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<h2><center> Build for the future that you want!</center></h2>  
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In life people tend to think in the biggest terms. They dream of winning the lottery or making millions with a brilliant idea.

For some this will be a reality but that is a very small number of people when you do the math. It is always possible to create the next big thing but the best of ideas need to be paired with skills and work ethic to come to fruition. It’s good to have big dreams and I would encourage anybody to follow them with unrelenting passion and enthusiasm when the time is right. 

Until then however, there are many ways in which to set yourself up right now that will give you the best chance of success when that time comes. Most brilliant ideas fail due to either a lack of work or lack of money to get them over the finish line. 

I know that in this day and age where most paychecks will only get you to the end of the month that it can be hard to prepare yourself but it is not impossible. 

I think that for anybody in life it is very important to get yourself into the position of having savings and investments which will open up further opportunities as you progress through life. I am a firm believer in not working for another person until I retire and with that in mind have taken a lot of steps to start changing that future.   

>It’s all about where you want to get to in your life.   

If you have that in your mind, then you need to take steps that will keep you moving in the right direction to get there. I’m not a rich person. 

There is no point in lying to anybody reading this. That is not and has never been the end goal for me. It is not an important achievement as I don’t put value in having lots of money.  
 
>The value of money to me is the freedom that it allows. 
 
My personal goal is to earn enough money passively that I have more freedom of choice.  

The choice of how I will spend my time.  
The choice of what I will do with my future.  
Where I will work, what passions I will have and above all the choice to be made by me and not by my situation in life. 

At thirty, I have plenty time to build this life and have been making those moves for the past five years, simply by making a few small life choices and small life changes to get moving in the right direction.  

Since then I have been making the most of my money and preparing for the future.   

I don’t care what people say. It is just that simple.  

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<h2><center>How is your money being spent?</center></h2>  
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This is the single most important question for anybody that wants to change their life path. 

Before you can take a pathway, you need to take a solid look at where you are now on the map and look from there towards your destination. 

If you type a destination into your sat-nav, it is not possible to chart a pathway to that destination until it also has your current location. 

With that in mind. On the first day of each month.   

>How much money will come into your account by the end of that month?   

The number itself doesn’t matter but how you use it is very important. We all have expenses and needs during that month which are necessary expenses. Those will have to be met. 

Then we have the day to day expenses which are not essential but can be quite necessary.  

>This is where smart choices come into play. 

I will never advocate cutting out all of your spending as life is there to be lived, not squandered.    

What I do advocate however is making smarter decisions on a day to day basis.   

My biggest expense at the start of every month was rent. Living in a city I was paying $500 per month to share a room in a house plus about $200 for bills. That is $700 from my $2800 and one quarter of my wages before I had a chance to do anything fun with it. My first step in the right direction wasn’t easy but I dedicated myself to saving $500 per month with the intention of buying a house.  

Combined this left $1600 or $400 per week to pay for everything else in my life. Car, social life, food, expenses all of the rest.  

These can add up very fast if you are not careful but can also be managed very fast if you are careful.    

>Small changes will lead to big gains over time. 

I was careful to set up a savings account that couldn’t be raided every month but could be used in emergency.  

There is an option here for a savings account that took $500 on the first day of the month with a 14 day notice for release of funds.  

This was important as there were many times that I was running low on money for a night out or an unnecessary purchase but would have to wait until the end of the month for the funds to get released. By which time my wages would be coming in a few days regardless.  

It took away the temptation for wasting that money and made me become thriftier if I still wanted to do certain things.   Probably the most important lesson I learned in college was how to budget money.    

I soon learned that if you only have $20, you will make the most of it and still can have a great night out. If you have $200 you will spend all of it but it doesn’t bring anymore pleasure than the cheaper night. It’s all about getting full value from the money.           

Simple tips:  

 -   Don’t buy branded. It’s the same product in a different  box.   
- Walk where possible for short journeys. It’s a lot more fun.   - Cook your own dinners. It’s a good life skill to have. Good friends are more fun than big events. Nights in can be better than nights out.    
- Don’t keep picking up trinkets. If it isn’t useful you really don’t need it.   
- Have a coin jar and keep adding to it for the year until you have a medium purchase. There will always be a few hundred bucks in it and it feels good to buy spend it on something useful.   
- Every small change that you can make over time will be the basis for wholesale change to your future.       


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<h2><center> Find new ways to earn.</center></h2>  
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It’s all well and good earning a wage every month but if you are like me then that amount doesn’t change.  

What we need to do is find new and interesting ways to earn a little extra money outside of our usual circles. The main reason that I say it this way is that while you can just keep working more and more hours, that will build up on you and over time burn you out.  

Spending more time working isn’t a healthy option and the end goal for me is to work less, not more.   

If possible, try to turn something that you already do into a source of revenue.    

Personally, I love to write and have been doing it for free for many years before deciding that it was a waste of valuable time and effort when it could become a source of revenue. Passive income is the best income and that is why I researched all of the different ways that i could turn writing into money.  My standard job is in management so when I write it still feels like a hobby and I can do it on my own schedule rather than working on the clock.    

Taking writing as an example I found ways to:   

-    Create my own website with ad revenue.   
-    Freelance on sites that look for writers.   
-    Join sites with revenue sharing systems like the Hive blockchain. (This is cryptocurrency based system with a big future but will need a full write up to give the proper detail.)   
-    Write short books for sale.   

In essence. Turning my passion into money.    

This can mean anything to different individuals whether your passion is technology, dancing, languages, sport ect.... 

If you can name it, there is a way to monetize it.     

That is where passive income comes into play.  

This is my first foray into writing content for sale and a way to grow my skills at the same time.    

Time is a valuable and scarce resource that is too often wasted on pointless exercises and television shows.  

You need to make something of it now so that you have more of it to spare going forward.   

If I can produce one book per week. Assuming each of those books earns even $1 per week. That effort will only compound over time.

After one week it is $1
After two weeks it becomes $3
After three weeks it becomes $6
After four weeks it has earned $10
After eight weeks it becomes $36   

After one year it becomes $1358 while putting in the same amount of effort every week. Just creating one more book and selling one copy per week of it. That is the joy of compounding effort.     

The big stumbling point for most people when it comes to a task like this is putting in the effort consistently.  

You need to commit to the change and keep going against the odds.    Keep building when others try to knock you.    

Those are the people who will never move forward and in twenty years time will still be in the same house working the same jobs while you are doing the things that you love to do on your schedule. That is the joy of building for a better future. You will be making the choices and not having them made by your limitations.   

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<h2><center>Invest your money where it will earn even more.  </center></h2>  
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Just like compounding your efforts in the last point. It is also good to compound your actual earnings as well.  

Money sitting in the bank is losing value. Just as the money payed in rent was money burnt, money sitting idle is opportunity burnt. 

I did buy the house after three years of saving my deposit. Now that wasted money is going into an asset instead of a landlords pocket.  

I have been involved with crypto for the past four years and with my extra monthly funds have been slowly buying into Bitcoin and other interesting assets on a regular basis. Risky, but with a high possibility of reward. 

By doing so slowly, I have not invested anything that I was not willing to lose and it has given me the time to research better projects and learn how to get the most interest from my investments.  

Since you can also earn crypto on certain writing sites it is an even easier transition to invest funds as it comes from my extra earnings and stays in the same markets.     

There are other options for interest such as stocks, micro investments in new businesses, savings accounts ect...    

I just went in this direction as it interested me and holds a lot of potential for growth over the next decade. There are fortunes to be made if you land in the right place at the right time. 

>Crypto is still in the early adopter phase and for me the timing is perfect.  

On crypto blockchains like the “HIVE Blockchain” where I operate it is possible to make up to 20% APR returns on your asset amount with the possibility that it gains in value on the markets as well.   

Find your direction and make it pay you. 

Summary:   
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-   Make small life changes.   

-   Start saving small amounts.
   
-   Cut out unnecessary purchases. 
  
-   Get the most value for your money.   

-   Find an extra source of income.   

-   Compound your efforts over time.  
 
-   Invest where you will see returns.  
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None of these tips should be life changing or earth shattering right now. That is not the point of writing this and I won’t promise anybody will get rich.

However, if you are like me and want financial independence then it is a good starting point. I can honestly say that I am in a much better position than three years ago and from my consistent efforts to grow, will be in an even better position in three more years time.  

The goal is to be mortgage and debt free by forty with the rest of my life in front of me. That is highly achievable for me and it should be for you as well. 

Just commit to the small changes and make a simple plan to make your money go further. 

Over time it will just keep increasing and you will see the benefit of your choices today.


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