Tag Archives: becoming financially independent

Are You Trying to Become Financially Independent?

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Can you honestly say that you are trying to become financially independent?

I wasted a lot of the earlier stages in my life watching way too many TV shows, which provided no value whatsoever.  I watch a lot of the TV shows at the time so I could relate with my classmates and other so it would enable me to fit in when others talked about such shows, and because I believed this is what everybody else was doing.  Now I realize what a horrible waste of time TV was!

Ten years out from whatever shows you might be watching today will no longer be relevant, and no longer talked about, and besides who wants to talk about shows from ten years ago anyway?

Another way that I wasted time was believing that only the rich can build wealth or you have to get lucky to become rich.  This was a huge mistake.  How can you expect to become financially independent if you don’t believe that you can become rich, and you don’t try?

So after wasting time watching TV and finally believing, these past ten years I’m finally created and started following a path to become financially independent.  While still considered poor by the very rich (read uncomfortably poor), for me it’s a stage that I believe I can accomplish in the next eight years if I keep my eye on the goal…

Some sacrifice is required with my plan (especially during the first few years), but now I’m on my way and each year I’m able to loosen the purse strings and spend money on things that would increase my enjoyment in life.

More to come,

MR

 

P.S. I’m currently in my third year, and we’re on vacation for spring break.  This is something new for us and in past years we would do something local to save money.  From this year going forward, I’m planning for such a vacation to continue to be in our plans going forward (barring some unforeseen financial crisis).

 

Alternative Plans For Financial Independence

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Is My Financial Independence Plan Flawed?

With respect to Financial Independence, I now realize that previously, I’ve put my entire financial independence strategy in just one well known plan.

My “Financial Independence Plan A” is pretty much your standard run-of-the-mill savings by frugal means and invest that savings like a fiend.  To be honest, so far Plan A is working for me, I’m doing about as well as can be expected in this economic environment.  While I’m not a millionaire yet, I’m on my way to achieving a net worth of a million in the next eight years following this path (fingers crossed).

But, what if something happens? What if Unemployment keeps rising and I get laid off? 

Getting laid off would severely affect my current employer paying income stream, and would be a serious blow to my investment strategy since eating and feeding my family would get in the way of investing (my family members are so inconsiderate that way, lol).

What if I get Madoffed?  Then I find myself much older and less inclined to want (or even able) to work as diligently?  Is having only one plan analogous to having all your eggs in one basket?

Alternative Plans for Financial Independence

I’m now pursuing at least two other paths for Financial Independence!

Financial Independence Plan B – “Side Job Income“:  Find a job (or create one via entrepreneurship) that in five years should pay at least a quarter of your current “primary job” salary earnings (or self-employed income).  Then take the entire income stream (minus taxes) and invest it in dividend stocks or decent bonds (perhaps municipal bonds – do this when and if the bond market comes back) with a decent yield that are still safe.

The advantages of Financial Independence Plan B are as follows:

  • In combination with Plan A, you should be able to save twice as much as you do if you are just using a Plan A.  This is a great accelerator to achieving Financial Independence!
  • The dividend stream should be invested back into your dividend investments, but alternatively (if you are willing to sacrifice slower growth), you can use a portion of that dividend stream for rewards such as vacations and other family/personal fun activities.  The family/personal fun activities provided by a dividend stream is the route that I am following as seen in the following articles:
  • If something happens to my primary job, I have this one to serve as a backup.  This second income source, dividend streams and the fact that I’m totally totally debt free means that I can get by without any real hardships.  However, my lifestyle (and especially my kids) would definitely have a dip in enjoyment since I would have to forgo vacations and they kids would have to stop playing sports and other fun and educational activities!

The primary disadvantage of Plan B is time.  You will have less time to spend watching TV, being with family, and leisure in general.

Financial Independence Plan C – “Being Smart about spending and saving money” – This is about getting the best deal on a product without doing something foolish like driving wasting gas money, while trying to save a dollar.  And about detecting and taking advantages of income making opportunities instead of giving away time, your work, and stuff away for free.  I will have a more detailed post about this in the future.

Both of my Plans B and C are evolving, so in the future, I’ll expand on each!

Do you have 2 or 3 alternative plans on becoming financially independent?  The beauty of such plans is that as long as they aren’t too expensive, anything goes since they aren’t necessary for you or your family’s livelihood.

Have a great weekend!

MR

What Skills Are Keeping You From Becoming Financially Independent?

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I have a strong sense of logic.  I like to crunch numbers and playing mind and logic games. I consider this a great skill, but logic/analytical skills in themselves won’t help me to become financially independent!

Having Great Ideas that Didn’t Take

I come up with what I consider great ideas, but I don’t communicate those ideas very well.  Often, I’ll bring an idea up to a manager or friend and they won’t get it, then later someone else will think of my idea but they are able to create some buzz around it, thus enabling the newly re-discovered idea to be applauded and implemented (and yes, I hate that this happens to me).

So based on a long history of these kind of experiences, I’ve come to the conclusion that my weakness is my communication and marketing skills.  Since I now know the enemy, I decided to use blogging as the weapon of choice for combating my weakness. In fact, trying to defeat this weakness is my third main reason that I blog, and blog often.  My 1st and 2nd reasons are to play with the technology and to help others recognize a path for a middle-income member (like myself) to become financially independent.

Why I Blog Almost Every Day

Since I’ve uncovered my weakness through analyzing my past, The simplest and most entertaining way to combat my communication weakness is by blogging.

After almost two years of blogging, I’ve notice that my communication and marketing skills have increased in the following ways:

  • I think of words faster during a conversation with others.  I use to stumble for the correct words when speaking to other, but now those words just slip off of my tongue like a bicycle slipping on ice.
  • Both my email and IM communications are easier and more clear for the recipients to read.
  • I have confidence in my words.  I’m a blogger and this is now what I do, so words and I are finally friends.
  • I’ve learned to think outside of the box.  New ideas come to me all the time at work.
  • I believe that in some ways I’ve become smarter, and think that writing has kept me sharper than if I didn’t write.

With My New Skill, Will I Become Financially Independent?

With my new skills, I find it easier to talk to strangers.  Talking to others creates and enables opportunities that would not exist for you if were just kept to yourself.  So just in this small side effect from blogging, my odds of financial independence has greatly increased.

Since I have increased my weaknesses, now I can focus on my strengths while maintaining my new skills.  I’m hoping that with my strengths and enhanced weaknesses, I’m a more marketable individual.

Getting Help if You Have Weaknesses

What if you are the opposite of me?  Let’s say you have great communication skills, but horrible math/logical/analytical skills?  What can you do?

First, starting with the basics, try learning your skill weakness again.  Sometimes when you are younger, too many other distractions exist to focus on something that requires a lot of focus (like math, logic, etc).  You may find that you now have the patience and attitude for learning in your area of weakness.

Second, if find that you still don’t like your area of weakness, bring in others!  Friends, family, paid contractors… whatever it takes!  Keep an open mind during your encounters with your weaknesses can go a long way to fix those problems!

Readers, do you have any weaknesses that you care to share?

Thanks for helping me on my path to become financial independent.

MR