Breath in wealth. Exhale debt.

“It takes a smart man to make a million dollars; it takes a smarter Man to keep a million dollars.”

I am not even sure where I read this or who to give credit for the quote but it is something I read as a teenager and has stuck with me for over 40 years.

Like any young person I once thought invincible and making a million dollars would not be that difficult and certainly keeping the money once I had it would be a cake walk. After all I was not into spending money on frivolous thing. Saving and investing were my points of interest. Yes, I was a teenager with an attitude.

Life’s lessons.

All the education in the world around money does not prepare you when you find yourself sailing in uncharted waters.

·       Global recession

·       Housing bubbles

·       unexpected health issues

·       Divorces

·       Family deaths

·       Global pandemics

·       Widespread riots.

Any of these things sound familiar. As a teenager none of these things were taught in the building wealth books or educational seminars. How could it be that a person can amass wealth and have an unexpected event or serious of events just wipe it out.

Asset protection taught us how to preserve our wealth from lawsuits and accidental events. But nothing prepared most people (present company included) from the above mentioned wealth robbers.

Start as you plan to proceed:

Stay out of debt. In American society we are inundated with credit card offers while we are still in high school. Easy payment plans make all those desired purchases seem cheap and obtainable. a few purchases and 20 % interest rates later and-voila! -  you have debt. This debt stresses you out and many resorts to retail therapy to satisfy their stress and the cycle of debt begins. For anyone reading this that do not have credit card debt yet please note credit cards should be for emergency purposes only. Or perhaps for investing purposes as you become a savvy investor (but that is for another post). Moral of the story, if you cannot pay the debt in full when the credit card bill comes then don’t use the card. Best scenario is to avoid having a card all together and instead build a savings account for these emergencies.

many people who find themselves in financial challenges resort to credit cards to stay afloat until their lucky break happens only to find themselves in a vacuum vortex they cannot escape from.

This causes emotional stress and more panic which leads to health issues and anxiety.

A better way.

I know firsthand the emotional drama and the turmoil of these cycles and I know there is a better way.

Keep your head up and your spirits high. Develop a plan to pay off your debt. Smallest bills paid off first allow you to then use the funds that were allocated for the first credit card to add to paying larger payments for the next bill. As you are now contributing more to the second bill it then gets paid off quicker. rinse and repeat and Eventually you crawl out of the hole.

Being broke or wealthy is our conscious decision.

Staying out of debt is of course job one and great advice for the younger audience reading these post. While some people get into debt just because they enjoy spending money and live above their means there are also outside forces that may cause us to get into debt. Getting out of debt once you are in it is harder but very much doable if you are purposeful and have a plan.

Having faith; your desire to get out of debt needs to be more powerful than the fear of staying in Debt. What we focus on expands.

A brief story: about 10 years ago after the housing bubble, health scare and a divorce, I found myself in financial woes. I was committed to get myself out of debt, I focused all my energy on getting out of debt- only to continue to stay in debt. I was stunned. I am exercising all my diligence in getting bills paid and more money to come into household than going out but the debt persisted.

Then I had an epiphany. What you focus on expands. DEBT was my focus. Yes I wanted to get out of debt but indeed debt was where my mind was most of the time. So if what we focus on expands then how do you focus on getting out of debt if we cannot be thinking of debt?

I remember giving advice all the time. Focus on what you want. What I wanted was to be back into financial prosperity. The moment I had the epiphany and stopped thinking of debt and starting thinking of prosperity things started to change.  That subtle little shift in my mind had me more focused on income and I was no longer focused on bills. Interesting how not focusing on bills stopped all the unplanned bills from showing up. Cars were not breaking down, house repairs were not needed, money was coming in and financial prosperity was coming back.

Living in today’s world

In life we have good times and bad times. We must be purposeful and be prepared for the unexpected challenges, money reserves are paramount and should be used instead of credit cards. We may all from time to time find ourselves in times of hardship but this is always temporary.  It is never about what happens to us, it is always about how we respond to what happens to us.

Happy Investing!