit cards, debt reduction systems, and joint/separate finances.  I think my readers really enjoy thinking about and discussing these type of system that can sometime be personal and have multiple successful approaches.

In addition, we’ve received a ton of great feedback on the post about the upcoming Australian adventure.  I try to do one post a week on this topic.  Sometimes it’s about difference in budgets, our minimalist packing efforts, or other specific details.  People seems eager to know more about this, too!

• What’s the most important/practical financial tip someone should remember?

Live within your means.  But there are multiple extensions of this.  For me, debt elimination plays a large role in allowing you to live a much fuller life despite how small/large your means may be.  There are many more doors that open when all of your income isn’t accounted for my your different forms of debt.  Start hating debt, slash your lifestyle, and live within your means!

Please subscribe to Man Vs Debt and chat with Baker on Twitter.

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