9 Steps To Financial Freedom

You might have read Suze Orman's "The 9 Steps To Financial Freedom" which outlines how you can achieve financial freedom by following nine principles that revolve around exploring peoples attitudes towards money, educating them to save money and how to manage their finances, then finally, showing them how to invest their money for the future.

This has been one of the favourite books on the subject of creating wealth. However, in today's fast paced world, I also feel that a more practical and hands-on approach is necessary in helping people to achieve financial freedom.

Therefore, I have outlined a 9 step plan of my own that will help you attain financial freedom as follows:

1. Take a full inventory of your income and expenses
Take a blank sheet of paper and on the left hand side of the page write down all your monthly out-goings. Once you've done that move to the right hand side of the page and write down your monthly income. The difference between your total monthly income and your total monthly expenditure will determine how quickly you achieve financial freedom.

2. Control your spending habits by creating a budget and sticking to it
Create a budget by examining your monthly out-goings and determine how much money you really need to pay all your bills and cover your monthly expenses. Also, stop purchasing goods using your credit cards and pay for goods using money that you have in the bank. If you don't have the money, then don't make the purchase. The only exception to this rule would be for larger purchases, cases where it would be simply impractical to pay by cash. In those cases, make sure you submit an additional payment along with your usual monthly repayment to cover the cost of any large purchases.

3. Look at immediate ways to reduce your expenditure
There are many ways that you can start saving money. For a start I'm sure that you can save hundreds of dollars by switching to cheaper suppliers for your household utilities. Another easy way to save money is to transfer any outstanding credit card balances to 0% credit cards (or low interest rate alternatives).

4. Look at immediate ways of increasing your income
The simplest ways of making more money is working harder or working longer hours. Volunteer to work weekends or put in a few extra hours during the week if you have to. Perhaps you can get a part-time job working on the weekends at a local store. You might also be able to supplement your income by doing various odd jobs (e.g. providing tuition to local school kids on the weekend).

5. Pay off any debts and loans as soon as you can
You are always going to struggle to achieve financial freedom if you are up to your neck in debt. The first thing you need to do when you start making any extra money is to pay off your existing loans and debts. Take a look at how much you are paying on credit card payments and loan repayments per month. Does it make sense taking out one larger but cheaper loan to repay all your existing debts? Can you pay off all your loans any sooner by doing so?

6. Get independent financial advice and create a long-term investment plan
Once you've started controlling your expenses and have some money left in your bank account at the end of the month, then I strongly advise you to get independent financial advice on managing your money. Create a long-term investment plan so that you are investing your hard-earned money into savings, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, investment plans (there may be certain tax-free plans that you can take advantage of depending on which country you happen to be living in).

7. Create additional income streams
Look at other ways of making money both offline and online. You might consider investing in a low-cost home business of your own. Additionally, there are many ways that you can start making money online. One of the easiest ways is to start your own online business is by selling goods on eBay. To learn several other profitable and effective ways to make money online, subscribe to the Dummies Guide To Financial Freedom newsletter.

8. Use other people's money to purchase long-term assets
If you analyse how wealthy people have accumulated their wealth you'll notice that the majority of the richest people in the world have made their money in real-estate (property), and they used just a fraction of their own money to do so. If you don't already own your own home, I strongly suggest that you plan to do so as soon as possible. You only have to put down a small percentage of the money as a deposit (in some case no money at all) and use the bank's money to purchase your home.

9. Re-invest surplus income into your long-term investment plan
The secret to achieving financial freedom is to invest your money and build up your own portfolio of long-term assets (such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds and real-estate) which will provide you with an income in years. Eventually, the income you earn from your assets will be far greater than the salary that you're earning from your 9 to 5, and you will never have to work again.

That concludes my 9 steps to financial freedom. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this simple yet effective plan to achieve financial freedom.

The Dummies Guide To Financial Freedom -Dedicated to help you make money online and achieve financial freedom online.