Golden Goals: Trent of The Simple Dollar: Baby boy is his inspiration

This is the sixth article in the Golden Goals series of interviews with notable bloggers about their goals, habits and productivity systems.

Trent Hamm is one of the most prolific and productive bloggers, producing several high-quality articles about personal finance every day. He started The Simple Dollar in November 2006 as a way to chronicle the things he learned as he turned my financial life around, and it became a hit, providing financial advice to people much like himself, twenty- and thirtysomethings dealing with financial issues, avoiding debt, saving money, and trying to find their financial way in life.

1) What would you consider your greatest achievement in the last few years? Feel free to add other achievements or goals if you’d like.

Less than one year ago, I had five figures worth of credit card debt, a large outstanding loan on my primary vehicle, and I barely had enough money to cover the minimum payments on both. I had nothing at all in savings, either.

So what’s the accomplishment? Without increasing my income at all, I currently have zero credit card debt, I own that vehicle free and clear, and I have several thousand dollars in the bank.

Some people might not view that as a great achievement, but it did lead into the creation of The Simple Dollar, which I launched in November 2006 and currently reaches 7,500 visitors a day. It describes what I learned during this process of turning my financial life around, and the success of it is now aiding me to begin saving for some bigger life goals.

2) What was the key to achieving that success for you? Was there one thing, or were there a number of factors?

The key moment was the birth of my first child, a son, in November 2005. Before he was born, I was reasonably organized in terms of time management, but the management of a lot of other aspects of my life were a complete train wreck.

I remember distinctly one night, when he was about four months old and I realized that my financial situation was a complete nightmare. I was literally wondering whether I could come up with the money to pay for our housing that month. He was very fussy that evening, so I sat in his bedroom with him, held him in my arms, and rocked with him for several hours. He finally fell asleep on my chest and as I sat there in the darkness and felt him breathing against my chest, realizing how utterly helpless he was and how much he depended on me, I broke down completely. I put him in his crib, sat there in his room in the dark, and hit bottom.

I realized I needed to turn things around with my life, and if I didn’t do it now, I would lose everything that had value in my life.

In other words, the key to achieving this success, for me, was finding inspiration, and it was in the form of a baby.

3) What are the essential habits that you’ve formed to help you achieve your goals?

I could go on about that for hours (this is a big part of what The Simple Dollar is about). Here are the first two things that come to mind:

One, I avoid situations where I would spend money. I used to go to book stores and browse and usually leave with a book or two in hand. I would do similar things in electronic stores and so on. By simply avoiding these temptations as much as possible, I find it much easier to not waste money on such things – or time.

Two, I review my finances weekly, and do a major financial review monthly. This involves several things, such as checking the balance of every account in my name. Each month, I calculate my net worth (sum of all assets minus sum of all debts) and I strive to ensure that it goes up as much as I can possibly make it go up from month to month.

4) How often do you think about your goals, review them, and take action on them?

I have different regular cycles for the goals, but the key word is regular. For me, evaluating goals and determining further action is something I have to do on a daily/weekly/monthly basis without fail in order to keep moving forward. Whenever I slack off on it, I find myself slipping into bad habits and laziness.

5) Describe how you overcome failure, how you pick yourself back up if you are struggling, and how you motivate yourself if your enthusiasm is lagging.

Honestly, I play with my son. It’s really hard to feel too much like a failure when you walk into the house and a toddler who has just learned how to walk yells “Daaa!” and comes running towards you as fast as his legs can carry you. He often makes me feel like I’m the champion of the world by doing little things like building giant towers out of blocks in the living room so that he can knock them over.

Again and again, he reaffirms that I am not a failure in life. I realize parenting isn’t for everyone, but this little child has turned my life around and made me far more productive and positive than I’ve ever been before.

6) Could you describe your productivity system and any productivity tips you have for people?

My general productivity system is a lot like a simple GTD. I just write anything I have to do on a piece of paper as soon as I think of it and toss it in my “in” box if I’m busy. Then I process my “in” box regularly. Projects are on their own sheet of paper (or collected sheets with paperclips) where the top one is just a list of the tasks for the project. I also have a filing system for long-term storage. Instead of using the figurative “43 folders” of GTD, I just write due dates of things that are upcoming in the upper right and leave them in the inbox until the date comes. That’s it – that’s all I do to keep things going.

Also read: all interviews in the Golden Goals series.

See also:

zen habits

breathe

Golden Goals: Trent of The Simple Dollar: Baby boy is his inspiration