Your Flight Plan to Financial Independence

You don’t have to struggle between paychecks — this book makes finances simple.

Are you ready to make a change for the better, take control of your finances, and escape the strain of living paycheck to paycheck while balancing family life? Then you need to read Household Finance 101.

You can be debt free and financially independent — this book shows you the steps to take for a better life.

Written by a financial counselor who experienced economic hardship, this book offers real advice and tactics from someone who understands how stressful and difficult the money game can be. With a helpful, kind, encouraging tone, this book offers the advice you need to set your life on the right financial course; no matter how dismal things seem.

This four-module course will teach you:

  • To effectively save, manage, and invest money.
  • Steps you need to take for financial independence.
  • Mindsets and real-world strategies to increase your odds of success.
  • How to budget like a pro and create monthly surpluses.
  • Tips to boost your income and increase your wealth.
  • And so much more!

You owe it to yourself to take the first step toward financial freedom — this book teaches you everything you need to know. Take control of your life and buy your copy now!

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Excerpt from Household Finance 101 © Copyright 2023 Thomas Hoy-Nielsen

MONEY VERSUS WEALTH

A common misconception is that making a lot of money will make you wealthy. However, the world has seen its share of lotto millionaires, sports stars, and celebrities who never achieved wealth despite huge influxes of money. What’s going on? Remember the old saying:

It’s not how much you make, but how much you keep.

Let’s think of how much you make as money and how much you keep after all spending as surplus. Whether you make $500,000 and spend $500,000, or make $50,000 and spend $50,000, your surplus remains zero. It is very common that the more money we make, the more we spend — not because we can eat more steak, but because we take on larger debt obligations for the bigger house, the fancier car, and probably some expensive toys. This is also known as “lifestyle creep.” Going down this path won’t make us wealthy, but it will make us temporarily rich, stuck on the hedonic treadmill, until the earned income stops.

Having wealth is being rich in a sustained way, without relying on earned income.

Wealth is built on surpluses repeating over and over, often across many years, and invested along the way to harness the power of compounding. At some point, our invested surpluses turn into wealth. This is not a defined number, but rather the individual level we reach, when our wealth, in meaningful ways, begins to work for us, instead of us working for money. At that point, we hold true wealth.

DEBT

Debt is a subject we need to address from a psychological vantage point rather than just a negative balance or money owed.

Debt is an offer made to you in which your future earnings are pulled forward in time and made available for instant consumption. It is an incredibly alluring concept that speaks deeply to our past on the savanna, where a hungry forefather would relish the magic of getting the juicy antelope instantly served, skipping any further tiresome hunting.

From a different perspective, we can say that when acquiring debt, you are mortgaging part of your future to a third party. The cost for this service is interest and fees.

Mortgaging your future time is a very profitable business model. The product is compelling, but the offerings are not in your favor and are designed to keep you in the loop and coming back for more. This is especially true for consumer debts which are pushed by substantial marketing efforts. It is no wonder that debt has become such an accepted part of living when it really should be considered self-sabotage, by psychological standards.

Debt has several elements of evil:

It skews your natural defenses of price sensitivity and evaluation of need versus want by offering installments; that $30,000 car is just $525 per month.

It adds a layer of expense to everything it touches via the cost of interest; that $30,000 car is actually costing you $38,000, because of the added interest.

It grows because installments usually create more installments. Having a $525 monthly car payment confiscated from your paycheck means you have $525 less available in your budget, increasing the odds of more financing, and more interest.

It limits future possibilities, such as starting your own business, going back to school, investing in your family, being more generous, and yes, retiring much earlier.

Sure, debt can be used for good purposes like buying a home, starting a business, or getting an education. It can be a good tool, but when abused, will cause needless drag holding back your natural speed in life.

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