Power Up: Taking Charge of Your Financial Destiny

Chapter Seven

Continuing on Your Financial Freedom Quest

You’ve heard the saying “You learn something new every day.” Well, you can apply that to your financial education. The banks, credit card companies, retailers, and advertisers are constantly thinking about how they can make more money. That money comes from people like you and me—whether we spend it wisely or foolishly, invest it, or use it to sustain a healthy retirement. We must keep up with the financial conglomerates that are setting the rules, or making new rules up, in order to be smart with our money and become empowered.

There’s simply no other way to put it: You must keep your eye on the prize or risk losing everything again. Let me tell you a story of a husband and wife who were clients of mine. After they lost nearly everything, they started to do what was necessary to correct their situation. They made lists before they went food shopping and stuck to the lists; they used coupons and bought store-brand items; they stopped going out for dinner or lunch—they did it all. They even reduced the number of cars they owned to one used vehicle. The husband found someone he could car pool with for a small amount of gas money each week.

Once they got themselves back on their feet, they started to become lazy. She found another job that paid more and instead of saving that extra money, as if it never existed, which is a smart way to look at it, they wiped that gain out completely by buying a new car. Now they were in the ...