Do you ever feel that: Your time is in charge of you? Someone else is in charge of what you do? You are only working for the money? You are looking forward to retirement?

I’m sure most of us can relate to this at some level.

At Your Success Resources, they define financial freedom as “Having access to enough resources so you can do what you truly want.” Or in other words, no longer being a slave to money.

So what’s the secret to financial success and financial freedom?

The Secret to Success

The vast majority of us have been sold the following plan:

- Work hard at school to get good grades

- Find a well paid and secure job or career

- Buy the best house (and hopefully luxuries) we can afford

- Save money and retire on a pension

If we analyse this from a financial perspective, the first thing to notice is that we pay taxes before we even get our pay check! In addition, although pensions are considered tax efficient, these are also taxed as soon as they come into payment. Conclusion – the government get first dibs on our money. The second thing we notice is that the banks have first charge on our houses and we are also often obligated to them via loans and credit card debts. The banks have second dibs on our money and assert control (via repossession or bad credit) to ensure they get paid.

Note that with the above model, the people in control of your money (ie the government and the banks) are also in control of your time. Therefore if you work in a job and exchange your time for money you are really working largely for the government and the banks.

The secret to getting financial control back into our lives is to understand that the government and the banks love this plan we have been sold because we pay lots of taxes and get into lots of debt. In other words the system works just fine as long as you are spending your time bringing in a regular income. The bank and the government will not help you get out of debt – you must change your relationship to debt yourself. It is not in the bank’s interest for you to get out of debt until you are old and can no longer work for them.

Good and bad credit

Robert Kiyosaki’s book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” explains the simple difference between good and bad credit (or good and bad debt) in the following terms:

- Good credit is debt that helps makes you money every month

- Bad credit is debt that costs you money every month

Bad credit is created through purchasing things that don’t make you any money. Good credit is using other people’s money to make you money. In other words, good credit moves us towards financial freedom and success and bad credit moves us away.
What is the key to financial freedom?

The key to the game of freedom is to play it your way and not become a slave to the government or the banks with your time. Primarily this means developing income streams which pay you when you’re not even there (also called passive income). This can be simply achieved through strategies like investing, trading, internet marketing or network marketing (MLM).
Conclusion
It’s not your boss that you need to tackle first if you want to become financially free its your relationship with money and what you do with your time. If you use your time and access to credit wisely you can, like millions of others before you propel yourself to financial freedom within a few short years.