16 Money Principles That will See You Through Thick And Thin

9. Avoid Debt
For now, our economy lacks the luxury of easy credit cards and, in a sense, this is positive as it helps keep people off easy debts. Of course this has its cost in terms of the lost impact on the velocity of economic activity, but of what use is economic tempo at your personal expense? Well, you are not exactly free because banks are today offering lots of consumer facilities and salary-advance products that are relatively easy to access. Just beware! Driving yourself into debt for consumer products and recurrent expenses will not advance your financial status and can only detract from your quest for financial independence. Just sit back to calculate the interest exposure. Often you pay back close to twice what you borrowed. Besides, the indiscipline of spending your earnings in advance has the potential to drag you into financial crises. If you're already entangled, begin to work out an exit strategy and learn to live within your means, except when you borrow for investment. It's important, too, that when you borrow, you ensure a clean repayment record. Your credit history should be impeccable - just in case there is justification to borrow again.

10. Make Good Lifestyle Choices
Individuals live differently, with diverse interests and pre-occupations. What is clear is that what you do or fail to do and in particular, your lifestyle, will have direct consequences for your expenditure pattern and your financial growth. Strive to align your lifestyle with the financial plan you develop for your life. It will be unproductive to live in a manner that erodes your capacity to pursue the financial objectives you've set for yourself. You must therefore deliberately make choices and develop a pattern of living that is congruous with the attainment of your set objectives. You may enjoy partying, for instance, but you don't need a diviner to tell that 'throwing' parties all the time will sap your pocket and make nonsense of any financial plan you develop. With such lifestyle, chances are high that you won't even have a financial plan.

11. Learn About Investment Risk And How To Manage It
When you work so hard to create a future of your dream, the last thing you want is for the value of your investment to be wiped out overnight. Many factors can erode the value of your investments - the future is laden with risks. You'd possibly wonder why then you should take the trouble at all to provide for such uncertain future. The answer is that you are worse off facing those challenges without a solid resource base. It's in the nature of the future and our markets (stock, property, deposits, retail goods, etc) to experience volatility. These swings provide both challenges and opportunities. To be a successful investor, you need to understand market risk, learn hedging techniques and develop a psychology for riding its opportunities.

12. Insurance Is An Important Risk Hedge To Embrace
Insurance remains an unpopular proposition in our society, not withstanding the higher risk exposure and lack of state institutional safety-nets. When you fall ill, you are on your own, as we say. You get accidentally incapacitated, there is no state provision to support you. If you are out of work, you'd probably 'eat sand' unless you have some savings. One could go on, but the bottom line is that the individual is largely unprotected and unsupported by the State. That makes insurance a powerful risk cushion which, unfortunately, our people are yet to appreciate. In the context of a financial plan to take you through thick and thin, insurance should have an important role to play. There are many policy options, but life (protect dependants), disability and assets protection should also interest you.

13. Understand That Success Is Incremental And Cumulative
"Rome was not built in a day" remains a powerful reassurance that what you require is incremental positive action and results. You won't hit your destination overnight and will in fact possibly raise the bar if you were to. You just have to keep advancing, in line with your plan. What is important is to hold yourself to a commitment to continually raise the tally. If you continue to record bits of successes on a consistent basis, you will be surprised at the cumulative effect over a period. If on the other hand you fret and agonise over how to reach your ultimate destination, you will end up with disorientation, inertia and failure. Just stay focused and keep making steady progress.

14. Know And Apply The Power Of Leverage
Leverage refers to the ability to use far more than the resources that are directly available to you. Leverage can be achieved in many ways: you leverage money when, on the strength of what you have, you are able to raise and use much more money, empowering you to accomplish more results. Or when money you invested begins to work for you. You can leverage time which, for instance, happens if you build an online business where purchases could be taking place while you are asleep at night (it's daytime for people in other time zones). You leverage people when your results are delivered by the efforts of other people, best illustrated by a multi-level marketing system, where one's downlines generate free incomes for him while doing their own businesses. Leverage simply accelerates your results and expands your scope, enabling you to meet your goals more quickly and less strenuously.

15. Use Experts When You Have To
Expertise presumes specialisation and excellence, which is why experts are often expensive. Good experts however justify their fees by the results they deliver. If you are scared of paying those fees, remember that you pay them times over by the cost in lost opportunities, damage or remedial action when things get bungled or delivered at mediocre levels by the unskilled. It's not everything you need to engage the most expensive professional for, but whenever faced with a decision, it's better to err on the side of using good quality advice or service. It pays back, one way or another.

16. Your Greatest Asset Is You
Ultimately, you are the most important factor in whatever financial status you can achieve and this must ring clearly in your subconscious. There is the tendency to blame every other person for our unsatisfactory station in life, but that is the mindset of failure. The man who wants financial success must be prepared to pull himself by his bootstraps. The starting point is to take responsibility for one's life and results. It is important too to choose to act responsibly and live with integrity and dignity. In the long term, these virtues will stand you in good stead. Being your greatest asset and tool, you definitely need to keep sharpening and honing yourself. Self-development will imbue you with internal strength and give you the crushing power to take on each day and its challenges. Your mind is a powerful energy source that will spark or smoulder, dependimg on the ideas you feed it. If you get your mind to dream, believe and focus, the goals you set will get crushed by forces you can't fathom. Ultimately, it starts and ends with you!

If you assimilate, internalise and apply the principles of financial success outlined here, you will be blazing hot and shouldn't be far from your financial dreams. So, take charge of your future and learn the principles that will make you unstoppable on your way to financial independence.

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