Empowering Financial Independence: The Role of Financial Education in Prosperity
These obstacles can include high levels of student debt, stagnant wages, limited job opportunities, and the rising cost of living. Many individuals find themselves stuck in a cycle of paycheck to paycheck living, unable to save or invest in their future. This blog aims to address these challenges and provide practical advice and strategies to help people overcome these obstacles and achieve financial independence. While not everyone may resonate with this topic, for those who are struggling to attain their version of the “American Dream,” this blog will serve as a valuable resource and source of inspiration. It will offer guidance on budgeting, reducing debt, increasing income streams, and navigating the complexities of the modern financial landscape. By sharing personal experiences, success stories, and expert insights, this blog aims to empower individuals to take control of their financial lives and work towards a brighter future.
After one of my seminars, I noticed a woman hanging around but not coming up to talk to me like so many do after it’s over. She just stood in the back of the room, moving her lips and staring up at the celling. She had heard me say in the seminar that I was always the first to arrive and the last to leave, so he wanted to talk to me alone about something that really mattered to him.
When the last attendee left, she walk up to me and said, “I know you are probably ready to go home, but the things you were saying about investing started me question my financial future and I wonder if we could visit for a few minutes?” I said what I always say when people ask for my help “If I can help, I will” and I sat down. I sensed that he had been standing in the back of that room building up the courage to tell me his story because he didn’t set down next to me, he simple started. This is his story of woo.
I have worked for the same major corporation for the last 13 years of my life. I work hard and take pride in doing a great job for them and thought that dedication would move me up the corporate latter. All I had ever wanted to do, the reason I went to college, the reason I got a graduate degree in business, was to succeed, be paid well and make a difference. I never saw myself doing anything but working for a company.
After several years of having a “good” job, reality started to set in. I looked around and saw older people in the company who were not having the kind of lives that I thought would naturally come. I began to understand that all the things I thought would allow me to be successes in life (education, dedication, loyalty, expertise, a good job with a good company) were false and misleading and very deceptive.
My company always gives a cost-of-living pay raise, usually 3-4 percent maximum until the last 2 years in which they gave nothing. My loyalty, experience and dedication were inconsequential. I have to admit that I have never had a pay raise. It appalled me to understand that I was making the same income (inflation-wise) as I did the day I started. It was obvious what my worth was.
No matter how hard I had to work, I had to fight my way to the top of the corporate pyramid. Somehow, I thought I would make it. But common sense says only one person in the corporation “makes it” … the president. Everyone else gets the wind knocked out of their sails. We all think we are better than the other guy, but the company just doesn’t see it that way. Then, last month I was passed over for promotion by a younger employee, once you’re passed over, chances are slim of getting another chance at a promotion.
JE, when you asked in the seminar “What are you paying with to work where you work?” I realized after years and years of working for a corporation that I was paying with was, my life… and I was paying too much! After 30 years of working for a corporation, if they fired me or I decided to quit, what would I have to show for it? I helped to build their company; I gave my years, energy, intellect, and all I would have to show for it would be my paycheck stubs. I don’t want to spend the next 20 years working hard and have only my paycheck stubs as your reward? You got me thinking; it would be better to have walk away income where I could tell my company to “Drop Dead”, a residual income that would allow me to someday retire and receive an income for all my life?
Do you think it’s too late? Can someone like me do anything to break these chains? I’ve seen other workers at our company work for 20 years and they let them go. What is a 50-year-old supposed to do? If their 401k is like my 401k they would not have enough money to retire on in 100 years. I don’t have enough income or time to build a good retirement savings. I feel like I have failed my family. Damn it, what was I thinking?
I told her that was quite a story and I know there are a lot of people out there waking up at 3:00 AM with the “how am I going to make it” thought holding their sleep hostage till the alarm clock goes off just like you. There is a bright side to the road, though. You will have to suspend that conventional wisdom way of thinking and start using some good old common sense. Conventional wisdom got you in this mess, now you need to think your way out.
Sherlock Holmes said, “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” So, I have tried to think of a way out of the trap you find yourself in. Conventional wisdom does not seem to offer any solutions. Investing in your 401k is a gamble and the knowledge that taxes are going up and it makes little sense to defer taxes when they are low until a time when they are high.
Then you need to do something very few people ever do; START. Start learning ways to free up money and invest it. That will be something this site will help you with. So, keep reading, learning and thinking, there is a bright side of the road.