Are you looking for ways to succeed financially?
Have you thought about real estate investing?
Have you really been putting in the effort that it takes to succeed? How much effort do you really put in after you clock out? Are you a person who’s up till 10 o’clock at night working and backup at 5 o’clock in the morning? How many books on the subject of your interest have you read in the last year? I believe in working while others are sleeping, I believe in working while others are whining, I believe in working while others are failing, I believe in working while others are trying to succeed, I believe in working while others are succeeding, and I believe in working. One of the first reasons for success is taking action, the more action you take the more success you can have.
If you are anything like me you probably make lists to get started. But sometimes just getting your action items on a list is difficult enough. Then you find yourself doing the easy things first and saving the difficult things for another day. Or maybe you read somewhere to do the difficult things first, and to put off the not so difficult things. We all know there’s only 24 hours every day, then why is it that that some people succeed financially beyond their wildest dreams while other very well-intentioned people do not?
4 Ways to Control Your Expenses: This is The Foundation
This is a simple question to answer but the answer is more difficult in practice. To succeed financially your income has to be greater than your expenses. Just like if you were going to build a house you must have a solid foundation. The foundation of financial success is understanding the 4 ways to control your expenses. There is only 4 ways to control your expenses; once you earn income:
1) You can spend it (Consume)
2) You can give it away (Charity)
3) You can save it (Collection)
4) You can invest it (Chance)
Before you can achieve any type of financial success you must understand this simple foundation. There are many different ways that you can practice control over these 4 expenses, but these are the only 4 items to control. “Analysis indicated that individuals with strong financial aspirations are socially inclined, confident, ambitious, politically conservative, traditional, conventional, and relatively less able academically, but not psychologically distressed” (Nickerson, 2007). When I started my financial adventure, I was very far from all of these qualities.
What’s Your Financial Adventure?
When I was 23 my adventure began. I was a number of negative qualities, but I was definitely broke, weak, and lacked confidence. I was working for a candy distributor in outside sales. My job was to open accounts for the company. I was relatively good at this, as I was the only one that worked for the company selling the product, besides the owner. This company was growing fast. Just about everywhere you went in St. Louis, MO you could find our candy. Gas stations, hospitals, corporate cafeterias, grocery stores etc... carried our product. Next, the Great Recession came. The candy company’s owner decided to sell to a competitor, and the new owners had no room for me. "Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion” (Gitomer, 2008).
I learned very early in my life that, “No matter what happens, I am responsible for my own success.” I did not blamed the owner who sold the company, or the competitor that bought us. This was their business not mine. I had no investments to live off of, no savings to draw from, no help, but I still had expenses.
Let me tell you from experience, having expenses with no income is very difficult. At this point I knew I needed income. What would you have tried to do at this point? “The process of moving towards one’s goals is probably more important to well-being than actual goal attainment; and setting realistic goals is more conducive to happiness than setting unrealistically high aspirations” (Swift, 2007). My solution was to go find another job. Jobs were tough to come by. I was very lucky I found a part time job selling suits for a clothing retailer. This was first real lesson at controlling my expenses. How do you live off of $8.00 per hour working 20 hours per week? I will tell you that when you are making $8.00 per hour it is pretty easy to figure out where all your money goes.
Where Does it All Go?
I have heard people say to me, “I don’t know where it all goes.” You don’t know where it all goes? Yes you are exactly the person I want running my company. If you don’t know where it all goes, maybe you are making too much money? “But far from being set in stone, this money blueprint can be reset, like adjusting a thermostat, to create natural and automatic success” (Eker, 2009). When I was making $8.00 per hour I could tell you exactly where every $.01 was. If I could make $160.00 per week it is pretty easy to get to $320 per week. All you have to do is get another part time job.
I just duplicated what I did to get the 1st part time job and got another job. If it is possible to double my income from $160 to $320 per week, is it possible to double my income again? I wondered about this question. At this point I was only juggling 2 part time jobs, my price was low at $8.00 per hour and I had time for 1 more, but that was it. One of the things I found to be very difficult was making it to work on time. These part time jobs required me to be to work at a specific times. Sometimes my work schedules conflicted and I had to constantly renegotiate my work schedules.
Here is my point, when I had 3 jobs I knew where every $0.01 went. In my future posts you will get more on the philosophy to double your income, and if you would like to know more about this you can email me your phone number at bush.nathan.nb@gmail.com.
You can clearly see that to double your financial success you must do the following 3 things:
1). Control your expenses
2). Change your personal philosophy
3). Know what questions to ask yourself
References
Eker, T. (2009). Take Control of Your Financial Destiny. International Professional Performance Magazine, 17(2), 21.
Gitomer, J. (2008). Business pioneer's wisdom can enhance your success. Journal Of Business (10756124), 23(16), B16.
Swift, K. (2007). Financial Success and the Good Life: What have We Learned from Empirical Studies in Psychology?. Journal Of Business Ethics, 75(2), 191-199. doi:10.1007/s10551-006-9246-7
Nickerson,
C., Schwarz, N., & Diener, E. (2007). Financial aspirations, financial success, and overall life satisfaction: who? and how?. Journal Of Happiness Studies, 8(4), 467-515. doi:10.1007/s10902-006-9026-1
