This is an extract from The Poor Man’s Guide to Financial Freedom: A Realistic, 10-Step Manual for Building Liberating Wealth on a Low to Medium Income.

Step 5: Increase Your Income

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.

– David Brinkley

It is not essential to have a high income in order to reach financial freedom.  I promised a ‘poor man’s guide’, and this you shall have.  However, if you can find a way to increase your income a bit, you’ll achieve financial freedom more quickly, and/or reach a higher level of financial freedom.  As we will keep repeating, it is all about what you do with the money once you have it.  Plenty of high-income people are floundering in debt and have no control over their finances at all.

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This is an extract from The Poor Man’s Guide to Financial Freedom: A Realistic, 10-Step Manual for Building Liberating Wealth on a Low to Medium Income.

There are two ways of dealing with your debt situation. 

Method A: sort it out yourself, using the system I will outline in a moment. 

Method B: throw your hands in the air, admit that you’re totally out of your depth and get professional help.

If you know exactly what your debts are, what the rates of interest are (or you can find this information easily enough), and are already making some progress towards paying them off, Method A might be right for you.

If you are unsure about exactly how much you owe or at what rate, and you are too afraid to open those angry, registered mail envelopes that regularly appear, or to answer those persistent phone calls, you might want to skip straight over to Method B.

If in doubt, go to Method B.

Okay, with that said, let’s get cracking.

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This is an extract from The Poor Man’s Guide to Financial Freedom: A Realistic, 10-Step Manual for Building Liberating Wealth on a Low to Medium Income.

Step 4: Get Out of Debt

The man who never has enough money to pay his debts has too much of something else.

– James Lendall Basford

‘Get out of debt.’  Yes, it’s easier said than done.  But this is a basic, essential step that cannot be avoided.  You will not be financially free until your debt situation is under control.  But don’t worry, I’m going to teach you some MMA moves to get you there faster.  You’re going to smash those debts like you’re playing a one-sided Mortal Kombat game.

This step comes before investing for a very good reason.  Your debt is costing you.  A lot.  Your wealth is going backwards.  There’s little point making investments until your consumer debts are paid off.  As mentioned earlier, a mortgage debt may be an exception.

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This is an extract from The Poor Man’s Guide to Financial Freedom: A Realistic, 10-Step Manual for Building Liberating Wealth on a Low to Medium Income.

Step 3: Save an Emergency Fund

The shortest period of time lies between the minute you put some money away for a rainy day and the unexpected arrival of rain.

Jane Bryant Quinn

Wouldn’t it be awful if some random event came along and totally messed up your budget and forced you back into (deeper) debt?  Something like a medical emergency, car repairs, losing your job for being caught reading a politically incorrect blog at work, legal fees because you get locked up in an Indonesian prison on trumped-up charges, an F-35 crashing into your house, etc. etc. 

Well, here’s some bad news.  As time passes, the probability of some such random, nasty event occurring approaches 100%.  In other words, bad things do happen from time to time.  It is not a risk.  It is a certainty. 

You’ve got to be ready.

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