Financial Freedom-What's in Your Cupboard?

Since the beginning of the Industrial Age, advertisers, business people, snake-oil salesmen, marketing moguls and the like have sold the idea that faster, easier, and "more nutrition" through chemicals is better. We've been convinced that instant gratification is not only something to seek, but even demand in modern society. One only has to look at recent cookbooks to see we have become a society of "mixers" not cooks. Our hunger for the quick and easy has taken the place of real substance, not only in our kitchens, but in our finances as well.

As one who certainly knows his way around an oven, I wouldn't promote this type of culinary blasphemy. Nor would I endorse the type of piecemeal financial planning that I see emerging and evolving today. As with food that has been semi-produced before it even sees a mixing bowl; pre-mixed, poly-financial solutions requiring no critical thought should be discouraged as well.

So, if you could locate everything you needed to prepare, serve, and enjoy a financially tasty future, what would it look like?

The first ingredient is money. Like it or not, if you're going to manage finances you have to have finances to manage. Get out the big measuring cup for this ingredient. If you don't have this, the best case scenario is to put yourself in a position to obtain it. If your financial plan doesn't include a way to obtain and renew this resource, you won't even have the opportunity to preheat your oven...or bank account.

If you are among those "cash gifted" to have this already, the next step is a set of goals and a plan that will be refined and tweaked throughout the process. If your recipe doesn't allow for creativity, you're just another one of the masses that will be stuck in a continually rotating cycle of mediocrity. You will eventually fall short of the imagined final result. The financial horizon is always changing...you should too.