Simplify, Outsource, Kick Debt

Last time we talked about managing the cash in your life.  Well, did you do the calculations and set up the accounts we talked about last time? If you did and will be consistent in dividing your money into these accounts, you will see your money grow.  Let’s not stay at our break-even level. Let’s get more income flowing. People are made with the ingenuity to come up with new ways to develop new resources. Don’t be pessimistic. Don’t listen to those “no” voices that say, “Where’s this extra money gonna come from?” You don’t need to worry because there are many, many ways to generate new streams of income.  Look up. Think positively and say to yourself, “I can do this.  I can move on and grow.”

So, this program is all about finding that added income where you may not expect to find it.

SIMPLIFY

First of all, think about how to simplify.  How to trim off stuff that is costing you more than it is earning you.

How much do you really need to live on?  Well, some people kind of dabble in this, but you can be pretty creative in acquiring . . . only what you . . . need.

A great American pass time for decades has been to go out to the mall and shop.  This may be phasing out as the money gets more scarce, but what we used to do was come home with some doo-dad, that we maybe didn’t really need, but we were just kind of “treating” ourselves. If you track how much this kind of spending is actually draining your income, you may discover a sizable pocket of money.  What if you altered that pattern a little? . . . Or, a lot?  But, do you have the will power to do it?

Your Vision Motivates You

Go at it like this.  First, make a habit of imagining your grand vision every day. What will it be like when you are experiencing that vision in real time and space? What will you be smelling, hearing, saying, feeling when your vision is actually happening?  Use your imagination to pray for it to come to pass.  If you daily imagine this, you will be motivated to hold off on impulse spending.  If you live with your vision on your mind, you will postpone the goodies and treats that take your money away and begin to acquire not only what you need to live well, but also what you need to support your mission.

Your mission is your passion. It is one of the most positive things to guide you up and out of bad habits.  It will motivate you to avoid liabilities.

Liabilities

Liabilities are things and activities that consume your time and money so that you have less to spend on your vision, less available to make the vision a real mission.  Liabilities can be possessions you have to store and take care of, or expensive activities which divert funds from the thing you’re passionate about (are some liabilities coming to mind?). Liabilities are possessions and activities which delay saving up your working cash.

Remember, last time I told you it is mandatory that you have a play account out of which you treat yourself regularly.  So, I’m not saying to become a miser, or cheapskate who never enjoys life.

But, just be honest about how expensively you are living. I’m not making any judgments of people.  It’s different for everybody. One thing is needed by one person and not needed by another. Your mission may be more expensive then my mission, but you must be honest and judge for yourself what is really important.  These needs will change as you change.  You may eventually eliminate something you now feel you need and start needing something you now have no need of.  Flow with this.  Hold lightly to the things you have.  It is your vision and mission which is important, not your things.  God looks at the real you, not at all your things.

Let’s do a little exercise.  Here are some pictures of some really good things. And you need to think, what about this picture is telling me to maybe live more cost-effectively? None of these pictures are wrong or bad in themselves, but let them give you ideas of the expenses they represent, expenses you might be able to minimize in order to free up more cash.

Okay, imagine your car.  It has a huge spectrum of expenses doesn’t it? How often do you have to feed it at the gas pump?  How expensive is it to register?  How often do you have to buy new tires?  Do you have it detailed?  What about parking costs?  Oh, the list could be endless about cars.

Do you like to go to Starbucks, or that special place?  Ahhh, can you smell the aromas? It’s always nice to stop and have refreshment.  How often do you stop and buy there?  Multiply the price of that refreshment by the number of times you buy it per week; per month.  What if you made coffee at home and brought it with you?  How much cash would be freed up by a less expensive refreshment just half the time?

And what can you do about remodeling that living room?  Let’s stroll through the furniture store.  When are you scheduled to replace that couch?  Look at this one; so classy and, ooo, comfortable.  And those drapes are perfect with it.  And the coffee table matches the end tables.  What a difference it would make in our place.  We’d have to get that HD wide screen TV.  Of course, that requires a new sound system.

There’s a program called “Design on a Dime,” and they show you ways you can do beautiful remodeling that looks great but without spending mega-bucks.

Oh, there’s Madge the waitress coming down the aisle with your order.  . . . smells so good.  This restaurant makes the best omelets.  My mouth is watering.  Don’t ask me how often I come here instead of cooking at home.  It’s just too yummy.

oo . . . Look at that sleek car, how the light just flashes off the chrome and the glassy rims.  Gotta get a second car.  We’re both going different directions every morning.  And you need a nice one to keep you feeling good in that long commute.

What do you say we eat out tonight.  It’s too hot to cook.

So these pictures give us some ideas on how we might be able to economize. And that practice is an essential part of managing our money better. Simplifying. That’s the whole area of discipline. It can be fun to figure out better ways, more economical ways, to get more for our money and spend less of it.

OUTSOURCE

There’s another subject that’s going to become more and more important as your income grows: outsourcing. This has to do with working smart, putting your time, energy and resources to work where they will save the most and produce the most. This also includes setting up systems and routines which make efforts more efficient.

Say you have a task that takes too much time away from income generating activities and could be done more inexpensively by someone else. You might want to think of getting somebody else to do it. 
For instance every month I put a lot of quality time into preparing a monthly e-newsletter.  Making it look nice with graphics and links and special features takes a lot of time.  Then I have to go through the routine of testing it and then sending it and monitoring who opens and which links are clicked.  Maybe I should just write the main article or two and have someone else do the rest according to a pre set template and routine. In the time saved by outsourcing I could be doing something that only I can do, such as building relationships with my collaborators, or income generating activities such as finding clients and meeting with them.

You delegate the job that somebody else could do more cost effectively in the long run so that you can be free to put more quality time into something only you can do.

Collaborate

Now, I’m not saying hire your own staff, necessarily.  Outsourcing is more about collaborating with separate companies which specialize in the piece work you need.  They take care of their own overhead and personnel.  Volunteer groups are also a source of workers for non-profits and charitable organizations.  But, you treat volunteers as respectfully as regular employees and with a level of expectation which motivates quality, on-budget, on-time work.

So, there you have another way to analyze the strategic use of your time, energy, and resources for the greatest productivity.  The people you outsource to are potential members of the community you want to develop around your vision. Whether you are paying them, or providing them an opportunity to give as volunteers, you are benefitting more people than if you just tried to do it all yourself.  The result is growth of your community and, well-managed, it can lead to increased income.

KICK DEBT

Let’s move on to a larger subject which is dark and intimidating to most people, an area that we avoid because it seems so insurmountable in millions of lives.  It is about the giants who keep their hands on our stuff, and about how we have to keep throwing little dollars at them, but they never seem to go away. One giant has his hand on our house.  Another giant has his hand out for payment on everything else. This is the old slavery problem we’ve gotten ourselves into, the prison of debt where so many of us are embarrassed to admit we are locked up.

You’re Not Alone

Many think they are among a minority who have little hope of getting out of debt, feel shame and keep it a secret.  But let me just stop that illusion right now, friends.  The average American has thirteen credit cards carrying an average of thirty-thousand dollars of debt.  Many of these people also carry large debts on cars, student loans and a house.  The attitude of most Americans for many decades has been never to expect to get out of debt, but just to push it ahead.

But, debt is one of the primary blocks to realizing our vision.  Saying that makes it hurt even more, doesn’t it?  Especially if we have little hope of being free from it.  If you want to realize your vision for life, here is the way out of the debt prison.

The Interest Trap

First of all, realize you are paying interest payments that exceed the initial amount you borrowed. It is not uncommon for credit card rates to be 18, 20, 26 percent.  With interest rates like that you could pay what you borrowed many times over before you’re rid of that debt.

Mortgages are designed to make us pay first about as much interest as the price we agreed to on the house. On a thirty-year mortgage the interest is paid off during about the first 20 years of payments.  Only after that do you finally apply payments purely to the principal you borrowed.



If we could just get a hold of a mechanism that would blow these giants away, some system that would use our money more effectively then just tossing a few dollars at them each month.  We need to accumulate large amounts of money to fire more strategically at the principal.  Reducing the principal would force interest to be calculated on less.  That would cancel out lots of interest payments.


To do this we would need a super calculator to constantly factor all our bills, interest, principal and the variables of our income and expenses.  We would need an expert to coach us in the perfect times and payment amounts to maximize our money month-in and month-out.

That Mechanism Exists!

Just such a super calculator and financial coach were developed in the form of software during the first few years of this century.  If you’ve visited our sponsor, Grace Proceeds.com, you will know the name of this incredible software. Tens of thousands of households in the U.S. and Canada have cut the pay-off time of their debt to as little as one-half to one-third normal time using this system. And they are doing it with little to no change in their normal spending.  It sounds too good to be true, but it is documented.

The factorial math and coaching of this program has enabled people to use the income they already have more strategically rather than to refinance, or radically change their normal budget.

But, perhaps the best benefit of this program is that it educates you in how to make your money do more for you right now.  Just using this software raises your financial intelligence.  That’s something we could all use.
To realize your vision, you must eliminate bad debt as fast as possible. The fastest way is by using the program I have been describing. There is no other program that comes near to matching its capabilities. You can learn the details and even begin using this program by contacting our sponsor directly.  They will run your financial picture through this software and give you projections for how soon you could be out of debt using the program.

So, here is your homework: call and ask for your free financial report before our next talk.  The report is completely free of charge and requires no account numbers or credit reports.  Call for an appointment at 760-765-3879, or any other number you are directed to on this or our other web pages.
If you’d like to start your financial analysis on-line, go directly to our sponsors’ web site, http://www.graceproceeds.com and follow the links labeled “Free Analysis”.

As soon as you start reducing your debt, your discretionary income begins to be freed up to do better things then support the banks.  And that leads us right into the subject of our next talk.  This will be an exciting program because we will describe several types of income which build phenomenal wealth.  It will be about making money earn money faster than you can earn it by working for it.  We will discuss actually being your own bank.  So, don’t miss this introduction.  It could be part of major changes in the pursuit of your vision.