Financial Lessons for a Richer Life

Learn from Your Experience

I am not a ‘guru’, everything I share are based on personal experience (and the experience of people close to me and also the people I read about) and even the most successful people say that ‘experience is the best teacher’.  And from my experience, the basics are simple when it comes to financial health…

SPEND LESS THAN YOU EARN, SAVE AND INVEST THE REST.

Knowing what should be done and actually doing it, however, are two different things.

Most people realize that spending more money than they have is a bad, bad habit but still this doesn't keep millions of people from racking up on credit-card debt.

Here are 5 more money lessons (the continuation from yesterday’s post) which have the power to change your life – that is if you are able to live by them.

6. Money Seduces

It's a fact of life. At some point you will likely be offered employment that pays you more than what your dream job will pay, or a good salary when you aren't yet sure what your dream job is.

You will likely justify taking the job because the extra money will outweigh the compromise of putting off what you want to do and you may assume it will even help you to pursue your dream job in your spare time since it will mean you have more money.

This is a false justification that will only serve to make you lose sight of your true goals in life. Be very careful of the seduction of a higher-paying job, because when you accept it, it will be difficult to leave.

Share what you love and money will follow. Think about your goals and align your actions towards these goals. Once you do this, money will flow – you don’t even know where it is coming from.

7. Financial Mistakes Aren't All Bad

I've made more than my fair share of financial mistakes, and you're going to make financial mistakes, too. Everybody does and they can actually be a great benefit for you in the long run. It is only by making mistakes do we learn how to make correct decisions.

The key is learning from them instead of repeating them over and over again. Instead of getting down on yourself when you make a mistake, take the time to learn from it and make sure that it never happens again.

If you learn from your mistakes, you will come out far ahead than if you'd never made any mistakes at all.

8. Do What You Love and the Money Follows

The money probably won't be there at first, and it might seem impossible for you to figure out a way to make money from it, but if you are truly passionate about it, there is a way to succeed and make a living doing what you love. It takes a lot of time, effort and persistence, and it won't be easy.

You will likely have to become quite creative to make it happen, but if you truly love what you're doing, that effort will be the reason you are willing to put in the extra hours it takes to succeed.

9. Money Is Emotional

You know yourself better than anyone else, and what motivates you. What motivates me and what motivates you may not be the same.

Take this knowledge and use it to your advantage. While personal-finance books will tell you the best way to handle your finances from an unemotional perspective, this advice is worthless if it doesn't work with your personality.

Adopt the methods that will help you get to your financial goals the quickest, leveraging your personal habits to do so.

Doing something (even if it is a longer process) is almost always better than the choice of doing nothing because the method advanced doesn't work well for your personality.

10. Embrace Compound Interest

If you want to be wealthy, understand compound interest and how it is your best financial friend from an early age. To retire early you don't need to make a lot of money.

All you need to do is begin saving small amounts early. The earlier you begin to put money into retirement savings, the more you'll have, and the sooner you will be able to retire.

Most people think that it is a matter of working hard and making a lot, but the true path to wealth is simply to start saving and investing from an early age.

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Make Friends with Money Now

I say this because I know of many who have negative impressions about $Money$.

Everyone in this planet wants to be wealthy however many are not comfortable about the topic of money. Many have not come to terms with their emotion towards wealth. One simple explanation about this is that we were brought up having different images of money. Many things about money are not taught in school.

Let’s be honest, would you consider yourself successful if you’re not financially stable? Accept it or not, the size of your bank account is a measure of your success. But it’s not the amount of money that is all important, it is how and what you become out of the money you make.

Try to ask yourself these questions…

1/ Why do you want to be successful?

2/ What do you need to become successful?

3/ How will achieving success affect you and your loved ones?

On this note, let me share with you 10 Financial Lessons for a Richer Life

1. Money Doesn't Buy Happiness

A famous Beatles song says… Can't Buy Me Love… True? I think so too but we would often think otherwise in real life. For years we would be working in large corporations making good money, many not even enjoying the job until one day we wake up finally realizing that money in itself does not make you happy, and the accumulation of money will do very little for your happiness unless you know how to use that money once you have it.

The happiness comes from the opportunities money makes available so that you can do the things that you want to do. If you have no idea what these things are, no amount of money will make you happy.

2. Goals Are the Key

I didn't begin to make specific financial goals until my early 30s, and it kills me that I lost 10 years in this department. 

The old saying that if you don't know where you're going, it's difficult to get there is never more true with your financial goals. It wasn't until I took the time to write down my financial goals in detail that I began to find financial success.

Financial goals give you something to strive for and give you clear knowledge on how you want to spend the money that you earn. They also greatly help you avoid impulse purchases and spending money on things that aren't important.

3. Impulse Purchases Dash Dreams

Have you ever gone to the department store or supermarket, bought something that you never used? Of course, we all did… that’s impulse buy.

Impulse spending (or spending money on anything that isn't important to you and your goals) is the worst type of spending that you can do, yet this is how most people spend their money when they don't have financial goals.

It's especially destructive if it also leads to credit-card debt. Impulse purchases come about when you aren't really sure what you want in your life or what will make you happy.

This is why advertising is so effective. Advertisements make you believe that buying a product or service will give you the happiness that you are seeking, when this is rarely the case.

If you can learn to be patient with your money and avoid impulse purchases by knowing what your financial goals are, you will have made major strides in getting your finances in order.

4. Buy Memories, Not Things

A big con our society plays on us is that stuff will make us happy. I fell for it for far too long.

When it comes to spending the money that you do have, buying experiences and memories with those whom you care about is a much better use of your money than purchasing material things. It's not the house that you buy, but the home that you make with your family inside it that matters.

When you look back on your life, you will remember the times, memories and experiences far above the things that you have purchased.

Understanding this will ensure that you get much more value out of the money you spend.

5. TV Is a Dream Killer

I once believed that I didn't have the time to do all I wanted to do, but it was nothing more than having poor priorities in how I spent my time, watching TV being one of those poor choices.

I hear time and again that people simply don't have the time to achieve the goals that they have. If you are the average person, that time you don't have is being spent in front of your TV. If you want to achieve your goals and dreams, the first thing to do is start to wean yourself off your TV.

You can't imagine the amount of extra time that you have and all the extra things that you can accomplish when you take the time spent in front of the TV (or computer or whatever other form of procrastination you use) to work on the financial and other goals that you have.

SOURCE:

Interesting? More to come tomorrow…

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Some Thoughts about Money

Dear curious Mind subscriber,

I know many of us have a rather bad perspective about acquiring wealth, richness, making lots of money.  I know because I used to have silly ideas myself... I used to belief that money is the source of all evil, that money make people greedy, that working hard for money take us away from what is essential for life - family, relationships, spirituality, etc, etc...  Little did I know that these limiting beliefs have actually pushed me away from receiving the blessing I deserve to hold.

Now I am free from these limiting beliefs.  After much soul searching, reading, studying and listening to great (some of them really popular and the best in the field) life mentors, I learned that money is not at all negative.  If we know and it is clear within us the reasons why we need to make money - it will all make sense.  To quote one of my mentors - Bo Sanchez 'Money, by itself, doesn’t make you gracious or greedy, honest or dishonest, loyal or disloyal. Nor does it make you happy or unhappy.  Money reveals your character—or the lack thereof. How a person manages his money (no matter whether big or small) will reveal whether he’s gracious or greedy, honest or dishonest, loyal or disloyal.'

Dear friends, I challenge you to think about your real reasons about needing to make money? And while you're at that let me share with you an article I receive from my Truly Rich Club.

Let me quote again our key passage: If, then, you have not been faithful in handling worldly wealth, how can you be trusted with true wealth? (Luke 16:11)

Actually, that verse is scary. But think about it. How a person manages his money (no matter whether big or small) will reveal whether he’s gracious or greedy, honest or dishonest, loyal or disloyal. Money doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Money, by itself, doesn’t make you gracious or greedy, honest or dishonest, loyal or disloyal. Nor does it make you happy or unhappy. Money reveals your character—or the lack thereof. That’s probably why Jesus spoke about money more than any other topic. Out of 57 parables, more than half were about money. (Some of my critics accuse me of talking about money too much. I’m in good company.) Today, I’m challenging you to earn more, but not for the money. (Tony Hilado mentors his students to earn P1 Million in 90 days, and once they earn it, he tells them to give it all away.) It’s about the person that you become because of the journey in earning the money.

Let me dig deeper and give you two more key Bible passages:

1. Grow Your Character,Grow Your (Spiritual) Connection

(Colossians 3:23) And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.

Your job may be a secular job, but it’s still a spiritual activity if you offer your work to God. So if you do your profession (or service or product) with excellence for the Lord, you’ll connect with Him more.

2. Grow Your Character, Grow Your Kids

(Proverbs 13:22) A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.

A good man doesn’t only just give a financial inheritance to his kids. A good man also gives them a spiritual inheritance. He shapes their character and trains their capacities for earning money. In that way, the children will be able to preserve and even multiply the financial inheritance he gives them.

But a sinner who gives only a financial inheritance (and nothing else) to his children will be sealing their own destruction. The money will magnify their low character and low capacities. And they will lose all their money. And their money will transfer to those who have the capacity and character to handle it.

SOURCE: WEALTH STRATEGIES/ TRULY RICH CLUB

In case you want to receive WEALTH STRATEGIES / FINANCIAL & SPIRITUAL MENTORING, I invite you to check out TRULY RICH CLUB... HERE. 

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