Wealth Well Done

Today, I am thrilled to cross another huge writing goal off my list by guest posting on: Financial Samurai. So here’s the article I wrote for Sam at Financial Samurai: DON’T EVER GIVE UP: The night before, my attorney had braced me with the reality that the negotiations with the district attorney had not gone well, and that the state was going to be recommending 20 years of incarceration. That night the harsh reality of being sentenced to 10 years in prison settled in my mind like slow mental torture.

If you know the exact items you need when you walk into a store, and how much money you need to buy them, you’re much less likely to be distracted and tempted to buy shiny things when you see them advertised on sale. You need money to buy the resources you need to live, which is why it’s always smarter to save your money, rather than spend it on a bunch of junk that doesn’t help your mission to survive in any way. Nobody wants to go into bad-debt, like credit-card debt, when they walk into a store. Take a month-or-more break from credit card usage, because you can’t make online purchases without credit cards.

I told the kids that the secret to achieving your dreams, is to make decisions that will lead you to freedom, and not get you trapped inside physical, mental, and emotional cages, such as: Too many people in the world get stuck inside self-esteem prisons because someone lied to them in their life. If you can avoid the prisons trying to incarcerate your soul, then you will be free to achieve the dreams that you were created to live. The wealthiest person in the world is the person who has the ability, time, money, energy, and freedom, to go on an adventure in life and achieve their dreams no matter how big, crazy, or wild they are. Take everything you’ve learned from steps 1-3, and all the money you’ve saved in step 4, and the only thing left is for you to travel fearlessly into the world to attack and achieve your dreams.

And I worked hard keeping the invoices going out, and the rent checks coming in at my 2 main businesses (promotional sales, and real-estate) so I could keep the cash coming in while I was out having fun in the sun. it wasn’t fun writing the $20,000 check to buy the car with cash. So I was pretty happy I was able to buy the car with cash, and still have 95% of our net-worth invested into assets,  Assets are what make you rich. I’ll have a new net-worth update up soon, and I want to share the lessons I learned buying my newer car for $2,500 below its blue book valuation.