How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck

2012 was the year my husband and I  decided to take control over our financial destiny.

At the time, Anton worked for a small start up. The start up didn’t make it, so Anton had no job and no income.

I was running a small consulting firm – we implemented Human Resources systems for companies around the world.

I was a workaholic and drove myself into the ground – I was extremely exhausted, depressed, and had to close the business.

You know what? Our three kids couldn’t care less that we didn’t make any money. They still wanted to eat, drink, do sports, buy Pokemon cards, etc. It was pretty horrible!

That was the rock bottom for us. 

So we made two decisions:

1. We decided to write our resumes and get ourselves proper jobs. Like grown ups do.
2. We decided that we will find a way to make sure that this type of financial disaster never-ever-ever happens to us again

 That’s when we realized that we had absolutely no idea about money.

We knew very well how to spend it. But that was it!

So we started educating ourselves.

Some of you might have heard about the Law of Attraction and Bob Proctor.

Bob Proctor is considered to be one of the world's greatest authorities on attracting wealth. What he says is

 “Thoughts become things. If you see it in your mind, you will hold it in your hand”,

- Bob Proctor 

Maybe it was the law of attraction, or maybe I was just click happy on the Internet.

But one day we got a call from Rich Dad Poor Dad coaching team. So Anton and I signed up for an 8-week real estate training program with Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Taking that course and committing to do as we were taught, was one of the best decisions we ever made.

We learned about assets.

An asset is something that puts money in your pocket. 

I’ll show you an example later.

We learned that to become financially independent, you need to acquire assets. Assets will work for you and put money in your pocket. If you own some assets, you’ll have income from them and you will no longer be at the mercy of your employer or your next paycheck.

We also found out about liabilities.

A liability is something that takes money away from you.

For example, traditionally, we think that our house and our car are assets. 

But the reality is that both of them are actually liabilities.

That’s because we have to pay money to maintain them every month - mortgage, insurance, utilities, gas.

Here’s an example of an asset.

This is a small house in Chatham, Ontario.

It rents for $800.

All expenses add up to about $700.

Cash in your pocket is $100 every month.

By show of hands. 

Who would like to have an asset like this? Right, most people think that 100 bucks isn’t worth the effort. 

Audible, Netflix and a Sushi Buffet for up to 4 people cost about $100 bucks.

All three of these liabilities together can be covered by the cash flow from the tiny Chatham house we looked at earlier.

You can look at it this way: if you stop going to work and never get another paycheck, you’ll still be able to afford Netflix, Audible and Sushi.


Let me ask you now. Who would like to have the tiny Chatham house, so that you can get free Netflix, free Audible, and free Sushi for the rest of your life?

Based on the concepts we reviewed:

Assets put money in your pocket. 

Liabilities take money away from you.

The formula to financial freedom is: 

Acquire assets and eliminate liabilities until the cash from assets covers all the expenses from your liabilities. Then you are financially free.