If you’re reading this, you’re probably better off than the vast majority of people in the world.  It means you have your own computer or smart phone, or at least access to one for use.  About half of the people in the world have smartphones now, and computers much less so.  So there you go, already ahead of half the people on the planet.

In Mexico, where I live, 30% of people make $30,000 MXP or more per month.  That’s about $1700 USD or an annual income of a little over $20,000 USD.  And, given the cost of living in Mexico, that’s a good wage.  Not great, but good.  But 70% of people make less than that.  Some families earn more like $2,500 MXP ($140 USD) per month or even less.

Continue reading “Get Rich by Feeling Rich: Focus on What You Have” →

I’d like to take a moment to talk about carpe diem.  About seizing the day.  About being ready when you get your shot.  This is one of the reasons that you’re starting to plan and, more importantly, implement your early retirement goals.

To be clear, the kind of wealth we’re working towards is the kind that we nurture for the long run.  Not the kind where we place it all on often mis-guided bets and live by the whim of the stock price, hoping to get more wealthy than we would ever need to be while risking it all without any sense of guiding principles to fall back on.

But that said, even our long-term approach requires taking what feels like a bit of a ‘leap of faith’ here and there.  The difference is, when we do our homework and live by our well-founded principles, what may seem like a ‘leap of faith’ from the outside often seems to be just the logical next step to us.  We find this when we hold the unfounded fear up against our principles and see it for what it is, and then we act as we have been preparing for.

Continue reading “On Opportunity” →

Duh.

If you ever think or say to yourself anything like “I’m bored.  I think I’ll go to (INSERT STORE NAME CONTAINING MANY THINGS YOU DON’T NEED),” STOP!!!  This is one of the first things to get under control if you want to start moving towards your financial freedom.  And if you do this, don’t feel bad, almost everyone does.  But everyone else works most of their lives too don’t they?

If you will allow me to describe how my last couple of days played out and how I achieved some of the home improvement goals I wanted to achieve while saving money, even though overall I still spent.

Continue reading “How to Save: Don’t Go Shopping” →

I used to smoke.  Like a chimney.  In the grand scheme, it wasn’t for long, maybe 7 years, but there’s no question I was hooked hard.  When you’re amongst it, it’s hard to even imagine a life without it.

And when I finally quit, it was through words rather than prescriptions or substitutes.  Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking reverse-brainwashed me to rethink how I thought about smoking, and quitting smoking.  One of the main premises of the short book is debunking the myth that our collective cultural consciousness promotes, that smoking is enjoyable and that once hooked, those who quit will feel that sense of deprivation forever.  And many do, which is why it is so hard to quit so often.

But Carr suggests that if we see through what is largely a giant marketing campaign, and get real about smoking, we see that by quitting we will gain two of the most important things, health and wealth (which I take to mean financial independence, not an unnecessarily large net worth).  Once you make that switch in a real and meaningful way in your mind, it’s all gravy.  It becomes a game, and once there is a glimmer that the game is winnable, well.  #winning

Continue reading “Think in Gains” →