Deal of the Day: Get a $50 cash bonus with the Chase Freedom credit card. Chase Freedom offers cash back rewards up to 3%, a 0% APR for up to 12 months, and no annual fee. Check out our Chase Freedom review or get more details from Chase at www.chase.com/freedom.

Five Million Easy Steps to Financial Independence

by DR

This is one of those good news--bad news situations. Which do you want to hear first? Before we get to that, I was in the bookstore yesterday and noticed that there are a lot of "X steps to Financial Freedom" type books. Here are a few that I saw:

This got me to thinking about all these steps, and that brings us back to the good news-bad news situation I mentioned at the start. Here it is--The good news is that all these steps can be boiled down to one thing. The bad news is that we must repeat that step everyday for the rest of our lives--and it ain't easy, at least it's not for me. What's the step? Living below our means.

OK, I know this isn't rocket science, but for all the things we talk about when it comes to finances (and they are all important), living below our means is the one thing we must do and do consistently if each day we want to move towards Financial Independence. Of course, how we live below our means (spending less, knowing what we spend, keeping a balance sheet, or the dreaded B-word--no, I was thinking of Budget) and what we do with the excess money (investing) are all important topics. But it all starts with living below our means day in and day out.


Leave a Comment

Previous post: The Morning Dough (May 29, 2007)

Next post: Motivation and Money Tip # 1: Remember the Past