With the Coronavirus, Covid-19, there seems to be one thing beyond taking precautions around places we go, items we touch and the paranoia I feel when I think of touching anything in a grocery store.
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The one thing I learned is the importance of having financial reserves. I am blessed that I went broke at age 50 after my two divorces and a business failure and went back to the basics of money management.
One of those basic concepts is 5000 years old. It’s not taught in school because teachers can’t teach what they never learned. Your parents can’t teach you what they don’t know.
How to teach personal financial management isn’t in the course work of any CPA I’ve asked.
As a Certified Financial Planner® these basic skills were not in my course work either.
It took me years of searching for this information. I read many books before I was able to create a system that works for handling personal finances. It also works for business finances.
The one, the most important, the most crucial foundational concept and practice is to:
PAY YOURSELF FIRST.
This is the 5000-year-old concept and practice of wealth creation.
This is also how you create the reserves that you can use when a pandemic hits the world and your income dries up. When the business you were working in no longer has customers or revenue you can tap into your reserves.
You can’t tap into reserves if you never set up a structure to build them. And while it might be too late now, it will not be too late when things return to normal.
Yes, you will have extra debts to pay off, but DO NOT focus on that. Once you have an income again start the practice of paying yourself first. If you don’t agree with me, reply to this email, and tell me why.
It doesn’t matter if it is 1%, 5% or 10% of your income. Start somewhere and build the muscle of treating yourself like you matter. Treat yourself like you should be the first person in line to have and KEEP some of the money you earn.
Keep that money so you can invest it.
Keep it so those investments will create your passive income.
Keep that money so you can choose to work, or choose not to work.
Keep that money so you can create Complete Financial Choice®.
And if you still have an income despite Covid-19, can you start right now?
To Your Prosperity,
Rennie
