How to become financially free.

So as divided as America seems right now there's one thing that most of us still have in common dead eighty percent of Americans have some form of debt when you add up deficits from credit cards mortgages and student loans. It's clear that we're in the middle of a personal financial crisis. Even if you take away Home Loans, because for some reason most people don't consider that debt I get it if it's an investment if it's taking the place of rent. Okay, let's just push that to the side even though it's a massive weight on most

Emily shoulders pushing that to the side the problem of debt is still palpable the Atlantic citing data from the Federal Reserve showed that non-real estate Consumer Debt Rose nearly 10 times from 1948 to 2008 factoring in inflation at balloon from 1100 dollars to over $10,000. This is a new story a problem that's truly unique to our times of increased tuition housing and healthcare costs as well as stagnant wages. It's one that slept so many people feeling.

Grep for hopeless and frustrated consider one study that showed that fifty two percent of Americans have said that they've cried over their personal finances and this video I want to dig deeper into that problem. But I also want to talk about the solution. The solution isn't easy. It's going to take a lot of work to finally dig your way out of the hole and to become financially free but it is possible. This video is brought to you by audible. I'll share three fantastic personal finance audiobooks towards the end of this video..

Vo so stick around for that debt is a trap that holds us back from living the life that we truly want and our poor decisions compound and dig us further into a hole as we never seem to learn our lesson we take on one loan after another trading our freedom to fit in it seems like the only thing that matters to us is to stay on the same trajectory as our neighbors to go to a similar College to have a similar phone in our pockets dead helps us get the things that we think we need to consider purchasing a new car..

You don't live in a city with a solid public transportation system. You likely need a car to get to work. It's a necessity for many of us. So in order to purchase one, there is a reasonable financially sound way to go about doing that. And then there's what most Americans do we make up all these excuses for why we need the newer model with the heated seats the sunroof and the automatic parallel parking because you know, I'm just a really bad Parker and it's only an extra $3,000 and that's not a lot compared to the $40,000 and I'm paying for the car we buy into the notion that.

visors often sell us that we work really hard and we deserve the nicest top of the line car. We deserve driving around in something that we love instead of taking the few thousand dollars of cash that we have on hand and buying a reliable used car up front. We take that money. We use it as a down payment on a new car we buy this new car, but we also buy into the status quo. We think to ourselves. What's the problem with this small loan? I've already got three hundred thousand dollars on my home mortgage. I've got $30,000..

College tuition, I've got God knows how much on my credit card we think is it really going to make that big of a difference and yes. Yes, it makes a huge difference. The biggest problem is that you're stretching a budget that you don't have you're pushing yourself further and further into debt and you're delaying your Financial Freedom by years. We make these kinds of decisions in every corner of our lives and happily share our least success on social media. We show off the new car the clothes the upgraded gear and we.

Barry away the anxiety and overwhelmed that comes with every bank statement and Bill. It's not only socially acceptable to put all these things on a credit card. It feels like it's actually socially unacceptable to do the opposite to go to a community college to live at home with your parents to buy an old used clunker to get from A to B. We continue to reinforce this idea to each other that in order to be happy to be accepted. We need to accumulate stuff and as a result, we sink further into debt. This might be the new normal that we've accepted as a.

Society but it doesn't need to be normal. You do not have to go down this path. It takes a lot of work. It's not easy to change the course of your life and to do the opposite of what everybody else in your circle and your world is doing but trust me it's worth it. Imagine looking down the road and seeing a life that was free of debt free of that weight on your shoulders a life where you could leave a job that you hate if you want to because you're financially secure and.

Really stable when I was 22 years old. I had taken on far more debt than any of my friends. This sucks. I suck at this with over a hundred and seventeen thousand dollars of student loans and car payments. I felt the weight that so many Americans are feeling right now, you know in the beginning I did not even want to think about the problem. It was so big a hundred and seventeen thousand dollars just seemed like I would never be able to pay it off in a million years. And so I just pushed it to the back of my mind. But then one day I started.

Think about realistically what's the future going to look like? I'm going to be 40 years old still getting these monthly bills still paying off 400 or 500 dollars every month for 20-plus years from a decision that I made when I was 18 years old. Think about that how crazy is it that we make these decisions when were kids and we have to deal with it for decades. That's when I really started to think about how I wanted to change things how I wanted to turn things around. I've learned a few lessons from my own experience that can get you.

You started in the right direction first, you need to recognize the powerful and often negative effect that your Social Circle has on you. There is a current of opposition that makes it really difficult to take the most basic steps towards Financial Freedom. And so it's important to surround yourself with people who are going to motivate you and inspire you along the way I recommend that you ruthlessly curate your social media feed and unfollow anyone who makes you feel like you aren't enough or that you aren't keeping up some people might look at you sideways and you probably won't get as much validation on social media, but it's an.

Horton step to keep you on track the number one rule for personal finance. I've said it many times before it is so simple. You need to save more money than you spend surprisingly. Most people get this wrong. That's why we have so much debt in America and around the world. It's because people are spending money that they don't have and oftentimes we are spending more money as our income Rises. So our standard of living continues to rise we make more money. So then we put it into a new apartment. We buy a nicer car we continue.

to upgrade our lifestyle and this is the biggest problem the biggest trap you're going to fall into if you are trying to eventually work your way out of debt. And so what you can do right now no matter what your income level is begin to cut back on the expenses as much as you possibly can find ways to cut back. You may need to move back and live with your parents. That's what I personally did. There are sacrifices. Of course that come with this for me. I had to sacrifice my dating life as well as my personal life for two years before.

Eventually moved out the side benefit at least for me. My mom made really good. Lasagna, one of the Silver Linings of the pandemic has been that it's forced us to be frugal in so many ways from cutting our own hair to turning our apartment's into our new Jim's this could be a savings of over a thousand dollars a year. Now. This doesn't mean that you need to do this with every aspect of your life investing in your health and well-being is an absolute necessity but paying off your debt does require you to make trade-offs. There are sacrifices. You need to make based upon your income and your knee.

Ed's you need to be honest with yourself about what luxury is you can afford and which ones you can hold off on until you have a better financial position in life. The biggest resistance that you'll face is just the sheer amount of time that it takes to pay off your debt. It will not happen overnight, especially if you have 10 to 50 thousand dollars in debt now personally, I was able to pay off $117,000 in four years because of two reasons one. I radically reduced my expenses and I moved home..

My parents and I cut down as much of my spending as I possibly could and really two of the most important thing. I was able to increase my income rapidly as a freelance filmmaker. Now a lot of this depends upon the economy a lot of it depends upon your skill set, but this is not something that's guaranteed. And so you need to make sure that you have the right mindset to be able to stick through for 5 to 10 years to be able to pay off all of your day and one of the big mindset shifts that I had early on..

As do understand that as long as you're in debt the money that you're making doesn't belong to you. It belongs to the bank when you realize that every dollar that you make every paycheck that comes into your bank account isn't your money because again, you're in debt you're in the hole when you realize that then you won't always feel so entitled to things you want think well, I worked really hard or all this paycheck just came in. So now I can go out and buy this new PS5 you can start to really think pragmatically about the money that's coming in and you can.

Stan this from a network perspective that as you continue to dig your way out of the negative money that you have you can't be spending money that doesn't belong to you. Now. This is a really difficult mindset to start to adapt. It can be painful in the beginning to detach yourself from the money that you're working so hard for but it's really really powerful interning and reframing how you look at your own money. It's easy to put things on a credit card these days or to finance a brand new car every year..

Year a new tech Gadget gets released that's just marginally different marginally better from the previous year the flashy commercials and conferences and endless articles and YouTube videos about this new thing will make you feel like you're a fool for not getting it they'll make you feel like you absolutely need it and everyone is telling you that it's okay to put it on your credit card. But by this point in the video, I hope you understand that. It's a problem by used by refurbished borrow from family and get all the hand-me-downs. You can better yet. Don't buy it at all and hold off until you actually.

The money do this for years until you can afford to pay things out, right you arrive at the same destination at a later date. But here's the important part. You won't be stressed out of your mind on your way there worrying about your accumulating bills and the payments that would continue to pile up becoming financially free begins with the decision to make a change to turn away from society's expectations of what we should own and what our lives should look like. It requires a mindset. It requires you to put your head down and do the work..

Look for a very long period of time it is a lot of work trust me. I know but it is absolutely worth it before I wrap this video up. I want to share three personal finance audiobooks from my sponsor audible. Now, if you're absolutely ready to get serious about your personal finances, I highly recommend you check out these three audiobooks from three amazing personal finance experts that helped me out a ton when I was first getting started The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. I will teach you to be rich by ramit say.

Money Master the game by Tony Robbins these three audiobooks put things into the simplest terms possible to give you a roadmap to Financial Freedom without complicating things truth be told I am a very slow reader. I read at a snail's pace and so audible allows me to listen to tons of audiobooks each year. You could listen to them at home while you're at home or while you're at home start listening with a 30-day audible trial choose one audiobook and to audible Originals ad..

Absolutely free. Visit audible.com slash Matt D of Ella or text Matt developed to 500 500. I've said this on the channel before but for me when it comes to personal finance, I either read or listen to One audio book every year. It is absolutely vital for me to stay on track. It's not necessarily about learning something new when I digest this information, even if it's like watching videos online about personal finance. What I'm doing is I'm not necessarily.

Early learning new things. I'm reaffirming. The reason why I'm doing this why it's important because it can be difficult. We make a lot of sacrifices to go down this road. And so by having the advice having hopefully videos like this that you can go back and watching the future will help you to stay on track as you continue to get out of debt because it's going to take a long long time. But again, it's absolutely worth it. No matter where you are at in your with your own personal finances. I wish you the best of luck and I.

I really hope you find a place of Financial Freedom for yourself..