I Don’t Want to be Old and Broke
This is where it all began about nine years ago…
Financial freedom had never even crossed my mind, until one evening my husband said “You know, we won’t have much money when we retire”.
I was floored by this remark. We were both on excellent salaries and were good savers, and we faced a government pension (if we were lucky) and an old people’s home in our old age? I was not at all happy with the idea but didn’t know what to do about it.
Interestingly, not long after I caught a snippet of an interview by Robert Kiyosaki on Morning Radio. He was talking about his new book “Rich Dad Poor Dad.” He said he had toyed with the idea of calling it something along the lines of “If you want to Be Rich and Successful don’t go to School”!! Interesting!
When I saw his book at the airport bookstore, I bought it and the journey to financial freedom (and face it, there is no true freedom without financial freedom) began:
“Rich Dad Poor Dad” is a great for someone starting out. Some people find it pretty basic but the ideas are important. Don ‘t toss it to one side. Persevere. I know some people who started with this book, who are now very rich!
His next book “The CashFlow Quadrant” digs deeper. Which quadrant does your cash flow come from? How do you get paid? Are you an employee, self employed, a business owner or an investor?
The whole idea is to build enough passive income i.e money you don’t have to work for, to cover your expenses. Rich Dad’s message basically is; to get financially free you must get your money to work for you, not the other way around.
What is the best way to do this? Rich Dad and Robert did it through real estate, so we decided we would do that too. Following Rich Dad’s rules, we started a property portfolio. The secret to success is to buy ‘below market value’ and make sure your investment is ‘cash flow positive‘. This means that the rental must cover all expenses and give you money leftover.
Apart from reading these books the other important thing is to become financially literate. If you want to be rich you need to be able to read a spreadsheet. Just knowing the difference between an asset and a liability is invaluable (one puts money in your pocket and one takes money out of your pocket…so, your house is a liability!). Controversial stuff and the cause of much heated debate.
Another good tip at this stage is to watch where your advice comes from. Free advice is often the most expensive advice. Make sure the person giving the advice has actually done it themselves. Don’t be afraid of paying for good advice if you have to.
Of course everyone has a different path and yours will no doubt be different from ours. Some people make a lot of money out of business, or out of stocks and shares. We did have a lot of shares at one stage but I wasn’t really interested enough to learn a lot about them and eaving your money in someone else’s hands is risky. No-one looks after your interests as well as you can. We did OK with shares but I was a lot happier when we got rid of them and focused on property investing. I liked property and it’s a good way to build passive income.
These were our first steps toward financial freedom. We won’t retire old and broke. Bring it on!
Photo by kevindooley
Escape the Rat Race; Read these Books
Here are ten of the many great titles that helped us on the road to financial freedom:
Rich Dad Poor Dad ~ Robert Kiyosaki
Cash Flow Quadrant ~ Robert Kiyosaki
Retire Young Retire Rich ~ Robert Kiyosaki
Think and Grow Rich ~ Napolean Hill
The Science of Being Rich ~ Wallace D. Wattles
The Secret ~ Rhona Byrne
The Power of Intention ~ Dr Wayne W. Dyer
Conversations with God 1-3 ~ Neale Donald Walsche
Your Best Life Now ~ Joel Osteen
The 4- Hour Workweek ~ Timothy Ferriss
These books have been indispensible to us; a quick precis:
Firstly, Rich Dad paved the way with his lessons on handling money and the importance of being financially literate. A great start.
Napolean Hill introduced the importance of the “Power of the Mind”‘ along with Wallace D. Wattles who had a mental and spiritual approach to getting rich. Wallace D. Wattles ‘thinking stuff’ was an early forerunner to the “Law of Attraction”, a la “The Secret”. The LOA is a very popular concept nowadays and rightfully so, though it’s nothing new.
Dr Wayne Dyer’s book is in a similar vein, the “Power of Intention” being a force in the universe that allows the act of creation to take place. I love his meditation CD, “Getting in the Gap” also.
The “Conversations With God” series is for the open minded. God spoke to Neale Donald Walsche! The ‘conversation’ is riveting and answers many questions about life, the universe and everything. I really enjoyed these books, though they made my head spin for a while!
Joel Olsteen is a senior pastor at Lakewood Church, Houston. He is quite progressive and open-minded and his book, about living at your full potential, is inspiring.
Tim Ferriss is a radical (in the nicest way of course!) and wraps up this list well. His book, “The 4-Hour Workweek” is about throwing out old outdated concepts and living your life as you want it. He calls it ‘lifestyle design’. Very interesting.
All Thanks to Rich Dad!
Have you thought about retirement?
Do you have a nice retirement nest egg? Will you struggle on superannuation? Maybe, you’ll end up living with your relatives. There is another choice… financial freedom. That’s when your passive income (i.e money you don’t have to work for) exceeds your outgoings, so your money works for you when you can no longer work for it.
If this sounds good I suggest you go to a book shop or local library and get a copy of “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. When you’ve finished that read “Cashflow Quadrant” and then “Retire Young Retire Rich”. You will learn that it is possible to be financially free and out of the ‘rat race’ of life if you follow Rich Dad’s philosphies.
For those of you who’ve been in outer space for the last ten years or so this is the story: Robert had two dads (Rich Dad was the father of his best friend)) who had opposing views about money. One dad would say “I can’t afford it” and the other dad would say “How can I afford it?” He decided to listen to Rich Dad.
The “Rich Dad” book series focuses on Cash Flow and Leverage. It’s about building your asset column so the money keeps coming in even if you’re not working. An example of this is a rental property where the rent covers all the outgoings and gives you some cash to put in your pocket as well.
As well as books, Robert devised an educational game called “CashFlow.” See my previous post here. It is well worth investing in if you are serious about becoming financially free.
As you probably know I’m a great fan of the ‘Power of the Mind”. This is what Robert has to say about our thoughts shaping our lives:
The power of our thoughts may never be measured or appreciated, but it became obvious to me as a young boy that there was value and power in being aware of my thoughts and how I expressed myself. I noticed that my poor dad was poor not because of the amount of money he earned – which was significant – but because of his thoughts and actions. As a young boy, having two fathers, I became acutely aware of being careful in deciding which thoughts I chose to adopt as my own and to whom should I listen – my rich dad or my poor dad? At the age of nine I decided to listen to and learn from my rich dad about money. In doing so, I chose not to listen to my poor dad – my real dad – even though he was the one with all the college degrees.Being a product of two strong dads allowed me the luxury of observing the effects that different thoughts have on one’s life. I noticed that people really do shape their lives through their thoughts.
I’ve been lucky enough to meet several people lately who became financially free by following Rich Dad’s teachings. Actually, they’re more than financially free…they’re rich.
I’d like to say a huge thank you to Robert Kiyosaki for writing these books. Rich Dad’s wisdom has helped a lot of people.
To everyone else; this is a strategy which works. Read these books; get financially educated. Start as young as you can. Good Luck!
For Kiwis’ Eyes Only
At last there is a decent New Zealand on-line bookstore; it’s called Fishpond You may have heard of it already..it was established in 2004.
So, does this mean cheaper prices for us antipodeans??
To give you some idea of how it stacks up against the giant Amazon, I thought I’d compare the price of one of my favourite books from Robert Kiyosaki…”Retire Young Retire Rich”.
Amazon first: A new copy of RYRR was selling for NZD$18.51; standard shipping cost a huge NZD$15.12 which gives a grand total of NZD$33.63. If you spend NZD$12.79 more you get free standard shipping.
Fishpond: A new copy will cost you more @NZD$32.33 but shipping is only NZD$5.99 giving a total of NZD$38.32. Fishpond also has free shipping if you spend over NZD$50.00..
There’s a lot of difference in delivery time; 18 – 32 days for Amazon standard shipping (I recently ordered a book from Amazon and it would’ve taken all of that and more), whereas Fishpond you only have to wait 6 – 10 days. Your package doesn’t go via the North Pole like I’m sure my one did. 
This comparison wasn’t very scientific and my maths aren’t that great! Prices change so it’s worth looking at both.
Happy reading!
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