Are you a Victor or Victim? Failure or Successful? You are in control -(W7:D2) Debt Free Millionaire

Debt-Free Millionaire

Simplified Explanation: Things happen in life that we have no control over, but we do control how we will respond. The story of my heart is a fact, I have dealt with death every day of my life and now, I don’t worry about death. I won’t leave this life any faster than I am permitted. These events are to give us strength and understanding and without these opportunities, whether good or bad, we would not be who we will become in the future. So, if they are going to happen in the future, be accepting of them. Now, you do have choices, when you make good choices, you are more likely to succeed and turn these events into opportunities. If you choose to do things that are against the law, unethical, or things you know you shouldn’t do, then you will have to accept the consequences that come. Don’t blame others for things you do, but instead, learn from them and don’t make the same mistakes twice. If you see someone else making that mistake, then learn from their example and pain and resolve not to make the same mistake.

Real Life is hard sometimes, maybe even most of the time. You never know what is going to happen. A president may be elected, gas prices will double, and you may lose your job. You may be minding your own business and a car may come flying into your living room and the owner of the car is uninsured. You may win a sweepstakes you were just goofing off when you entered. Things happen and you need to roll with the negative events and celebrate the successes in life.

Most of the time, when you are intentional with life, good things happen. There are two types of mentalities you can change a life for the better or the worse: the victim mentality or the success mentality:

The Victim Mentality – This mindset develops when a person sees themselves a victim in everything bad that happens to them. Everything bad happens in your life because you are a victim. This type of mentality will hold a person down and strangle them without a struggle, because the person is not ready or able to fight back. Negative things come and those individuals will give up, blame others, and fall back on the idea that they can’t do things for themselves. And to many, there is nothing they can do to get out of these scenarios. There is so much more to this than I can write in this section (read more on our site).

The Success Mentality – This person takes personal responsibility for things that happen in their lives. Not to say things don’t happen to them that they didn’t cause, but instead, they don’t see themselves as a victim when things get hard. Instead, they work on the assumption that “things happen, but I will overcome”. This is the person that sees the glass half full (as opposed to it is half empty). We find opportunities and failures as educational moments where we get right back up and begin by fighting back. The truth is, you can do almost anything in life, but you must do it intentionally and know that you are not a victim, but a mental giant, ready to take on any obstacle that comes your way. Easier said than done, right? Read more about this on our site.

This is not to say they don’t have rocky moments when they faulter, breakdown and even cry because of the pain or struggle, but instead that they allow for a time of even self-pity and then collect themselves, get back up, and try again. A success mentality is what every successful athlete has, they didn’t become successful overnight, they had to fail 1,000 times before getting something right, and yet, they didn’t let those failures end them trying again. They endured to the end because they knew they could do it.

Another example, in this instance, when it comes to being intentional is, if I want to make sure that I never get into a car accident while under the influence, I will not drink alcohol or do drugs. I will intentionally hold back from hanging out with friends that will get me drunk. On the other hand, if I were to drink, I would make sure that I was at my house or took an Uber to and from the restaurant. In that instance, my choices never will get the best of me. If I am to drink and get into a car to drive home, I must expect that I will get into an accident, maybe even kill someone on the street as I drive impaired. Make the choice now if you are going to live intentionally. And as the commercials all say, “buzz driving (single drink) is drunk driving”.

Financially – We cannot plan for everything that will happen in our lives. The best thing we can do is plan for those things that may happen and hope for the best, being intentional in everything we do will save us millions of dollars in our lifetime and could even save ours or someone else’s life. To be financially intentional we must plan for negative things by saving a certain amount of money for non-specific issues that may happen. We call this our emergency fund.

Emergency funds are essential to live an intentional life and not become a victim. You or a family member may need surgery, or your car may break beyond repair. How do you plan for that? You or a family member may get into an accident? How do you plan for that? What about if you lose your job? You can’t always plan on when things happen in your life, but that bad things will happen. An Emergency Fund is a savings account built to withstand normal disasters that happen within your family. But how much do you save depends on where you are financially.

Priority one, after saving a small Emergency Fund of about $1,000, is getting out of debt, then saving for the future. Here are two out of an infinite number of options:

1. Build an emergency fund of $1,000 and then spend every other dime getting yourself out of debt. Once you are out of debt, minus your house, you then save 6 months-worth of expenses as an Emergency Fund. If you spend $4,000 a month, then you should save $24,000 in savings. This is especially needed if you lose your job. Put this emergency fund in the bank and allow it to sit there, even if it has a small interest rate. Investing with that money locks it down for a set amount of time. You need these funds to be liquid, that you can spend within hours if needed. You want it to be liquid, which means you can draw it out any time. This allows you not to become a victim. At the same time, you should always have insurance as well. One of my surgeries cost over a million dollars. One of my surgery bill came out to $485,685.89 and my insurance took care of the entire amount. I took that bill and still have it framed on my wall. Insurance doesn’t cover everything, and I had another $20,000 to pay for other parts of the operation and with a payment plan, I was able to pay that down over a matter of 18 months without going bankrupt or struggles. I couldn’t even work during that time, but being intentional saved me.
2. Someone in my situation, where I have a lot going against me, because of my health, has a higher chance of something happening, so having an Emergency Fund that is large enough to take care of me is essential. I may spend half of my income to pay off bills and debts while saving the other half in this fund. At the same time, mathematically I would grow that larger Emergency Fund faster if I spent my excess on my debts and paid them off quicker, so that I had money to save after my debt was paid off. Think of it this way. If I spend half my excess income towards debt and saved the rest, I will pay back the debt at a slower rate, more money will go towards interest payments and it will take me more time. See the diagram below:

Emergency Fund Scenarios (Paying Back $20,000)

(Excess $2,000)

Savings

Paid to Debt
(Interest: 9.8%)

Time to Pay Off

EF after 18 mo.

Option #1

$1,000

$1,000 towards debt

$1,319 (18 mo. interest)

$14,512, no debt

Option #2

$100

$1,900 towards debt

$872 (12 mo. interest)

$15,128, no debt

There is little difference on this small amount of debt, but as the amount of debt increases, the more difference it will make, plus you have 6 months of less stress because your debt was paid off sooner.