Financial Friday

Financial success means many things to many people. For some it is status, for others it means security, and for others it signifies power. For myself, none of these trapping hold sway with me.

For me and many others, financial success equals freedom. Freedom to give abundantly. Freedom to spend limitless time with family. Freedom to pursue dreams. Freedom is the destination, not wealth.

For me I take this mindset deeper. When confronted with ongoing expenses like high speed Internet, cell phones, cable, car payments, etc., I convert them into hours worked.

For instance, no too long ago I was making $15/hour. Once the greedy self serving politicians were through with it, I was left with about $12/hour. This means that cable currently running approximately $36/month would force me to work three hours to pay that off.

After that, I annualized it. So now I know that I need to work an extra 36 hours a year just to pay for cable. Taking it a step further, if I retire after 40 years in the work force, that means I had to work an extra 1440 hours to get to retirement just because I wanted cable. Further put, I tacked on an extra 8 months on my working life just to pay for cable.

Kind of sick isn't it. Wipe out your cable, wipe out your car payments, lower your Internet speed, and how much sooner could you be free of the job that enslaves you. The 8 months actually grows greater if you figure in the interest you could earn on these savings over your lifetime.

So freedom is our goal, the question is, how will we get there? Keep checking in and I will update you on my progress.