What do you need to achieve finantial freedom?
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Describe actions or ideas for achieving economic freedom.
Answers to this question:Do you mean financial freedom ?
Plenty of cash & assets if possible
Hilda, thanks for the correction, yes, I mean financial.
How can you make cash and assets?
» Comment from Tony Stowe Comment made 286 days 2 hours ago.In my experience, your line of thinking will not bring you financial freedom. JMO.
You need to earn one dollar a week more--than you spend.
http:www.blue-collar-financial-planning.com
Terry, thanks for the reference and the good advice.
A plan Access to opportunity Action.
Can you be more specific??? Thanks.
» Comment from Tony Stowe Comment made 286 days 2 hours ago.Gaffley, what does this mean exactly? Just as Mendoza requested, Can you be more specific.
Spend less than you earn. You will find a wealth of debt Free Principles here http://bit.ly/aLTxBO
Read it Tickler, thank you very much. Helpful and enlightened with the Deuteronomy reading. Wisdom has the Bible.
Wisdom learn by others mistakes
Total Answers: 6, Total Page Views: 361.» Answer from Tony Stowe Answer given 286 days 2 hours ago.I achieved Financial freedom by doing the following:
1. Write out a complete, zero-balanced budget each month.
2. Separate that list into essential, non-essential, wants. Everything that took money out of the house was given a priority: (1) Mortgage/Rent (2) Utilities (3) Food (4) Auto, etc.
3. With the Wants and non-essential lists, if the item did not have a "must need to survive" impact then I cancelled the service, i.e. cable tv, internet, etc. or stopped purchasing, i.e. games, guns, hobby items, etc.
4. After cancelling everything that was not needed, I looked at those items that I thought were a necessary, i.e. Cell phone, and determined what I could do to lower the amount of the bill. I did that by removing all extras: texting, internet, replaced with a cheap phone. For utilities, fuel, and everything I had to change my behavior.
5. While I was weeded out the "garbage" - everything that was taking money out of my budget - I began listing my living expenses and debts into separate lists. For the living expenses, I maintained a calendar that identied the date that each bill was due with an intent of paying it before its due date. For debts, I listed them based on the amount owed - NOT the interest; NOT the amount of the payment.
6. The above took me about three months to really weed out and really see any movement in my plan. Religiously, the last week of each month I would sit down and write out a complete budget down to a zero balance.
7. 1st GOAL. Put $500 in a savings account for emergencies. It took me like six months to do this because I still had poor behaviors.
8. 2nd GOAL. Keep all bills and debt payments current until I have $500 in savings.
9. 3rd GOAL. Once $500 is in savings, keep all bills and debts current and pay every available dollar towards the lowest BALANCE debt.
10. Paying off the debt took me two years to complete. In doing so, I traded in my car payment for a car that I could financially manage; yard sales, ebay, and craigs list were critical in getting rid of extra unneeded items for money that I used to pay off debt. Holidays, Christmas and birthdays during that time was non-existent, the bare-minimal. The family, who are still in debt, could not believe my actions and "disregard" for others - but I explained my end goal and I did not budge from my path.
11. Once my debt was paid off, I increased my emergency savings to $1,000 as quickly as possible; then I pushed it to $5,000 as quickly as possible.
In all of this, there were several discoveries. First, my financial issues were not always income - as most people think. Ninety percent of my problem was my behavior and lack of self-discipline to manage what I had. Second, my debt issues were self-inflicted and continued to stunt my progress because I would not grow up. Lastly, fighting the urge to buy something, whether I needed it or not, was more difficult than I expected. In addition, doing the monthly budget was not a small task and required diligence.
What do I expect you to take away from my comments:
1. Live on less than you make
2. Do this by reducing your spending and changing your behavior
3. Do not live your life on credit and credit cards!
4. Having just a house payment and living expenses makes life so much more enjoyable.
Tony
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