Your Financial Life at a Glance

Posted by Amir Lehrer on December 31, 2007

Half-way through my 10 ways to get lucky posts I decided to write about something much more important and appropriate for New Years. My first post was New Years Resolution 2008, Lose Weight or Get Lucky. I am happy and proud to say that I took my own advice and have kept up to my New Year’s resolution of starting and keeping to this blog. I started this blog on December 4^th and this is now my 17^th article and I can feel myself going strong way into 2008 and beyond. I appreciate the encouragement and support from my readers and once again encourage all of my readers to continue emailing me at lucky@helpyourselfgetlucky.com and leaving comments on my page.

Now that I have tackled my new year’s resolution and built the habit of writing regularly and always having the blog on my mind, I can make a second new year’s resolution and become even luckier. My new New Year’s resolution is to keep monthly financial statements for myself. Every month, I will go over my income, expenses, assets and liabilities and I will track them on a balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement. I decided to do this because I have been reading a few books from the Rich Dad’s series, specifically Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money–That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!, Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad’s Guide to Financial Freedom and Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in, That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!. Robert Kiyosaki, the author of the series is adamant that becoming financially literate is the only way to get ahead financially in life. Once you are financially literate, you will be a more educated investor by being able to see into any business or corporation. Numbers don’t lie. A company cannot hide anything from their financial statements but most people don’t know how to read them so they will never know how the company actually runs and how good or bad of an investment it is.

I always thought that I was good when it came to my personal finances. I never carry a balance on my credit card and I always spend less than I make. When I looked at my savings account, I would be impressed with myself at how well I was coming along. But when I put everything down on my statements and I was able to look at a snapshot of my financial life, I realized that I was not doing as well as I thought I was. I am in debt for my student loans from college and from the purchase of my new car last November. I never really thought of these as debt because they were controlled. I would pay the same thing every month and they would be paid off within a certain amount of years. When I look at the picture as a whole, I am in debt and I need to get out of it if I am going to get ahead in my financial life.

Seeing the big picture of what you are worth and where all of your money is coming from and going to lets you know exactly what you need to do to get into better financial shape. Now that I have seen my life at a glance, I will start building up my investment and my passive income and also try and lower the debt so that I can get ahead. I will look at my financial statements on a regular basis and recreate them at the end of every month. By learning how to put together my own statements, I am starting to understand more about how companies put together their statements. This is one of the first steps in my becoming financially literate and eventually financially free. Being financially literate is a huge skill that can lead to tons of luckortunity. Being financially free can put you in the position to take advantage of even more luckortunity.

I will blog more about my financial journey as time goes on. In the meanwhile, I suggest that you make some financial statements for yourselves see where you stand and how you can improve your financial wellbeing. If you want a blank copy of the financial template I made for myself, email me at lucky@helpyourselfgetlucky.com or leave a comment with your email address and I would be glad to send it over.

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My Goals List and the Mapquest of my Life

Posted by Amir Lehrer on December 12, 2007

Most of my life I just drifted from day to day and year to year. I went through the motions like going to school, finding a job, and working. I just recently woke up and realized how much time has gone by and I don’t have anything financially to show for it. I want to retire one day, maybe when I’m 65 but preferably when I’m much younger and I have nothing saved up. I have been saving money regularly but that goes into my savings account that gets peanuts in interest and always seems to find expenses to pay for. I bought a car, I’d love to buy a house to live in, and I’d like to take some vacations over the next few years. Every time I save any money, it’s gone.

I realized that if you are traveling, you need a starting point and a destination and then a map of how you are going to get from point A to point B. The same goes for life, if you don’t have any goals, you’re not going to get anywhere, mainly because you won’t know where to go. After this discovery, I used an entire 70 minute commute home from work to jot down some goals. I made five separate lists of goals for short term, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years and 20 years. I made sure that each list paved the path to the next set of goals. Most of the goals have something financial to do with them but I also put down losing 40 pounds this year. I know it is a lot but I am only so overweight because I eat like a pig late at night and always push off exercising. In my short term goals, I just put down to exercise and in my 5 year list I put to stay under 190 pounds. I put the same for the 10 and 20 year lists.

I plan on using these goals as a road map for my life. I placed the lists in my wallet and plan on looking at them every day to make sure I stay on path, just like I would look at the mapquest directions when I’m on a road trip.

Note: Writing these blog articles are on my lists and that is why they are getting done.

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