assets

Become The Wealthy You! – OFFENSE

/ Tmill / Leave a comment

Taxes and profits; crime and losses.

Taxes, profits, crime and losses are all generated by people, it is something that is produced when decisions are made.  And not all can happen at once.  Taxes are paid out of profits and not losses.  If a company has a loss in earnings in any given year, the IRS will not be expecting taxes to be paid by the company.  But once losses are eliminated in its entirety, and more money flows into the coffers than there is money leaving the coffers, then profits are being earned.  And if profits are being earned, by anyone like giant corporations and small pa-and-ma shops, then the IRS will be expecting taxes to be paid.  But paying taxes is good because it indicates profits.  Profits are gains between the amount spent to produce something and the amount earned from the final production.  When profits are being earned, we all benefit because products and services are created that you and I can use to our advantage and consume.  Jobs are being created to help produce the product and service to earn the profit.  And taxes are being paid to the government to help fund government expenditures and services for the people who need it.  All these benefits have the potential to disappear if profits disappear.  The opposite of profits are losses.  No one likes to lose.  From professional athletes all the way to your bank account and everything in between, losses are generally frowned upon and is sought to be diminished.  As soon as losses start to become obvious, crime isn’t too far behind.  Crime is a form of loss and usually people and society don’t benefit from crime.  No one is living a better life because someone committed a crime.  Stealing bread to feed yourself is one thing, but to outright steal to enrich oneself at the expense of innocent people and to do this when starvation isn’t a concern benefits no one.  Taxes aren’t being paid because a crime happened.  The victim experiences a loss and consumes even more resources trying to recover from the loss.  And the thief or the criminal can’t use or consume the things they stole because it was an illegitimate gain and the moment a thief starts to consume what they stole, it will become obvious that they stole it because someone will recognize what they have truly belongs to someone else.  All illegitimate gains tend to fall into disarray before it is completely lost, which means the asset will end up being destroyed.  The thief will also miss out on the good feeling of working hard towards something that may be of interest and achieving it after years of hard work (success is working towards a worthy goal and achievement.  Criminal activity avoids and neutralizes that).  And that is just it, success is making the decision to works towards something that is worthy to work towards every day.  What is your decision?  Taxes and profits or crime and losses?

If your decision is profits, then taxes will always be associated with the profits you earn.  With sound financial decision making and planning following Become The Wealthy You! – DEFENSE, you should be seeing profits more often than losses.  It takes work, energy and thought power every day, but it is something you get to do every day and not just for a short period of time.  Becoming The Wealthy You! – OFFENSE is about producing more.  So if your decision is profits, then learning how to increase your profits on a regular basis is a skill you will have to get intimate with. 

A person can only produce so much with their own two hands and the time they have in the day.  For a person to increase their production, they must reach out for help to help them produce more.  Another way to put it is to hire employees.  Some people call it delegating responsibilities to other people (the higher the responsibility, the higher the pay), but it is still hiring employees.  It can also include hiring third-party contractors to help as well.  Having employees will help increase your production once fully trained and established, but each employee represents one job that was created to help you.  There are governments at all levels that release or announce tax incentives to attract job-creators to their community.  Questions have been raised about the true effectiveness of these tax incentives (some will say that all they do is move jobs around the country versus creating brand-new, additional jobs), but they could be opportunities for you to take advantage of.  And the more jobs that you can create the greater those rewards.  The opposite of tax incentives released by governments is entrepreneurship and that is where Becoming The Wealthy You! – OFFENSE lives.  According to a study by the University of Maryland, based on statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau, business startups account for approximately 20 percent of total U.S. job creation, while businesses that experience high-growth generate almost half of total U.S. job creation. These businesses tend to be small and young, classifying them as small businesses. Most new jobs are created by companies, firms and other institutions that are 10-years old or younger and not the generational firms that are over 100 years old.  Those jobs have already been created and are already occupied by existing employees.  When an old company moves their factory from one state to another because of tax incentives, then these jobs are just moved instead of new additional jobs being created (the people may not always move, but the jobs do).  Entrepreneurship is “the activity of setting up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the grand hope of profit.”  If you pick profit, it will be your responsibility to figure out how to produce, hire employees, distribute your product or service and to ensure the business entity runs efficiently and financially smart.  When you hire employees for a brand-new business or firm to help produce, your profits can increase, but you also create jobs in your community and each job will provide an income to the people who have assumed that responsibility with the corresponding earned income taxes being paid to the government from each job’s paycheck, increasing the amount of taxes being paid by your production.  Taxes are paid each time an employee receives their paycheck (from you but paid via their production as an employee) and paid on the profits earned by your production and business (busyness) on an annual basis. 

Economic doom and gloom can be diminished greatly too.  If your community, or the nation as a whole, is experiencing a period in which employment opportunities are limited and lacking, then become the solution to those problems.  Be the person that attempts to create jobs for your community instead of looking for a job for yourself.  If you create jobs for your community and people are able to take care of themselves and their families because of the jobs you have created, then you will be taking care of yourself and your family too (it is the positive side of karma).  It happens because of your decision and desire to earn profits and not losses.

Click to access jep_dhjm.pdf

Become The Wealthy You!

The Wealthy You! – OFFENSE; It is all a personal decision. Everything. Including what you do with your time, what your income is and how much you want to be worth; this is net value. It is your decision to bring that to reality every day. Not tomorrow.

/ Tmill / 1 Comment

One’s personal life is a library of one’s personal decisions. Your life is molded and created by you every time a decision is made. Did you decide your line of work or labor? Or did you accept the first job offer? Did you select the amount that you receive from your wage or paycheck from your job? Or was the first offer accepted? What about the city and neighborhood you live in? What about the use of your time? Are you enjoying and receiving fulfillment from the current use of your time every day? All these questions should be answered and determined by you. Not a boss or a parent or a friend or a teacher, but you. This also includes your net-worth or net-value. There is value attached to everything in our world. Even trash on our streets have value, people will hold up used cardboard to ask for money and food, while others may peruse through trash looking for something of value. In Oregon, aluminum cans and plastic bottles can be redeemed for $.10 each. Public trash cans and dumpsters seems to always have a person in it looking for cans and bottles. These people have chosen to be amongst the least-valuable people in society, they demonstrate this everyday by looking for used drinking receptacles and using trash to ask you for your money. The Wealthy You! is you selecting to be amongst the most-valuable people in society. You will peruse through the smartest of minds from people that you meet in your life. You will be looking for gold (or your version of gold) while others look through trash. You will be collecting assets of value that appeal to you; real estate, gold, silver, stocks, bonds, businesses, literally whatever you decide. But it is your decision.

Why is this appealing? Because it is the epitome of private property. Aristotle acknowledged thousands of years ago a very basic principle that applies to all human life in all countries; “true happiness is impossible without the use of private property”. The real estate, gold, silver, stocks, bonds, businesses, artwork, and anything else of value needs to be owned by someone, otherwise they will all fall into disarray or the government will come to own it for us. The purpose of ownership is to take on the responsibility of that asset. Someone who owns a billion dollar business(s) (Musk) has taken on the responsibility of that business producing its product for society and doing it in a financially smart way. Farmers own their farmland so that they can produce their crop for people near and far. Farmland that is unowned has weeds in it and is unproductive. Businesses that don’t produce a product for society won’t exist for long. This is private from the government. Government doesn’t own the farm lands and the businesses, or even the national infrastructure. Businesses own this property and the private citizen owns the businesses (government does own AMTRAK, some land and some artwork in Washington D.C.) but the vast majority of all drivers of wealth are owned by the people. Besides someone has to own these assets and wealth has proven to be superior to poverty for a person’s life.

People are hired to do all kinds of jobs and in satisfactory completion of the job, people will receive a paycheck and some benefits or bonuses. Some people prove they don’t want to keep that job by calling in sick on a regular basis, being consistently tardy, asking coworkers to trade posts, sections or responsibilities or just plain not showing up for work. We have all worked with people who act this way and they are usually the main producers of these issues in your line of work. What they are really saying is they don’t want to keep the job. What if God hired you to do a specific job or play a certain role here on Earth? Are you going to call in sick frequently or complete the job satisfactorily? All these are your decisions to make every day of your life. Your life and world is created by your tongue and built by your hands.

Next on The Wealthy You! – OFFENSE; View yourself as one of the most valuable things to exist in society; you are more valuable than diamond rings, million dollar sports cars and billion dollar sports franchises. Besides, someone has to own all those assets, why not you.

Become The Wealthy You!

The Wealthy You! – OFFENSE; New ideas, thoughts, dreams and new or different ways of doing things will fill your mind while pursuing your self-interests.

/ Tmill / Leave a comment

The pursuit of self-interests is what motivates people. Generally speaking, people will do whatever interests them in life. Why do people do it? Because it is interesting. That is why it is pursued. The pursuit is what drives you, like the hunter pursuits the hunted. There are reasons why it is pursued, and we are all motivated for different reasons to pursue it. Bottom-line is though, that it is being pursued whenever time is committed to the pursuit. And the pursuit is worthy to pursuit because time is being committed and invested into the pursuit; might as well make it a daily pursuit. Because, why not? It’s interesting and it’ll be fun, not to mention the exercise your mind and brain will receive during the pursuit.

This is called The Wealthy You, wealth being abundance of resources. The Wealthy You is asking you to pursuit your own self-interests, abundantly. That is The Wealthy You!, the abundance pursuit of your interests. This abundant pursuit will lead to all kinds of new ideas and thoughts or new ways of making or delivering your interest. And we all benefit from this. Your family, friends, neighbors, church’s, communities, society and everyone else you care about. All the development mankind has seen and developed has come from men and women pursuing their own self-interests. And we have all benefited from it too. What else are you going to do in life? Life can’t be purchased in a store; but money can be (credit cards, loans). Time can’t be purchased in a store; but money can be (mortgages, other financial products). What is the value of your self-interests? What is the worth of your life? How much would you buy your time for if you saw it for sale at the store? This is a uniquely human trait, no other animal or living creature has the ability to pursue self-interests as deeply, creatively, and widely as human beings. Humans have the incredible ability to create their own life in their own image, literally down to the smallest detail. That is your option and the abundant pursuit of your own self-interests will help you build your life in your own image. And you have been given a lot more that 7 days to do such things as well.

One warning: odds are that you won’t always find the self-interests that motivate you to pursuit from a regular paycheck and job. It is impossible to find more of your time for sale on the shelf in literally all of the stores you visit on a regular basis in your community. Knowing this, how much would you be willing to pay for another decade of your time if you did find a decade of your time for sale at the local Time Store? The realization might give you a bloody nose when you think about how much you have been selling your time on an hourly basis to your employer for a paycheck compared to how much you may be willing to pay to buy another decade of your time at your local Time Store (especially as you get older). The people that pursue self-interests and share them with the world, literally as many people as possible, are the people who aren’t employed and they don’t become dependent upon a regular paycheck. Money is the most abundant resource in the Universe and there is nothing that can replace it and its role in society. It is a resource that should be as abundant as possible, so that you and I and everyone else can get what we want and need when we want and need it regardless of where we are physically located. Money is a means of exchange. Money is only backed by “The Full Faith and Credit of the U.S. Government” if you keep money liquid in the bank. If you abundantly pursue self-interests every day and put money that you get from customers into a business system that allows you to continue pursuing self-interests, then you will have money backed up by a business entity (an appreciating store of value) that you use to pursuit your self-interests and share them with the world. Your business will become an identifying part of you that people will interact with every day to purchase your interest that you share with the world. You will have customers every day and people consuming your interest and products throughout the world instead of a paycheck every two weeks.

Doing absolutely nothing for no one is lame and should be avoided. No one gets paid, compensated or has a product to use in these nothingness situations.

Next on The Wealthy You! – OFFENSE; Putting those ideas, thoughts, dreams and new or different ways of doing things in place i.e. trying them out or stress testing, is the road to production. Lots of your ideas, thoughts, dreams, and new or different ways of doing things will fail, so enjoy the process in abundance. You will need the abundance.

Become The Wealthy You!

The Wealthy You! – DEFENSE. Acquisition of defensive-minded assets.

/ Tmill / Leave a comment

This week on The Wealthy You!; Acquisition of defensive-minded assets.

Generally speaking in the world of financial literacy, there is a concept of assets and liabilities. Assets are things that puts money in your pocket or bank account and liabilities are things that take money out of your pocket or bank account. Both are very important and both are needed in ones life. However, acquiring too many liabilities can risk putting poverty in your life. And having just assets with no or little liabilities can lower ones quality of life as well. For example, a household of four, husband and wife with two kids. The husband and wife both work and bring an income for the household, so they become assets for the household. With that income they pay the mortgage and the other bills, buy food and purchase all the things their children would need for school and other pursuits. The money begins to disappear as soon as they earn it. The things that make your money disappear are liabilities, but it isn’t a waste of money because you get something in exchange for it (money is a medium of exchange). Think about heat in the winter, AC in the summer, transportation to get to work, school, the store and anywhere else you want to go. Vacations. Entertainment. They all take money out of your bank account, that is what liabilities do, but you get to enjoy life. All of that would be impossible though without you first becoming a valuable asset for your household. The purpose of this post is to talk about defensive-minded assets.

Defensive-minded assets will help protect your household from your money being eroded by inflation and by getting you in the habit of paying yourself first before you pay your other bills, at least 10%. Defense means using the income you get from a single job to become wealthier and more valuable (Offense will be going from a single income from a job to building and owning your own billion dollar business). This means paying on a mortgage and owning a home versus paying rent for an apartment. After 20 years of paying a mortgage, you get some money back when you sell. Renting the same place for 20 years will get you nothing when the lease ends and you move out. Not even a security deposit, typically. Wealth is about the ownership of assets, when you rent you own nothing. Renting has a purpose for transient folks who plan on moving about every 1-3 or 4 years. Home ownership is more of a long-term play and strategy.

For those who do rent an apartment, the purchase of stocks, bonds, gold and other assets that appreciate over time can be more appropriate. Stocks tend to rise when interest rates are low. As interest rates rise, stocks tend to not rise as much. Interest rates are raised to help fight inflation. The higher inflation goes, the higher the interest rates will need to be. U.S. Treasuries (bonds) are viewed as some of the safest assets in the world. When there is a crisis somewhere in the world or an economic crash of some sorts, people flock to U.S. Treasuries. They are notoriously stable, with minimal wild swings in its price. Purchasing U.S. Treasuries alone, as a way to pay you first with every paycheck, can be a decent strategy for The Wealthy You!-DEFENSE. They also pay a dividend each month, the more bonds you own the higher the dividend. Stocks can be similar, but tends to lean more towards The Wealthy You!-Offense, they follow a completely different road. Speak with a financial advisor to learn more.

Gold and real estate are other defensive-minded assets. There is a website called www.jmbullion.com, where you can purchase gold, silver, platinum and other types of metals. You can get coins and bars from around the world, gold notes, and jewelry. There are gold currency notes that contain 1/1000th to 1/20th Troy oz of pure gold that start at about $3.50 and goes to about $175. And they have 1 oz gold bars that are $2,000. The price of gold is always changing, which means the price of their gold is always changing. Check often and maybe you might find something interesting. Purchasing gold jewelry from a local jewelry store is another way of acquiring gold. Owning real estate instead of paying rent is another strategy of The Wealthy You!-DEFENSE. A portion of each payment you make goes to your house, which you own. That doesn’t happen with renting.

Having your own place to live and rest your head each night, purchasing bonds or U.S. Treasuries, and purchasing gold and other metals, combined with each of your paychecks will help protect your money and wealth from inflation. Getting in the habit of doing this before starting your The Wealthy You!-OFFENSE will allow you to collect billions of dollars’ worth of gold, bonds, stocks, and real estate once your offense does begin.

Next week on The Wealthy You!; making or not making decisions.

Become The Wealthy You!

The Wealthy You! – DEFENSE

/ Tmill / Leave a comment

This week on The Wealthy You; making it a habit.

Make what a habit? The things that you want to keep in your life, every day. Make a habit of kissing your spouse every day; make a habit of cleaning yourself and the parts of the world you occupy every day; make winning and building wealth a habit. Habits are something you practice or carryout every day and that is hard to give up. This can also include negative or bad habits such as smoking, drinking too much alcohol, driving faster than necessary, reacting emotionally or something else that you have identified as a potential bad habit in your own life. Habits can be a driving force in your life, they help build your daily life and routine and will also make people associate you with your certain habits, whether those are good or bad habits.

I personally had the habit of smoking cigarettes every day, about a pack a day. I smoked so frequently during the day that when I was around my co-workers they all knew that they risk smoking more than they usually do during the day because cigarettes are social and I was such a heavy smoker. I maintained that habit for about 9 years. Until I figured out how to break that bad habit, cigarettes controlled my life, the place I would spend my time, the amount of money I had to spend just to keep them around me, the scent of my clothes and car and my breath. It was a habit that I generally considered to be a bad habit that controlled my life. That is a common example of bad habits. But good and productive habits can be formed in your life too.

An example of a good habit can be winning. Have you ever noticed that people who win tend to continue winning at life. You can’t win everything all the time in life, but these winners go from endeavor to endeavor and keep winning like it is a part of their life and that it is hard to give up. They don’t know what losing is because they keep winning. They ingrain it into their life from a very young age, that is when their winning ways begins. And starting at a young age means starting small too. The first wins they experience in life are easy wins; wins that are easy to achieve, accomplish and accumulate. And with each win the next challenge becomes more challenging and more challenging, then over the course of as little as 5 years, wins start to become obvious and a routine, habitual part of your life. Imagine 50+ years of winning in your lifetime. This can include building wealth, a billion-dollar business, maybe multiple billion-dollar businesses (if you spend your life building a system that provides a product or service to as many people as possible and this has in-turn made you a billionaire whom owns a business that is worth billions, makes you a winner. When this happens, then you are sharing it with the world and you will have made winning an habitual process that you exercise every day.) Elon Musk owns Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, and possibly others, these are his products that he works on every day in which he intends to share with the world and he hires others to help him share those things with the world (he is just one example but similar examples exist everywhere). If he didn’t want to share Tesla cars with the world then he wouldn’t be selling them to the public at large.

Becoming The Wealthy You! and winning will become much easier once you establish them as habits that you practice every day. On the defensive side of building The Wealthy You! means getting into the habit of paying yourself first and foremost with every dollar that you are able to put your hands on. The absolute minimum is 10% of your income should be paid to yourself first. Because without you, absolutely nothing will ever get done in your life. Another way of saying this is, you are your greatest asset in life. Assets are things you want to acquire in becoming The Wealthy You! and to continue to feed and add too. Getting in the habit of doing this everyday will also help make winning a habit in your life. Even if you have just one source of income from a job that you go to everyday, get in the habit of paying yourself 10% first before your other bills.

Get in the habit of paying yourself first. Get in the habit of building The Wealthy You!. Get in the habit of winning. And get in the habit of collecting assets, wealth and value. Every day. You may discover that it could be one of the most entertaining and enjoyable things you do in life. And you get to do it every day, unlike vacations which always end after a short period of time.

Next week on The Wealthy You!; the importance of emergency cash.

Become The Wealthy You!

The Wealthy You! – DEFENSE

/ Tmill / Leave a comment

This week on The Wealthy You; being a collector of wealth, but not all the money you earn is yours.

Despite having an income that is 100%, that is you take home every dollar that is owed to you from your work, not all the money you earn will be yours to keep. Because you have a house or apartment that you pay a mortgage or rent to live in, the mortgage lender or your landlord will be having conversations with you if you don’t pay them. Same thing for transportation costs, and car loans.  They expect to be paid for giving you their service and that is when your income starts to be divided, paying your bills for those companies service (money is a means of exchange). We all want to live in a structure to be protected from the elements and have a place to eat and sleep every day. We want lights and heat in the winter and cool air in the summer. We want entertainment. We want and need all kinds of things for us to not suffer in life. We afford these things by going to work or a job and providing a product or service for people who could benefit from those products or services. We are rewarded by our customers when they make a purchase.  In a simple example; customers purchase a product or service from you or the company you work for, this puts money in your hands and pockets or the company you work for hands and pockets (then you get paid), then you collect for yourself first from that money that the customers paid you, then the rest of that money goes to paying your bills. The rest of that money is the money that is earned by you but isn’t yours. The money that you keep for yourself or pay yourself first and foremost is the money that is yours to keep forever. The rest will go to paying your bills so that you do have a place to live, sleep and eat every day and anything else you want to exchange the rest of your money in for.

Paying yourself first is the most important thing you will do financially in your life. You are your most important bill and your greatest asset. Without you, nothing in your life will ever get done. Reward yourself first for the things you do get done in life. Then use the rest of what you earn for your lifestyle. The greater your service is to society (provide them with something that is useful and beneficial), the larger your financial rewards will be. And the greater your financial rewards are, the more you should be paying yourself.

What could help is viewing yourself as a collector of wealth and value. Collectors, by their inherent nature, do not get rid of the things they collect.  They usually put it on display and put a tremendous amount of time, energy and work to making it look nice and keeping it nice.  Whether it is done for the public to view or just their family and friends to look at is a mute-point.  The point is they acquire what is collected and keep it from being eroded, lost, stolen or taken away in some form.  You can do the same thing with money, wealth and value.  Don’t save money; collect money and wealth.  Put your name on it and take ownership of it and collect it throughout your entire life.  Saving money sounds boring, but collecting wealth is exciting and fun and is something you can do literally every day of your life. 

Next week; make it a habit.

Become The Wealthy You!

The Wealthy You! – DEFENSE

/ Tmill / Leave a comment

The concept behind defense, in regards to financial literacy, is instead of preventing the other team from getting more points on your basket or goal, but to KEEP what you earn. Your opponent is previous versions of yourself. Can you earn more while keeping what you earn? Let’s start with income.

We all do different things for income, but we all have income. It is in different amounts based on what you do with your time. Financial literacy is the same for everyone regardless if you are an individual, household, small business or a giant corporation, and where you live. Your income should match or exceed the cost-of-living expenses for where you live. Generally speaking, the more specialized your labor is, and your ability to do things few other people can do, your income will be higher. Likewise, if you are being paid to do something that is easy to train the vast majority of people to do, your income will be on the lower side.

If you spend 20 years going to school to become a neurosurgeon, learning everything there is to know about the human brain and how to perform lifesaving surgery for patients will pay you magnitudes more than learning how to be a janitor or a taxicab driver. It takes mere hours to learn the ropes of being a janitor or a taxicab driver, but it literally takes years to become a neurosurgeon.

As you start to earn more money, your expenses typically follows. A bigger paycheck will lead to a bigger house and maybe house payment, a bigger car and car payment, maybe additional cars. The house will have to be filled up with things so it isn’t empty, and the cars will need to be driven (why pay for something if you aren’t going to use it?) No point in purchasing more cars just to have them collect dust in your garage and only be driven once a year. But you’re still paying for it being there every month.

That isn’t keeping your income. That is giving it to others in exchange for their product, service or thing. That is the exchanging part of money. What is being alluded to here is the collection of your money, by you, so that you can keep some of all the money that flows through your hands throughout your life. This is usually achieved by managing your income on a percentage basis. Of course your house or rent payment will be a set amount, your car payments will be a set amount and everything else you purchase will be a set amount, but the amount you pay yourself will be set by a percentage. In a perfect world, the steps taken should look like this:

  • Income received (whatever you set your income at).
  • Pay yourself first and foremost at least 10% (regardless of your other bills, you as an individual is your most important bill to pay. Pay yourself first). This money can be deposited into any account that you like. One with a higher interest rate or an account that allows you to invest it and put it to work for you 24/7 is the ideal type of account (Robinhood, Acorns, Stash, high-yield savings).
  • After paying yourself at least 10% (nothing wrong with a higher percentage, 10% should be the minimum). Fund any kind of retirement accounts that you are maintaining and funding yourself, such as IRA’s and small business retirement benefits. 401K’s are funded by your employer and the money never sees your personal checking account, the money goes straight into your 401K that is being maintained by your employer and whatever financial services company they are working with. Since this is money that you don’t put your hands on until retirement, it shouldn’t be included in your budget for your regular take-home pay. Take advantage of all the 401K benefits your employer offers, because it is additional pay and value that you get to take ownership of once you hit retirement age years. This is one part building wealth and keeping it, the defense. Acquiring additional money to work for you in addition to your regular income.
  • Structure the size of your bills that will best allow you to pay yourself first. Meaning, don’t not pay yourself first because you have a massive house payment to pay or car payment obligation. If you find yourself in that situation, then a reduction in bills or an upgrade in your income is needed to right the ship and get back to building A Wealthy You.
  • A generic structure that has been useful is;
  • Income
  • Pay yourself 10%
  • Fund retirements. The rest is treated as 100% of a pie is left. No one has eaten from it yet.
  • 30-40% housing expenses (mortgage payment, insurance, anything associated with your home).
  • 10-20% transportation expenses (debt payment, insurance, oil, car repairs and maintenance).
  • 10% utilities (gas, electricity, internet).
  • 30-40% for food and groceries.
  • 0-10% for wants, luxuries and giving’s
  • 0-10% for credit card and debt expenses (not house or car payment).

These are all ranges those respective expenses should be in relation to your income. I realize it doesn’t exactly add up to 100% in this example, but your income is 100% and those percentages offer a window or wiggle room for you to adjust to your income. Maybe you live in an expensive city and your rent or mortgage is higher, but you can afford this by dropping transportation costs by not having your own car and just using public transportation. No car payments, insurance, gas, and maintenance gives your house fund a bigger percentage of your income. Same thing with food, do you eat a lot or eat out a lot? Do you eat just the right amount but eat whatever you can grow and spend very little money at grocery stores? Those are different shaped windows for structuring the size of your bills.

The main theme I am trying to nail home here is to PAY YOURSELF FIRST before you pay others so that you can KEEP what you earn your entire working life. This is the DEFENSE of Becoming The Wealthy You.

Next week, it is irrelevant how much you earn.

Become The Wealthy You

The Wealthy Bonsai!

/ Tmill / Leave a comment

One goal I aim to achieve with this blog is to talk about wealth and what it truly is. Why would it be desirable for someone? How is it attained? What is the point of wealth? What is the alternative? And, are wealth and money the same thing? I am trying to have my readers adopt an abundant mindset that they can apply in their lives how they see fit.

Merriam-Webster defines wealth as; the abundance of valuable material possessions or resources. And money is defined as; something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment. Money and wealth are not the exact same thing. Money is a financial resource that can be used to build wealth, as is a collection of land, businesses, cars and other show vehicles, and…bonsai trees. If you are going to start collecting something, might as well collect it in abundance, and surely these possessions are of value to you as an individual who is collecting those things. So, wealth is just an abundance of things that you enjoy in your life, if you find something that you enjoy, surround yourself with that. It can bring an infinite number of smiles to your face everyday.

So why would wealth be desirable for someone? Outside of the abundance of valuable possessions or resources it can bring someone, someone must first have the desire to have that wealth. It doesn’t come from the natural world, it is a product of man, coming from their mind. Man, using the best thinker in the universe, our brain, must come up with our own unique and individual way to build wealth. This has the tendency of developing unique and raw talents that is different from person to person that society is willing to pay for. LeBron James might just be putting a ball in a basket, but there are millions of people across the world who are willing to trade in their money just to watch LeBron put that ball in the basket every other night during the season. All those people trading in their money to watch his talent adds up to millions of dollars each year. They do it because LeBron puts the ball in the basket in a way that is different from everybody else that came before him. This is emulated by different athletes and other successful individuals in their respective line of work. Wealth is also about not having to be dependent upon one source of income in your life. If, for whatever reason, you have one income and it ends for some unseen event, you run the risk of starving and going homeless. But if you use your time to acquire as many sources of income as possible, then the loss of one source of income is far less detrimental financially. It is also about putting financial resources to work for you, in addition to whatever income you may have from a job or work. LeBron works for his contract in the NBA but has sponsorship deals with numerous other companies that use his likeness and he gets compensated for it because there are people out there who want his products. That is financial resources working for him that comes into him on a passive basis. His NBA contract is his active income he works for everyday.

For example, I collect trees. And since trees are easier to move around when they are kept small and in pots, I keep my trees in pots; bonsai trees. My collection is fairly small and young right now, but all wealth starts off small and young in life. Then it grows into giant, wealthy trees, literally everyday. Same way that wealth grows, everyday. As my collection starts to age and mature and my collection itself grows numerous in size, I have distant plans to start a sort of bonsai nursery/museum. And I’ve daydreamed about having a wine tasting service at the nursery/museum. You can taste world-class wines while viewing The Wealthy Bonsai trees. And learn how to have wealth for you and your family.

The point of wealth is more viewed as an award for your work, after your work is done. That is why there is more wealth in older people than younger people, typically. Like receiving a paycheck after the desired work has been done, wealth is received after desired goods, products, service or entertainment has been delivered or produced. LeBron started getting paid AFTER he started putting the ball in the basket NOT BEFORE putting the ball in the basket. The more goods, products, service or entertainment that you can produce and share with as many people as possible around the world is wealth. You doing your thing in abundance for as many people as possible, so then there are as many people as possible trading in their money for your thing. But only after you start doing your thing. The alternative to wealth; you not doing your thing and not sharing it for you, your family, or anyone else in the world and not having anyone trade in their money for your thing. That is called poverty, it is a lack of resources and it will make you piss, shit and starve in the streets. That is why wealth is desirable for you as an individual. And not poverty.