Transform Yourself: 6 Simple Steps to Elevate Your Financial Life from Mediocre to Marvelous

Transform Yourself: 6 Simple Steps to Elevate Your Financial Life from Mediocre to Marvelous

Are you frustrated with your salary? While you are able to meet ends meet, you are nowhere near the kind of life you want to lead! You’re not able to buy those things you’d like and you’re definitely not able to go to those instagrammable places on a vacation!

What if a few tweaks could help you break out of your mediocre financial life?

Here are 6 super practical steps you could take to escape your frustration.

1. 1. Invest

The best way to grow your money is to invest it. While most people talk about saving for your future, the truth is, it’s a very regressive and archaic means to financial freedom.

The financial system of the modern world is radically different from the world you were told about, in which you could grow rich by saving.

With today’s fiat money if you don’t make your money grow at a rate higher than inflation, you’re losing money.

So what’s the way to beat inflation? Investing.

When you invest smartly, you can calmly sit down and watch your money grow without having to do anything. Your money will work for you and earn you more money.

Additionally, most governments encourage their citizens to invest by giving tax cuts. This is a great benefit that you should take advantage of.

2. Understand how the financial system works

Do you know the answers to these questions?

· What’s the stock market?

· Why do banks give loans? 

· How does inflation affect you?

· How do you buy public and alternative assets?

· How does the economy affect the returns on your investment?

Well, these are just a few. However, if you want to break out of your financial dissatisfaction, you should know the answers to these questions and a lot more. Think about it like this. Whatever you want to excel at, you have to learn, re-learn and practice. Exactly the same with your financial life.

The more you understand the financial system, the more you understand the economy of your country and the world, the better equipped you are for financial success.

Whether you want to invest your money, take a loan or plan a vacation, you should be able to ask the right questions. You cannot afford to be dependent only on the opinion of even say experts, let alone your peers.

So, set aside time every week to learn specifically about the financial system and how you can work your way to the life you want.

3. Make a financial plan for your money

Do you catch yourself at the end of the month wondering where your income disappeared? Maybe, you know where you spent a significant amount of your money.

But, there is still that chunk that you don’t recollect spending on anything you wanted to buy. Yet, it’s missing!

This is what happens when you don’t have financial plan.

When you don’t have a financial plan, you’ll end up being a victim to your situation spending your money on what’s in front of you at the expense of the life you want to live.

And in a lot of cases, people who complain about not having enough, don’t notice that they actually have a lot. But never recognised that their real problem was they didn’t have a financial plan that was manifesting as lack.

So, as a salaried person, you need to sit down and take stock of your financial situation and your spending patterns. Where’s your money going and how much of it are you using to build the life you want?

Do an objective honest analysis and work out for yourself a financial plan with clear goals and action steps.

Once you’re done, do not deviate from it.

4. Start a side hustle

When your salary is truly insufficient, you could change jobs. But if that isn’t an option the next thing to do is to do something part-time.

In this digital age, there are quite a lot of things you can do to earn a side income. Start a YouTube channel, do freelance work, teach online etc. The options are innumerable.

So where do you start? You start with your interests and what you’re good at. Write them down.

Now find out how much time you can allot to a side job. Spend a little time sharpening your skills and then see how you can monetise them.

As you keep doing this, over time, you may well end up earning a lot more than you had expected.

5. Learn all the time

Yes. It’s a timeworn cliché. But It’s true. Knowledge is power.

If you want an example, look at all the famous billionaires of today. One thing you would notice about them: all of them are learners. Bill Gates for instance reads 50 books a year!

When you’re constantly learning, you’re breaking barriers in your mind. You open yourself to new concepts, new ideas, new ways to do things and ultimately new ways to live your life.

All of this will translate into a better financial life! That’s why you need to be a passionate learner.

Don’t wait. Go and learn computer programming. Read history or learn a new language.

6. Don’t overuse debt

Loans and credit cards are truly wonderful instruments that can enrich your life. But if you overuse them, you’re likely to get into a debt trap.

Have you heard of stories where people borrowed too much, couldn’t repay and finally ended up losing everything they had? That’s the danger of taking too much debt.

You’re more than allowed to borrow as long as it’s within your limit to repay. In fact, you should take loans. But when you get greedy or impatient, that’s when the problem starts.

So the solution to avoid debt traps: patience.

Before taking a loan, ask yourself, “Can I wait? Do I really need to take a loan? And, do I have the means to repay?”

If It’s not a pressing need, and if you can delay your gratification, then do steps 1 to 5 rather than taking a loan.