7 Steps to Financial Freedom

financial freedom

Seven Quick Steps to Financial Freedom

These seven steps will give you personal financial control of your life and financial freedom. This is the condensed version of Seven Steps to Financial Freedom. See that plan for more detail and worksheets.

1. Establish the desire to change: Do you want to improve your financial situation or not? No, you’re done. Yes, go on. Think about your situation and what it is costing you to keep things the way they are. Think about the benefits of improvement. Now, write a short statement of why you want to change.

2. Assess your current situation: How much money do you have left over at the end of each month? How much debt do you have and what is it costing you? How large are your savings and will they take care of you in an emergency, kid’s college, and retirement? If you have the answers to these questions, you’re done. If you don’t have all the answers use the Seven Steps to Financial Freedom process or software like Quicken.

3. Set goals: This can be the most important thing you do in your life for yourself and your family. Ask yourself everything you want out of life (everything you want; not just money related). Write a wish list for what you want over time. Have your significant other write a wish list and share. Combine your lists. Now make decisions every day with your lists in mind.

4. Identify options: Stress can be defined as a lack of options. Use the resources on this website and in your own life to create a list of options for achieving your goals. Write the longest list you can without judging any ideas yet. Have your family and friends help you with the list if you want help.

5. Select options: Now it’s time to choose the options that you think will work best. Think about what is most important to you and mark the ideas on the list that look good to you. Don’t be afraid to try novel ideas. Compare the options against your goals and wish lists to make sure you are on track.

6. Convert the selected options into plans: Pick one of the best options and think about what it will take to turn it into reality. Which steps should you take first? Put the rest of the steps into order by time. It helps to start within 24 hours so you can build some momentum. Include people and other sources that might assist you in your plan. A financially responsible plan might be based on the 70:20:10 principle. Seventy percent of income goes to daily living, 20% pays off debt, and 10% is put into savings (this 10% is the “pay yourself first” part of your income). See How to Get Rich Automatically.

7. Work your plan and monitor progress: Your plans should have some measures of success built into it so that you know you are on track. Check those milestones on your way. Make adjustments if something isn’t working. Do more of what helps and less of what hurts. Repeat any steps of the 7 as needed. The Millionaire Mind E-book.

This is the highly abbreviated format of the Seven Steps to Financial Freedom process. If you do nothing more than Step 3 Set Goals and Step 7 Work your plan you can make a positive difference in your life. If you do all seven steps in the detail provided in Seven Steps to Financial Freedom, you are much more likely to succeed in achieving financial freedom.