Monthly Archives: September 2012

Sep 26 2012

Change The Way You Think About Purchases, Quit Being A Slave To Your Possessions

Slave to MoneyLast week one of my friends was talking to me about her weekend filled with her perceived much needed bout of “retail therapy”.  She talked about all the new clothes and shoes, and even more clothes that she bought!  She upgraded her iPhone to the latest version and she even managed to go out to both lunch and dinner twice!

We both know what happened after.  I completely lost it!  “Are you nuts?!” I exclaimed, “I cannot believe my ears!”.  She smiled and retorted in sarcasm, “I know… I know… I went a little overboard, but I work hard so I deserve it!”.  Ironies abound, what she didn’t realize was she was about to start working even harder just to cover the costs of all of these material possessions.  Believe me, I was once in this trap for several years of my life… I know this situation all too well.

After some coaxing I convinced her to reveal the details of her purchases over the weekend so that I can create a case study to present back to her (I got her permission to post it to my blog as well).  I just couldn’t take it that she was about to set herself up for decades of suffering and I had to at least try to pull her out of the trap of first-world slavery (self-inflicted by the lust for unnecessary physical possessions).

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Sep 24 2012

Want to Achieve Financial Freedom? Stop Spending So Damn Much!

Saving moneyOver the past several months I’ve had dozens of discussions with family, friends and colleagues surrounding various topics related to investing in order to achieve financial freedom.  These discussions have blurred a number of different topics – What are the best investments?  What exactly is financial freedom?  How do I approach an opportunity?  How do I get over my fears?  And the list goes on.

Today I’d like to cover one of the most important topics to achieving financial freedom.  This topic in particular revealed both significant discomfort and resistance from the majority of my colleagues during our conversations – saving for financial freedom!

Saving for financial freedom isn’t a new concept.  It’s not even a complicated one, it’s simple, spend less than you earn and save the rest; optimally save as much as you can.  After all, if you aren’t capable of saving, you won’t have very much money to invest towards achieving your financial freedom!  Ironically, in almost every instance where the topic was brought up, the reactionary comment was something along the lines of “I can’t save any more money; I’m already barely getting by!”

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