Don't Just Work For a Paycheck!

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Perhaps I have written about this here before. Or perhaps I have written about this here a dozen times or more. I know I have talked about it in more than one comment or response around here. Either way, it bears repeating. You see, the simple truth is that money makes money. We have all heard that phrase uttered a million times in our lives. It's true, and yet while many people say this, they don't always fully understand exactly what this means. You have to have money to live. Let's set that commonality aside for a moment. You need a roof over your head and clothes on your back. You need food to eat, and regardless how we get from point A to point B, most of us need to bear the cost of some form of transportation. These are all costs, and they are not easy to get around. But we also need savings. And moreover, we need investments. Forget telling me it is impossible to save. I already know better. But I just want you to keep one very simple thing in mind. What do you want to work for? Do you want to just get by? Or do you want a future? Do you want to get to retirement age and then realize that Social Security isn't going to pay the bills? Forget that you get a statement each and every year telling you that what you will get is no hill of beans, so why the surprise? A paycheck should be both a means to an end and a means to a future. Again, money makes money. Another thing I say often around here is save on the things you need so you can afford the things you want. Look, the basic thing here is that one can either simply spend all of their paycheck, which means you just have to go back to work and make more. Or you can find ways to save some of it so that you can eventually work less, have more options and choices, grow your money, and maybe even be able to decide to retire when you want to because you can, rather than having to wait until the government says you should. And, even have a better retirement than what the government lays out for you to have. If you have a 401k plan or some other retirement plan offered to you, take it. Put as much into as you possibly can. If you don't have an IRA opened up, open one. If you don't have six months worth of salary tucked aside for emergencies—get it going! If you have credit card debt, get it paid off! The interest alone you would save would be more than enough to set aside a nice little nest egg. Money, and having money really doesn't have a thing to do with what kind of job you have or how much you make. It doesn't matter what your expenses are, even. You can change them. And heck, instead of sitting by the computer playing Solitaire, or doing crossword puzzles—or even putting together boxed puzzles—why not pull out a book or two to learn about how to grow and invest your money? How to save money? How to find money you have, but don't know you have, to save? Maybe start with Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor? It's all right there at your fingertips. How to manage money, how to think about money, how to grow money, how to invest your money—how to make money no matter what your situation happens to be or what excuses you may be comfortable to make. Like I said, don't just work for a paycheck. Work for a future! Work to be able to do with your life what you want to do. To have freedom and choice and other opportunities you can take advantage of when they arise because you can afford it. Financial freedom is not about money at all. It is about life! There is nothing wrong with working and working hard. But there has to be more to life than simply working until we can't, and then retiring into poverty, stuck in the house, too old and crippled to do anything we want to do, wishing we would have had the time and money when, by that time, it is too late to change it.