Archive for May, 2007

May 7th, 2007

The Top 5 Ways To Appreciate Life More

Everybody goes through a period of time in their life in which they think they’re worthless, their life is horrible, and nothing will ever go their way. For some people they might experience this for days or weeks, others for just a few moments.

The majority of people really don’t think about exactly how lucky they are to be alive. We wonder through life with a thick cloud of fog covering our eyes, going through the motions of life day in and day out.

On your quest for finding the perfect life, happiness should be one of your top priorities. Learning to appreciate life is a very big aspect of that. You can be a happy person but until you take the time to appreciate the life you have, you will never reach your highest potential of happiness.

There are many ways in realizing that you have a great life, but below I will outline what I think are the 5 easiest and simplest ways of realizing this important truth.

The Top 5 Ways To Appreciate Your Life More

  1. Things can always get better – You may be having a rough time in your life right now, but you need to sit down and think about the fact that you’ve had many other amazing times in your life. Whether you’re poor, unhealthy, just lost a job, or lost your spirituality and connection with God, things can always get better. The goal of this website is just that – improving your life to the point where it’s your dream life. No matter where your life stands – there is always a way to make it much better.
  2. Get a pet – In my opinion, pets are one of the best forms of healing therapy available. Have you ever noticed that when you’re upset or sick, your pet seems to notice and acts more loving towards you? Having a pet can get you through some very rough times because no matter what, they’re always there for you. Dogs are called “a mans best friend” for a reason. Having a pet is like having a permanent emotional support system on call. By having a pet you can appreciate the fact that you have support no matter what you did or what happened to you.
  3. Watch or play with a baby – When you look at a baby, especially one that’s laughing or smiling, you can’t help but feel happy. There’s something about the innocence of a baby that sends a vibrant positive energy throughout the entire room. If you learn a little about the process of having a baby, you will be amazed at what a miracle it is to have a baby, and yet it’s done so frequently.
  4. Look at the stars – If you really feel that you don’t appreciate your life and need to get a deeper understanding of it, just go into the country somewhere and gaze at the stars. When you look up and see the thousands of twinkling stars, you begin to ponder philosophical questions about your life, how amazing it is that the stars can be billions and trillions of light years away and yet you can see them, and what kind of magnificent energy it takes to create something like the universe we live in. Make it a priority to get into the country and do some star gazing every once in awhile. If you’re lucky like me and live in the country already, do it every time you’re outside at night. It will put you in a blissful state.
  5. Watch a bug – If all else fails, just watch a bug for a minute or 2. Yes that’s right, I want you to go outside and watch a bug for a minute. This may sound ridiculously strange, but think about it. If you need to do this you’re probably in a state where you don’t fully appreciate the life you have. Well, would you like to be the tiny little bug you’re staring at? They don’t experience the joy you can experience, they don’t experience a sense of accomplishment, love, well-being, or the ability to directly enhance their lives. They live for one thing – to make children. Even if that doesn’t show you how great of a life you have, you’ll probably start laughing when you realize that you’re staring at a bug in the ground.

In the next few days, make sure you spend a few minutes out of your day to realize how great your life really is. By utilizing my top 5 ways of appreciating your life better, you will be a much happier person and appreciate your life in so many more ways.

Your perfect life awaits,

Jeremy


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May 5th, 2007

Financial Independence Series #4 – How To Get Started

Now that you’ve learned about what financial independence actually is, why you need to achieve it, and how to track it, you are probably wondering how you can actually get started. This is the concluding article to our 4 part series of financial independence.

Taking 1 Step Can Make You Financially Independent

In order to begin your road to financial independence, you first need to get started by actually doing something. It doesn’t matter if it’s a great investment, something that hardly gives you any monthly return, or if it turns out to be a flop. By getting started it’s like standing on top of the mountain and letting the snowball start to roll down for the first time.

Here are a few suggestions on how to get started:

  1. Real Estate – Real estate is one of the most stable and lucrative investment opportunities in the world. It has made more people wealthy than any other investment. All you need is a little knowledge, a few bucks in the bank (or none if you have a lot of knowledge), and some determination to get started.
  2. Build a Business – Whether you would like to run an online or offline business, it doesn’t matter. Just get something started that only takes up a few hours of your time each week so it doesn’t interfere with your current job. As it grows and exceeds your job income, you can replace the job with your business.
  3. Start an Information Website – This is possibly one of the best things you can possibly do. It doesn’t take very much money to get started and you can start today. When I started my first website, www.crazyfortea.com, I was a total beginner with absolutely no website experience. However, the company I went through eliminated all my fears and now I’m making a substantial income.The company I went through is Site Build It (Click On That Link For A Brief Tour Of How It Works). They provide every resource you can possibly need to build a money-making website. If you can type in English, you can own a website! The best part is, it’s almost unbelievable how cheap it is to get started. After only about 6 months of having the website online, I can now pay off the yearly fee in 1 month’s income. That means 11 months of free income for me for writing about something I love!If you have any kind of passion or hobby, I strongly suggest you try out Site Build It to start your quest towards financial independence.
  4. Invest In Stocks/Forex – Although investing in something like a mutual fund won’t give you a great monthly income, it’s still better than nothing. I personally invest in higher risk/higher rewards and have a trading adviser who takes his cut at the end of each month. I just started it this week so I won’t give a recommendation, but if you sign up for the RSS Feed or put your e-mail address in at the top of the page you can find out whether this trading adviser is worth the money.
  5. Invest In Other People – If you have a lot of money and don’t know where to put it, consider being someone who invests in others. For example, if I wanted to borrow $100,000 for a real estate transaction but didn’t want to go through a bank, I could get it from what are called “hard-money lenders”. These people lend their money out at high interest rates (generally 10-20%) and the other investor pays them that money back. If they default on the loans, you would pick up the property they owned in most cases (consult your attorney on how to properly set this up) – so it’s a win-win either way!
  6. Prosper - www.prosper.com is an online community in which you lend people other money, very similar to the example above. However, this is done through the Prosper company and it involves you loaning other people money for things they need, such as money to pay off loans, adding additions on to their houses, etc. I suggest only investing in those who are in groups because if the person defaults, the group will pay your loan back to you. I don’t believe this happens if they aren’t in a group.
  7. Invest In Yourself - Although it might not seem like it, investing in yourself can be one of the smartest things you’ll ever do. If you are still stuck in the mindset of “saving is the best thing to do” I recommend you read the books by Robert Kiyosaki. You can also read books or listen to audiotapes on real estate, trading stocks or Forex, or any other investing opportunity which will increase your likelihood of achieving financial independence.

Investing in any of those 7 examples is a great way to amplify the money you currently own. If you have a high risk tolerance, you might be better off investing in only 1 or 2 which can bring higher returns. If you don’t like risk, don’t feel as if you’re cheating yourself by diversifying – at least you’re doing something!

As I mentioned earlier, I personally believe starting a website is one of the easiest and best ways to start gaining passive monthly income. It takes some hard work, but the faster you grow your site the easier the work will get because of the amazing magic of momentum. To see why Site Build It is so amazing, go to this link – www.quicktour.sitesell.com

No matter what your preferences are, the important thing is that you start today.

Your perfect life awaits,

Jeremy

Read The Rest Of The Series:

Series #1 – What Is Financial Independence?

Series #2 – Why You Need To Be Financially Independent

Series #3 – Tracking Financial Independence


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May 1st, 2007

How To Track Your Financial Independence: Series #3

After reading my first post and second post on the basics of financial independence and why you need to achieve it, you should have a good grasp on the concept.

You’ve probably realized that becoming financially independent is something that needs to be a necessity in your life, and hopefully you’ve already started to take action in achieving it!

In this post I’m going to be talking about how to track your financial independence so you can keep focused and work on improving your status every single month.

Tracking Your Financial Independence

Without keeping track of your expenses, income, and passive income, you are going to have a very hard time keeping focused and improving your wealth each month.

Here are 2 different suggestions that you might try to keep track of your financial independence:

1) Go to www.richdad.com and look around for the “cashflow 101 game sheets”. They are made for the game but are perfect for a beginner in keeping track of expenses and income.

I’ve been using these since I started my road to financial independence, and they are a great motivator. I simply put my name at the top, and the previous month (for example, today I just filled out exactly what happened in April).

You can put down what you’re making at your job each month, how much passive income (if any) you currently receive, and what’s in your bank account, stock account, mutual fund, CD’s, etc.

You also fill in all your monthly expenses, including things like credit cards, mortgage payments, what you spend on your children, car payment, school loan, etc.

Then you add everything together and subtract your expenses from your total income to see how much monthly cashflow you have. However don’t mistake monthly cashflow with passive income, because it’s not the same thing.

Becoming financially independent means that your passive income is higher than expenses, not that your monthly cashflow is higher than expenses.

For a beginner this is a great exercise to do each month, but I would recommend doing it with an excel spreadsheet, which is described below.

2. You can also do this using an excel sheet if you don’t feel like spending $10 or so for the cashflow sheets.

Open up a spreadsheet and put the current month in bold letters at the top.

Make 3 different columns – Expenses, Income, and Passive Income.

Then simply go down the rows and list each expense and how much it’s costing you each month.

Do the same for income and how much it’s bringing in each month.

Then again the same for passive income.

At the bottom add up your income and passive income and subtract it from your expenses to see how you stand financially.

You can also divide your passive income by your expenses to see exactly how far along you are. For example, my passive income for last month ended up being $345, and my expenses were $655. Therefore last month I ended up being 52.6% financially independent.

Comparing that to March, my passive income was $286 and my expenses were $706. By reviewing my expenses and figuring out ways to cut them down, I ended up reducing them by $51 per month. Last month I was only 40.5% financially independent so I made major progress in the month of April.

No matter which method you use, please make sure you start today. It’s the first of the month so it’s a perfect time, no excuses. By reviewing your financial status each day and thinking creatively on how to reduce your expenses or increase your passive income, you will gain momentum very quickly in becoming financially independent.

If you have any questions on how to set up an excel sheet, feel free to make a comment and ask. Sometimes they’re a little tricky to figure out so you might need some help.

Your perfect life awaits,

Jeremy

The Rest Of This Series 


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