earn – Financial Freedom Blueprint

How to be Indispensable in Your Role

There’s a popular saying, “It’s tough to find good help.” The reason people use that phrase so often is that it’s so true.

The irony is that being “good help” is fairly simple. The bar is set rather low.

Show up. Come to work everyday. Come on time. Be present physically and mentally. That’s huge…because most people aren’t fully present.

Work hard. Just do your best each day. Don’t phone it in. Don’t watch the clock. Be proactive and productive. Find ways to help beyond your job description.

Think. Don’t mindlessly go through your checklist. Always be thinking of better ways to do things. Don’t wait for your supervisor to show you how to do each step. If you aren’t sure about something or need to learn something new…Google it!!! There is a massive amount knowledge available for free on the world wide web. Use it! Your boss will think you’re a genius. At the very least she’ll be impressed by your initiative. Like I said, the bar is set LOW.

The cool thing about being indispensable is that your value goes up. You will learn a lot that makes you more valuable in any job. But specifically to your current organization if you continue to grow, learn and take on new roles your value swells.

You may need to point these facts out to your supervisor. Often, especially in small organizations, your boss is so busy she’s not thinking about whether you are earning as much as you should. One way to grow your pay is negotiate a percentage commission or bonus based on output. Try to tie your pay to a scalable component. In other words, you want a percent of sales that you can ramp up. Leverage by using systems, subcontractors or internet.

Of course it’s possible that you show up, work hard and think for yourself without getting a raise. If you do these things for six months to a year and your current employer doesn’t agree that your value has risen, find a new employer or strike out on your own. Your skills, work ethic and value will transfer with you.

Daily Motivation (How to Fight the Funk)

How easy is it to get sucked into the daily grind? The chores of life. A job we’re not looking forward to. Meeting with people we don’t want to meet with. Going through the motions without any emotion.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I really have to fight off the funk.

And sometimes I don’t win that fight.

When I do win, it’s usually because I’ve got these things going on:

+ Something to look forward to. A goal. A trip. A reward. I listed this first because it’s huge for me. If I can get to the next event, I’ll generally be okay.

The event can be a personal thing (concert, date, vacation) or a business trip, seminar or trade show.

Sometimes having a goal to shoot for is enough to get me excited. Pulling the focus off the grind that I’m working through and looking toward the goal that I hope to accomplish often reorients me in a good way.

I don’t use the reward option much, but I know a lot of people find setting a reward for themselves when they push through the tough part of a job and accomplish a goal to be very motivational.

+ Read. I have a lot of go to books that I find super useful depending on what I’m stuck on: Steve Chandler, Jack Canfield, Steven Pressfield, Shawn Doyle.

+ Eat right and exercise. We know some foods give us more energy. Why are other foods so good?! If you have an office job, you know how easy it is to slip into bad habits of inactivity. Of course I need to unwind with a bag of chips and my favorite tv show after a tough day at the office, right?

+ Pray, meditate, gratitude. Spend time counting blessings anytime you feel the funk coming on. Of course, it’d be even better if you practice gratitude every day. Prayer and meditation are also useful tools to work on daily. Now if only I can keep my thoughts at bay long enough to pray and meditate consistently.

+ Investing in myself. Truly the greatest investment in the world!

+ Positive, inspiring, sometimes funny things in front of me. Inspiring pictures, infographics on social media, daily emails or blogs. Darren Hardy has a great daily email. A few years ago after Becky watched Nate Berkus explain on TV we went through and updated our surroundings. See the note I wrote about that here. Don’t keep anything around that doesn’t inspire you!

Bec prints motivational quotes and posts on a ribbon next to our bathroom mirror.

What keeps you going when the funk comes after you?

How to Get Out of Debt

The Brand New 1999 supercharged Buick Regal GS we just had to have.

The formula for getting out of debt is a slight variation on the formula that I shared yesterday. Check it out if you haven’t seen it…

3 Simple Rules of Money

Getting out of debt is also a simple formula. It can be fun if you decide to make paying your debts off as fast as possible a game.

Earn money. The first step of pretty much every financial goal. A key ingredient is money and I recommend earning it rather than stealing it or waiting to inherit or hoping to win the lottery.

If you want to pay off your debts faster, pick up a second source of income. A part-time job, freelance gig, etc.

Save more of what you earn. Another way to pay your debt down faster is to find ways to spend less of your earnings each month. Check out your local thrift shops. Eat leftovers instead of going out to eat so often. Use coupons at the grocery store.

One other area to save that can be a biggie is the interest on each loan. Often you can negotiate the interest rate lower if you call and ask for the supervisor.

Grow the payments. Here’s where the game gets fun.

Take as much money as you can live without each month and use it to put an extra amount on the highest interest loan you have. Let’s say you have the following loans:

$5,000 @ 12% interest, $100 pmt
$2,000 @ 8% interest, $40 pmt
$7,500 @ 18% interest, $150 pmt

In this example you would pay extra money on the $7,500 loan each month. If you can earn and save an extra $750 per month and apply to the $7,500 loan, you’ll have it paid off in less than 10 months.

Now take that $750 extra per month, plus $150 (the regular payment you were making on the $7,500 loan) and put that $900 against the $5,000 loan each month. You’ll be free of that loan within five months.

Now take the $900 plus the $100 and apply against the $2,000 loan. All paid off in another couple months.

This example will change according to how much money you can generate from earning and saving each month, but now you know the rules of the game.

There is one advanced strategy that I hesitate to talk about because it is misused so often. If you promise to use it responsibly, I’ll let you in on a tactic that I used to get out of my debts quicker.

If you have decent credit, you can often get teaser rates on new credit cards. Teaser rates range from 0% to 5%. Even 10% can be a good deal if you’re paying over 20% currently.

Sign up for the new card with the teaser rate, then transfer your existing high interest debt to these cards to take advantage of the teaser rates while you’re attacking the debt.

Now here’s why this is an advanced strategy that can bite you if you are not EXTREMELY careful:

Watch the transfer fees. Sometimes the new credit card company will charge a fee to transfer the balance. This fee can be more than you would pay in interest. Factor the fee into the monthly interest over the time you expect to pay it off. Is the rate still lower than you’re currently paying?

If you make a late payment, the credit card company will jack your rate up to an astronomical rate (20%+) instantly. Set up payment via electronic transfer from your bank and watch it closely each month.

Also teaser rates are only low for a limited time. After that time, the rate will JUMP. Be careful to pay off the card before the jump or transfer it to another card with teaser rate.

Human nature is often how you got into debt to begin with. It’s tempting to slip into bad habits when you use one card to pay off another. All of a sudden you have an empty credit card…so many things you could buy. =)

These are all strategies my wife and I used to get out of debt over the years. I seem to learn everything the hard way. I’ve tried out all sorts of debt…college debt, auto loans, consumer debt, credit card debt, business loans, family loans. I love the feeling of having none of that now. We are now down to a small mortgage and no other loans.

Do you have any debt stories? How about freedom stories of getting out from under the debt?

3 Simple Rules of Money

It is important to understand the basics of money if you wish to gain financial freedom.

Unfortunately, this isn’t taught in schools. Most parents don’t understand finance well enough to teach kids. And so the cycle of poor money habits continues.

The good news is that getting financial freedom truly is simple. I didn’t say easy.

We all know physical fitness has a couple basics…eat right and exercise. Simple, but not always easy.

The basic rules for money accumulation are as follows:

Earn it.
Save it.
Grow it.

Told you they were simple steps. Follow these and you’ll find financial freedom.

Earn it.

Obviously we can’t have financial freedom without any finances. First step in getting some money is earning it. The more you earn, the faster you can reach financial freedom.

We live in a time when there are thousands of ways to earn money. Here are a few… a traditional job, freelance graphic design, your own photography business, selling stuff on ebay, mowing lawns or doing chores for your parents.

Save it.

It’s not enough to earn lots of money. Many people earn millions of dollars and still don’t have financial freedom. The problem is they spend more than they earn.

The second part of the formula is to save the money you earned. At least some of it. 10% is a number that is often used as a baseline that you should save out of your earnings. The more you save, the faster you can reach financial freedom.

I can hear you saying you can’t possibly save 10% of your paycheck. I hear you saying your bills are already more than you make. I didn’t say it’d be easy. I’m only telling you what the formula is.

You can try another formula…winning the lottery, finding a rich uncle or marrying into money. I wouldn’t count on those methods though.

The hard truth about the simple formula is that you only have a couple options…earn more and/or spend less. Earn more by finding additional clients, picking up a second job, getting into direct marketing, negotiating a raise at your job or any number of moonlighting options. AND/OR spend less by clipping coupons, canceling cable tv or eating out less so you can begin saving at least a couple percent each month.

This sounds more dramatic and difficult than it actually is. Try it for a couple months and see if you don’t feel more confident…on your way to financial freedom!

Grow it.

Okay, this is where it gets fun. Earning and saving can be tough work. As you learn to grow your money though you’ll be excited at how your money can multiply.

The way to grow your money is to invest it. Carefully!

Take your time and really learn the areas you choose to invest in. Each possibility has unique opportunities as well as potential pitfalls. Look at your personality and timeframe to see whether investing in stocks, bonds, real estate, a friend’s business or your own business make sense for safely growing your money.

Remember: Warren Buffett, one of the richest people in the world, has two rules regarding investing:

Never lose money.
Refer to rule number 1.

Seriously, you worked hard to earn that money. Treat it right. Don’t be careless in your investing choices. I have literally spent hundreds thousands of hard earned dollars to learn (and keep learning) that lesson. I’ll share some of those sad stories in future blogposts.

The cool thing about this little formula is that it consistently works for both personal finance and business.

Leave a comment below to let me know how you apply this simple formula to your personal finances or business.