Please welcome a guest post by: Katheryn Rivas

Being stuck in debt is sometimes like being locked in a prison or trapped in a deep hole you can’t climb, scramble, or fight your way out of.  One of the most common figurate phrases associated with debt, in fact, is not being able to “get out” of it.

Debt is a financial problem, but what few people stop to realize is that what leads to debt is often more a matter of discipline, self-control, self-image, and other psychological or sociological influences.  People who are unable to stop themselves from buying, or who always need something nicer and something bigger often are internally troubled and would benefit more from improving their self esteem than from attending a debt management class.

If you want to be financially free, want to finally escape your debt, the following self-improvement strategies might be a great place to start (instead of spending $250 on the upcoming personal finance seminar):

Look Within

One of the worst kinds of purchases is one that was made on impulse.  Generally impulse buys are unwise decisions because you don’t usually need what you buy on a whim.  However, impulse buys are just one kind of poor financial decision. 

The most important thing to do before buying anything is to ask yourself two questions:

1.   Do I need this?

And more importantly:

2.   Why am I buying this?

The first question alone is not enough because you can easily justify any purchase you want.  The second question, however, gets at something much deeper and more personal.  Even when you strongly desire something, when you ask yourself why you want it, your brain has a hard time closing the gap between reason and desire and will pause.

During that pause, stop and count to ten.  Start practicing self control this way.  If you can analyze why you want something, then you might be able to stop and realize, for example, that you are only buying the new phone or iPod because you are feeling down, you can put a little distance between you and your impulse, and maybe even replace the action with a more productive one, like exercising or reading a book. 

Set Goals

If you have realized that you have a problem spending money, then you are at least halfway there.  The next step is to brainstorm ways to help you change your habits.  One effective way to help you do this is to set spending goals.  Tell yourself that you will spend no more than x amount of dollars on certain categories of goods, giving priority to ones that are essential such as food, shelter, and transportation.  Next set aside a certain percentage of your earnings for savings.  Lastly, set aside a little amount as a congratulatory allowance that you can spend if you meet your goals.  Goals are also easier to meet if you work with someone close to you, like a spouse or a family member, who can keep you accountable. 

Understand Yourself

Sometimes we spend money or do certain things because we wish that we were richer or had more power when we actually don’t.  We want to appear to be something that perhaps we aren’t yet, and wind up spending everything we have in the process. It is very beneficial to think about the motives that drive you to spend money before you spend.  If you are spending because you don’t want to be regarded as poor, perhaps you should consider options like going back to school or changing career paths to put you on a path that will be more fulfilling.

Financial Freedom is possible, but the place to start changing things is within yourself. Don’t treat external symptoms when the problem is internal.  Work on improving yourself, and your finances will improve alongside. 

Bio:

This guest post is contributed by Katheryn Rivas, who writes on the topics of online universities advice.  She welcomes your comments at her email: katherynrivas87@gmail.com.

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Wow, it’s hard to believe that 2011 is about ready to retire and 2012 come in as the New Year into our lives.  2012 is closing down really quickly as I write this, but take notice that nothing comes about without change.  I really hope you had some good holidays and that your poised on what 2012 could bring into your life.  It seemed like just yesterday where I was writing down my 2011 Goals in another blog post just a year before hand.

I don’t know about you, but I’m prepared to set myself up for success in 2012.  2011 was a decent year for most even though we may still be weathering a recession.

I really do want to get you to take a glimpse back for what was a very eventful 2011.  What made 2011 what it was?  What are some lessons or skills you may have gained?  I’m sure you could come up with quite a list of these rhetorical questions to ask yourself, but the most important issue is that you learn from them and gain perspective going in fresh for the New Year.

More Mentionable Happenings of 2011

As with most years, 2011 carried with it some really big newsworthy mentions.  I mean I can recall events worth mentioning like:

• Bill Jobs, Apple’s Founder and CEO, passed on to a new life
• People got fed up enough with Wall Street’s greed and staged their own ‘Occupy’ Wallstreet’ stance, later came Occupy everything else
• The Japanese Tsunami claimed many lives caused by their massive earthquake.  I blogged on pledging support for the Japanese Tsunami victims. The world showed just how compassionate and caring it could be in helping our neighbors in the Asia-Pacific.
• The Euro Debt Financial Tragedy that engulfed that side of the world as the Euro currency held on for dear life.
• Lots more than I can actually mention here…..

My Bold Predictions for 2012

I actually feel that 2012 will be a good and rebounding year for the economy, finances and prosperity overall.  I was thinking back all the way to around 2007-2008 where there was a pivotal swing and financial experts were waiting for the bubble to burst on the housing market and it really did go bust in a short amount of time.  People got too greedy, unfair and unscrupulous loans were concocted and those most unfortunate suffered the aftermath.  Ever since then people have been crying a recession. 

 I say it’s time that we take back our voice and pull up the boot strings as the economy is slowly making a turn-around.  If a growth spurt is around the corner, it will come sooner rather than later and now is your opportunity to change with it.

Here’s my advice to create your own mini-economy around yourself:

1.   Stay positive.  Yes, this has been beaten to death a bit but it really is true. How you feel changes your outlook on life and attracts more opportunity while taking away the negative.

2.   Watch less news, learn to live more.  If it’s that important, you’ll hear it from someone anyway

3.   Surround yourself with positive peers.  Get used to a better set of friends, it really makes a difference.

4.   Never stop learning.  Learn what you need to progress.

5.   Take inspired action on what you learn.  Stop reinventing the wheel and good things will happen from your finances to your personal ambitions and everything in between.

6.   Make sure to read my post on setting achievable goals.  Many people set resolutions that are over almost as soon as they set them

Turbo Boost Your Positivity and Results in 2012

I’m going to be letting you in on a little secret on what has really helped me all these years on my way to true Financial Freedom!  Are you ready for this one?  The secret that many people around the planet don’t realize is that we actually think in pictures.  Don’t believe me?  Let me prove it – please picture with me a Green Lion driving a Convertible Ferrari with the top down and eating a red juicy apple.  Hah, can you see this in your mind’s eye?  Of course you can, also notice that the text that I said above didn’t pop into your head not one time.  This concretes the fact that we think in pictures and visuals.

In any case, you may ask where I’m going with this – fair enough.  What if you could link positive visuals and outcomes deeply into your subconscious by physically seeing these images at a whim or call them up whenever you want?  Surprise, but these kinds of visualization tools already exists and they’re called Vision Boards or Dream Maps, Dream Boxes and even treasure maps.

Image by Shawn of themillionairesecrets.net

I first got my start with setting up vision boards by picking up  The Complete Vision Board Kit: Using the Power of Intention and Visualization to Achieve Your Dreams from respected Self Improvement and Law of Attraction coach, John Assaraf.  You might have even seen John Assaraf on tv and didn’t even realize it. 

If you’ve watched the highly acclaimed movie, The Secret – John was one of the highly respected speakers on the show. 

Just What is a Vision Board? -  Glad you asked, but a vision board is usually a canvas like a bulletin board covered with pictures, visuals and even captivating text and speeches on what you’d like to accomplish in your life.

I built my first vision board with John’s vision board and the rest is history.  Seeing Visuals of what I want to accomplish along with your goal setting strategy will propel you towards more and more success.  So, get started building your own vision board today and start visualizing yourself towards positive outcomes and a life that you really want to live.

For those of you that would like to make a video vision board on a pc, you could make a mind movie which would accomplish the same thing except with animation.  I’m starting to explore this a bit more myself.

I’m going to do one better in helping you set meaningful goals

Below this post, you’ll find a cheat sheet to helping you set meaningful goals for 2012 and also a template for the various types of goals you should set

Wishing you a Happy and Blessed 2012!

For all the normal readers of the Financially Elite Blog, I just want to really thank you for being a supporter and if you’re a new reader, please stick around and get the best out of the blog by Grabbing the Golden Nuggets guide to Financial Freedom and signing up for the RSS Feed and never miss another post.

Hey, one more thing – spread the good Karma and Please share this post from social buttons below.  Also, I’m eager to hear what your thoughts are on the New Year, so please comment below.

Before you go, make sure to grab your FREE Resources below:

2012 – Goal Setting Cheat Sheet (Right Click and ‘Save Target’)

2012 – Goal Setting Template (Right Click and ‘Save Target’)

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If you find yourself financially suffering from the current state of the economy, you should know that you are not alone. The current economical slump is affecting almost everyone.

Most people reach adulthood without ever taking financial courses. Fortunately, there are many financial tools online that can help you get out of debt and start saving money.

Many people spend huge amounts of money paying financial advisors and accountants to tell them what they should do with their money. If you are experiencing financial difficulty, save your money and start learning about the financial world on your own. The internet is your best friend when it comes to research, so use it to educate yourself.

Some of the greatest financial tools that are available on the internet are financial calculators. Before you make any monetary decisions, always use a search engine to find a calculator that applies to the situation.

For example, a mortgage calculator is an extremely useful tool and can help you save tons of money. Calculating the total cost of the mortgage over the entire payment term as well as the cost of monthly payments is very complicated.

Mortgage calculators calculate your monthly payments and the full cost of the loan for you. All you have to do is enter in the interest rate and the borrowed amount and the mortgage calculator will do the rest.

A mortgage calculator is extremely convenient if you are considering purchasing a new home. Since they calculate monthly payments, you can figure out exactly what housing price range you can afford.

Budgeting spreadsheet tutorials and templates are also available online. Microsoft Excel and other spreadsheet software can be very confusing if you are unfamiliar with financial jargon and formulas.

The internet has plenty of tutorials that provide step-by-step, image-by-image instructions on how to create a budget using spreadsheet software. For example, if you are having trouble figuring out how much interest will be charged on your credit card each month, type “how to calculate interest in Excel” into a search engine.

Budgeting spreadsheet templates are also available online. You can download pre-made spreadsheets that already have all of the formulas entered in. With a budgeting spreadsheet, all you have to do is enter the numbers that apply to you into the boxes. The spreadsheet will automatically calculate everything else for you.

Figuring out your debt-to-income ratio can also help you work out what you need to do to get out of debt. This ratio, called the DTI, is a number that represents the amount of debt you have compared to your income.

Many lenders ask for your DTI when you apply for credit. If you are preparing to apply for a credit card or loan, make sure that your DTI is decent beforehand.

Free DTI calculators exist online. These calculators ask for your total monthly income and your total monthly debt. Using this information, they calculate a number that represents your DTI.

For example, if you have $1,500 of recurring debt each month and you receive $2,000 worth of income each month, your DTI will be 75%. If your monthly debt is $2,500 and your monthly income is $2,000, your DTI is 125%.

Your DTI will give you a general overview of your current situation. If your DTI is above 100%, you should create a budget spreadsheet and try to work out how you can cut back on some of your expenses.

 The above was a guest post on behalf of Money Supermarket and was written by financial writer Andreas

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Part 2 of Case Study Series

If you’ve been following the blog lately, you’ll notice that I took on another personal challenge to take on $5000 worth of debt to invite you to look over my shoulder on how I put debt busting on steroids.  It’s my way of helping others like you get out of debt so that you can lead a more fulfilling life.  This is the second part of the Case study where I tackle the debt with another payment and good info. that you can follow along. Check out my first post on the case study of the “Watch Me Knock Out $5000 In Debt (Case Study) “series.

Like I mentioned before, it’s the kind of information big credit card companies and loan officers just don’t want you to know.  Keeping you in the dark and in Debt can be some of the many tactics creditors use to keep you in serious debt and their profits high –it’s time to change all that.  How to achieve Financial Freedom! is one of my personal goals and it should be yours too. 

Staying in debt and living a mediocre life is for a life of those not so sophisticated. It’s time to take back the reigns and pull back the curtain to getting out of debt for good, so without further wait, let’s get started on the 2^nd part of this series.

Tackling Debt Payment #2 of the $5000 Loan

In my last series of knocking out debt, my running balance of the loan is now down to $4,034.00.   I noted that mentally from the last time and you should also note that my payments were just over $400 because I set the term of the loan to a 1 year one payment.   A couple of caveats and notes here:  By reducing the term of the loan, my payments were higher, however, the loan term is a lot shorter getting you out of debt quicker.  You should balance or refinance any of your loans this way with what you can afford that can cut debt faster.

In any case, I wasn’t able to come up with another $1000 payment to apply to the 2^nd payment like the 1^st payment.  However, I was able to apply $500 straight to the loan with the balance going to the unscheduled payment.  Although, you might be not to impressed with this payment, it still gets the job done.  (1) It pays the 2^nd payment (2) It cuts interest of the term of the loan with the extra payment (3) It once again cuts the original principal which is a great mind booster.

Here’s the original receipt (sorry about the resolution as it’s a bad copy from my picture phone). 

You should note that I’m completely on schedule to get this paid off way ahead of schedule.  I’ve looked at cash flow and may be able to effectively double up on the next payment.  In any case, make sure to stay updated by signing up to the RSS feed and you’ll never miss a post.

I encourage any questions or feedback by commenting and sharing this post.

Let’s just say that I needed $5000 to clear up another short term, personal loan I had with another institution.  Here’s where you should listen.  I got financing for $5000 to upgrade my share of personal real estate I owned that would improve myself and my wife’s lifestyle a bit. 

Also, grab your complimentary  original Financial Blueprint  to debt busting strategies and wealth building if you haven’t already to keep yourself on track.

Pay it down Debt Balance     $5000

                                            $4,032

                                           $3,549.11

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Guest Post by J.H. of CreditMagic.org

Your financial freedom actually lies in the strategies that you can take in order to change your habits. Rather than simply opting to get help from a third party professional or going for credit counseling, you can change all of the aspects of your credit an your finances simply of your own. If you are able to change your spending habits, you may be able to revolutionize the status of your debts and finances.

Succeeding with Financial Freedom 

Financial Freedom means a debt free life. Now, in order to lead a debt free life, you will have to spend less as this can help you to borrow less. Rather than simply aiming to save money, aim at spending less. This will help you save money in the long run. For example, if you cannot avoid the lure of spending , you will only end up using the money from your savings accounts too. You will have to analyze yourself first, your wants and needs, your fancies and whims, your affordability and then decide as to how much you should spend.

If you really want to attain heights with regards to  financial freedom, it is important for you to focus mainly on spending, rather than simply saving. You will always have to try and keep the rate of your expenditure under tight control and in addition to that you will have to focus on improving the source of your income.

You need to understand it really is important to try and remain content with what you have. If you do this, you will see that your levels of expenditures are lowering day by day. You will have to think keeping par with your own level and your affordability. It is quite simple to maintain your financial freedom.

You will have to think that just because another person has a particular thing does not necessarily mean that you too will have to acquire that same thing. You will have to think on the lien of whether or not you actually require that thing and if you can actually afford to buy that particular item.

There are mainly two types of spending in your life – good and bad spending. Good spending or expenditures are those which you actually require to make in order to buy items which you cannot live without. On the other hand, bad spending or expenditures are those items which you do not require but have bought just because you liked that particular item.

In addition to the above, you will have to keep in mind that credit cards are mainly or the emergency purposes and thus these cards should be kept for the same. The fewer the usage of the credit, the lower will the debt levels. 

The lower the debt levels, the bigger will be the expanse of your freedom. Furthermore, in order to stay within your affordability you can take the help of a budget planner or tool that can help you with budgeting. It is also important for you to review and modify your budget from time to time as as you can afford and for your income and expenses. 

J.H is associated with the http://www.creditmagic.org/ making regular contributions as a member of the community. Not only has he made notable contributions to the community, he has also written articles for different financial websites.

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As I embark on another vacation, this time to the greater Nevada area, I recently had to reflect the life lessons, self improvement skills and experience to get to this point in life.  Through making the right financial decisions, I can afford to pay for these types of vacations out of pocket without incurring any new debt (read my 30K Foot Blog Post for an entertaining travel to French Polynesia islands). 

Being able to get to this point in many people’s lives usually means whipping out credit cards or at least living above their means.  There are countless others out there like me that actually live life to finally achieve financial freedom that allows them to live unlike most people.

If you’re not already to that point in life, just realize that you can do it too, no matter how much you may currently be in debt.  You can learn how to debt proof your life and also stay the course financially, but it’s not the easy way of life which is why the average person is usually in more than $10,000 of consumer debt alone.  The easy way out is too max yourself out with credit, pay for things you can’t afford and spend close to a lifetime trying to pay it all off.

What makes more sense is to actually work on your money blueprint of what you can actually afford to take on in terms of credit and have a plan to reduce and pay it off earlier than later. You should concentrate on building wealth financially as opposed reducing your wealth. 

I’ve figured a lot on my own as well as through the right financial mentors.  If you’re ready to make a change financially, we don’t have to start from scratch. In fact, there’s already many blueprints of how others made it financially and built a fortune for themselves. 

Much of what I actually blog on has been my own experience and what actually works, not some theoretical based BS that doesn’t work in today’s world.  I’m going to help you out starting today.  Below you’ll find a great round up of posts to get you going financially in the right direction so you can be vacationing somewhere you’ve always wanted to be or simply living a life congruent with your dreams.

Wealth Making Blog Posts:

Case Study of How I Raised Over 20K With This Little Tool – Dwight Anthony, Financially Elite Blog

The Methods of Making Money From an Informational Product – Pat Flynn, Smart Passive Income

42 Ways to Radically Simplify Your Financial Life – Adam Baker, Man vs. debt

What Is The 80/20 Rule And Why It Will Change Your Life – Yaro Starak, Entrepreneurs Journey

Money Lessons From Millionaires –  WiseBread Blog

Nine Easy Tricks to Cut Your Spending Today – Dumb Little Man Blog

How to Get Rich Quickly – The Simple Dollar

The Invisible Rich – Gail Van-Oxlade Blog

The TRUTH About Money – Rich Dad Blog

Following even a handful of the blog post tips above is almost guaranteed to improve your financial situation and only through good sound self improvement techniques such as these is how you can start to gain traction quickly.

Remember, there’s the easy road that we talked about earlier or the slightly higher road to take to true Financial Freedom.  Which road do you plan to take financially?  No one ever said it was easy but there’s enough success clues left behind by others for you to start making a profound difference almost immediately.

It’s not about feeling alienated about what others will think of how you live, but instead know how you will live like none of them that don’t personally support you.  It’s important to get people like your immediate family on board and even close friends to at least acknowledge that you’re prepared to be making the changes you need financially. 

Those that don’t support you, well, they can go jump off a bridge literally in my opinion.  If they aren’t supporting you, they are hurting your chances of real success later.

There are so many people that would rather see you drinking the night away or shopping till you literally drop.  What about those guys that say you need a million toys in life and yet live paycheck to paycheck because of it?   No, it’s not an easy road but you’ll get there in the end by simply believing and taking action.  In fact, you can get there a lot quicker than you think.

So, stay the course financially, it will be all worth the trouble and your wealth making habits can become permanent that really help for deep rooted success.

 Ok, so let me ask you this, what types of wealth building habits do you employ in your daily life? Join the conversation by commenting below!

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Today, I want to really break down and decipher just what the 80 20 Rule can mean to you when it’s used properly and gain much needed leverage for your results.

I just want to say that there comes a time in everyone’s life when they really need to take stock of what works for them.  Not only that, but you need to ask yourself, “When am I most productive” or “When Am I most Profitable?” or “What Really Works for Me?”

The 80 20 Rule or more commonly known as Pareto’s Principle states that, “for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. “   Let’s break it down even more – ‘80% of the effects’ in the last statement can be translated as 80% of the results and ‘20% of the causes’ is 20% of the actual work performed.   This goes hand in hand with my theory that you perform the harder work to a larger degree to capitalize on the bigger piece of the pie.

In more simple terms, let’s say you have a highly profitable business.  In that business, the 80 20 rule could dictate that 80% of your revenue comes from just 20% of your clients.  This could mean that you may have to ‘fire’ or make more profit from your much less unprofitable clientele.  It’s a golden ticket if you think about it.  If you take the time and really interpret where the 80 20 rule can work for you, it will really make a world of difference for more return vs. less work put in.

I’m a big follower, like millions of people for Tim Ferris and his 4 hour work week book and lifestyle design.  Tim in his daily living seems to employ everything positive about living the ultimate outsourced lifestyle that basically is like the 80 20 rule on steroids.  If you haven’t yet read this book, I really recommend it as it will simply do away the notion that you must work harder to see more results. Really and truly, the 80 20 rule is about living your life abundantly with less work if you would like to view it that way as well.

I also came across a wonderful post detailing how the 80 20 rule can really transform your life when put to good use.  In Yaro Starak’s, blog post, ‘What Is The 80/20 Rule And Why It Will Change Your Life ‘, he really does a good job in defining the Pareto principle and Yaro is living proof of what you can accomplish when you put this principle to the best possible use within your own life.  It’s all about leveraging out what can be outsourced to others in terms of mundane tasks in order to get the greatest result with less effort from yourself.

A Real Life Example

To give you an even more real life example, take for instance you do a lot of routine things yourself.  Let’s just say that your time for the sake of this example could be worth $100 per hour when you are most productive.  Also, let’s pretend you have a leaky roof and decide to attempt to fix it yourself.  If you were to attempt to fix this leak, it could take you let’s say 2 hours to repair (or $200 of your time).

Now, on the other hand, if you employed the 80 20 rule and hire out an experienced roofer to perform the repair.  If he fixes your roof for $60 and it was done in an hour, effectively he saved you $140 of your time not spent and in less time ($200 from above – doing it ourself and subtract $60 for the professional repair done in 1 hours time).  Do you see exactly why you should be getting a lot more excited about employing this principle within your daily life?

How I Will Employ the Pareto Principle

I personally have started putting this principle in place in many areas of my life and seeing a lot more results with a lot less effort put out.  The power thing about the 80 20 rule is that you are banking on the expertise of others – Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, so to speak.  If it takes me a lot longer to learn something when I could get a service person or a professional to do the task lickety split, it’s well worth going ahead and getting it that way.

I use the Pareto principle because I know that it will get me eventually to the goal of being 100% financially free through persistence.

Don’t Be A Control Freak

The biggest people that tend to lose out in not reaping the rewards of the Pareto Principle are those that want to always do it their way or the highway.  These personality types usually end up doing mundane and time intensive tasks themselves and get minimal return on investment of time, effort and other resources spent.  Although they may enjoy some ok results, it would have been far more beneficial to put the Pareto principle to work.

Don’t just do time sucking tasks for the sense of doing them.  Have a purpose behind every thing you do and know how will capitalize on the result by using the 80 20 rule to your full advantage.

Here’s a quick snapshot of why you should implement the Pareto Principle:

• Better and more efficient use of your time
• A better business strategy if you are an entrepreneur
• A more systemized approach
• The best trade off for effort vs. greater results
• Better ROI in terms of time and profit
• Improved Lifestyle because of better choices
• Leaving the specialized work to the professionals, so you can be more productive

These are just a few ways on how you could this strategy work for you.  Put it in place and measure your results, I know you will be impressed with the improved result.

Already using this principle to your advantage?  Join me in the discussion by commenting on this post.

If you haven’t already, please follow FEB and ‘Like’ our FaceBook FanPage below!

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As I’m writing this, we are on the 8^th hour of a 14 hour trek to Bora Bora in the Pacific.  Last night, arrived in LA just to be notified that our final leg decided to cancel our tickets because of a time to departure technicality.  This lead to using LAX airport as our personal hotel with some of the worst sleeping arrangements known to modern man (picture sleeping on a chair and using luggage as a pillow).  Why stay at LAX? I’m glad you asked, seems the NBA all star game is in town and every hotel /motel within the metro area is booked solid.  No thanks to Delta or Air France, thanks a lot there guys.

So, what have been the positive parts of the trip so far?  Well, I’ve used the long commute on the planes here to take the time to actually learn during the downtime.  Yes, you heard right, it’s times like these where you can use to your advantage.  Good thing I stocked up on the reading material and loaded up the Ipod with goodies.   Just what have I been studying?  Here’s my concise list so far:

Premium Inspiration Resources Studied:

• John Chow’s – Make Money Online: Roadmap of a Dot Com Mogul. This is not your average rehashed internet marketing crap. I’d like to refer to this as Blogging Business in a Box and John pulls no punches showing his blueprint with actionable steps to how he makes 40K a Month as a Pro Blogger.  Highly recommended read, I got my copy signed directly by John.

• Tim Ferriss’ – 4 Hour Work Week – Expanded and Updated edition.  This edition is not to be reckoned with, although it’s a bit dated, it is the ultimate lifestyle tool on outsourcing while becoming super productive and putting you back in focus.  It’s books like these that inspire me to travel to far away lands and put up with lousy airline service, not forgetting the destination to be the end goal.  His tutorial on how he packs one bag under 10 pounds and travels the world – this alone is worth the read.

• Sean Collins’ – NLP mindset videos to attracting money. This set of audio mp3s, I loaded up on my iPod along with other brain reprogramming tools.  These NLP style videos help work your subconscious to help unclog the root causes of why you could be blocking more money from being attracted into your life.  This audio set is a good listen and should be added to anyone’s playlist that is serious about their own personal development.

• Jason Fladlien and Robert Plank – Easy Product Creation.  I’ve had this little gem on my playlist for a while and finally give it a good listen.  These two guys are wizards are what they do and I’m convinced you need your own product – offline or online (info product or software) to really lead to a life of financial freedom.

• Switch: How to Change Things when Change is hard. A Best Seller for a long time and once #2 on Amazon’s Business books, this is really is an eye opening read, I’m up to Chapter 3 as I write this and mesmerized by how profound change can be once we get the rational and emotional sides of a problem corrected.  Chip and Andy Heath did a brilliant job on this one.  I checked the reviews on Amazon and it must have 4 ½ stars rating for a reason (paperback edition).

As I’m writing this, unfortunately I couldn’t be as cool as a similar blog post by John Chow where he was blogging from 30,000 Ft. but with Free Wifi access on his plane ride.  See his What happens to Doritos at 30000 Feet post.

So, back to the Bora Bora and French Polynesian islands focus.  Just exactly what do I expect to learn from the experience?  First and foremost here is my short list:

• To completely recharge and have a good vacation – make those 13-14 hours of plane ride well worth it.
• Learn more about their culture and experience the beauty that these islands possess.
• Practice a few outsourcing tricks like I learned from Tim Ferriss while living large.  Tyrone Shum of TyroneShum.com is another excellent source of outsourcing for lifestyle design that I listen to regularly.
• Spend some quality time with the significant other.  Isn’t that what life is really about?
• Experience an adventure outside of my comfort zone.  When I was a kid, I hated roller coasters.  Over time, I programmed my brain that a lot of my fear was unfounded and now I absolutely love thrill rides.  I’m sure they will be at least something thrilling that I could try that I’ve never done before. Work on expanding your own comfort zone.
• Practice frugality to minimize and completely eliminate any chances of debt accumulation.  I’m a Financial Freedom Blogger after all.
• Use this trip as an ultimate guide of inspiration to really bring out the best in myself and what I would like to accomplish financially as well in terms of lifestyle design.
• Reminisce on what I have learned here and determine what is the biggest takeaway of this trip.

So, where’s the first stop?  Well, fortunately, we’ll be taking the most economical way of seeing these French Polynesian chain of islands.  We’ll be taking a cruise around the islands and see just what each island has to offer.

If you’ve ever been on a cruise, consider RCL or Princess Cruises (the latter is what we’ll be using).  Cruising through these islands with one day port of calls at each stop, represent the best bang for the buck.  Flying from island to island and staying at hotels is another good way, but of course will add significant cost to your trip.

Ok, to end off this post, let me say if you are planning to do any long trips away from home, consider getting a professional travel agent to make certain you won’t have any hiccups along the way.  We missed our final leg plane because the connecting flight was leaving too close to when we arrived from our last stop, that and the airline did something they shouldn’t have done in the first place.  Ok, rant over, still worth it in the end.  We’re hopping on the last flight today and we’ll end up in the pearl of the Pacific.

I hope this blog post helped inspire you or maybe you are already planning or even travelling to experience the wonderful things another destination has to offer.

Have an airline mix-up of your own or had your own adventure where you travelled to exotic locations?  Would love to hear it, join me in the discussion by commenting.  Make sure you sign up to the Full RSS Feed to make sure you never miss another post on FEB as well.

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There are so many people today that really adhere to the discipline of building their financial wealth taking it one step at a time and seeing results.  However, they are many out there that believe you just save, save, save and live a frugal lifestyle and making nothing but sacrifices financially.  If you are one these people, I say to just get ready to stop the madness. 

Today, I will be revisiting why it is so important to reward yourself and why rewarding yourself actually helps you to prosper even more.   Yes, it is important to definitely live below your means, but is also paramount to have a proper reward system in place that actually helps emphasize and confirm that you are doing a good job financially and through other means.

Rewards Help Build Your Motivation Levels

It’s been proven that when people feel better about themselves in performing and accomplishing certain tasks, they will be motivated and enthusiastic to continue doing them.  Take this quote for example, “Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.” – Napolean Hill.  As you can see, good effort in seeing a results in doing something should definitely be rewarded. 

Reward Every Accomplishment

You should reward yourself for absolutely everything you do.  Even small accomplishments should be rewarded.  You have an internal reward system that if you don’t reward yourself externally at times, will cause you to sabotage your efforts.  When this happens, you can easily become discouraged leading to diminish or even stop the things that you have worked so hard to accomplish.  So reward yourself and do it often as you start seeing results for everything you do.

How to Reward Yourself

I consider the following principles a way of rewarding yourself while still keeping yourself in check.  In fact, there are many out there rewarding themselves all the time by abusing drugs, getting drunk and stupid, or having no regard for themselves.  This is not the party type of rewards that you need to indulge in.  Your rewards should be congruent with what you have accomplished in any way or form. 

For instance, you may have just worked hard and got a two-fold promotion at work.  A good reward system would be to take your significant other out for a night on the town, buy yourself something nice (but can afford) or even go to an amusement park or similar.  These are just a few ways of keeping yourself in check and even more importantly, start feeling good about the things you do.

My Perfect Example of a Reward System

Recently, I celebrated a birthday and for that birthday alone, could give rise to occasion for rewarding yourself. In digging further, I also found that my net worth has increased by about 11% over the same period in time from last year.  Something to definitely go ahead and plan out and reward myself for – wouldn’t you agree?  It’s the little things that matter and this was even bigger than that.

Here’s my breakdown of what I decided to do to reward myself for that day:

• Take a day out for myself and concentrate on me.  This is paramount as you can only help others when you feel good about your own life.
• Decided on a day at the beach.  Wasn’t sure on what to do yet.
• I ended up renting a jet ski for an hour and went crazy.
• An Expensive beverage of my choice.
• Dinner at a fancy Italian joint.

As you can possibly imagine from above, I ended up having a blast while at the same time reminding myself the whole reason I was doing this as a reward.   The jet ski excursion was awesome, haven’t been on one of those for years.  I then ended up at a pool with a swim up bar (if you haven’t experienced this, you must).  Ordered an $8.00 Mudslide and proceeded to talk with a patron at the swim up bar.  Yep, that just made it more concrete, life is also about rewarding yourself. 

Not only did I do the above, but I milked it even more with a great night out at dinner with a table overlooking the coast. Can you see how good a reward system can be when you plan it out and tell your subconscious mind that you are really on the right track?  It gets your whole fundamental self on board to do great things.

Important Notes for Your Reward System

It is imperative that I make one thing clear.  As you have read my own recent reward, you have got to note that in no shape or form did it lead me into further debt.  This blog is becoming Financially Free as you have already noticed.  Too have gone into debt for my little personal outing would have resulted in ‘stupid’ debt.  Many people do it every day but you don’t want to be one of these people.  So, choose your rewards carefully, there are really no right or wrong rules about doing them, but don’t go overboard either.

Why a Reward System is Critical

Have you been able to adapt and implement your own reward system yet?  If not, don’t worry, there is always time.  However, as an action measure, put this at the highest of your agenda.  Remember, this reward system does not have to relate to your personal finance and financial freedom matters, it can also be personal development, education, business, personal, family and a host of other avenues of where you can link a reward system to.  Ok, so now you have no excuses and you have the skillset to begin, plan some rewards for things you want to accomplish. Remember, those that have a reward system in place really do end up being some of the happiest people on planet earth.  Just make sure to do it in a way that is congruent and healthy to your lifestyle.

Got a reward story of your own?  Have you had good results of implementing a reward system into your own life?

 If so or if you haven’t, I’d love to hear it, so share it with me by commenting.
Also, please if you like this post, please give a ‘like’ on FaceBook and share it on your other favorite social networks.

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Guest Post by Martha Jackson

Do you have the habit of buying things on credit, which are not necessary. Are you finding it hard to pay off your credit bills? Are you getting harassing calls from your creditors? If youanswered yes to any of these questions, then you should immediately take some steps to find ways to pay off your dues and enjoy a debt free life in the future.

Steps to live a debt free life

In order to enjoy a debt free life, you should follow the steps mentioned below:

1.    Practice frugal living: To save more and pay off your debt faster, you need to practice living frugally. You can use discount coupons to buy your weekly groceries and other items.

2.    Use fewer credit cards: You should start the habit of purchasing things on cash only, unless it is an emergency situation. If you don’t like carrying cash, you can use your debit cards.

3.    Calculate your total debts: You should make a list of unpaid bills and calculate the total amount of debt you owe to your creditors.

4.    Prepare a budget: You should prepare a monthly financial budget, on the basis of your income and expenses, to find out how much you can save.

5.    Contact your creditors: Once you know how much money you can afford to pay towards your debt, you have to contact your creditors and negotiate with them to reduce your interest rate. If the outstanding balance on your card is huge and you cannot repay it, you can also settle that debt.  You should make regular payments to your creditor, once you have worked out a new repayment plan.

Benefits  of becoming Debt Free

The advantages of becoming financially free are as follows:

“    All harassing calls from your creditors or collection agencies will come to an end
“    You can lead a stress free life void of any debt
“    You can enjoy the different financial benefits offered in the financial market.
“    After making several payments your credit score will improve
“    Your debts become more organized
“    You don’t have to file for bankruptcy

Along with repaying your debt, you can also take a second job to earn more and save for emergency situations. You need to have patience and perseverance in repaying your dues, to enjoy a happy debt free life in the future.

* This has been a guest post by Martha Jackson.  You can visit her blog where you can learn more on becoming Debt Free.

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