April 20, 2010
Buffalo, NY
Gutsy title? YES
A formula for success? possibly
I was sitting in my apartment today visualizing my goals while looking at one of my vision boards.
You might notice what stood out to me today, the image of money that seems to be flowing out of where the sun was.
Not sure how it triggered this thought in my mind, but it did. I asked myself the question of whether I’ve been spending my money in the smartest way for me at this point in my life. Thinking back about it, the last few hundred dollars that I had made had been spent on 10 new books, giving back(paying it forward by buying people some books) and a few beers here and there for my “college bonding time” haha.
So I thought to myself that yes, I actually had been spending my money the right way. If I would have asked myself that same question a few years ago though… NO CHANCE.
I like sharing personal experiences/journeys/conquests and find it helps me grow as a person so I’d like to share this with you. Maybe this is part of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad concept actually being applied for me right now.
While looking at the vision board, the sun-like money image really stood out in my mind. Maybe it took me into a different rabbit hole Alice in Wonderland style.
It suddenly occurred to me that I used to spend my money on things that aren’t going to be assets in my life(illegal junk, video games, junk food, etc). I was always buying liabilities or things that are taking money out of my pocket and not providing anything in return.
Thinking ahead to the next few months of my life and thinking over the last few months of my life, I realize that I have been spending as much free time creating assets instead of buying liabilities as I could. I’ve been working on developing websites that have a good amount of targeted traffic that leads to a few sales of products a month earning me some residual income through affiliate marketing.
Along with this, i’ve been spending the profits from this re-investing them in my personal education OUTSIDE of the classroom. I’m considered a huge nerd and proud of it. I’ve mainly been buying a ton of books and other educational information and reading these in my free time.
It’s a hard concept for me to truly grasp at this point in my life as I don’t have a lot of money saved up and instead of saving all my money, I have been spending quite a bit. However, I realize that what I am spending my money on is an asset if I choose to use it and apply what I learned (which I have been as much as possible, although there’s always room for improvement).
How this thought was triggered is beyond me, the only question I feel is right to ask is:
How are you spending your free time and spare income?
I hope that you are spending it on creating assets or improving yourself as I have grown so much as a person and learned so much over the past 6 months alone. It’s different thinking about how I used to spend a spare $20 on stuff that really did nothing good for me. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t spend money on things that are just for fun and things to enjoy as I do that as well.
All that I want you to do is start thinking about what you are spending some of your money on and whether or not it is in alignment with where you ultimately want to be in 5-10 or even 20 years from now. Does spending $20-$100 a week on alcohol prepare you for where you want to be? It’s really an eye opening experience when we actually sit down and think about what we spend our money and time on.
I hope this post got you thinking and hopefully will be some type of guidance to help you along your journey. Feel free to share your experiences and thoughts on this in the comments below. Please let me know if this is helping you or if there’s anything I can do to help you choose wiser or spend your money on creating assets. I’d love to help