And third, which is what this blog is about, less is more. Stop living beyond your means to impress others. In my past, I lived way beyond my means and found myself hyperventilating at night when I laid in bed thinking about how bad my financial picture was. I had the big house, new cars, new boats, new motorcycles, new personal water craft, and any other toy that came along. If I had lost my job the glass house would have crumbled and I would have lost everything, because everything had loans on them. And God forbid if an emergency had come along, I had zero savings.

Here is what I figured out the hard way, less is more. See, I had all the toys and they were all encumbered with debt. Every month I would shuffle bills to be able to pay for them. And although it looked great to everyone on the outside, I was dying on the inside. I never got to play with those toys, because I was too busy making sure I did not lose my job so I could pay for them. I also found I could not even afford to maintain them, so I started missing the necessary services to keep the bank’s toys in tip-top shape. If you are like me, you found out the hard way that deferred maintenance costs more in the long run; and since I never had money, no maintenance was ever done unless I, yes you guessed, it put it on my credit card. LOL this is what we call an infinite loop in my industry.

One day I woke up and could not take it anymore. I was in so much pain I had to make a change. I stopped caring about what everyone thought about me and what I had, and I started selling everything one at a time. Lucky for me, I woke up and started changing my financial future before I lost my job, or something happened and I lost it all. As I sold items and decreased my debt responsibility, I started being able to breathe more and more, little by little. As an added bonus, as my life became unclutter, my home also became uncluttered. As my finances corrected themselves at a faster pace with each debt I wiped out, my spirit came back, and I became addicted to getting rid of things. On the other extreme, I have become CDO (OCD in alpha order since I’m over the top OCD) about my living space and how clean it is. Now every time I’m about to buy something I ask myself, do I really need that item, will I use it, and will I have to throw it out in six months because I don’t use it. And you know I tend to not buy things I don’t need and when I do buy I only buy in cash.

It has been very liberating to free myself from the clutches of what the Joneses thought of me, and live life on my own terms. Now that I’m unencumbered with all those shiny toys, I find myself laughing more and relaxing more than I have in years.

So right now stop worrying about what others think about you, and only worry about yourself. Make the choice to stop spending, and change the way you feel and think about money. It really is as simple as just changing your mental pattern.

A life less encumbered, becomes a life of more. You will experience more satisfaction, balance, security, and feel and think more deeply. LESS REALLY IS MORE.

I look forward to working with each and everyone one of you in the near future, and remember, —>