Fool’s Wealth

Yesterday I wrote about 10 Things I Learnt About Money From This Financial Year and today I want to go over the 5 worst financial decisions I made this financial year.

1. Quitting my Part Time Job
In October 2007 I quit my part time job. The main reason I quit was because I kept getting sick (because I was burnt out) and I needed time to rest. However, I wish that instead of quitting completely I just cut back my shifts and worked once a week instead of 2-3 days per week. This would have freed me up significantly financially as I would have had some income still coming in as I continued to follow my dream and work online. (more…)

I work in a Chemist casually and whenever someone brings in a script we ask them “Would you like the generic brand if it is available?” and most of the time people save no. But they don’t realise that generic brands of medicines can save you a fortune.

This is how I understand medicines to work. When a new medicine is created by someone they have the full rights to that medicine for 25 years so that they can make back the money they spent on research. This means that no other company can produce that medicine for 25 years after it has been created.

However, after 25 many other companies will make the EXACT SAME medicine, same ingredients, same amounts and sell them for a fraction of the price. Infact I know of one medicine where it comes of the SAME production line, and goes into different boxes and one is around $5 more than the other.

So know that when you buy generic brands they are almost always the same thing (check with your chemist if you are unsure), but people continue to buy the original brand because they are familiar with it.

Take Panadol for example, Panadol sell Painkillers with their main active ingredient being paracetamol. Other brands will sell the exact same pain killer (same active ingredient) for a lot less. For example I have paid only $0.70 for 24 tablets in a cheaper brand whereas panadol has been around $5 (cannot remember exactly)

So next time you are in the Chemist getting medicine ask for the generic brand and save yourself a lot of money over the long run.

Well one financial year has come and gone yet again and now another one is upon us. I thought I would make a list for you guys on 10 things I have learnt about money this last financial year.

It has been an interesting year for me financially, I went from being in a healthy financial situation to a kind of uncertain one. This was due to me quitting my job to be self employed, investing a significant amount of money into my financial education and also giving away a fair chunk of my savings to the charity of my choice.

Though my financial situation didn’t exactly increase much this last year, I have learnt so much that I believe this next financial year (2008-2009) will see my financial situation increase significantly.

So here are the 10 things I learnt about money this last financial year (more…)

So I am currently running what is known as “The Challenge” or “The Million Dollar Challenge” where everyone who joins sets the goal to earn $1,000,000 in the next 12 months. The Challenge was officially launched July 1, 2008 at the beginning of the financial year, however you can sign up at any time.

I am running the challenge because I want people to act on the information they read. I offer loads of great free information on this blog and I want them to be able to outwork it by trying to achieve the goal of earning $1,000,000 in 12 months. This is a great goal to set and can be achieved by almost anyone.

Here is a list of the things I have done to spruce up The Challenge and to make it more valuable to everyone who joins.

1. You Get a Free Handbook
I have just recently written The Challenge Handbook, which is in E-book format, and it is a great tool for getting started with The Challenge. It is valued at $47 and I am offering this FREE of charge to everyone signing up for The Challenge

2. You Get a Free 52 Week Email Training Course
I have developed a 52 week training course for everyone who signs up for the challenge. In this course you get a training lesson delivered to your email every week for 52 weeks. This is valued at $197

All up that is a total value of $144!

Now I know this sounds a lot like a plug for The Challenge and yes it is. But I just launched it recently and I am very excited about it. I don’t mind if you join or not but I do think it is a very worthwhile thing to do.

Using Leverage is the Secret

If you want to become a millionaire in your lifetime you can probably do it all by yourself with little or no risk.

For example look at the table below. It shows the wealth of someone who simply invests $1/day into a investment account and how long it will take them to become a millionaire.

As you can see all you need to do is invest $1/day (that’s about 2 coffees a week, or a meal at McDonalds a week) and earn at least 10% each year on that money and you can become a millionaire in 56 years.

This is not hard, however we do not have 56 years, we have just 12 months. So in order to fast track our results we need to use a little secret called leverage.

There are 2 main ways to use leverage

1.    Leveraging Other People’s Money

2.    Leveraging Other People’s Time

Leveraging Other People’s Money

This is not a new concept, you see this every day where people will borrow other people’s money in order to buy a house, or an investment property. Even credit cards are a way of leveraging other people’s money (often used to buy food, clothes and depreciable assets).

Having access to other people’s money is a great way to leverage your success. I have heard an example of a man who got a number of 12 months interest free credit cards totally to a value of $60,000. He then put the money in a term deposit account for 12 months and earnt 7% on all that money. All up he earnt $4,200 for doing almost nothing. This is an example of leveraging money.

In property you can easily borrow 80% or more of the value of your property, in stocks you can borrow up to 50% of the value of your stocks, you can also borrow money for business and advertising.

Finding ways to leverage other people’s money is a great way to fast track your results.

Leveraging Other People’s Time

How much do you consider yourself to be worth an hour? Possibly you could consider yourself to be worth $50/hour in your business. So why would you spend your time doing a job you could pay someone $15/hour to do when you are worth $50/hour?

Hiring someone else to do work for you is a great way to leverage other people’s time. The long tedious jobs of data entry and phone calling etc can be passed on to other’s who can do the job just as successfully as you and still earn you money. You can pay someone $20/hour for their time as a marketer or phone salesman, and if you are earning $35/hour as a result of the sales they bring in then you are making an extra $15/hour by leveraging someone else’s time.

Find ways in your life where you can leverage other people’s time in order that you can make more money, and have more free time to focus on what you need to do.

Using leverage is essential to fast tracking your results. For more on leverage why not read one of Robert G. Allen’s books. He is my teacher and he talks on this subject in detail in “The One Minute Millionaire”. SIMPLY CLICK HERE to purchase.

If you a regular reader then you may notice that Fool’s Wealth has had a facelift today. I am very excited about this as it offers a much nicer looking page and allows me to provide more options to my readers.

I just want to outline the things that I have changed for you.

1. Changed The Template
The biggest thing you will notice is a complete change of the template I am using. I did this mainly because I was frustrated with the cheap look of the previous template and also the difficulty of having two tiny sidebars.
I now have one larger sidebar at the top and two smaller ones down the bottom. In the coming weeks there will also be information located at the bottom of every page (there is a glitch in it at the moment)

2. Changed The Ad Formats
Previously I was mainly running ads from www.adbrite.com however this was proving to be fairly ineffective. I now had new ad placements including a banner at at the top of each page and 6 lots of 125×125 pixel ads. I will also be running some link ads in the future. Ads a SUPER cheap at the moment (around $1 for a WHOLE month!), but as my traffic increases so will the cost of the ads. Click Here to read more on advertising your website or product on foolswealth. This is great as it will release me financially to blog more and create much better material

3. Now Offering RSS Feed via Email
Previously I was just offering a standard RSS feed for my site, but with the new template and the increase amount of visitors I now provide an option of receive the foolswealth.com blog feed into your inbox each day. This will be a great option for some while others will prefer the original

So I hope you like the new facelift. It is more profession and is much easier to read. Tell me what you think about it in the comments sections below

I have just recently written a post asking you “If I gave you $500, how would you double that money in under 6 months?“.(click here to read this post)  Well funnily enough I have had an opportunity to double my money in a few weeks (or less). My friend recently sent me a message saying he needed to sell his car quickly and he was selling it for $500!! Immediately dollar signs ($$$) went into my eyes. This car is in great condition and worth at least $1,000!! So I can easily double my money in a matter of days

However I have a dilema which I am going to nut out in this post. My dilema is should I keep the car or should I get the extra $500? I borrowed $500 to buy the car so I would be making a $500 profit.

So the question I need to ask myself is what are the pros of keeping the car and what are the pros of selling the car. The answers to my question could help you in the suture decide whether or not you want to sell your car.

Pros For The Car

• Freedom

Currently I live at home and me and my dad are sharing a car, which is not bad but can be a hassel sometimes when we both need the car at the same time. If I kept this car then I would have the freedom to have a car whenever I want and to go wherever I want

• Fun

It would be great fun to keep this car. It is old school (1983 subaru) and in really great condition. It would be great fun to drive around an old school car and pick up my friends in it etc.

• The Car is Dirt Cheap

Frankly, this car was dirt cheap. It has 6 months registration left on it and the registration alone (if I cashed it in) would be worth $400. So really I bought a car for $100! The car also has ONY 89,000 km’s on the odometer. It is hard to sell it on knowing I am unlikely to find a car this good for this cheap EVER again!

• Good Investment for the Future

Soon (in 5 months) I will have finished college for good! (yay) and I will be working full time and I will be moving out of home within the next 12 months. This could be a good investment for once I finish college if I need to drive to work, and once I move out of home to have a car to drive will be much easier.

Pros For the $500

• Less Financial Stress

I am under a lot of financial stress at the moment and having a car which will need insurance payments, registration payments and also I still need to pay off the actual cost of the car. I could afford to pay it all however it would put more stress on my currently financially stressed situation. This leads me to be cranky more often and

• Invest it to earn me another $500

I could potentially take this $500 and in the next 6 months earn myself another $500 on top of that. Then I would have $1,000 which I could use to do whatever I want with.

• Could buy something techy

I LOVE technology, and I could use the $500 to buy that iPod touch I have been longing for.

Or to buy a new laptop

• No ongoing costs

The ongoing costs of the car (things such as petrol, insurance, services, oil, etc) will surely cut into me over these next 5 months (until I get a full time job after college)…So selling it would mean more money would stay in my pocket.

Well I have nutted out the pros and cons but I still am unsure of what to do. Do any of you have some advice for me or have been through this situation before, then please leaves comments in the comments section.

I don’t want to get a real job. Why? Because I want to be an entrepreneur.
I finish college in just 5 months and then my entire financial future stands before me. I have many paths I can take, but I have one path that I really want to take and that is to work for myself. I want to be an entrepreneur making my money from writing and teaching (mainly online). I have already started this dream by creating this website (www.foolswealth.com) and my income from this website increases every month as my traffic increases.

Here are some of the benefits I see of becoming an entrepreneur and self employed as opposed to getting a ‘real job’

I can work whenever I want - In a ‘real’ job you will generally work from the hours of 9-5. However, If I am an entrepreneur I can work whenever I want. Some of the random times I love to work are from 11pm-2am, or from 6am - 10am. I am not tied down to a work schedule, where I have to work specific times, I can work the times I want to work.

I can work wherever I want - If I am an online entrepreneur running a blog and writing and selling my own products (eventually)….actually not eventually I am selling my own products already. I have sold over 5 of my $3 reports. Click Here to check them out. So being an entrepreneur all I need is a laptop. I can work from a beach in paradise, or work from my home, or work in a coffee shop, or work in my car. I can work wherever I want because my work is portable.

I can work wearing whatever I want - I can wear anything from my pyjamas to my underpants when working from home. I don’t have to wear a suit or a disgusting uniform.

I can get paid to do what I love - I LOVE to write (I hope you can tell that from my site), and if I can build up enough income in the next 5 months then I can work to do what I love. I can write 24 hours/day. I don’t have to do something I don’t really love just to get the money

I can indulge in my creativity - Working in a job which has a regular routine and just one thing you have to do can cause you to lose creativity because you are so focused on getting the job done. If I am my own boss I can be as creative as I want to be. The more creative I am then the more money I will make.

I can make a positive impact in people’s live by what I do - Running a financial blog I feel a sense of satifaction because I believe I am doing my part to help people achieve their financial dreams. By making people wealthy I am enabling them to give resources to the community and to charities and this also creates a positive impact in the world.

The prospects are limitless - If I work for myself I will not earn an hourly wage, therefore my prospects are limitless. I will earn as much as I want or as little as I want. If I want to earn more I can just think of ways to earn more. My income will literally be limitless.

So those are the reasons why I don’t want to get a ‘real’ job. If you have a real job I do not mean to offend you, I am simply stating what I would love to do with my life.

Forming Your Beliefs

To become a millionaire you first must think like a millionaire. It is a well known fact that your core beliefs (what you really believe deep down about yourself, the people around you and the universe) will shape the way in which you live your life.

In order to become a millionaire you must first begin to change these core beliefs you have about yourself and about money. There are a few core beliefs that a millionaire has that you need to adopt as your own set of beliefs. Have you ever heard the saying “if you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right” this saying stems from the idea that your core beliefs will shape what you can and cannot do

Belief #1 - A Millionaire Believes He[1] is a Millionaire

A millionaire first believes he is a millionaire before he becomes a millionaire. He knows deep down within him that he is of great substance and that he is already a millionaire even if the figures don’t show it yet.

Out of this core belief the millionaire then lives life and acts in such a way as to attract wealth to himself until the figure in his bank account matched the substance of his beliefs.

You must first believe that you are a millionaire before you will become one. Every morning when you wake up and every night before you do to sleep you need to be saying to yourself

“I am a millionaire, I am a millionaire, I am a millionaire” and then once you have said it enough times, and once you finally believe it within yourself you will become a millionaire.

Belief #2 – A Millionaire Believes in Himself

A millionaire believes in his own ability to achieve the goal of having $1,000,000. This is not a proud and arrogant belief that he is the better than everyone else, but a humble belief that, with the help from his God, he has every ability and opportunity to create and sustain wealth.

A millionaire is self confident and assured in his own ability that he can achieve what he has set out to achieve. You need to believe in yourself and not doubt your own ability in order for you to become a millionaire.

In order to do this you need to turn up the positive voice in your mind and turn down the negative voice. Here is an exercise to help you learn how to do this.

Firstly begin to listen to the negative voice in your head. What is it saying? “You can’t do this, you are hopeless, you could never earn $1,000,000, and you’re dumb”. Now how does that make you feel? Not very good I bet.

Now I need you to take that negative voice and begin to turn it down, like on a stereo, or like moving the sound to a few hundred metres away so you can barely hear it. Turn it down so it is so quiet that you can’t really understand what it is saying.

Now take your positive voice and listen to that. What does your positive voice say to you? Maybe it says things like “You can do this, you are awesome, you can achieve anything you set your mind to, you are a brilliant person and you are amazing”. Now how does that make you feel? I feel inspired and encouraged just writing this as I listen to my positive voice and I bet you do too.

Now begin to turn that voice up so it is extremely loud in your mind, like someone is yelling at you or you turned the stereo in your car up to full blast. Now I bet that as you do that you cannot even hear the negative voice at all.

This is what you need to continually do every day. It will take some practice to get good at, but this is a necessary step you need to take to become a millionaire.

By listening to your positive voice and turning down your negative voice you will begin to believe in yourself and this is what you need to become a millionaire.

Belief #3 – A Millionaire Believes He Deserves to Become a Millionaire

Many people believe that the goal to obtain great wealth is not a worthy goal and therefore do not seek after it, and many believe that they are not deserving of becoming wealthy because they have somehow been a bad person and do not deserve to have a good life.

A millionaire, however, believes not only that he deserves to become a millionaire but also that becoming a millionaire is a great goal to obtain. If you have wealth at your fingertips then you can create a great difference in the world. Look at Bill Gates for example, he is one of the world’s wealthiest men and his wealth allows him alone to give more to world aid each year than the entire United States Government.

Many people look down on people with wealth and say that they are selfish and mean, however those that are wealthy are the ones with the greatest potential to change to world and make a good difference in the lives of others.

Wealth is a good thing and you need to believe that you deserve to become a millionaire in order to become a millionaire. So today I want you to write down about 10 things you can do to help other people or charities if you had $1,000,000. Now I hope this will encourage you that you deserve to become a millionaire so you can become more generous.

As budding millionaires it is necessary that we understand the fact that money is not bad or evil. Money is simply a tool that becomes whatever the holder decides. For example, if money is in the hands of a drug dealer then it can become harmful addictive drugs that will cause devastation and ruin, however that exact same money in the hands of an ‘enlightened millionaire’ can become life saving penicillin which could save millions from dying in Africa or other 3rd world nations.
It is not money that is evil or good but what we choose to do with it that makes all the difference.

So what is an Enlightened Millionaire?
The term ‘enlightened millionaire’ was first coined by Robert G. Allen who himself is a multi-millionaire.
This is his definition from the book “The One Minute Millionaire” - To become an Enlightened Millionaire is to be free to be, do and have whatever you desire as long as it hurts no one and simultaneously helps others.

The Enlightened Millionaire pursues a principled approach to wealth:
First, do not harm. Similar to the oath a doctor takes to preserve life an Enlightened Millionaire commits to avoid wealth building activities that harm or impoverish other people. Create only abundance, never scarcity. This means creating wealth in an ethical, honest and win-win manner.

Second, do much good. The Enlightened Millionaire enjoys creating wealth that improves the lives of many people. The goal is to enrich oneself whilst enriching others.

Third, operate out of stewardship. Enlightened Millionaires are stewards over their financial blessing – enjoying the privileges of financial success while creating an ongoing legacy to bless others. The first proof of your commitment to make money to bless other people is to give at least the first 10% away to charities, communities etc.