It doesn't matter where you come from or how much you have to start with, probably the single most important thing you can do to start an honest attempt at amassing a fortune for retirement is to increase your income. There are many ways to do this; or so we are told.
Get another job. We all know what J.O.B. stands for right? Just Over BROKE. PLUS you have to do the work and that takes TIME. Time you could be doing other things, like oh I don't know, fishing? Family vacation?
Anyhow, swapping time for money IS a legitimate way to amass a small fortune through savings, but the reality of the situation is that over 90% of these work-a-day approaches to a secure retirement end up not working out too well for the people choosing that route. But it IS doable. It's just too hard and you can only conceivably work at most maybe 18 hours a day.
Then there is the school track. What a total scam! Oh yeah - go 50 to 100K in debt for a degree in basket weaving or Pan American Social Science and see how that works out for you. If you are crazy enough to go to those ridiculously priced indoctrination factories I would suggest you ONLY go for a degree in either Computer Science or Software Engineering and even that is not the greatest move as I will explain later.
But then, again, why pay thousands of dollars - or worse borrow them, for something you can learn for FREE by scouring the web and reading message boards so you can teach YOURSELF everything you need to know WITHOUT all the PC bullshit and 'safe zones'.
When you boil it all down, there really isn't any teaching, there is only learning. If want to learn, YOU HAVE TO DO IT. the teacher - if they are a good one - only helps you learn and - even better - makes it fun. So don't waste your time or money here either unless you HAVE TO get the training for your PROFESSION. You know, like a CPA, or lawyer or something.
The only schools that are of any value are trade schools at this point. That includes most all technical fields so a computer engineering degree for most folks at a major university is not only unnecessary, but it is most likely an extremely expensive waste of time.
So how DO you increase your income?
Start your own business. OK. How do I do that? Doing what?
Actually this is one of the BEST ways to increase your income of anything listed here yet. But a business venture is beyond the scope of this entire blog-string and it is, at best, a difficult venture and can be almost impossible without any starting capital, which we are assuming is pretty close to where we are here. So for a very small minority this is an excellent option. If not the BEST option. It really depends on how good a business person you are.
A good can literally mint money at will and in any amount eventually. There is a wild card in this equation. If you passionately love what you are doing, success is almost guaranteed as long as you never give up. Even if you never become financially wealthy, if you do what you love, your life is a total success in my book.
Again, not many folks who do the business thing make it for one reason or another. So that's probably out unless you have got some killer idea and can implement it....so then what does this leave for the average Joe seeking financial freedom?
** Passive Income Is Key **
Passive income is the best way. Income that comes every day, like clockwork, weather you are sleeping or working. But how do you create passive income?
Well there's rental properties right? Heh, the dirty little secret about owning rentals is you have really no problems at all most of the time....except for the TENANTS! See the only problem with this business is the tenants! Believe me, from experience there is NOTHING passive about direct rental property ownership unless you are putting huge amounts of money into it and someone else is managing it.
So how do you make money, starting with next to nothing passively?
Ahhh....FINALLY....we arrive at the point of this entire meme.......