Everyone wants to be independent. We all strive for this and if we attain it, we want to keep our independence all of our lives. It is basic human nature to strive for freedom and independence. Consider the concept of Freedom. Living in a country where the population is constantly under the scrutiny of an oppressive government is probably one of the worst ways to live, and certainly it is not considered Freedom. This is why many people want to live in countries like America.

In a similar fashion, financial freedom is something many people strive for. If you are not financially free (in America or elsewhere), you are slaving away at some job; basically, you are dependent upon someone else for your financial needs, and you must submit to the conditions they set for you. In short, we all want to be free, whether we are talking about governmental freedom or financial freedom, or any other type of freedom.

Striving to be free is in our nature and we long for it.

Most of the time, financial freedom is accomplished through savings. When people learn to master their finances, they begin to save more than they spend. Their savings accumulate over time, and they finally reach a point where they have enough resources that they no longer find themselves enslaved to the burden of producing more income than expenses.

If you doubt this, take a look at any financially independent person. They generate enough money from what they have accumulated so they no longer have to labor in a traditional job. True, some financially independent people continue working in a traditional job, but most of them do not; instead, they enter early retirement or run their own business operation, setting their own hours.

Financial freedom occurs when the amount of resources amassed is able to generate enough revenue to surpass expenses and add to the net resources. This is a sort of transition to a new way of life. We know that every (or almost every) financially independent person had to make this transition at some point in his or her life, and if you want to be financially independent, you also will need to do this.

In my book, How To Reach Your Own Personal Financial Freedom, I show you, step-by-step, how to make your own transition to financial freedom. Click HERE.

Most people gain financial independence by saving more and more money. Think about it: if they are able to save money, then they must have more money coming in than going out. But it is not this simple.

Some people may believe they are saving money each month, but in reality they are accumulating debt that cancels out those savings. They live month-to-month by using credit cards, all the while putting money in the bank. They ignore their credit card bills, looking only at their savings as it grows bigger and bigger, until finally the credit card company comes around with a lawyer and sues them and takes their home and those funds in their bank account. All their savings are canceled out. This is a simplified scenario, but it is a very common one.

Surprisingly, many people have no clue about their income and expenses. Although they believe they are getting ahead and on the path to financial freedom, in reality they are just getting further and further behind. Understanding and managing one’s finances so that we ultimately reach financial freedom is not a simple task. Just making the conscious determination that we are on the right track is difficult for most people.

I will help you determine this. Click HERE.

To illustrate the complexity of determining financial freedom, consider the current economy in America. Many competent economists believe the government has lost control of the economy. Those in charge have borrowed so much money that it will be virtually impossible to ever pay it off. America cannot even make the interest payments now, and must borrow more money to pay those. To pay the country’s rising debts and stimulate the economy, Uncle Sam is acting irrational.

What did these politicians do in response to the economic downturn?

They are printing more money to pay the country’s debts and stimulate the economy. In doing so, they are inadvertently devaluing the dollar, and prices for basic commodity goods are going to rise precipitously. But the stock market prices seem to be climbing back up; security prices are increasing.

Why?

Because everyone is getting out of dollars and into other investments because the value of the dollar is dropping due to all the extra dollars being printed; people are dumping American dollars like they are infected with a killer flu virus.

Has this cycle of devaluation every happened before?

Yes. It has happened many times all over the world. This is a repeating pattern for failing economies. This economic phenomenon is nothing new.

As the dollar falls to new lows, the stock market recovers and stock prices rise because people around the world are dumping their dollars into whatever investment they can find, including the stock market. As security prices rise, the frantic American politicians jump up on their soapboxes claiming that rising market prices are proof their economy stimulus packages were working.

“Look,” they say. “The stock market is rising up again because our great economy is starting to recover. Our economic stimulus package is working its wonders! We have saved the American economy with our decisive actions!”

But in reality, they have saved nothing. In reality, your net worth is going down and you are thus getting further away from financial freedom: your dream of true financial freedom is receding in the distance and you don’t even know it!

I can show you how to attain your dream. Click HERE.

Why is it receding?

Because the actions of the American government are devaluing your net worth. Even though your stock portfolio may seem to be rising in value—in American dollars—you are actually growing poorer every day. This is because the cost of everything around you is going up up up.

At the store, the total amount you are paying for groceries is getting higher and higher. You may not notice it now, but you certainly will when a bag of groceries exceeds a thousand dollars! Or maybe a tank of gas rises to several thousand dollars!

I can show you how to avoid this vicious cycle. Click HERE.

Are these economic absurdities really possible?

Yes. This same scenario has played out in several countries, and many astute economists believe this will happen to America if the politicians don’t stop their out-of-control spending and turn the economy around.

It is unlikely they will do this, but I can help you attain financial freedom in the face of this terrible threat. Find out how by clicking HERE.

I use this example to illustrate the complexity of true financial freedom. It illustrates how difficult it is to even ascertain if we are on the right track to financial freedom. With all these changing variables—especially those we cannot control—it makes more sense than ever to understand fully every aspect of the problem, and to assert control over those variables that will help you gain financial freedom.

To see how to attain financial freedom. Click HERE.

Another way to look at the problem is as follows: Everyone has a personal money management “machine,” and some people maintain their machines better than others do.

To illustrate, consider those lucky people who win the lottery. We have all heard the many horror stories about them losing their winnings in a short period of time. Simply put, the lottery winners who end up losing all of their millions have dysfunctional maintenance routines for their personal money management machines, and these routines are plagued by poor habits. When they hit the lottery, all of this money falls in their lap and they do not know how to manage it.

Their machine is inadequate for the task.

It is as if someone gave them an aircraft carrier to manage, a gigantic metal ship that weighs millions of tons—a state-or-the-art war machine, a floating military base.

For these poor lottery winners, all that extra money is plopped in their laps, and they have no experience managing something like that.

Imagine yourself, one moment you are sitting in your old farm truck on a dirt road chewing on a grass blade and trying to figure out how you will pay your taxes next April, when all of a sudden, you are jerked from the cab and dropped into the control tower of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. You are suddenly in charge of a vehicle that takes several hours to make a ninety-degree turn because it is so big, a machine that houses a thousand military personnel, all of them ready to take orders on an instant’s notice.

After a day or so of this, many new captains might just give up, jump over the side, and swim back to Kansas.

In order to avoid ending up like these wayward souls, you will need to prepare yourself to attain your goal of financial freedom. The good news is that in order to reach financial freedom, you need to understand what is required to manage and control a much more complicated personal money management machine.

In my book, How To Reach Your Own Personal Financial Freedom, I show you exactly how.

To order my book, click HERE.

You will develop these skills slowly and no one is going to drop you out of the sky into the control tower of a nuclear aircraft carrier; rather, you will work your way up by following the guidelines outlined in my book, and by the time you reach financial freedom, you will know how to manage your own money.

Many people think they can simply work in their job, save a little money each month, and ultimately they will achieve financial freedom. If you are doing this, you will never make it because of the forces that are working against you, those that I have outlined above.

My book reveals all my secrets about the process of attaining true financial freedom—secrets you’ll be hard-pressed to find anywhere else.

Sure you can hire someone to help you, but you will never learn how to do it yourself. Why? Because those who know the secrets of true financial freedom aren’t sharing those secrets. They are helping their clients but keeping the knowledge to themselves. But this is all changing now…
André Larabie

www.andrelarabie.com

In the recent economic downturn, real estate has been one of the hardest hit sectors. Prices are now in a steep decline, or near their bottom, in many geographic locations. You can achieve a significant savings if you are in the market for a home in these locations. In addition, if you are a first-time homebuyer, you may be able to take advantage of various government credits.

If you are looking for a home for yourself, or looking to make money by investing in real estate, you can save big when you buy a foreclosed property. When a homeowner fails to make their mortgage payments, the mortgage company begins the foreclosure property. If the homeowner remains in default, the mortgage company eventually takes possession of the property and puts it up for auction. You can buy these properties at auction for a significant discount; however, you are usually not allowed to inspect them and although you can see them from the street, you might be in for a surprise after you take possession.

The law requires that a lender publicly post properties in the newspaper that are in the foreclosure process. These are headed for the auction block. If you are planning to purchase a foreclosed property, you will need to pay cash or put down a percentage and finance the remainder soon after the auction, so be prepared. You also might discover that the previous owner is still living there, and you will have to evict them yourself. There may also be problems with the title. These are risks you must take if you want to save money this way, but the savings can be tremendous.

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Reducing your home heating expenses should be a short-term goal that will add money to your bank account. I will offer some general tips for saving money on home heating. After you develop your budget and you record a year of actual expense data on heating your home, you can decide which of these tips will allow you to reduce those expenses so you can apply the savings toward meeting your long-term goal of financial freedom.

Heavy and light drapes – If you live in a geographic region where there are four seasons, you can have two sets of drapes for your windows, a heavy set for the summer when you want to keep the heat (UV rays) out, and a light set for the winter when you want to let the heat in. In winter, when the sun is shining, open the drapes entirely to let in the UV rays.

Close the doors – In unoccupied rooms, keep the doors closed and the heating vents shut. This way, the heat will remain confined to the occupied areas of the home.

Heat less water – Take shorter showers in the morning. Although it feels good to take long hot ones, showers are primarily for cleaning your body. Also, wash clothing in cold water whenever possible. You can also turn down the overall water temperature on the water heater. Install energy-saver shower heads, and wash only full loads in the dishwasher.

Maintain your heating system – Each year before turning on your furnace, you should have it professionally inspected. At a minimum, you will want to change the air filter every month or so during winter. A dusty filter will restrict the airflow, which will increase your heating expense. If your furnace is too old, replace it because the technology has advanced significantly in the last few years, and newer furnaces are much more cost effective than older ones.

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Using budgeting software is easy. You can buy software and start entering your expenses. You can enter every check you write and create the budget categories as you go. If you are unsure about a particular expense allocation, you can allocate the expenses to the “miscellaneous” category for now and when you get everything entered, you can reallocate it as you see fit. The bottom line is that you will find out exactly how much you are spending—and what you are spending it on—because every expense will be entered and there is no room for mistakes. If your expense total exceeds your income total, you will know it soon because the computer will tell you. To atone for this, you can make adjustments to your lifestyle or get a better job.

The beauty of this method is that it tends to give you a bottom line that is exact, or nearly so: it totals up all the expenses and incomes and you know the bottom lines are correct. Possibly your category allocations are not perfect, but at least you know if you have more money coming in than going out. If you owe a lot of money to a lot of places now, then you have to admit that there is a problem and it needs to be addressed. But you probably don’t understand exactly what caused it and how big the problem is. Budgeting software will get you on track to understand these things and solve these problems. After watching your credit card balances mysteriously raise up to lofty levels and never come down for years and years, you will now get to see why, and after you can see it, you can correct it.

And here is another benefit of an automated (software-based) budgeting system over the old pencil and paper method. After you enter in several months of expense and income data, you can total it by category and then divide it to get a very good estimate for each category. It is a “very good” estimate because it comes from actual real-life data: your checkbook or credit card statements. In fact, the software will do all the additions and divisions for you and tell you what you should expect to allocate to each category for each month. After years of being “in the dark” about your income and expense, you will shed some light on the situation and be able to identify and correct any problems that exist.

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andre@andrelarabie.com

Here are several ways you can reduce your energy expenses:
Adjust the thermostat – During nighttime, when everyone is asleep in their warm beds, have the temperature lower by up to 10 degrees. There is no reason to heat all those rooms when everyone is sleeping. You will realize a significant savings during the colder periods when the furnace is running constantly to keep up. At night, you can give it a rest and save money. You can also turn the heat down a few degrees if you will be out of the house for a few hours.

Optimize your fireplace – Many fireplaces actually lose more heat than they generate. When there is no fire going, they act like a big hole in the house: all the heat swoops up the chimney and into the sky. Even when a fire burns, it can be inefficient. Fireplaces need to be well insulated to avoid this problem. You can hire a professional to come and do an evaluation. With the newer technology available in fireplaces, you can realize a tremendous savings in this area if you have an older fireplace.

Properly insulate the walls and ceilings – You can easily check the attic to see if you have adequate insulation there, but it would be better to call a professional and have them do an energy audit of your entire home. They will use an infrared sensor to identify any cold spots where there are problems with heat loss. It is then a simple matter to get bids to fix these problem areas. All of the heat ducts should be analyzed because they are notorious trouble spots for leaks. These ducts should be properly insulated so that the heat exits them at the vents instead of at the cracks. Insulating the attic will lead to a dramatic savings.

Wrap your water heater – If your water heater is in an unfinished space, you should wrap it with an insulated blanket. You can also wrap the hot water pipes. Visit your local home improvement store for materials.

Inspect the windows for deterioration – New windows can save a tremendous amount of money because the potential for heat loss through malfunctioning or outdated windows is so great. Double-paned windows will reduce your heating bill significantly.

Defrost freezers when the ice grows over ¼-inch thick – This will save money since the freezer will operate more efficiently.

Optimize lighting – Use energy-efficient, low-wattage lighting wherever possible.

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andre@andrelarabie.com

On the subject of automobile savings, I want to point out that you can save a tremendous amount of money if you have a personal friend who is a mechanic. This is because there are so many people in the auto repair business that will charge you as much as they think they can get from you, regardless of what is really wrong with your vehicle.

If you do not have a close friend who is a mechanic and who will give you the true information on what is going on with your vehicle, then the least you can do to save money on a repair is buy your own part(s) at the auto parts store. Bring your part(s) with you when you drop your car off to be repaired. With most repair jobs you can do this, and it will be beneficial to do so. When you get the estimate, tell them you are bringing your own part and you want to know only what the labor cost is for changing the part. Most repair shops make a huge profit on the markup of the parts they sell you, so you can eliminate this markup cost.

If you are buying a car, you will be happy to know that you can find significant savings online. You can go to the local dealership and pick the car you want and test-drive it. Once you make your decision, you can then get online and search for car dealerships within a several-hundred-mile radius. If you want options that don’t exist on the local car you drove, you can ask for them when you contact the remote dealers over the phone. It is always possible that your local dealer can give you a better deal than buying the car remotely, and you might even consider contacting him after you get your best price and ask him if he can beat it. If he can, you will also save the time and money you would have spent in driving to the remote location to pick up the car.

You can also save big if you know enough about automobiles to make an informed decision on a used vehicle. You will want to buy one that is less than three years old or you can expect to start paying repair costs. But if you recall, I said that one of the most important friends you can have is a good auto repair mechanic. If you have one, he or she can help you evaluate your used car before you purchase it.

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andre@andrelarabie.com

A drawback to shopping from distant Internet vendors is that if you need to return a product, you may encounter extra shipping charges or possibly they will not allow you to return it at all (most will allow you to do so or they do not last long on the Internet). One way to get around this is to shop only from those stores that have a local branch in your town. If it turns out that you need to return an item you ordered online, you can just drive down and return it locally.

Why didn’t you just buy it locally in the first place?
Primarily because most chain stores offer many more products online than they do in their local store. For example, Wal-Mart offers fifty or sixty different computer mouses online, while the local store only carries five or six. Your selection is much bigger online and therefore the prices are better. The cheapest mouse offered in the local franchise may be $15, while you can get one for $5 online. In summary, tremendous savings—with very little risk—can be achieved by shopping online.

If you were shopping for real estate in another geographic location for example, in the old days you would have to travel physically to that location; now you can hop online, go to the real estate website, and take an interactive tour of all the available properties. The tour allows you to spin the viewpoint around and see each room from every direction. You can roll your mouse forward or backward to move the viewpoint up and down—just as if you were standing in the room (or out on the deck in the backyard). Talk about saving money on travel!

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andre@andrelarabie.com

Here are some tips on how to save money when traveling. When it comes to vacationing, if you want to save big on your vacation costs, you can vacation in the off-season when the occupancy is lower and the rates are reduced as well. When shopping, you can use the Internet to compare prices and find the best deals.

Many companies have sprung up in cyberspace that offer discounts if you book your trip through them. Expedia.com and Priceline.com are examples. So before you book directly, check out the rates you can get through these booking companies. Be sure to carefully read their cancellation policies because sometimes the rates are low because it is not easy to cancel without a big penalty. Sometimes you cannot even cancel at all and must use some portion (what is left after the cancellation penalty) on a future trip booked through the same booking company.

If you are going to a place like Las Vegas, or anywhere that will allow you to drive after you arrive (note: it may be impossible in Times Square, for example), then you should compare the cost of renting a car versus paying shuttle and taxi fees.

Also, instead of eating out in restaurants every day, you can stop by the grocery store and buy a Styrofoam ice chest and enough food and snacks and drinks to last several days. You will save a tremendous amount of money by skipping a few restaurant meals, and you may even be able to eat healthier.

Before you leave on vacation, shop on the Internet for coupons offered in your destination.

www.andrelarabie.com

andre@andrelarabie.com

If you have been shopping at the same grocery store for the last 20 years, you are probably missing out on some tremendous savings. Many people remain loyal to their favorite stores and fail to check out the possibility of lower prices elsewhere. If you are trying to find opportunities in your budget where you can squeeze out a few dollars of savings to help reach your long-term goal of financial freedom, then you should get more creative with your shopping.

First of all, discount stores like Costco, or other similar franchises, offer a huge amount of savings if you are willing to buy larger quantities of products than what you would purchase in your local grocery store. For example, instead of buying a single gallon of milk at the grocery store, at Costco you purchase a box that contains two gallons. On a per-gallon basis, the price is less, but you will have to store that extra gallon at the back of your shelf in the refrigerator while you consume the first one. If you drink soft drinks, or any type of drink that comes in smaller cans or bottles, instead of buying a single six-pack as you would at the local grocery store, you would purchase a case (twenty-four items). Again, you would need to find storage somewhere in your home for these extra items, but the savings is significant.

The same idea goes for almost any item: cans of soup, cheese, and pretty much anything you can purchase at the grocery store is available at Costco, the only difference being that you must purchase more of it. If you want hamburger, instead of a pound, you may need to buy five pounds and store four of them in freezer bags in the freezer until you can use them all.

Note: discount stores usually charge an annual membership fee, but after a month or so, you can easily save enough to recover it. A drawback to getting a membership is that they do take your photograph and store your personal information—something that most grocery stores do not do—so if you are concerned about your personal information being stored in a database, and people having total access to your buying history, then this may be a negative consideration when you make your decision.

Another drawback of discount stores like Costco is that they do not usually carry the non-mainstream brands. Many of the off-name products you might find on the shelves in your local grocery store (Grandma Pepper’s Homemade Salad Dressing for example) are just not available in a discount store. They are able to provide discounts because they deal mostly in mainstream products that are guaranteed to move off the shelves, unlike the off-name brands that may stay for a while. This cuts down on dead inventory expenses, but it also means that you can only buy generic products.

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andre@andrelarabie.com