I'm a man of simple taste.
My needs are few and my wants even fewer. I am easily satisfied; so when I am asked about my long-term goals, it only follows that I give a simple answer:
Financial freedom.
What do I mean by this? I want the ability to do as I damn well please with my money without worrying about survival, without stress over loans, mortgages, or credit bills. All I want is gravy, no debt and pure profit.
It's nice to want things, but its a different story when it comes to actually achieving them.
How does one start a quest for financial freedom?
As with any quest, the first step is preparation. You have to stock up on inventory, armor up, and train before setting foot in the real world. The most important tool in this quest is money. It boggles my mind why people would take their most important tool and hide it, allowing it to languish in low-yield savings, or even worse -- doing nothing in a checking account. An offense even greater than inefficient utilization is the abuse of credit. You're taking your money and hammering it against objects you can't afford until your most important tool whittles away into nothingness.
Too much of our money's potential is squandered between debt and apathy. Granted, one cannot avoid operational costs since we need a place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear, and transportation to get us places, but one has to differentiate between needs and wants. The ability to do so will build up personal capital.
In the guide of sound financial advice, you will hear two things: cut back and save. It's a simple strategy that eludes too many of us, but it provides a steady path towards our goal of financial freedom.
I was never one for the tortoise.
I prefer to leap over obstacles to land in great positions without years of sweat and toil. It's a risky method of living, but the rewards are too great to ignore. If I'm going to go into debt, it will not be because of foolish purchasing habits, but because of risky investment behavior.
I have observed that nobody in my family has really dealt with investment opportunities either in the form of bonds or stocks. Maybe a CD here or there, but nothing that screams "Wall Street!" My brother-in-law is enamored with the prospect of real estate and believes that land is the key to wealth. I won't argue about the worth of homes and the gains from renting property, but I feel that land is still too much of a slow burner. Land requires development, development requires a lot of start-up and operational costs, and it could be decades before profit is realized.
An intellectual such as myself prefers to deal with the realm of ideas. Intellectual assets, not physical, are the real money makers this generation. Social networking, mobile devices, inter-connectivity, advances in communication technology is where the real action is at. Nothing will replace standard industry such as automobiles or basic home-keeping products, but their steady returns are dwarfed by emerging industries that never even existed years ago.
We can be tortoises or we can be hares. You can bet on the veteran and make a tidy sum, or you can put it all on the newcomer and win big.
Whichever path you take, your quest starts now.
