Jason Brubaker

How To Get Out Of Debt And Acquire Substantial FU Money

April 14, 2020 by Jason Brubaker

I am going to share some steps on how to get out of debt, so you can stop worrying and do something awesome with your life!

But before we get there, let me point out that I’m not a financial advisor. So what I’m going to share is based on my personal experience with debt and also, acquiring FU money. Maybe some of my stuff will work in your life, or maybe not…

With that said, one of my life goals is to buy a fully restored Austin Healey 3000.

Take a look at the pic below. Pretty awesome, right?

*1962 Austin Healey 3000 MkII BJ7. Photo license creative commons, by Sicnag.*

My dad owned an Austin Healey 3000 back in the 60’s. But then he sold it, went to Viet Nam, survived, came back to the states and hasn’t rode around in one of these since…

Eventually I’d like to change that.

But the only way I can change that is by growing my business and avoiding debt like the plague. You see, there are a lot of people who will say stuff like: “You’re doing well. Just get a car loan. Get that car today. You deserve to treat yourself.” And while the temptation to go into debt is ever present, there is nothing that will kill your dreams faster.

When I graduated college, I had a student loan bill that sucked. At the time, I didn’t have money or a job. So I decided to pay for stuff with credit cards. That was a bad move. It only took eight months (after college) until I added just enough credit card debt on top of my student loans to hit roughly 30K! That was a really sucky time.

I needed to get out of debt. But I did not know how…

Always Pay Yourself First

Fortunately I came into contact with two successful business owners in my hometown. Both thought differently than I did. For example, one guy owned a bunch of car dealerships and was worth 67 million dollars (not a typo.) Another guy owned a chain of bowling alleys. Having conversations with these guys taught me I was thinking about money all wrong.

Those guys inspired me. After meeting, I decided to learn everything I could about how money works. In the process, I discovered a concept called: “pay yourself first.” And the idea is simple. Whenever you get a paycheck, before you pay any bills or fill up your gas tank, set a little money aside and NEVER touch it. That’s all you gotta do.

One guy I discovered during this time was Brian Tracy. He’s been a HUGE influence in my life. And I now introduce him to you. Watch this video:

If you’re like most people, you probably want to save money but feel too strapped to take action. This is because each month is filled with bills and other unexpected expenses. For this reason, most people put off saving until the end of the month.

Paying yourself LAST never works.

Again, I’m speaking from experience. It was really tough to break my habits. Because I didn’t have money, I spent whatever I had, thinking I’d save later. But at the end of every month, there was nothing left to save. In other words, there was more month than money… And that was a vicious cycle.

Get Out of Debt… NOW!

Something had to change. So I decided it make it my sole obsession to get out of debt. To get ahead, I had to make some changes. Instead of waiting around for my dream job, I took a job selling washing machines. Then I cut up my credit cards. I lived below my means and followed these steps:

Write down all monthly income, including paycheck, extra jobs, etc.
Write down all monthly expenses, including bills, groceries, gas, etc.
Subtract expenses from income. What do you have left?
Open a high-interest online savings account.
Set up automatic withdraws each payday and pretend it is a bill.

In a few months, I had small emergency fund. Then after a year or so, I paid off my credit card debt. Then after a few more years, I paid off my student loans. After that, I spoke to a financial adviser and started investing.

And all this brings me to my final point…

Accumulate FU Money

Once you become debt free and get money in the bank, you will grow in ways you cannot yet imagine. It is at this point (and you’ll know it when you get there), that you need to accumulate FU Money.

You know you have “FU money” when your bank account it so robust, you can walk out of any meeting without the fear of starvation. For example, lets say you get into a negotiation for something you want… But you don’t like the terms, and the other party isn’t willing to make any concessions. Then you can say: “FU, I’m done!”

Or maybe you’re a few weeks into a new job you find out your boss is a complete idiot and makes stupid decisions that negatively impact you. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just walk away? “FU, I quit!”

FU money gives you freedom to live the life you want to live, without worry. You sleep better. And ironically, FU money will give you just enough self confidence and power, that (if you still have a job) you’ll probably get a promotion.

It’s Not Easy, But Worth It

None of what I described was easy for me. I learned you’ll only get out of debt and accumulate FU money if you develop the life-long habit of paying your first. If this is interesting to you, there are many financial apps and software to help you stay on top of your financial game. Check out Mint and Acorns. And make sure you download my guide too.

How To Find Your Next Career

March 15, 2020 by Jason Brubaker

It’s four-o-clock in the morning and you’re wondering how to find your next career. You’re laying in bed wide awake (again). The whole world is spinning and you’re thinking maybe you should have made different decisions with your life.

What you’re feeling is uncertainty. And I’ve been there. In the past decade, I have worked for five start ups. And most of those companies either tanked or tanked me. That’s the whole reason I started blogging. Sometimes it makes sense to plan your next career move.

How To Find Your Next Career

If you want to find your next career, you have to get real with yourself.

STEP ONE: Make A List Of Everything You Do

When you’re not at work, how do you spend your time? What do you find yourself doing without thinking about it? How could you combine your interests to create value?

I am personally attracted to sales, internet marketing, writing and public speaking. Even when I am not working, these activities are fun for me. So my short list would look like this:

Face-to-Face Sales.
Internet Marketing.
Writing.
Public speaking.

I would do these things even if people didn’t pay me.

STEP TWO: Find A Market For Your Skills

If you could create the perfect career, what would it look like? You really have to take time to think this through. Because unless you’re honest about your goals, skills and interests – it will be challenging to find your next career.

Once you take time to sketch out ideas, you need to find some role models. Who is already doing what you want to do? And who do you spend the most time with?

You become the people you spend the most time with.

In other words if there is something you don’t like about your current situation, look around. Odds are good your friends currently reflect you. If you aspire to be more than you currently are, make friends with people who are doing more.

Even if you are totally clueless, you need to commit to taking one small action (any action) towards becoming more awesome. Once you take the first step, you can figure out the rest…

For me that meant calling people cold.

I started by calling my old boss (I hate the word boss, but anyway…)

He’s one of those dot-com guys who sold his first company for a few million dollars. We worked together on a start-up a few years back. Our start up was almost a success. Then our investors pulled out. Then he fired me. (He told me that I was laid off, not fired. But sying I got fired feels a lot more awesome.)

So we met up for drinks. And he offered some solid success advice that I have been rolling around in my mind ever since…

Even A Turkey Can Fly In A Hurricane

My old boss said, “even a turkey can fly in a hurricane.”

I found out later that this is cliche. But I never heard it before.

It means you can spend years grinding away at a business, but if you’re in the wrong market, you will probably burn out. (Been there!) So the solution is clear.

Find a hot market and reinvest your skills there. Because even if you suck at first, don’t worry. Just like a turkey flying in a hurricane, you will fare better than if you keep doing something that totally blows.

Meet NEW People Weekly

We all have the habit of sticking with our comfort zone. But that’s not going to help you find new opportunity. So you need to expand your network. The best way to do this is ask people to meet up weekly.

Get involved in stuff like Toastmasters. Meet ups. Trade shows. Networking functions. The reason? Sooner or later you’re going to meet someone new – And that single meeting will lead to your next career path.

Think about it. You are never going to be this young and have this amount of energy ever again. So you may as well take action. And while you’re at it, start a blog.

How To Set Realistic Goals

October 28, 2019 by Jason Brubaker

Are you one of those people who set realistic goals? If so, you’ve probably had one of those months when everything is totally awesome. And as you get closer and closer to your goals… BOOM! In an instant, everything turns into to poop…

Even if you work to set realistic goals, your reality can change in a heartbeat. Life has a way of knocking you down. The good news is, you’re not alone. And with a little planning, you can re-set realistic goals and get back on track!

How To Set Realistic Goals

Over the last year a lot has happened in my life. I lost a consulting gig, moved across town, started a new consulting gig, got engaged, planned a wedding, got married, went on a honeymoon and came back to a gazillion unfinished items on my task list…

While each reason is valid, it doesn’t change the fact that I blew rather important self-imposed deadlines. To correct course, I have altered my schedule and had to “set realistic goals” multiple times to accommodate. In the process, I learned some lessons about how to stay the course and get things done!

If you’re looking to set realistic goals, it’s important to give yourself a reasonable timeline. Then break small goals into manageable chunks. You will also want to give yourself some leeway just in case your projects take longer than expected.

1. Dry Erase Board: I love adding long term goals to my dry erase board. This serves as a constant reminder for tasks that are still pending. I set it up so I can stare at it daily. With this said, I only add ONE major goal per week. Then I break the goal into smaller, daily tasks.

2. Daily planner: Yeah. I know what you’re thinking. Where is your computer? I use that too. But having a daily planer really helps me break down my smaller tasks into half-hour steps. I love the feeling of crossing something off the list. If your budget allows, grab a Molskine Planner.

3. Half-hour Glass: If you thought my daily planner was old school, wait until you start using a half-hour glass! Using this has helped me break my tasks into half-hour chunks and serves as an animated accountability partner, consistently reminding me the time keeps on ticking…

Even with the best tools, your projects won’t finish on their own. So make sure you take time to set realistic goals that are actually realistic! And if you blow your tasks today, continue tomorrow.

The Impulsive Traveler’s Guide to Cruise Hacking

October 30, 2018 by Jason Brubaker

Cruise hacking is a subset of travel hacking. And if the concept of travel hacking is new to you, here’s the deal: Travel hacking is simply the art of maximizing loyalty and travel reward points so you can get discounted (and most times free) hotels, flights, car rentals and cruises. And before I share the actual mechanics of how I scored a $1160 rebate on an upcoming cruise, a little context.

For the past three years, my wife and I have celebrated New Years in Europe. Our trips included stops in Glasgow, Manchester, London, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. While all these cities offer unforgettable experiences, moving from hotel to hotel mid-trip is exhausting. That’s what prompted us to explore the possibility of spending our next European New Year on a cruise. A cruise allows you to visit popular destinations, while also keeping the same hotel room.

Planning Could Have Saved Us Thousands!

It didn’t take too long to discover New Years is possibly the most expensive time to take a cruise. After scouring the internet for an entire Sunday afternoon (not kidding), we settled on an MSC Cruise with several stops around Spain and Italy. The cruise totaled out to $3,648, another $1,756 for our flight and roughly $210 to cover two nights in a hotel. Suffice it to say, spending $5,614 represents a pretty sizable chunk of change. And blowing this kind of money is the opposite of cruise hacking!

Despite our excitement, my wife and I could have planned better. Just a month earlier we squandered 100,000 Alaska Airline Miles to fly first class from California to Pennsylvania. Had we flown coach, the leftover Alaska miles would have covered the Europe flight. We also discovered that some airlines allow you to use miles to purchase cruises.

To make up for our frivolous mileage spend, we decided to think ahead. If we were going to pay cash for this trip, we may as well leverage the spend in preparation for a future trip. Because we didn’t have much time (before flight prices increased), we booked our $1,756 flight with my Alaska Airlines Visa. This at least earned us 1756 airline miles, which isn’t much.

Cruise Hacking With Credit Card Reward Points

MSC allowed us to reserve our room with a non-refundable $398 deposit. Once set, I quickly applied for the Capital One Venture credit card. The card gives you 2X miles per dollar on every purchase, and 50,000 bonus miles once you spend $3,000 within the first 3 months. When the card arrived, we immediately contacted MSC and paid the remaining balance of $3250. We also made a few additional purchases, including a hotel. This gave us a total of 61,330 miles.

When I initially applied for the card, I didn’t realize how quickly Capital One would reward us for the purchases. Unlike other cards that usually take a few cycles to process, the miles were ready for use in days. I was also happy to discover Capital One Venture also allows you to redeem travel purchases!

Capital One gave us the option to redeem our miles to towards the hotel (which we booked through Expedia) and a portion of the cruise. We selected the cruise, and the 61,330 miles reduced our cruise total by $613 or $2637. While not the most groundbreaking example of cruise hacking, saving a few hundred dollars was better than nothing. But it wasn’t good enough…

Prompted by the cash back rewards at Capital One, we researched other credit cards. My wife found and applied for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. After spending the required $4,000 minimum (which also required some creative spending I’ll share in future articles) we received an additional credit for $547.

When added up, the credit card rewards reduced our total out of pocket spend from $5,614 to $4,454, providing a total savings of $1,160. Here is how it looks from a reimbursement perspective:

~~$110 – Hotel, first night~~ (Reimbursed!)
~~$100 – Hotel, last night~~ (Reimbursed!)
~~$1,756 – Flight for two~~ (Reduced to $596)
$3,648 – Cruise for two

While these reimbursements aren’t life changing, getting some cash back is better than paying full price. Had we done our research a year (or even six months) in advance, we could have generated enough reward points to cover the entire trip. So bottom line, when it comes to cruise hacking, advanced planning is key!

How To Fix Your Site When You Get This: The Website Ahead Contains Malware

July 24, 2014 by Jason Brubaker

So you just received the following, dreaded message related to your blog. . .

The Website Ahead Contains Malware!

That’s the message I woke up to today for one of my major websites. And I immediately freaked out. I mean, really freaked out.

What the heck is Malware? And why is my website currently telling people: “The Website Ahead Contains Malware!”

If you’re reading this article, odds are good you are experiencing the same thing. You are probably asking yourself the same questions as me. How did this happen? Who did this?

First of all, I want you to take a deep breath.

Actually. . .

Let’s celebrate a little. In fact, I want you to congratulate yourself. Odds are good that if your website is currently receiving the warning: “The Website Ahead Contains Malware!”

Then you’ve made it. Your site is popular.

Or perhaps you’re just running old software. Or both. And we will cover this in a second.

But back to patting yourself on the back. . .

I mean, your website is popular enough to attract Malware. And if you don’t know what Malware is, you’re not alone.

Basically, Malware is a little piece of nerdy computer code that some hacker fed into your website. And it’s actually pretty common. One easy way bad code gets on your site is through outdated WordPress plugins. Heck, sometimes, you’ll be running more than one site on your server – And the malware will spread from one of your sites to the next. . .

That sounds scary, right? I’m with you.

But let’s hold our horses.

The good news is this. Because there are literally thousands of websites that get slammed with the whole: “The Website Ahead Contains Malware!” stuff – It means there are lots of ways to fix it.

How To Delete Malware From Your Website

Step 1 – Call Your Hosting Company ASAP

The first thing you need to do is call your hosting company. I personally use Bluehost for a lot of my websites. Over the years, I have telephoned them countless times with everything from the mundane to the overly complex. . .

In most instances, they were able to help me.

So when I telephoned yesterday crying to my Bluehost helper about how my website was presently blocking visitors with “The Website Ahead Contains Malware!” warning – My guy was pretty helpful.

He was like, “Take a chill pill.”

Actually, he didn’t say that.

Utilizing Site Doctor

My Bluehost technician did reassure me that this stuff happens every day. In fact, Bluehost and most every reputable hosting company out there has several software solutions built into their service offerings.

The one I chose was called the Site Doctor malware removal service. While the service did cost fifty dollars, they guarantee their work for 30 days – And when your sites are down, paying for this service makes all the sense in the world.

Once you get your malware removal software in motion, the next step is to check out you Google Webmaster Tools.

Step 2 – Open Up Your Google Webmaster Tools

I am assuming you have Google Webmaster Tools set up on all of your most important websites. If you do not, you need to set this up as soon as possible.

[Here is a link to Google Webmaster Tools.]

When you log into your account, you will be provided with an overview of your monitored domains.

When, I logged into my account, I was met with this message:

Website Ahead Contains Malware — Webmaster Tools

When I clicked on the “check site health” link, I received the following description.

Google has detected harmful code on your site. To protect visitors to your site from malware, Google’s search results now display a warning when users click a link to your site. Some browsers like Chrome may also show a similar warning.

If that’s not enough to keep you awake at night, I don’t know what will.

Step 3 – Fix The Issues and Request Google Review

Here’s the kicker. At this stage, there isn’t a whole lot you can do but wait for your malware removal service to finish the job and send you an email. My email from Site Doctor came around 5AM the next morning. Here’s what it said:

Hello,

Thank you for using the Site Doctor malware removal service. Your account is now online.

The exact method that was employed to compromise your account is unclear, but I believe that it was done through one of your outdated installations or one of their themes or plugins. Your account had the following outdated installations:

[They went on to list about a gazillion outdated files.]

At this point, I got super excited. I could finally take the next steps.

Step 4 – Request a Google Review

Once your maleware service cleans and removes all the infected files from your site, your next step is to log back into your Google Webmaster Tools and request a website review.

Fixed_Malware_Review

Once you check the box and click the button, you’ll be met with the following message:

Before you request a review, please make sure your entire site is clean and secure. If no malicious content is found, we’ll remove the warning from your site. This process will take up to 24 hours.

Google will ask you to explain what tactics you completed to remove the maleware.

For this, I wrote:

Utilized Site Doctor at the request of Bluehost. Received notification that maleware was removed. Please confirm and thank you for your help.

Once you request a review, the ball is once again in Google’s court. They say the review could take upwards of 24hrs, which adds a bit of additional anxiety. And if you’re anything like me, I suggest you utilize this downtime to focus on your other outstanding projects.

Step 5 – Recovering from Website Malware

After your website is live again, there are several things you can do to avoid receiving the dreaded message: The Website Ahead Contains Malware! – After completing the Site Doctor service, Bluehost sent me the following security checklist.

Bluehost recommended that I complete the following actions to help secure my websites:

Change the Admin Email on your account.
Change the Password on your account.
Change the Credit Card on file on your account.
Update and apply any patches, upgrades, or updates that the 3rd party vendor or web developer of your scripts may have available.
Fix any loose file permissions (this may be the most common exploit vulnerability)
Delete all non-system Ftp Accounts that were created, or at the very least, change the passwords to the FTP Accounts.
Remove any Access Hosts by clicking the “Remote Mysql” icon and clicking the Remove Red X by each entry if there are any entries.
Check your scripts for any Header Injection attacks, Sql Injection attacks, Cross-Site Scripting attacks, etc., as well as your php.ini file settings.
Check your home/work computers for any viruses, trojans, or keyloggers.

Suffice it to say, I know what I’ll be doing all day tomorrow!

Conclusion

Not all aspects of running an internet business is fun. But this is true of any business. Dealing with issues without losing your mind is all part of the fun.

When you receive the dreaded message: The Website Ahead Contains Malware!

Don’t lose your cool.

While this is a new experience for you, these issues are pretty common for any successful website. Hosting companies and Google Webmaster tools are your best friend in the fight against maleware.