Money scares people… Knowledge terrifies them.

It’s Your Life Take Control of It

 

 

YOU HAVE BEEN SOLD A LIE!!! I am going to give you two pills, one red and one blue. Oh wait a minute! That was a plot to a movie (The Matrix)… that wasn’t real… or was it? You have been brainwashed every since you were old enough for school that you NEED to live in debt. Even though the capitalist society is built on this concept, not everyone should adhere to it. So, you can take the red pill, wake up to see the truth or take the blue pill, go back to sleep as if nothing has happened and keep living in debt. So, what are you going to do? I will assume that you want to take the red pill and then do something about this situation since you are still reading this book. You are my Neo and I am your Morpheus. So, we will start with your awakening and training. Taking control of your life is only something you can do only if you believe you can.

 

      Consider this, one percent of the population of the United States of America controls the other 99 percent. Is it a coincidence that the one percent I am talking about is filthy stinking rich? I think not. That one percent owns just about everything (or at least controls it) and wants you to work hard to make more money for them.

 

      Our public school system is in such disarray and it doesn’t have to be that way. Remember Lotto and what it was supposed to be used for? Yes, schools and education (they hoped you would forget). To this day, the schools and education system may not have seen any of that money. For if that money was used for its intended purpose all our schools would be new (or at least newly renovated) and each student would have the proper books and materials that they needed for a proper education. Here is something I would bet you never though of, why are our children taught to go out and get a job, go into debt and not how to manage money? Not one school in the United States teaches our children how to manage the money that they are supposed to go out to make. I know in school, I was never taught how to balance a checkbook. Hmmm… sounds like that one percent at work again.

 

In the current events of the world, the stock market is tumbling, corporate investment companies and banks are on the verge of going bankrupt from bad management, stealing the clients money and bad investments, so what does the government do? It spends millions of dollars a day on wars with other countries, 700 billion dollars for corporate bail out programs, which the corporations being bailed out, immediately start to waste and pilfer that money. It spends none of that money on the people who were actually affected by these bad companies but seeming rewards these same companies for bad behavior. Now imagine if a fraction of that money were spent on educating its citizens. Each school bound citizen could have college educations that would be fully paid for and we would have teachers and schools that are held accountable. But you can’t have smart intelligent citizens now can you? They might want to share the power, so it is more beneficial to keep them dumb. It is far easier to control dumb people than smart ones. Fear works very easily on the dumb ones; the smart ones can see and work around such illusion, but I digress…

 

      There is an old saying that states “You will never get rich working for someone else”. It’s basically true. Think about this, your employer will only pay you enough to keep you working for them.

     Is this an accident? No, for if you were paid enough to not have to work for them you would probably not come to work anymore. So, if an employer wants you to continue to work several things need to be in place.

 

You are not paid enough to stop working (or even work less).

 

You are encouraged to live beyond your means so that you have to continue to work (debt).

 

You are discouraged from being an employer yourself.

 

I want you to understand and to be aware. More importantly I want you to think about the things you do and why you do them. Are you doing things out of need, greed or just to impress someone you don’t even care about? Or worse, someone you don’t even know! There are big differences in what you want and what you need, most people can’t tell the difference or don’t care what the differences are.

 

If you are in the latter part, you can stop reading now. Otherwise I will explain further. What you need may be the following:

1.   Transportation.

2.   Place to live.

3.   Food to eat.

4.   Ability to make money for all the above.

What you want can be an extensive list, but is an extension of the given list, such as

1.   Transportation – Moped or Bentley.

2.   Place to Live – Decent clean living quarters or a big mansion.

3.   Food to eat – Obtain/grow it yourself, Supermarkets or Restaurants.

4.   Ability to make money for all the above – job, career, investments or business.

Your transportation can be any number of different vehicles from a Moped to a Bentley. The trick to this is not so much as how much you make, but how much of what you make you get to keep and what your goals and desires are. Meaning that if what you need is a dependable vehicle to get to work then the Moped (a need) will do providing you live a short distance from work and the weather is decent. You can then save and invest your money so that you may be able to purchase the Bentley later (a want).

Now we need to determine some simple facts about you. Are you ok with waiting until you can afford the item you want? Or do you need to impress the Joneses? I know that I don’t need to impress anyone. Either you are impressed by who I am or you are not. I won’t work to get your attention. The only people that I really care what they think about me are my immediate family members. If you don’t help pay my bills or help take care of my family why should I care what you think? Especially, if I am not doing anything that would harm anyone. But that’s just me.

The reason I went through the trouble of mentioning this is that people get too caught up in what others thinks of them in the financial arena and will go into debt big time to make people think something that is not really true about them. What I mean is; I have seen people go out and buy a 40-50 thousand dollar car and have no money in the bank. All to impress friends and people they don’t even know! They are living from paycheck to paycheck and all to pay 600-700 dollars a month for a car they really don’t need, when a used or low priced car would do just fine for now. Think about this… If a person brought a used car for $2,000 dollars and put 2-3 thousand dollars of work into the car to make it run well, they could put the money away that they would have been using to pay for the new car, and in five years (the same time it would take to pay off the loan) they could have enough money to outright purchase the vehicle they wanted, if the money were invested properly.

 

Patience is the key; (well, a little intelligence would help too). Let’s do the math. $600 dollars x 60 months is $36,000 plus the 8.5 percent interest $3,060 totals $39,060 for the five years. Let’s say you spent $5,000 on a used car and put the remainder of the money away without the interest. Let’s make this total not $600 a month but $400 a month (use the remaining $200/month for gas, fun or whatever). You would have $4,800 in your bank account at the end of the year. Hmmm… 4,800 x 5 years = $24,000 plus $1,080 in interest at 4.5 percent is $25,080. Now that’s in a savings account. You could invest in stocks or possibly real estate for better returns. Don’t get into Mutual Funds; I believe these are the biggest rip-offs in the stock market. I say this for the following reasons; if you ever ask an investment broker to explain what makes the fund go up or down, you will get so much double talk your head will spin. If you want your head to just come off and roll across the floor just ask what their fee will be. They will side-step this question like a seasoned Matador at a bull fight. Mutual funds are a fund comprised of different stocks so it impossible for you to tell exactly where you stand, you have to count on what they tell you it’s worth and with all the associated hidden fees, the 8 percent you thought you would make will be eaten by your broker with front loaded or back loaded fees totaling a minimum of about 5 percent. Now according to my math that leaves only 3 percent gain if any (if you are really lucky), not the 8 percent they sold you on. I am being generous here in this example for the 5 percent would be on your initial investment (front loaded) and/or the initial investment plus the profit (back loaded) and other fees such as management and annual operation fees. With single stocks, if you own a company’s stock you have a better chance of telling what’s going to affect it and you don’t need to worry about all those associated fees.

 

But let’s get back to the numbers for now. At the end of 5 years you could have a set amount of $25,080 with 4.5 percent interest or you could possibly have 2–3 times that amount with the proper investments or you can have nothing in the bank because you have just paid off your 5 year old car. Nothing is guaranteed, and if you do nothing… Nothing is your guarantee. If a return of 2–3 times the amount you have invested seems like fiction, I assure you it is not. I have had some investments return 1,100 times my investment in less than a year. Sure there are risks involved and risks are not for everyone, but think of it this way. If you don’t risk getting that new job with a pay increase, your pay will remain the same. Your lifestyle will remain the same or get worse for inflation waits for no one and bills only increase in prices and in greater quantities. If you don’t risk starting your own business or making smart investments you will work for someone else your whole life. This is good for some, for businesses need people to come to work everyday and do the routine work. Some say that that is not so bad because they are working to get their pension (that is if the company has one). I say one thing to that, remember ENRON[1]… Those employees thought their pensions were safe also. Now they are back at square one with thirty years left to work for a possible pension with a new company (if they are lucky), if they can find another company that will hire them for that long at the same pay. Not my idea of safe. Now you can be like the ostrich, stick your head in the sand when danger is around, but unless you are about 2 or 3 years old you know that closing your eyes really tight doesn’t make you invisible or safe.

 

Do you realize that if you spent a fraction of the time and effort doing for yourself and working as hard as you do for your job, you could have the things you want and your job would NOT be the determining factor on what you could afford? You could still go to work, but happier. Happy in the fact that you are doing what you like, not doing it for the money. Your job treats you like you ask it to. If you come to work and they know you need the job, expect to be treated poorly and/or taken advantage of. If you go to work and they know you don’t need the job, you get treated much better for they know you can walk out the door at any moment and not care. They will appreciate the level of the work you do because they know you don’t have to do it you want to do it. You can be the best employee that they have and these rules will remain the same.

 

When was the last time you thought about your future? I don’t mean 1-2 years down the road, I mean more that 10 years down that dark road. You had better start shinning some light down that dark lonely road now or when you get to be over 60, you might be that senior citizen working at McDonalds for minimum wage (you know the one you laugh at now). Each and every one of you can start an Individual Retirement Account. You can participate in a 401K plan if your job has one, especially a good idea if the company you work for makes a matching contribution (unfortunately these plans are driven by Mutual Funds). This money is pre tax money (before payroll taxes) that can be put away and can’t be readily touched before you retire. You will have to pay taxes on all withdrawals from this type of plan, but you do get a tax deduction now. You could also start a Roth IRA (after tax dollars). If you put money in a Roth IRA, leave the principal in for five years, all earning are tax free (by far the best vehicle). You can invest in Stocks, Money Market Funds and the dreaded Mutual Funds.

 

This is the one good thing banks are good for but they will not readily tell you about this for they are not going to make a killing charging you fees on it. In fact at most banks, this service is free. Banks are starting to make it really easy to contribute to your IRA accounts. At some banks you can do it on line with a few simple clicks of the mouse and the money you want to contribute is automatically withdrawn from your checking account. This can be done on a weekly, monthly, or whatever schedule you set. It can also be done as a one time contribution that you do whenever you like. I hope you are not waiting for Social Security for your retirement, it may not be there and if it is, it will not be anywhere close to enough to take care of your needs, never mind your wants. The sooner you take control the better it will be for you and your family.

 

I want to tell you a story about a person that I helped invest some money ($300.00), and in one month I turned it into $3500.00 (by the way, that is an 1166 percent gain). He was ecstatic, but he never did invest again. I believe he stated that he did not want to lose any money. All I could say was “WHAT?!?!?!” I just showed him the power of investing, yet he did not see the light! What did he do with the windfall that I just procured for him? He paid bills (I guess he took the blue pill). It’s ok to pay your bills but if you are not at the top of your bill list you are doing yourself a great injustice. Many people are like this; they will not do anything for themselves and will continue to eek out a living giving all of their hard earned money to someone else. Is this what you call “Living Life”? Working hard just to give your money to someone else for them to enjoy without getting any joy out of it yourself? Well, thanks, but no thanks, I’ll pass. Why not just run your head into a wall and call that fun? What’s that? Oh, I see… some people already do that now, hmmm… Ok, Sorry I wouldn’t want to disturb them… I guess brain cells are not as important as they used to be. Thinking and the use of simple logic is probably overrated anyway, huh?