wealthcrash.com

With this being the year of the 300th Anniversary of the UK, I thought I’d pose a question to show the value of starting saving early.

Question:
How much money would you have accumulated by now if, back in the year 1707, you’d invested £1 at an interest rate of ten percent?

Answer:
A remarkable £2,617,010,996,170.

If you shared it out, that’s enough to turn over 2 million people into millionaires, while still leaving yourself with over £600 million to play with.

But But But…
Did you?

I see that Halifax Home Insurance has released a report saying that over one million British holidaymakers come back from holiday each year to find havoc in their houses.

This year’s holidaymakers can expect repair bills of £2.3 billion to put right damage from criminals, the elements, friends, family and faulty utilities.

Damage Figures for the Last Ten Years

Criminal damage
Over the last ten years 2.5 million holidaymakers have come home to find that they’ve been burgled and more than 600,000 people have had their homes vandalised while they were away.

Water leaks
1.7 million holidaymakers came home to water damage – about £1 billion pounds worth nationwide .

Storm and fire
Almost 700,000 returned to storm damage and over 100,000 to fire damage.

Friends and Family
A million people came home to damage caused by their children half-a-million people said a house sitter had caused damage whilst they were away.

Utility Repairs
Around seven million people have come home to find a fault with a utility such as their central heating, hot water, gas or electricity – costing over £210 million per year to fix.

Checklist for Leaving your House Unnoccupied

Here is a basic checklist that can help you protect your property whilst you’re away from home.

• Check your home insurance policy, especially if your home is to be empty for a consecutive period of days. Watch out for the policies that only cover an unoccupied house for up to thirty days.
• Ensure pipes are lagged if you’re leaving the property unattended in cold weather.
• Leave a key with a trusted neighbour and ask them to check your property regularly.
• Put all deliveries on hold, e.g. newspapers and milk.
• Make sure your house looks lived in:
  • Buy a timer to turn lights on and off in the house when you are away.
  • Ask whoever is looking after your property to open and close curtains from time to time.
  • Organise a friend to mow your lawn regularly.
  • If you’re taking your vehicle, request a friend or family member park there occasionally to make the property look lived in.
• Deposit valuables at the bank or with a trusted friend. Avoid keeping excessive amounts of cash or jewellery in an unoccupied property.
• Always leave a contact address and phone number so that your neighbours know how to contact you in an emergency.

Money can grow or shrink.

If you invest it wisely, it grows and can produce a return for you, – such as a rent, an interest-rate, or a dividend.

You can look on this return as a stream of money you don’t need to work for.

If, on the other hand, you spend your money on consumer goods or services, it disappears for ever. You need to go out to work again to replace what you’ve spent.

To escape wage-slavery, you need to hang on to more of your money and give less of it to someone else. You need to start working for your own long-term benefit.

I know it’s impossible to save all of your earnings. Our society isn’t set up that way. Big companies are very clever at finding ways to persuade us to hand over our money. These businesses, of course, are owned by their share-holders – people who are smart enough to generate income from investments rather than working for it.

With a little thought, it will be possible for you to increase the proportion of your income that you invest for your own benefit rather than benefitting someone else by spending it inefficiently.

I’ve just said that it’s impossible to stop spending money completely – but it is possible to spend it efficiently, leaving a surplus to invest in income producing assets – your ticket to financial freedom.

If, instead of spending it, you can invest £1,000 this year at a ten percent return, then in 30 years it will have grown to over £17,000. If you can save £1,000 like that each year for 30 years, you will no longer need to be a wage-slave.

The trouble is I’m talking about a thirty year timescale. Most of us think much more short-term than that; but what if you could save that £1,000 without feeling the loss of purchasing power? Do you have £1,000 of expenditure you could dispense with in order to enjoy future freedom?

There are plenty of ways to stop spending £1,000 in a year. You probably go to work 220 days each year. If you could cut £2.50 per day from work-related expenditure, that would give you an immediate saving of £550. What about taking home-made sandwiches instead of buying a lunch? What about taking a flask of coffee instead of buying it?

A few more easy things to do – and I won’t go on about giving up smoking – suffice to say that smoking is one of the best ways business and government have ever found of keeping wage-slaves at work.? You could:

• Replace fizzy drinks with water.
• Replace bottled water with tap water – if you don’t like the taste of your tap water, leave it overnight in a jug in the fridge – you’ll be surprised how much the flavour improves.
• Stop buying and reading magazines – this has a double benefit. Most magazines are ridiculously expensive and are aspirational. They help keep you in wage slavery by promoting a large assortment of wholly unnecessary and expensive consumer goods. You proably only buy some things because magazines got you interested.
• Could you throw away that silly mobile phone? You’d be far more relaxed without it. Admit it, the vast majority of those calls and messages are unnecessary, aren’t they? Get a very cheap phone for emergency use only.

And the catch-all tip is:

Save First…………. Spend Second.

The very first thing to do with your pay is to save £19.20 per week or £83.33 per month. Only once you’ve done that should you spend what’s left over on your living expenses.