Who Else Wants to Be a Millionaire?

What are your priorities? What do you want to do? Is financial freedom important to you? Financial freedom is doing the things you want to do when you want to do them. When you have financial freedom, you are not worrying about money because you have money coming in from various sources and you are paying things off.

If you want to make more money, you also need to save money and build a residual income stream. I'm a firm believer in building residual income in order to build true wealth. All of these ideas are great, but it’s a choice that’s up to you. Let’s take a look at how you can get started.

Have A Plan
Assess your current financial situation. How much money do you need to make a month? What debts do you have? You need to get organized in order to get away from borrowing money.
Borrowing money isn't necessarily a bad thing. It’s borrowing it without a solid plan that’s bad. Most people charge things that don't really bring them what they want. We are not prioritizing. In our society we say "I want, I want, I want" and we go out and get it, but it doesn't make us happy. Before you can go after anything, it’s critical to put a plan together. You need to be clear about what it is that you really want. Remember that your money is like your army of soldiers. You send them out to win for you and bring things back. Are you sending out your soldiers for the right reasons? Understand your priorities and then begin executing your plan.

Eliminate Debt
Something you should really work on is getting rid of your debt. One strategy that works is Dave Ramsay's Debt Snowball Strategy. There are five steps. Put your debt in order from lowest to highest balance. Designate a certain amount of money to pay toward those debts each month. Pay the minimum payment on all of your debts except the one with the lowest balance. Put the most money toward that debt with the lowest balance. Once that debt is gone, you’ll feel the momentum. Keep going. Do not alter the monthly payment amount on the other balances and keep using the same strategy. Move on to the next lowest balance and continue to pay the most money towards that. Paying the lowest balance debt as quickly as possible gives you quick wins. It works, and it will help you get out of debt.

Invest in Yourself
Ramsay also discusses having a $1,000 emergency fund and making sure you keep it separate from your other finances. It's critical that you spend less money than you make. You have to find other ways to earn more money. In the corporate world you can trade dollars for hours, and there's nothing wrong with that. I suggest that you also put on your entrepreneur hat and investigate ways to build residual streams of income and invest in that. The way to reach financial freedom is to invest in business models that are going to generate revenue so that you can walk away and still have money coming in. Investing in real estate follows this idea. Although the current market is not that great, there are some good buys out there if you put the time in to find them.

There are a million ways to make a million dollars and a million ways to get financial freedom. But the key is to do it your way. You have to come up with and then execute your game plan. I don't know your particular situation, and debt is normally not a good thing. But, there's a caveat there. It can work for you if you know how to manipulate it and work with it.

Do What You Love
You can build a business on the side of your current job to create more income. I call this intelligent life design. You can take whatever you are passionate about and turn it into a business. True financial freedom to me is doing what you love and the money is coming in. It's a double benefit. You will never retire because you are doing what makes you happy. I’ve taken “retire” out of my vocabulary because as long as I'm alive I'm going to be doing this. Every single day I am investing in me.

Every situation is unique, but we all need the same foundation of understanding. Knowing our budget and understanding where our money is going. Keeping a spending log and using some software to help control where we are going let’s us make good decisions. There are so many solutions out there. Money is energy and you have to respect it. When you are clear about what you are doing and where you are going, you’ll be able to put money away. Having this awareness sometimes means cutting out the extra things.

Start thinking about your financial situation, the tools you use, and ways that you can be financially free. Decide what's important to you. What do you want to have? What are you going to go after? And take action.