One Decision Separates the Wealthy From the Non-Wealthy

One Decision Separates the Wealthy From the Non-Wealthy

Dr Benjamin Hardy

“Courage can be developed. But it cannot be nurtured in an environment that eliminates all risks, all difficulty, all dangers. It takes considerable courage to work in an environment in which one is compensated according to one’s performance. Most affluent people have courage. What evidence supports this statement? Most affluent people in America are either business owners or employees who are paid on an incentive basis.”   — Dr. Thomas Stanley

The problem with most people’s lives is that they are being shielded from the consequences of their behavior. There’s little to no accountability.

The fastest way to make success inevitable in your life is to only do work that is incentive-based. Only do that which you are rewarded and punished for the quality of your work. Everything you do needs to matter to the outcomes, consequences, and results you get in life.

So what is the decision?

The decision is to take complete ownership of every decision in your life. And how you do that is by only doing things in which you are compensated based on performance.

This goes completely against the norms in society. It goes against public education — which shields people from progressing at their own rates. It goes against most job structures, wherein a person is paid an hourly rate or salary.

If you want to make dramatic strides forward, you must only work in environments where the consequences of your actions are immediate and REAL. You need to be demanded by your situation to come up with a result.

This article will show you how:

Are You A Part Of The “Results Economy”?

Founder of the exclusive entrepreneurial coaching platform, Strategic Coach, Dan Sullivan distinguishes between those who are in the “Time-and-Effort Economy” with those who are in the “Results Economy.”

If you’re in the time and effort economy, you are focused on being busy. You actually believe the amount of time and energy you put into something merits praise. Those who are focused on being “busy” are protected in some way from the consequences of their actions. 

They’re not being forced by necessity to come up with a solution. Chances are, they are an employee. They are part of a bureaucracy. And they’re striving to follow rules rather than break them.

Conversely, when you are in the results economy, you are only focused on achieving a specific result. You are focused on results because if you don’t get the result, there will be consequences to pay — for you and others. 

You’re not worried about your reputation. You’re not worried about following the rules of ridiculous systems which are seeking to make you their slave anyways.

Dr. Thomas Stanley found in his research that those who are paid based on RESULTS are most courageous and also the most wealthy.

You actually have to take risks.

You can’t be sheltered from the consequences of your behavior.

And you certainly can’t be a part of a system which supports “busyness” to maintain the status quo. Hence, Dan Sullivan says:

Entrepreneurs have crossed “the risk line” from the “Time-and-Effort Economy” to the “Results Economy.” For them, there’s no guaranteed income, no one writing them a paycheck every two weeks. They live by their ability to generate opportunity by creating value for their clientele.

Sometimes, they — and you — will put in a lot of time and effort and get no result. Other times, they don’t put in much time and effort and get a big result. The focus for entrepreneurs always has to be on results or there’s no revenue coming in.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/one-decision-separates-the-wealthy-from-the-non-wealthy

The Number One Reason Most People Are Broke Or Have No Emergency Fund

The Number One Reason Most People Are Broke Or Have No Emergency Fund

June 14, 2021 by Todd Kunsman

I’m sure if you are reading this, you’ve come across other articles that talk about the importance of building your savings or having some sort of an emergency fund.  Whether that be for an unexpected medical bill, something breaks down in your car, etc.  I’m not personally a fan of the “emergency fund” term, as you should be building up your savings to use for investments, retirement, etc. But whatever it may be, most Americans are in pretty bad shape if some expensive issue comes up.

Because of a lack of prep, many times people are forced to rack up credit card debt to pay for the expense or get tons of late notices with extra fees thus essentially getting stuck with more and more bills, costing you a chance to stack that money away.

Yet, what’s even scarier is the lack of savings the groups of 35 and under have saved. Whether that is for an emergency fund or retirement.

In a Business Insider article, they broke down savings rates by different categories by using data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances.

First, average savings account balance by age, which was not looking too pretty:

Average savings account balance by age

Another section they broke down, was the median savings account balance by income:

median savings account balance by income

Understandably, higher earners are able to save more money and the older people get, the more money they will have because of time being on their side.

It also makes sense for the 35 and under group to have low savings for a few reasons: Paying off student loans, just developing their careers, maybe still going to school, etc.

Of course all the above can attribute to other things, these are just some examples.

But, we also know people with low incomes have amassed huge retirement or savings fortunes, so a lack of income is not necessarily the main cause.

So, why do people seem to have no money or struggle to save?

Before I dive in, I know it can be tough out there. Stagnant wages, climbing student debt, job loss, etc. Everyone has a unique situation, but many also would be better financially off if they did this one thing. Do you know what it is?

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://investedwallet.com/number-one-reason-most-people-are-broke/

Makes More Money Happier?

Makes More Money Happier?

Wealth On The Whole Is An Illusion

 The Final Wake Up Call  By  Peter B. Meyer

 Happiness Is Independent Of Money

 Over half the people of the world work just to survive, while the other portion works to get ahead. They aim to get richer. Why so much effort if there is no connection – none at all – to happiness?   And why are so many people investing their money, if there’s no assurance that it will contribute in making them wealthier?  ​As there is no link between more money bringing more happiness, could it possibly be the other way around: more money equals less happiness? As actually more money can result in more of the wrong choices!

Growing up during childhood, it was experienced that happiness is independent of wealth. Happiness comes from the home and the family. As a child, we learn that this is the base to face whatever challenges and hardships may come our way, confident as were that our happiness was safe at home.

If you want to be rich, you’d better learn to like poverty first, as he who has material success may not be able to bear the risk of failure.

When young, money really didn’t matter that much as the majority is largely indifferent to it.

So, in hindsight this would be the perfect period to take chances.

​By the same token, this is the best disposition in which to start your own business. It is the best route to success. ​

No matter what it is you undertake, it is very hard to lay your hands on serious money. When you come of age, someone else seems to already own all the money in the world and they will not turn it over to you readily.

Starting out, you don’t know yet what you have to do, to make a success out of your business. More than likely, it will fail, and that’s precisely what you want to avoid at all costs.

 So, it is of the utmost importance to take advantage of all opportunities, as it is uncertain in the beginning as to what exactly will be successful. Eliminate failures is the only sure route to success.

  The challenge is to fail early and enough to be vigilant and diligent enough to enforce your nerves and cleverness, learning from your mistakes along the way until you finally stumble onto something that works.

  But even if you are able to separate yourself from material success, it still plays a role in life. Most want more wealth for a reason, but most don’t know the reason.

​Entrepreneurship means taking risks to obtain something, with the purpose of obtaining satisfaction and delight if success is achieved.

​It is not necessarily the money that satisfies, it is probably more the satisfaction of choosing the best option available at that time, because life is competitive. People want to win, and money is a way in showing the score.

In a typical job, one is more or less told what to do. One may earn a high salary or a low one for the same job. People may like what they do, or they may suffer on the job, but it will often not provide serious wealth or satisfaction.

 Going with the flow while wanting to get the best out of opportunities, one could either focus on disruption, like a disruptive technology, or one could change the way money is earned, and spent, by altering the capital landscape.

  If you are to get more, others will relatively get less. Which gives the competitive money-maker a deep sense of reward, even before he is successful. You may not necessarily be the richest man, but probably the happiest because of an accomplished goal.

 Earning Money Is Difficult, Keeping It Is Even More Difficult

 Earning money may be difficult, but keeping it is even more difficult, there are always people around that want to help you lose it. The whole money system is volatile. There are too many counting on calm, sunny weather, and a longer growing season for their money.​

Everyone invests in stocks, hoping to beat the market, but they don’t realise they are the market, only a few are able to beat it, most of the time by accident.

Of course, US-stock market participants were happy when the market went up, and hit new records, they are hoping for even more success in the future.

​The question is whether they gained real wealth?

​​From whom are they gaining, or to put it simple, who is at the other side of the trade? The economy expanded at 2% per annum, that created over the last seven years a grand total of approx. $350 billion in extra wealth to divvy up.

 But, how is it possible that stockholders can obtain ten times as much as the amount of wealth that the economy creates? In actual fact, the mystery is far more complex than that.

Since the ravage of the financial crisis of 2008, household wealth has gone up by $21 trillion. It has gone roughly from $50 trillion to $71 trillion.

During that same time, real household earnings for the typical family have gone down. Wages have gone down. And the net worth of the typical family has also declined. Growth rates have declined and the number of people with jobs has proportionately declined.

​Real GDP is only about 6% higher than it was in 2007. Although, household wealth has gone up nearly 20 times faster than GDP since 2008. How could that be? The Central Banks increase the real estate and asset prices.

This wealth effect added $21 trillion to the nation’s balance sheets. This was supposed to increase demand, which would lead to more spending and investment.

 But should it not be that a nation should first produce before it spends? There is somehow approximately $20 trillion in excess spending power that seems to have come from nowhere. How could that be?

Wealth Gathering

 Wealth is either physical, such as the ownership of a house or a Picasso painting, or it is paper wealth. But there is $21 trillion of real output and real wealth. If there is no increase in real wealth, that money just competes for the same quantity of goods and services that were already priced at $50 trillion, five years ago.

​In other words, the nation has not become wealthier. This is exactly the problem with paper assets.

All paper assets are a claim against true goods and services.

You can’t get more goods and services than the economy can produce.

​Since the economy of 2008-18 has produced only a fraction as much real wealth as the claims against it, those claims will have to be applied to future output.

So, when will the economy produce $21 trillion of new wealth so that these new claims can be realised? “annual US gross domestic product growth has averaged less than 1.8%.” That’s about $300 billion. Let’s see, how long do you have to wait – at $300 billion a year – to cover $21 trillion in claims? – The answer is 70 years!

 Well, that’s not going to happen, is it? Long before 2088 rolls around, those claims will be marked down and written off. In other words, the additional wealth is mostly an illusion.

 Real Money Must Be Earned

 Real money is different from debt money. It doesn’t need to explain itself. It doesn’t need to state where it’s been or what it’s been up to. Take a gold coin as it is. No backstory or balance sheet is necessary. That’s the way real money works: It closes transactions. You accept payment and the account is settled.

 But debt money is different. It comes with question marks: Who issued this debt? What is it really worth? Will I get paid? Here is the key to understanding debt money, as opposed to real money:

 Real money is the fruit of past efforts – distilled and preserved for future use.

Debt money is a claim on wealth that has never been produced. And perhaps never will be.

As the quantity of real money increases, a society becomes richer and more financially stable.

 Because it’s real wealth. But as the supply of debt money increases, more people owe more money; the economy becomes more fragile, and eventually goes broke.

 But if the authorities want to increase the supply of money, the only kind of money supply they can increase is the fake kind. Real money must be earned; like wealth, it cannot be printed.

 Money can’t solve the core problems of humanity

 Our world is plagued by dishonesty, unfairness, and wholesale rejection of the truth; the founding principle of life. In our world today ‘Might is Right’, it’s the order of the day; lawlessness; where the law of the jungle and survival of the “fittest” are the primary criteria for oppression and success.

And yet, despite the poverty stricken status of the human realms of trust, there is nothing stopping us from turning the ship of civilization around and righting our course toward prosperity and abundance.

 All the money in the world can’t solve the core problem humanity faces; the destruction of social trust and the capacity for individuals to restore the greater human family.​

Suppressed technology is ‘New’ to us, but very ‘Old’ to Beings from other planets, some of it going back millions of years.

 Money and banks are tools of the cabal to control us with their debt-based economy which can never prosper. So, ‘Paper Money’ and banks will eventually disappear, but ‘Coinage’ will not. 

The future will be unbelievably complete with Cards for our own Personal Credit. We will join ‘The Alliance’ and then we will live among races from other worlds and trade with them, which purportedly the secret space program has been doing for decades.

​We will eventually travel to other planets, inhabited with human or alien life; a very likely and realistic possibility.

 The Biggest Incomprehensible Lie

 The reason why the global economy is so depressed is that money has been stolen from us on a truly outrageous scale. Evidently, a tremendous amount of money is missing, which didn’t just vanish. It all went somewhere. The disappeared volumes are immensely greater than any luxuries the “one percent” could ever possibly afford.

 These missing quadrillions will be re-introduced into the economy by the Alliance, which is still a small figure compared to the total amount of theft that has taken place. 

Top insiders reveal that much of our money has been spent on the development of a vast amount of high-tech infrastructure in underground and off-world bases, as well in the know-how and facilities to make it all possible.

https://finalwakeupcall.info/en/2018/07/18/makes-more-money-happier/

How to Make Better Financial Decisions

How to Make Better Financial Decisions

By Barbara O’Neill  WiseBread

A key financial decision people struggle to make is how to allocate savings for multiple financial goals. Do you save for several goals at the same time or fund them one-by-one in a series of steps? Basically, there are two ways to approach financial goal-setting:

Concurrently: Saving for two or more financial goals at the same time.

Sequentially: Saving for one financial goal at a time in a series of steps.

Each method has its pros and cons. Here's how to decide which method is best for you.

Sequential goal-setting

Pros

You can focus intensely on one goal at a time and feel a sense of completion when each goal is achieved. It's also simpler to set up and manage single-goal savings than plans for multiple goals. You only need to set up and manage one account.

Cons

Compound interest is not retroactive. If it takes up to a decade to get around to long-term savings goals (e.g., funding a retirement savings plan), that's time that interest is not earned.

Concurrent goal-setting

Pros

Compound interest is not delayed on savings for goals that come later in life. The earlier money is set aside, the longer it can grow. Based on the Rule of 72, you can double a sum of money in nine years with an 8 percent average return. The earliest years of savings toward long-term goals are the most powerful ones.

Cons

Funding multiple financial goals is more complex than single-tasking. Income needs to be earmarked separately for each goal and often placed in different accounts. In addition, it will probably take longer to complete any one goal because savings is being placed in multiple locations.

Research findings

Working with Wise Bread to recruit respondents, I conducted a study of financial goal-setting decisions with four colleagues that was recently published in the Journal of Personal Finance. The target audience was young adults with 69 percent of the sample under age 45. Four key financial decisions were explored: financial goals, homeownership, retirement planning, and student loans.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.wisebread.com/how-to-make-better-financial-decisions?ref=relatedbox

The Tangled Relationship Between Wealth & Money

The Tangled Relationship Between Wealth & Money

John Michael Greer 

One of the most dangerous mistakes possible to make in trying to understand the shape of the economic future is to think of the fundamental concepts of economics as simple and uncontroversial.  They aren’t.   In economics, as in all other fields, the fundamentals are where disguised ideologies and unexamined presuppositions are most likely to hide out, precisely because nobody questions them.

In this and future essays here at Peak Prosperity, I will explore a number of things that seem, at first glance, very obvious and basic.  I hope you’ll bear with me, as there are lessons of crucial and deeply practical importance to anyone facing the challenging years ahead.

This is, above all, true of the first thing I want to talk about: the tangled relationship between wealth and money.

Our co-host here, Chris Martenson, likes to remind us all that money is not wealth, but a claim on wealth.  He’s quite right, and it’s important to understand why.

Money is a system of abstract tokens that complex societies use to manage the distribution of goods and services, and that’s all it is.  Money can consist of lumps of precious metal, pieces of paper decorated with the faces of dead politicians, digits in computer memory, or any number of other things, up to and including the sheer make-believe that underlies derivatives and the like.

Important differences separate these various forms of money, depending on the ease or lack of same with which they can be manufactured, but everything that counts as money has one thing in common – it has only one of the two kinds of economic value.

The Two Kinds of Value

Economists call those use value and exchange value.

You already know about them, even if you don’t know the names.  Odds are, in fact, that you learned about them back in elementary school the first time that one of your classmates offered to trade you something for the cookies in your lunchbox. 

You then had to choose between trading the cookies for whatever your classmate offered and eating them yourself.  The first of those choices treated the cookies primarily as a bearer of exchange value; the second treated them primarily as a bearer of use value.

All forms of real wealth – that is, all nonfinancial goods and services – have use value as well as exchange value.  They can be exchanged for other goods and services, financial or otherwise, but they also provide some direct benefit to the person who is able to obtain them. 

All forms of money, by contrast, have exchange value but no use value. You can’t do a thing with them except trade them for something that has use value (or for some other kind of money that can be traded for things with use value).

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://peakprosperity.com/the-tangled-relationship-between-wealth-money/

How To Flip Your Money

How To Flip Your Money: 6 Ways To Make Supplemental Income This Way

James Holbach  Thu, July 13, 2023 at 12:00 PM EDT

Financial independence is a dream for most of us — something we will likely spend most of our working lives trying to achieve. The best way to get there is to make your money work for you, by getting a return on it or by turning it into a income stream on the side.

One way to do this is by “flipping” your money.

Now, money flipping may sound questionable, but there’s nothing illegal or shady involved. It really just means investing in an asset with the intent of holding it for a fairly short time before selling it or cashing out for a return. There are a lot of ways to do it, too. Here are five below.

Real Estate Wholesaling

Investing in real estate can be very lucrative, but it typically requires significant upfront money. For those who don’t have that kind of cash on hand, wholesaling can be a great entry point.

“[Wholesalers] can use some money to get leads that are looking to sell their properties for cash, put those properties under contract, and then sell those contracts to [investors like a] landlord or house flipper. Using that small amount of initial money they can have it flipped into a much larger assignment fee that they can have cashed out in as little as a few days,” said Sebastian Jania, director at Ontario Property Buyers.

It’s important to do some networking and research beforehand, so you have an idea of where to look for leads as well as where you can sell your contracts.

Website Flipping

Flipping a website is essentially the same as flipping a house — you purchase it, make improvements, and sell it for a profit. As with real estate, flipping a website requires some specific knowledge so you can identify sites with the most potential for improvement.

“A key aspect of website flipping is adding value through strategic optimization. This can include improving the website’s user experience, implementing effective SEO (search engine optimization) strategies, enhancing content quality, and optimizing monetization channels. These enhancements increase the website’s appeal to potential buyers and contribute to a higher selling price,” said Dominik Maka, head of SEO at LVBET.

Maka also noted that building a network with other website flippers can be a valuable way to gain insight and experience, and to discover new opportunities.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/flip-money-6-ways-supplemental-160002861.html

Unexpected Habits Of A Frugal Millionaire

Unexpected Habits Of A Frugal Millionaire

jeff@debtfreedr.com

When you hear about someone being a millionaire, you typically don’t picture them as being frugal. The phrase, “Frugal millionaire” is not something that typically goes together such as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich does. But, if you’ve read books such as “The Millionaire Next Door” and Chris Hogan’s new book, “Everyday Millionaires,” you’d have a different outlook on how millionaires actually live.

Occasionally, when someone hears that a person is frugal, they automatically think that they’re cheap. Being frugal and cheap are two different things. So, before we discuss the habits of a frugal millionaire, let’s look at the difference of being frugal versus cheap.

What Is Frugal Living?

Frugal living is simply being intentional with your money. It’s mainly practiced by those who aim to:

cut expenses

have more money

get the most they possibly can from their money

Frugal people understand that paying more doesn’t necessarily mean better value. Again, just because someone is frugal, doesn’t mean they’re cheap.

Are Frugal People Cheap?

I know cheap people and I can tell you firsthand that they’re NOT fun to be around. Cheap people think that EVERYTHING is overpriced.

The bottom line is that these are people who don’t like to spend money. They complain to everybody about how much stuff costs.

Unfortunately, many cheap people I know also lack honesty and moral principles.

The reason I wanted to differentiate between being frugal and cheap is that the majority of research on millionaires concludes that they’re frugal. They put people above money and are known to give to worthy causes.

If you’re not yet a millionaire (keep reading the DFD posts and you’ll soon be one!) and want to know just how many exist out there, let’s move on to some stats…

Millionaire Statistics

Here’s a few millionaire stats you may not know about from millionairefoundry.com: 

There are 42.2 million millionaires worldwide, up 2.3 million over the last 12 months.

Of those, 41% or 17.3 million individuals are in the United States

This means that 7% of the U.S. adult population are millionaires

Approximately 14% of U.S. households are in the millionaire club

If you’re a millionaire, you’re in the top 0.6% of wealth for the world’s population

The nine cities with the most millionaires, in decreasing order are Tokyo, New York City, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Beijing, Osaka, Hong Kong, and Shanghai

Current projections are that 1,700 new U.S. millionaires are made every day

Let’s find out what it takes to become a frugal millionaire…

7 Unexpected Habits Of A Frugal Millionaire

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.debtfreedr.com/frugal-millionaire-2/

The No-Sweat Way to Protect Yourself From Financial Disaster

The No-Sweat Way to Protect Yourself From Financial Disaster

By: Laura Goldstein  Jun 29, 2015

hat nagging feeling that a bit of bad luck—a medical emergency or a layoff—could derail your finances is widely shared. A new survey from the American Psychological Association found that 54% of people rated paying for unexpected expenses a very or somewhat significant source of stress.

 And people across the income spectrum tend to be underprepared. A Pew Charitable Trusts analysis finds middle-income households typically have the equivalent of 20 days of income to tap, and even high earners have just 52 days. Building a bigger rainy-day fund may feel like a daunting task, given all your expenses and savings goals, but you can start by breaking it down into manageable chunks.

Do It One Essential Expense at a Time

Aim to cover three months of one regular bill, like your mortgage, suggests RBC Wealth Management financial adviser Darla Kashian. Then move on to three months of utilities, then car payments, and so on. This approach gives you the satisfaction of crossing one more potential problem off your list.

 Once you've hit three months of all essentials, make your new goal doubling your account to get to six months. Why so long? "When things get rough, your emergency fund enables you to make good choices, where you don't have to rush into a job you don't want or dip into a credit card," says Certified Financial Planner Board consumer advocate Eleanor Blayney.

Get It Out of Your Hands

Looking at your budget may help you find places to trim, but for big savings goals it may be easier and more sustainable to simply stash money away with each pay-check, just as you do with your 401(k), and live on what's left. Set up automatic deposits to a separate account just for your emergency money.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://money.com/collection-post/save-money-emergency-fund/

How To Never Worry About Money Again

How To Never Worry About Money Again

The No-Sweat Way to Protect Yourself From Financial Disaster

By laura goldstein

Building a bigger rainy-day fund may feel daunting. Start by breaking it down into manageable chunks.

That nagging feeling that a bit of bad luck—a medical emergency or a layoff—could derail your finances is widely shared. A new survey from the American Psychological Association found that 54% of people rated paying for unexpected expenses a very or somewhat significant source of stress. And people across the income spectrum tend to be underprepared. A Pew Charitable Trusts analysis finds middle-income households typically have the equivalent of 20 days of income to tap, and even high earners have just 52 days. Building a bigger rainy-day fund may feel like a daunting task, given all your expenses and savings goals, but you can start by breaking it down into manageable chunks.

Do It One Essential Expense at a Time

Aim to cover three months of one regular bill, like your mortgage, suggests RBC Wealth Management financial adviser Darla Kashian. Then move on to three months of utilities, then car payments, and so on.

This approach gives you the satisfaction of crossing one more potential problem off your list. Once you’ve hit three months of all essentials, make your new goal doubling your account to get to six months.

Why so long? “When things get rough, your emergency fund enables you to make good choices, where you don’t have to rush into a job you don’t want or dip into a credit card,” says Certified Financial Planner Board consumer advocate Eleanor Blayney.

Get It Out of Your Hands

Looking at your budget may help you find places to trim, but for big savings goals it may be easier and more sustainable to simply stash money away with each pay-check, just as you do with your 401(k), and live on what’s left. Set up automatic deposits to a separate account just for your emergency money.

Any employer that offers direct paycheck deposit can allow you to split the money between multiple accounts. Many banks will also allow you to give your accounts a nickname to match your goal—make this one “emergency” or even “Don’t touch this!” as a little extra reminder of how important this fund is for you.

Make It a Little Bit Inconvenient

To add another speed bump between you and your cash stash, consider opening an account at a bank other than the one you use for your everyday money. Ally, one of MONEY’s Best Bank picks, has a high-yield savings account that doesn’t include a debit card or checking.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

http://money.com/money/collection-post/3938823/save-money-emergency-fund/

Five Freedoms

Five Freedoms

Jonathan Clements  

FOR THREE YEARS, I lived on Roosevelt Island, in the middle of New York City’s East River. It’s a wonderful place—a quiet, friendly, low-crime oasis in the middle of one of the world’s largest, most frenetic cities.  During my time there, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park opened on the island’s southern tip. The park is named after a 1941 FDR speech, where he articulated “four essential human freedoms”: freedom of speech, of worship, from fear and from want.

FDR’s speech was inspiring. Managing money is altogether more prosaic. Still, I’d argue that our pursuit of money is also about a hunger for freedom—with five dimensions:

1. Freedom from fear. We all want a sense of financial security—and yet all too many folks lead fragile financial lives. If our income barely covers our expenses, we may be okay if it’s a typical month. But so few months turn out to be typical.

We face frequent financial shocks, some large, some small. The car breaks down. The roof needs to be replaced. We lose our job. If we have scant savings and little financial breathing room in our monthly budget, such shocks can leave us scrambling to cover the bills and send our anxiety soaring.

As I mentioned last week, a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau study found that the sum we keep in liquid savings—meaning cash, checking accounts and savings accounts—has a huge impact on financial well-being. The price to escape much of our financial fear? All it may take is a few thousand dollars tucked away in the bank.

2. Freedom from financial dependence. We’re all dependent on other folks. Even billionaires need others to produce the goods and services they consume, to buy the investments they sell and to purchase the products their businesses make. But there are degrees of financial dependence—and the more dependent we are, the shakier our financial life can seem. I don’t like being financially dependent on others, and I can’t imagine many do.

Don’t get me wrong: When the day comes, I won’t have any qualms about claiming my Social Security check. But I would never want to be entirely dependent on a government program, a charity or family members.

Even working for others strikes me as a form of financial dependence, though it’s one most of us can’t avoid. It’s terrible to feel our livelihood hinges on a capricious boss. True, if we’re unhappy, we can always take our labor elsewhere. But switching employers is a costly, anxiety-inducing business.

3. Freedom from financial obligations.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://humbledollar.com/2020/01/five-freedoms/

Stop! Don't Make These 6 Dumb Mistakes With Your Financial Windfall

Stop! Don't Make These 6 Dumb Mistakes With Your Financial Windfall

By Kentin Waits

Maybe your lottery numbers finally came in. Maybe a favorite aunt remembered you in her will. Heck, maybe one day while you were shootin' at some food, up through the ground came bubblin' crude — oil that is! Texas tea! (See also: 50 Smart Things to Do With Your Tax Refund)

Whatever the source, you're the lucky beneficiary of a financial windfall. Revel in it and protect your new-found wealth by avoiding these six dumb moves.

1. Act Impulsively

Receiving money unexpectedly is exciting, and it can send even normally down-to-earth folks straight into the stratosphere. In those dizzying weeks and months following a financial windfall, we're really not ourselves, so making big decisions during that time is usually a terrible idea.

Instead of spending or investing immediately, take a time out. Collect yourself. Adjust to your new wealth for six months or a year and just let the cash sit in a money market account or CD. Remember, high emotion and sound decision-making usually don't mix.

2. Buy a New Car

Even if you're paying cash, there are many reasons to avoid buying a new car. Not only is it the most cliché thing you can do with a windfall, but it's also one of the quickest ways to lose roughly 25% on every dollar you spend.

The minute you sign the paperwork and drive off the lot, that new car becomes used. Depreciation takes a quick and silent bite out of your new ride. Let someone else absorb that financial hit; buy a pre-owned late-model car that's still under warranty.

3. Loan Money to Friends and Family

Making loans to friends and family is a sure way to take the wind out of your financial windfall. Loans have a curious way of never getting repaid, and once your bank balance dwindles, hard feelings can set in and slowly erode relationships.

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