Hello,
Having gone through financial hardships myself, I can empathize with people going through the same types of experiences as I did.
The reason I created Refresh Financially is to offer the guidance and education to those in need that I never had when I was starting over.
Many people have no idea where or even how to start building wealth. My goal is to change that and help as many people that I can to build a financial foundation and journey forth to success.
Please take a moment to visit www.RefreshFinancially.com and let me know what you think.
Thank you for your time.
“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken”
– Warren Buffet –
If you are among nearly 42% of Americans (myself included) currently carrying credit card debt and feel like your debt situation has become too overwhelming to deal with on your own then you should consider getting some professional help to improve your credit.
The thing is, we get professional help on many things in life such as legal and medical, so why not hire a debt service to assist you?
Getting a free credit analysis from a professional will give you a chance to consult with someone who knows the in’s and out’s of credit disputes and the process of getting your credit back into good standing.
By working with a certified credit specialist, you don’t have to deal with the tedious work of filing dispute letters with credit bureaus, creditors and aggressive collection agencies. It’s their job to deal with credit disputes and provide good will letters to creditors on your behalf.
Certified debt professionals also know the laws and how to deal with unlawful debt collection practices. They can identify possible law violations and file complaints with the states attorney general, FTC and BBB (better business bureau) if warranted.
All of the headaches and hassles are removed from your responsibility to theirs. This not only will give you peace of mind by alleviating stress, but also provides you with valuable time to focus on other important endeavors.
Let the professionals deal with your debt
Sure, there are stories of seedy “debt relief companies” out there, but Credit Assistance Network is a legitimate company. They have an A+ better business bureau reputation with no complaints of corporate misconduct. They have trained certified credit specialists that focus on credit improvement rather than credit repair that is designed to help with virtually any credit related problems. Lastly, they provide personalized 1 on 1 credit building coaching.
Here’s how it works. Start by clicking here and provide the necessary information to set up a free consultation. Part of the enrollment process is consulting with a specialist who will give advice and get your feedback. Once enrollment is complete, the service department will thoroughly analyze you credit reports to evaluate what items will be disputed, how they will be disputed and on what legal basis.
Choose the solution that’s best for you
Ultimately, the decision on how to handle your debt situation comes down to the one that’s best for you. If you think you can repay your debts without assistance then keep doing what works. If however, you think that hiring a professional service might be necessary to help alleviate the stress of overwhelming debt management, then please contact Credit Assistance Network for more information.
I’ll see you in the next post. Until next time… be sure to comment below and let’s get some dialogue going. I’m curious to know, what tips do you have on debt management?
“If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.”
– Jim Rohn –
I firmly believe in the power of affirmations combined with the power of meditation.
Affirmations are to the mind what exercise is to the body. Repeating affirmations assists in reprogramming the unconscious mind for success.
Affirmations are reminders to your unconscious mind to stay focused on your goals and to come up with solutions to challenges and obstacles that might get in the way.
Whether you know it or not, you are always using affirmations… but usually not ones that will bring you what you want.It’s time to stop living in the scarcity mindset.
You must continually flood your subconscious with thoughts and images of the new reality you wish to create. Part of wealth building is continuous personal development.
Here are this weeks abundance affirmations to listen to…
Focus on developing an abundance mentality
If you see value in this then please be sure to like and subscribe to the blog if you haven’t done so already. I’ll be putting up more wealth building posts in the future and you can have them delivered straight to your email account.
“If you look at what you have in your life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.”
– Oprah Winfrey –
I firmly believe in the power of affirmations combined with the power of meditation.
Affirmations are to the mind what exercise is to the body. Repeating affirmations assists in reprogramming the unconscious mind for success.
Affirmations are reminders to your unconscious mind to stay focused on your goals and to come up with solutions to challenges and obstacles that might get in the way.
Whether you know it or not, you are always using affirmations… but usually not ones that will bring you what you want.It’s time to stop living in the scarcity mindset.
You must continually flood your subconscious with thoughts and images of the new reality you wish to create. Part of wealth building is continuous personal development.
Here are this weeks abundance affirmations to listen to…
Focus on developing an abundance mentality
If you see value in this then please be sure to like and subscribe to the blog if you haven’t done so already. I’ll be putting up more wealth building posts in the future and you can have them delivered straight to your email account.
“The anxiety of fate is conquered by the self-affirmation of the individual as an infinitely significant microcosmic representation of the universe”
– Paul Tillich –
I firmly believe in the power of affirmations combined with the power of meditation.
Affirmations are to the mind what exercise is to the body. Repeating affirmations assists in reprogramming the unconscious mind for success.
Affirmations are reminders to your unconscious mind to stay focused on your goals and to come up with solutions to challenges and obstacles that might get in the way.
Whether you know it or not, you are always using affirmations… but usually not ones that will bring you what you want.It’s time to stop living in the scarcity mindset.
You must continually flood your subconscious with thoughts and images of the new reality you wish to create. Part of wealth building is continuous personal development.
Here are this weeks abundance affirmations to listen to…
Focus on developing an abundance mentality
If you see value in this then please be sure to like and subscribe to the blog if you haven’t done so already. I’ll be putting up more wealth building posts in the future and you can have them delivered straight to your email account.
“Don’t let average people make you feel guilty for pursuing your mission in life”
– Eric Worre –
If you’ve been reading my blog (and you should be regularly… so please subscribe) then you know that I’m a big advocate for financial literacy and how the lack of it has had massive negative affects on peoples lives. The average person has very little financial knowledge which is why the average person has little to no savings, drowning in debt and nothing put towards retirement planning. The average person will NOT be able to stop working in their later years because they are not preparing properly, if at all.
Even though I’m not a financial planner (yet, but working on it), here’s a tid bit of financial advice anyway. Don’t be average… you can’t afford it!
Did you know that nearly 77 million Americans have debt in collections? That’s just a portion of people who are drowning in debt, Nearly one third of Americans pay the minimum amount due on their credit card each month because they can’t afford to pay more. In 2018 the banks and credit card companies racked up $104 billion in interest and fees.
Being average requires that you keep up appearances and maintain a heavy consumer mentality instead of an investment one. There’s no money left over to put towards financial planning when you’re focused on living a lifestyle beyond your means.
It’s only 43% of Americans who spend more than they earn and borrow on credit each month to cover the shortfall.Credit card balances reached $930 billion in the last quarter of 2019, which was an increase of $46 billion from Q3.
The average American household has over $132,000 worth of debt and that doesn’t factor in those with a mortgage, then it averages to over $172,000. This debt factors in things such as credit cards, mortgages, auto loans, student loans, medical debt just to name a few. The average credit card balance alone is $16,061.
Are you noticing a word that stands out a lot so far? And I’m not even finished yet!
Only 30% of Americans have a long term financial plan and many of those aren’t planned properly against estate taxes, future market downturns and unexpected misfortunes.The average American’s 401k balance is only $96,288 and that’s tax deferred so the the taxes have yet to be paid on that amount.In addition to that, only 18% of Americans actively contribute to an IRA which is capped at $6,000 annually for people under 50.
The average person lives paycheck to paycheck. In fact, ten million Americans don’t even have a bank account. I think it’s safe to assume that these same people also don’t invest for their future or have goals set to become financially independent.
The average American’s social security retirement benefit is $1,363 per month. That calculates to $16,356 annual income. The average retiree relies on social security for nearly 90% of their income but it was intentionally designed to cover only around 40% of the average workers pre-retirement income.
The latest spending stats tell us the average US consumer spends about $60,060 per year yet, money statistics in America for 2019 say the median yearly income was $48,672.
I could keep going on but I’m going to start to wrap this post up. I hope the point I’m making here is pretty obvious. The whole reason that I created this blog is to help promote financial literacy to average people so that the new average of financially educated people becomes the standard.
If you haven’t done so already, give some attention and love to a couple of my previous post linked below so that you can avoid being average and live a life that you can afford to live.
Please help me get the message out and share these articles on your social media accounts and assist me in my mission of teaching financial literacy to the masses… it’s my passion!
As I’m starting a financial services business, my time is becoming limited to what I can put towards writing this blog which is my passion. I will be continue to post new articles regularly, but they will be once a week and most likely on every Sunday.
I so appreciate you as a valued reader and it’s an honor for me that you give your precious time to reading this blog.
As I like to say… “the journeybegins with the first step”.
If you see value in this article then please be sure to subscribe to the blog if you haven’t done so already. I’ll be putting up more wealth building posts in the future and you can have them delivered straight to your email account.
Sign Up
I’ll see you in the next post. Until next time… be sure to comment below and let’s get some dialogue going. I’m curious to know, what tips do you have on avoiding being average?
“Happiness does not depend on what you have or who you are. It solely relies on what you think”
– Buddha –
I firmly believe in the power of affirmations combined with the power of meditation.
Affirmations are to the mind what exercise is to the body. Repeating affirmations assists in reprogramming the unconscious mind for success.
Affirmations are reminders to your unconscious mind to stay focused on your goals and to come up with solutions to challenges and obstacles that might get in the way.
Whether you know it or not, you are always using affirmations… but usually not ones that will bring you what you want.It’s time to stop living in the scarcity mindset.
You must continually flood your subconscious with thoughts and images of the new reality you wish to create. Part of wealth building is continuous personal development.
Here are this weeks abundance affirmations to listen to…
Focus on developing an abundance mentality
If you see value in this then please be sure to like and subscribe to the blog if you haven’t done so already. I’ll be putting up more wealth building posts in the future and you can have them delivered straight to your email account.
“There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when it’s convenient. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses; only results.”
– Kenneth Blanchard –
As someone who enjoys consistently learning about wealth building and then teaching to others what I’ve leaned up to this point, I often wonder how many people who are interested in building wealth are truly committed to the task. So let me ask you a question. As someone reading this right now… are you interested in achieving financial freedom or are you actually committed to doing whatever it takes to get there so long as it’s moral, legal and ethical?
I ask this because it seems most people have the desire, but not the drive. Everyone dreams of somehow coming into a large sum of money and all of the things they’d do with it, but they never intend to do the work by having financial goals set or even put any effort into pursuing any type of wealth building education whatsoever.
When you’re interested, you do what’s easy and convenient. If you’re interested you’ll allow your excuses and stories to convince yourself as to why you can’t. If you’re interested all of the obstacles that come your way will be larger than your vision and goals.
However, when you’re committed you’ll do whatever it takes. You’ll pursue and upgrade your knowledge, skills and develop the beliefs and habits to match your vision and goals.
Achieving financial freedom is a choice and part of the process to attain it requires taking action. If you’re not committed to something then it’s easy to make excuses and talk yourself out of doing whatever it takes to accomplish your goal.
So let me ask you this… which are you?
Without a sense of urgency… desire loses it’s value.
If you’ve decided that your committed then let’s discuss what it will take to make your desires achievable.
Set the goal and make a commitment to achieve the goal.
Once the goal is set, you then figure out how you’re going to do it afterwards. Most people believe they need to know how to accomplish them upfront or there’s no point in setting them in the first place. But the reality is, once you’ve committed yourself to them, the people, places, things and situations begin to reveal themselves a long the way.
Be intentional and specific about your goals designed outcome and set the date it will be accomplished. Specificity is the key to success. Keep the plan simple and easy to execute.
2. Feed your brain and reinforce your beliefs.
Begin to work on you… your identity. You’re limited by your identity and by what you think you’re capable of. Do things that stretch your identity and worth. You are your habits and rituals. Under pressure you’ll always go back to your habits, so develop habits, routines and rituals that serve you.
Start doing beneficial activities like affirmation meditation that feed your subconscious mind in areas such as self worth, self imaging and self esteem. Listen to podcasts and audiobooks, read books, blogs and watch videos on personal development and financial success.Experiment with all of these strategies and figure out what works best for you.
You need to learn that you deserve to be successful and not feel any sort of guilt for doing so. Good people only take what the feel they deserve.
Know that hard work matters. When you begin to do things that other people aren’t willing to do then you begin to believe that you deserve things other people won’t have. And it’s that type of thinking that will get you a seat at the table of success.
The hard work part plays into shifting your identity.
3. Put yourself in uncomfortable situations.
Another beneficial activity to stretch your identity and enhance personal development is to get comfortable with being in uncomfortable situations. Doing this and meeting set goals are probably the two most challenging things you will encounter in life.
By doing things you don’t want to do, you build mental toughness. Like any muscle, courage is a muscle that needs to be developed in order for it to get stronger.
There are those who fight the uncomfortable and those who can face the uncomfortable. Those who fight the uncomfortable are always hating, hiding and blaming. However, those that face the uncomfortable end up getting comfortable in it.Once you can overcome this obstacle there’s nothing that you can’t accomplish.
4. Associate with people who you look up to.
Mentors are a must have when you’re looking to grow. There’s a quote that says the five people that we look up to the most reflect our values and our integrity… that they’ll be a reflection of who we are.
Once we start to get intentional about the people that we surround ourselves with, we can rapidly transform our life. If we meet someone who’s already living and modeling the type of life that we want to live, we’ll able to learn from them since they’re already masters of that area.
Associate with people who are always striving to the best possible version of themselves.
5. Create momentum… it’s a magnifier.
As you combine the afore mentioned strategies together, it’s an amazing feeling to see everything coming together and begin falling into place. Small gradual gains amass to large accomplishments over time.
One way to start momentum is to never stop learning. Become obsessed with self education and then extract what you know and teach it to other people (like what I’m doing with this blog for example).
Become part of a group and empower each other. When you’re around like minded people with similar goals, the energy becomes contagious. That energy then motivates which then leads to taking action.
Momentum is a magnifier needed to achieve growth. Momentum is the invisible force that takes something from good and makes it great… from great to extraordinary.
The key to success is to focus on goals… not obstacles
One last thing I’d like to add before wrapping this post up. Don’t listen to people who tell you that you can’t do it. They are dream stealers who limit themselves and project those limitations outward onto others. Because you’re committed, they were sent to you to test your resiliency and dedication.
Keep the promise that you made to yourself when you decided that you are committed and forget about everyone else, it’s the foundation in your life.
If you can overcome and disregard all of the naysayers and doubters and get clear on what really matters, then you have a really good chance of accomplishing great things.
As I like to say… “the journeybegins with the first step”.
If you see value in this article then please be sure to like and subscribe to the blog if you haven’t done so already. I’ll be putting up more wealth building posts in the future and you can have them delivered straight to your email account.
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I’ll see you in the next post. Until next time… be sure to comment below and let’s get some dialogue going. I’m curious to know, what’s your opinion on being committed?
401K contribution $177.30 – current value $15,555.40
Fidelity brokerage account $30.00 – current value $256.55
Acorns Roth IRA $0 – current value $101.51
Acorns investment account $0 – current value $139.49
– A part of what I earn is mine to keep –
You can create your own acorns account by clicking here.
As usual I’m not putting a lot into my brokerage account as I continue to pay down my debts. But I will maintain paying myself first no matter how little it might be. I do contribute 6% of my pretax income to my 401k since my employer matches dollar for dollar up to 6%. Unfortunately the employer match has been suspended until further notice due to the covid crisis.
I only added $30 into the brokerage account this payday because I’m starting a business and will be putting more into that as time goes on. I’m putting funds from this payday towards educational material and will have to pay for licensing fees once I’m ready to take the exam.
There are multiple ways to invest and the most important investment you can ever make is in yourself.
I’m considering picking up more shares of BRG since it’s down and that would make the divided yield that much nicer. I’ve also been considering opening a position in another REIT as well.
Be sure to keep track with me and if you’d like, share your payday plan in the comments section below.
Until next time… be sure to comment below and let’s get some dialogue going.
“Remember, no more effort is required to aim high in life, to demand abundance and prosperity than is required to accept misery and poverty.”
– Napoleon Hill –
I firmly believe in the power of affirmations combined with the power of meditation.
Affirmations are to the mind what exercise is to the body. Repeating affirmations assists in reprogramming the unconscious mind for success.
Affirmations are reminders to your unconscious mind to stay focused on your goals and to come up with solutions to challenges and obstacles that might get in the way.
Whether you know it or not, you are always using affirmations… but usually not ones that will bring you what you want.It’s time to stop living in the scarcity mindset.
You must continually flood your subconscious with thoughts and images of the new reality you wish to create. Part of wealth building is continuous personal development.
Here are this weeks abundance affirmations to listen to…
Focus on developing an abundance mentality
If you see value in this then please be sure to like and subscribe to the blog if you haven’t done so already. I’ll be putting up more wealth building posts in the future and you can have them delivered straight to your email account.
“Financially irresponsible people are not bad people. They’ve simply fallen prey to bad habits”
– Mary Hunt –
Let me ask you a question that some people find offensive but I think is very important to answer honestly. Are you struggling to make ends meat like most of society is or are you comfortable with your financial situation? I ask this because 78% of of Americans live check to check with very little to no savings at all… let alone have any type of financial investments working for them.
The savings rate in america is at an all time low at less than 2% as a nation.
The main reasons of this unfortunate reality is because of bad financial habits that were formed early on in life combined with lack of financial literacy. These formed bad habits have a ripple affect in peoples lives that not only affect their financial situation, but are contributing factors in things such as domestic violence, crime and a growing divorce rate.
The good news is that it’s never too late to purge the bad habits and replace them with habits that you will find beneficial to your life in more than one way. It’s just going to require some desire and discipline to make it happen.
Here are five powerful habits that once adopted will not only strengthen you financially, but assist in overall personal development and help you a long the journey.
Embrace financial hardships & set backs, don’t deny them.
This is where a lot of people get deeply into financial trouble when they can’t make payments and get behind on their debts. Rather than face the reality of the situation and work with creditors to come up with some type of repayment arrangement, they ignore the problem by not replying to collection notifications via the mail or phone calls.
I know from my own personal experiences with this that depression and embarrassment take it’s toll on you. Living in denial only escalates the situation that can lead to things like repossession, frozen accounts, wage garnishment and in worse case scenarios, bankruptcy.
The best way to prevent this from happening in the first place, is to have money put aside in case of an emergency. This not only gives you peace of mind, but also has the health benefit of staving off depression and the ailments derived from it. Also, your credit score will thank you for preventing it from falling by accumulating late payments.
Always be willing to discuss options and seek out any type of financial assistance you can.
2. Check your credit score on a regular basis.
We’ve all heard horror stories from victims of identity theft and how it decimated them financially. This is one financial hardship that I can say that fortunately I have not experienced and make efforts to keep it that way.
With free credit score services like credit karma that allow you to check your score once a week, there’s no reason not to be able to monitor your credit on a consistent basis. In fact, once you’ve established an account with credit karma, they will present offers on loans and credit cards that may help you to refinance your existing debts into lower rate loans. Which in turn saves you money that you could put towards building wealth.
Some credit card companies allow you to check your credit score once a week as well. I know that capital one not only shows your credit score but provides your credit utilization percentage and how that has an affect of your score.
There are also paid subscription credit monitoring services available. If any credit discrepencies pop up they alert you immediately for verification of legitimate credit purchases to prevent fraudulent charges from occurring.
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3. Designate time for financial education, study habits of the rich& teach them to others.
The saying “give a man a fish and he eats for a day… teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime” has so much relevance when it comes to building wealth. As mentioned above, financial literacy is severely lacking in society. Therefore, it’s up to us as individuals to self educate through medias such as books, podcasts, videos and websites like this one.
Schedule time at least once a week dedicated to learning. One way to use your time wisely is to listen to audio books and/or podcasts while commuting and running errands. Instead of listening to music, put that time towards expanding your knowledge base.
By studying the habits of the rich and incorporating them into your own life, you can emulate their success. As you level up and become more successful, you can then take that knowledge and teach it to others.
Surround yourself with people you can always learn something from and people that you can teach. I find so much value in the philosophy of teach what you know as you learn what to teach.
4. Seek out opportunities that will benefit you financially & life in general.
I don’t believe that money is the root of all evil. However, I do truly believe that the root cause for most societal issues are financial. When you take financial difficulty out of the equation, stress levels drop, depression lifts away and people are generally more happy with life.
If you’re passionate about something then figure out ways to earn an income from it. When starting out it takes time to build momentum and get the word out, but over time it’s possible to make a full time income from it. You just have to stick to it and be dedicated to making it work.
What’s important to remember is to not make it about the money. If the products or service that you’re passionate about has value, the money will come eventually.
Persistence, passion and discipline are requirements in order to become successful in anything that you pursue. But none of them have purpose without taking action.
5. Find a support system of like minded people and be active in it.
You should always be striving to be the best version of yourself by setting goals and making achievements a long the way. It’s always more pleasant to take the journey with others and chances are that there are others looking to do the same as yourself. Network within your community and social media with people pursuing the same path and develop strong bonds a long the way.
Be sure to be beneficial to the group by reciprocating in helpful ways through encouragement and providing examples for others to learn from. If you find such a group already exists then consider joining it (hint… hint). If not, take the steps necessary to create one yourself.
“Surround yourself with people you can always learn something from. Always work with people that are better at their craft than you are.”
– Tony Vincent –
As I like to say… “the journeybegins with the first step”.
If you see value in this article then please be sure to like and subscribe to the blog if you haven’t done so already. I’ll be putting up more wealth building posts in the future and you can have them delivered straight to your email account.
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I’ll see you in the next post. Until next time… be sure to comment below and let’s get some dialogue going. I’m curious to know, what’s your opinion on developing financial habits?
building wealth 