Working for a living

I listen to the Bigger Money Podcast, and on a recent show I learned several useful principles from the guest I wish to share. The guest was a teacher and a real estate investor, who came to an important realization early in life, which changed his life. His story was an important deviation from the classic Rich Dad Poor Dad story.

First Dad

His first dad was a pipe fitter, a skilled trade, which pays quite well, but involves much travel and long hours. His first dad didn't talk about money, but worked long hours to provide a good living for his family. During a prolonged down turn in the economy, he was laid off, the parents started fighting over money and they divorced.

Second Dad

His second dad was a business executive, who made good money, but worked long hours, and travelled a lot. This dad talked about budgeting and saving, so the parents fought less and saved more. But he was gone a lot and didn't seem to have time to enjoy the money they saved.

The podcast guest shared these important lessons:

• if the only way you can make money, is to trade time for money, then making more money means having no time to live.
• budget your money, because its not how much you make thats important, its how much you keep.
• a family which talks openly about money, budgeting, and spending versus saving / investing, learns about finances and fights less.
• Unfortunately for both his dads, the only way they knew to be financially successful was to work hard, work long hours and generate a large income.
• the guest shared that he read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and was inspired to make passive income investing in real estate, so he would have both time and money to enjoy life.

The podcast guest took what he learned in life, and what he learned from reading the book Rich Dad Poor Dad, and made a decision about how he would live his life.

He resolved to work a limited amount of hours a week, spend a lot of time enjoying life, and make extra money through making his money work for him, so his money working generated extra money, not him working.

He achieved this by taking a job with fixed and limited hours, plus declined any overtime. He then invested in real estate to generate extra income so he would have money to enjoy his his free time.

Summary

I enjoyed the podcast because it reinforced my beliefs that work is just part of your life, the part that makes the fun part of your life possible.
It reinforces the need to guard your time off and limit overtime.
It reinforced the need to budget and invest wisely, because it's more important to budget, save and invest, then it is to simply work more hours to make more money, which in the absence of budgeting and investing means simply spending more money.
Its important to make your money work for you, through investments, so it provides your extra income, not you working extra hours.
It's important to use your job to purchase investments to provide extra income, so you trade only a small portion of your time for dollars and you save for yourself enough time to live.
Lastly, families which talk about money, educate themselves about money and have uniform plans and goals about their money, are more successful at both saving it, investing it and understanding its role in their life.

knowlege is powerful, it can make you financially independent and happy.

the end .. for now .. @shortsegments.