I am sharing these personal finance guidelines for anyone who wants to achieve financial freedom. Of course, everyone wants to have financial freedom…but wanting it is not always enough. You also have to be willing to do the work and (more importantly) to learn what is really going to produce results. These strategies for increasing personal wealth and financial freedom will help you to learn what works, and doing the work is up to you.
The First Step to Financial Freedom: Powerspending of Money
The first of the personal finance guidelines is to spend money for value. This is the practice of “Powerspending” and it is one of the most commonly neglected strategies for personal wealth. Start by keeping track of all your financial transactions by writing them down. Then, go through the list every week and ask yourself: “Am I spending money in a way that adds value to my life or to someone else’s?” Things which add value to other people’s lives are: paying interest on loans, spending money on things that do not add economic value to your life and which you do not really need and “bandit costs” such as late fees, overdraft fees, penalties, and so on.
The Second Step to Financial Freedom: Powerspending of Time
Powerspending of time is using your time to do things which will add economic value to your life instead of things which simply waste time. Donald Trump talks about this in his book on building wealth. He talks about the difference between the working class and the wealthy. The wealthy value their time and they commit spending their time creating and working plans and strategies for increasing personal wealth. Meanwhile, broke people are more likely to do things like spend three hours a day watching TV or an hour arguing with the phone company over a $10 charge on their bill.
Start keeping track of how you are spending your time and ask yourself: “Am I spending my time on things which will help me add value to my life or not?” Most likely, you already know the answer…but it is important to be honest in order to motivate yourself to change.
The Third Step to Financial Freedom: Powerspending of Your Talents
Powerspending of talent is using your talents in a way that they add value to your life instead of to someone else’s. Brian Tracy said that every person has at least one idea a year that would make them a millionaire if they just acted on it. In the same way, all of us possess talents which could bring us a lot more wealth than we realize. The problem is that we spend too much of our time investing this talent working for someone else so that they can profit from our talent….and they are. In fact, they are generating more profit from our talent or else they would not be able to afford to pay us.
So take inventory of your spending when it comes to money, time and talent and begin focusing on Powerspending those resources towards building your own financial freedom.
