Complicated, finances are complicated. No they are NOT! Everybody in the financial industry wants you to believe it is impossible to figure it out on your own but they are just keeping their job security in tack, while your financial security falls apart. The most basic premise of financial independence and security is: spend less than you make. That seems fairly simple to understand. It becomes harder to keep in practice once the advertising world gets a hold of you but we will save that for another article.
Most of the millionaires I know never finished school and they all talk about how they are not educated but they do seem to make and keep money. Whenever I got the opportunity I always questioned them, if they keep talking like they are stupid and “not educated” why don’t they go back to school and learn. They have the money to pay for the best schools. Of course they reply, what the universities are teaching isn’t worth learning. Judging by the percentage of poor university graduates, they may have a point. These millionaires are of course highly educated from the University of hard knocks. You do not make a lot of money without collecting some scar tissue along the way.
The trick is to learn from it, figure a way to use it to your advantage and move forward. Too many of us rush into an investment without doing proper research on EVERY aspect of the business. A buddy tells us it’s going to go up and we rush in and buy a whack of whatever and it promptly drops like a rock. Wealthy people have already been there and done that. They look long and hard before they leap into something. But the key is once they have done their looking and calculated their risk, they do leap in and from there they do what it takes to make some money or to learn a valuable lesson.
My favorite rich person has amassed over 100 million. Starting from nothing and like many of the super rich has lost it all a couple of times. He told me making or losing money is not as important as what you learn along the way. I would add having the ability to use what you have learned is also essential.
What is the point of all this? The basic of investing, saving, debt reduction etc. is easy stuff, so easy it is boring, very boring and that is where people get into trouble. How many times have I heard; “I just needed a bit of excitement so I bought some XYZ company on a tip from my barber”. What normally happens, you lose it. Until you have enough money to have a ‘wild and crazy investment account’ forget buying the latest sure fire winner. Yes it is true some people have made it big that way, but do you know any of them, personally? There are very few of those kind of people.
Pick an area of your financial life that needs work and go to the library, internet, used book store and get some information on it. We have a simple e-book that if you followed would teach you how to eliminate your debt and free up some money to start investing for your financial freedom. It is simple to read, easy to implement and doesn’t take an MBA to understand but it works.
Take the time to learn some things about the art and science of making, keeping, investing and having a great time with money. Pick one area at a time and keep at it until you know what’s going on in your personal situation, then move to another area. In a couple of years, spending a few hours a week you will be able to navigate threw the financial world with ease and grace and best of all some money in your pocket.
I have been poor and I am rich, rich is better. You can do it also.
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