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Welcome To
The Course, Mastering Money The S.M.A.R.T Way Without Working Any Harder!
Lesson #6
TRACK YOUR INCOME AND EXPENDITURE
Welcome to the final module and
congratulations on sticking with it. Winners are finishers!
If you can’t measure it, you can’t
improve it.
Peter Drucker
In this module, we are going to put it all
together starting with monitoring your income and outgoings.
Tracking your income and expenditure is the
foundation of gaining control of your finances and accumulating wealth. Unless
you know where your money is going you cannot make savings or accumulate cash,
which is why I keep repeating this.
Keep a spreadsheet, or an app and
you’ll be amazed at the results.
Good businesses and governments
keep accurate records, and produce monthly management accounts. They use cashflow
forecasts to project forward to anticipate peaks and troughs and nasty
surprises.
When working as a financial
adviser, I found that the average person had no idea. A regular annual spike in
expenditure, such as Christmas or a service on the car, seemed to come as a big
surprise to them.
People in this position were
invariably broke or living close to the edge. They constantly worried and
argued about money because money controlled them rather than the other way
around.
Any large bill would send them
deeper into debt.
Things always seemed to go wrong
for them, or that’s how they perceived a car breakdown or the boiler packing up
over the Christmas holidays.
One family I met actually felt
that the whole world was against them. The husband, despite being a skilled and
intelligent design engineer, was the main problem. He was at odds with everyone
and always going to court to dispute late payment fines or parking tickets. He
would say things like, “it’s just our luck” or “the system’s a con”.
The wife said to me, “we just want
to be normal”. I could see that the negativity and poverty mindset of the
parents was being passed on to their six children who all looked slightly
downtrodden and worried.
In reality, their “disasters” were
no different to the things that happened to everyone else. Things go wrong and
break down, especially when they are old or not serviced.
When you are in control of your
finances you will still have problems. However, the difference is that you
will be able to deal with them quickly without borrowing. You will have a
contingency fund and insurance cover for breakdown and repairs or things
that happen unexpectedly in our lives, like the death or injury to a
breadwinner. That’s what wealthy people have!
You will know you exactly where
your money goes and where you can make savings.
Additional income when economising
is not enough.
Mastering money is not just about
saving money or cutting back. You obviously need to earn well and keep earning,
learning and improving.
You can only reduce your
expenditure so far. If you want to improve your lifestyle you will have to
increase your income. Struggling businesses cannot just cut costs and staff in
order to survive. They need sales and revenue.
You can increase your revenue in a
number of ways. For instance:
·
Change
your job or business
·
Upskill
to become more valuable to the marketplace
·
Take
a part-time job or start a part-time home-based business.
How many hours do you work each
week?
The majority of people in developed
countries work between 35 and 40 hours a week, unless you live in France where
some work closer to 30 hours! This is not the case in Asian tiger economies.
Take the example of immigrants who
usually progress rapidly in a country like the UK or US. Migrants I know don’t
just work a 40-hour week. They take all the overtime offered or have part-time
jobs in the evenings and weekends. While others are watching all the ‘bad news’
about the economy on TV, they are out earning money for their own u’conomy!
I know many migrants who came to
the UK with “nothing to declare” and no contacts, but quickly prospered.
I meet migrants at seminars. Some
have learned how to make money in property using none of their own money, which
is handy, because they didn’t have much to start with!
Others have started online
businesses in their spare time or leaned how to trade stocks and FOREX.
If you don’t think you have the
time, take a look at how much time you spend watching TV or on social media.
Instead of wasting time on social media, I now make money on social media.
The future is HERE NOW, watch out!
AI, automation and self-driving
vehicles are no longer science fiction. Millions of jobs in the west will
disappear over the next ten to twenty years, and some predict even sooner.
There has never been a more pressing time to learn new skills and upgrade your
knowledge.
Jobs no longer last for 40 years
and governments around the world have already talked about how to reskill
millions of workers who will become redundant when the machines take over, or
someone in The Philippines or India can do the job faster and cheaper.
Only 10% of people keep learning
after leaving school or college and many never read another book. Where do you
think they are in the earnings league?
You don’t need to go back to years
of formal education to reskill. There are thousands of inexpensive vocational
courses available at evening colleges and increasingly online. Universities
offer part-time courses, from short diploma to master’s degree, specifically
aimed at mature and working students. I know, because in 2017 I gained a degree
in leadership and management from my local university. All the lectures and
tutorials were held at the weekend to suit working students who wanted to
improve their prospects and expand their mind.
Summary Lesson
6
Tracking your income and expenditure is the
foundation of gaining control of your finances and accumulating wealth. Wealthy people know exactly what’s coming in
and where their money is going.
Action Steps
·
Start your money tracker spreadsheet now
·
Record all money coming in and going out of
your household
·
Look ahead and anticipate peaks and troughs in
income or expenditure
·
Look for ways to earn extra money
·
Think about your job in the future
·
Never stop learning and upskilling.
Congratulations on reaching the end of this
course!
You have learned
how to Master Your Money and become a S.M.A.R.T Money Manager. Using
this simple management system will help you to:
·
Spend wisely and avoid debt
·
Manage and respect your money
·
Accumulate wealth over time
·
Review your finances on a regular basis
·
Track your income and expenditure
Finally,
take responsibility for where you are today. Your current bank balance reflects
your lifetime decisions, habits and actions. Don’t blame the government, the
taxman or your parents.
As one of
my mentors, Jim Rohn once said, “If you’re forty, in good health, living in
America and broke, something is wrong”.
We all
have the opportunity to educate ourselves, learn from leaders in our field, get
a better job or start a business, save and invest and build a better life.
Yes, some
lucky people born into wealth have a leg up in life, but that doesn’t exclude
you from the millionaire’s club. Membership to the club is still open and every
year millions more join it!
Someone
else becoming rich doesn’t deprive you or mean there’s not enough to go around
– that’s a ‘scarcity’ mentality. Quite the opposite in fact. Wealth is
expanding, wealthy people employ more people, successful business people employ
people and help make others rich too.
I repeat. There
are more opportunities today to become financially free than there has ever
been in 7000 years of recorded history.
Thank you for joining me on your journey to
becoming a S.M.A.R.T Money Manager. Remember to follow the action
steps. TAKE ACTION!
There are more examples and practical steps to getting rich and
being happy in my book, Yes, money can buy happiness, which you can find on Amazon.
Thank you for
listening to this course! I hope you enjoyed it and are following the action
steps.
Would you like to
take the next step towards becoming financially free?
Bonus Lesson
You have now learned
how to manage you money the S.M.A.R.T way. I have created a special bonus
lesson to take you to the next level by showing you how you can create
more income!
I will send you the bonus lesson
if you follow the steps below and watch my free video training. Just email once
you have registered.
Millionaires and millionaire
habits have been studied and documented at academic levels for the last hundred
years. We know exactly what the millionaire habits and traits are, as success
leaves tracks. All you have to do is follow their tracks to become wealthy and
financially free!
If you would like
to learn more about investing and managing your money, become a professional
property investor, or would like to be financially free without working
any harder, watch this free on demand training.
I
will give a special free gift which can help you to immediately transform your
finances when you attend the online training.
Click on this
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