Financial Strategies

Many personal finance articles have been written on the issue of money.  Can’t say I have been moved to action by many.  First I’d like to say it is ok that you feel down about the current situation about your personal finances.  I give you permission to feel your feeling for the next 24 hours and then pull yourself by your boot straps and let’s what we can do. 

There exist many a definition, I want to share with you  my personal finance definition:

Financial freedom is not an event, it is a skill.

I bet right now with the current economic situation you are saying to yourself, “I just wish I could the lotto!”  Boy don’t we all and yet statistics and personal finance facts show that the majority of people who win the lottery, end up broke and worse off before their winnings! Imagine that.  You among the many seeking wealth, riches, fame few people realize that money isn’t the solution to their problems;  the way you think about money is the problem and the solution. 

I can almost see you going oh yeah, give me the money and I’ll show you change in mindset!

My favorite entrepreneur of all times, Henry Ford was once asked, “What if you lost everything you own?” He responded without missing a beat: “I’d have it all back and more within 5 years.”

Being a master of your own personal finance is not about what is in the bank; it’s about the ability to acquire the skill that will show you how to produce new streams of income and wealth based on your knowledge and experience.

So before we go any further on this issue let us tackle the real problem here that is impeding your personal finance for good!  Why you might ask?  Well without the mastery of these 5 steps, your desire for your goal for financial success and financial freedom is highly unlikely!  This is why big players in any industry have coaches, Oprah has a life coach, football players and basketball players have coaches and mentors.  Tiger woods after every bad game will go in for coaching and training.  Why?  Those who achieve great financial success do not go it alone.  They always have a team.  Those who achieve great poverty have the do it yourself mentality!

Why is it important to plan personal finances?

5 Steps That Will Guarantee You Become Master Your Personal Finances

1. How do you think about money? Say you come up with an idea to do something. Do you think that will never work?  Are you afraid to follow through?  Are you scared of loosing money or do you see every dollar spent as an investment?

2. How do you manage and invest your time?  The average man has at his disposal  6 discretionary hours.  This is time they can do whatever they want.  No work, no chores etc.  Many will watch T.V., attend pricey sports events, spend money on meals at a restaurant and movies, see where I am going with this? Do you do personal finance budgeting?

3. How do you leverage the talents and life experiences you ALREADY POSSESS?

Most people see their experiences as failures.  They only talk of how they tried to do something as failed.  Thomas Edison failed more than I care to count, and yet he persisted to light the whole world. Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. Thomas A. Edison

4. Do you have a mentor and/or coach with a proven personal finance curriculum? This is the true measure of your desire for financial freedom.  This is where you literally put your money where your mouth is, can’t afford a mentor you say?  Well what was the last book you read? Gossip magazines do not count as literature sorry ?!

5. What do you think is “risky,” and what do you think is “safe and secure”?  Most people never break into the realm of the 5% wealthy group who own 95% of  the worlds resources because they want to play it safe.  They want the money, the fame, the accolades but they feel they should not have to go through the process of creating this wealth.  No wonder the internet and other places are full of scams and get rich quick opportunities.  Remember this success does not  happen overnight, but one night success does happen.  Someone once said to me, it takes 3 years to be an overnight success!

So you are thinking of going back to school? There are many sources of student financing. CanLearn is Canada’s government sponsored student loan program. It is designed to help prospective students plan out the financing methods of their post-secondary education. CanLearn can be used to plan, find, and pay your student loans or credit lines. They have broken the system down to three steps: Save, Plan and Pay.

The Saving part is the pre-planning. Here you should ask yourself: “How am I going to pay for college?” Normally this question should be addressed as early as possible, and well before you are filling out applications! Your first job should be trying to save money to help develop yourself into the skilled employee that you would like to be. The easiest way to save money is to cut your current costs. Figure out how much you can put away if you reduce needless costs. Is this number going to be enough for your education? If it is possible, try to get your parents involved; show what you can do on your own and what you need help with. Once you have figured out how much money you can put away, consider Canada’s options for investments in education: the Canadian Education Savings Grant, Registered Education Savings Plans or the Canada Learning Bond!

The Planning part is much more fun than the saving part, but still very important. Here you need to ask yourself: “What do I want to do for a living?” Take career interest tests, and experiment with new jobs or even internships. Once you have decided what your best career options appear to be, filter through the schools that offer your programs and layout all of your options. Are there some schools you would prefer? Do you meet their entrance requirements?

The Paying part can really affect the rest of your life. Now that you have saved as much as you can, your payment options are student loans, grants, and scholarships. Dig deep and apply for as many scholarships and grants as you can. Performance based scholarships have been found to not only help you pay for school, but help to maintain your focus and get better grades! If you are lucky, you have found a place of business that you would like to work after to graduate, make sure to ask them if they are interested in paying for your education! You may be surprised at the results.

The less you have to pay back when you are done, the more flexible you can be in finding the perfect job for you, so be careful and be smart! Financing your post-secondary education can be the best loan of your life.

I have been trying to find out more about making money on the internet as a result of a little google ad that popped up next to one of my articles.

Since then, I have been sucked into the world of internet marketing and while I’ve learnt a lot, I can’t say I’ve really enjoyed myself. I like writing for the sake of writing and to have to keep adjusting my point of view to slant it a little towards a product I was trying to promote just took the fun out of the writing.

Not to mention having to think about these important things called keywords so google would find me. It drove me nuts trying to remember to mention a keyword, and not make the whole article sound like I was trying to mention the keyword.

But I ramble on. Actually, what happened was, I tried to create a blog on personal finance. I figured that maybe if my content was about money, maybe people would put all sorts of nice google ads about money on the site, and I could promote the internet products helping people to get rich.

I have since realised my flawed logic.

1. Money is an interesting topic. Personal finance is not. I was half-way through my blog when I learnt about this thing called doing keyword research and the number of people who actually search for blogs under personal finance are a tiny fraction of people who search for money blogs, of which there must be millions of them, mostly trying to sell something or other.

2. I don’t believe in the stuff I was supposed to be selling. I don’t believe in get rich quick schemes. But try advertising a product that tells people they can get rich slowly but surely, and in the most boring way, by saving, researching, investing etc and see how many clicks you get !

3. I changed my name of the blog from Why Money Matters – A blog on Personal Finance to Grow Rich Along With Me – The Best Is Yet To Be, and google found me ! Under “get rich blog”, google has decided I can come on its first page. Of course, once people come and visit and find out it isn’t something quick, they leave soon after. Oh well.

4. I failed a number of blogs created for the purpose of trying to make money. Actually, el cheapo me used blogger for most of them so google reviewed me and almost took one of my blogs off. Paid for another one but have since returned that !

5. My lack of savvy as a marketer became clear when I tried to sell Think And Grow Rich by Napolean Hill through Amazon.com, only to find after a few posts on it, someone else was advertising to give away a free version in the google ads next to my advertisement to sell the book !

Oh well. Have since become addicted to flooding cyberspace with blogs just for the fun of seeing them published. Have also littered the same cyberspace with articles meant to help promote my blog, but have found people read the articles, but don’t visit the blog ! Have also started a new blog on my internet marketing experience, separate from my personal finance blog, which is slowly gaining some regular readership.