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Hey there, real quick, before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience Live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Why do so many people feel financially stuck? Trapped in debt, struggling to save, unsure how to break, free, living, Check to check. Listen, if you've ever felt like that or that no matter how hard you work, you're still not getting ahead or you're tired of feeling like money controls you instead of the other way around, this episode's for you. I'm going to show you exactly how to transform your finances in just eight weeks. Nothing complicated, no extreme sacrifices, just real practical steps that will put you back in control and on the path to financial freedom.

If you feel stuck in your financial situation or overwhelmed by debt, frustrated that, my God, no matter what I do, I can't get through this. Well, listen up. And I have been there. The first thing is that I've been there. I've had debt, I've been overwhelmed, I've been struggling. I've questioned my ability to do this. And it's not all lost. There is a way. Because the next few minutes, the next little bit that we're going to go through, I'm going to break it down for you. I'm going to literally show you how you can change your financial life and set you up for success in eight weeks. Now, not everything's going to change in eight weeks, but you will be on the path to. To getting it all dialed in. This isn't some vague advice or impossible strategies. This is gonna be step by step, a plan that actually works. And I promise you, if you follow this and you do this and you get all these eight, eight steps in and you keep them working, over time, you will look back, you will find yourself more in financial control, more confidence, and you will have a real shot at building wealth. Not only that, you'll have a real shot of living life by choice, a life that you deserve. All right, so let's. Let's jump in to some of the things that I want to touch on. And the first thing is this. Before we ever talk about numbers, we have to Talk about mindset, the stuff between the ears. Because if you don't fix this first, no amount of financial strategy will ever work. Look.

I came into this thinking that I was just going to teach strategy and the math behind wealth creation. And it didn't take me long to figure out that until I help people navigate and get the mindset right, the heart set right, that I wasn't going to get their pocketbook right. So most people don't struggle with money because they're bankruptcy bad with it, or because they're bad with math or because they don't know numbers. They struggle because they've been sold a broken financial system. A system that says, hey, debt is normal, budgeting is stifling, investing is risky, and worse. They've sold us this idea that, hey, you know what, you're always going to be struggling, so why even bother? I think that's all crap. I'm sorry about someone's strong language, but it's true. I think the truth is that wealth isn't about how much money you make. It's about how much money you keep and grow in your control. In fact, it's about how much money you get to work for you than you did for it. And that's a hundred percent in your hands. We don't have to buy into the zeitgeist and the mindset of debt is normal and budgeting is stifling, investing is risky, all that type of stuff. So with that as the foundation, let's just talk about this eight week plan. We get you in it, we get you doing it. Now here's what I want you to do. As we go through this and you go through this, I literally want you to mark this down on a calendar, mark it down on a pad paper and use it as your checklist. Not only as a checklist, but as a schedule. So you are doing the stuff because you can, you can sit back and listen to this or watch this and say, this is great. And if you don't put it in action in eight weeks, you will be in the same place, or worse, you will be falling eight weeks behind. And so I want you to take each step, each week step with me, every step of the way. So by the time we get done with this, you know, and you've done the eight weeks, you will have things in place that are going to guide you and get you moving. And now stay on track. All right, so here's the deal. Week one, week one is really about. Let's get clear on what you actually want before we decide to take a journey, a trip, we need to figure out the destination. Like my wife and I were trying to figure out where we were going to vacation this year, and we were looking around, looking around. We decided we're going to go back to Italy, but we couldn't make plans for anything until we knew what the destination was. And it's the same thing with our life and with our finances. Now, when I say destination, what do you actually want? It has nothing to do with a number. It has to do with your life. Because the reason we want the wealth is to give us the life we want. And so most people that I talk to say, I want to be rich. I want to have a million, I want to have 5 million, I want to have 10 million. But what does that actually mean, rich? Wealthy? Because if we don't define your version.

Of rich.

Then you'll always feel like you're falling behind. This happened to me.

I didn't know what my finish line looked like. I didn't know what success looked like. I didn't know what my life was going to look like, the one that I wanted, because I didn't take the time to define it. And so the first week, I just want you to reflect. If you're in a relationship, I want you to have conversations with your spouse, with your significant other, with your partner to say, what do we want in life? What we want. Not, don't worry about how you're going to get there, because the how will fog the what. The what. I want you to just dream. I want you to look at and say, what if? And what if it were possible? Because it is. It's just a matter of approach and time and, and. And process. So I want you to be able to. To put this out there and say, what do we really want? Do I want to travel the world without stress? Do I want to retire early if there's such a thing as retirement, and never worry about money again? Do I want the freedom to work when I want, wherever I want, how I want? Do I want to be able to give.

My money to causes or missions? Do I want to have the choice to be able to donate my time, my efforts, my expertise to causes and missions and movements? Do you need to know the answer? You need to know the answer. Where do I want to live? What do I want to look like when I want my relationships? It's not about chasing someone else's dream, and we can get caught up in it because we see someone else's dreams paraded in Front of us constantly. Whether it's TV commercials or, or social media or TikTok, they're parading their version and saying, this is what you should get. Go get the expensive car, because this is what your life will feel like. But the question is, is that really what you want for your life? So this actual first step is to literally sit down and journal and write down what a rich life means to you. What does it look like to you? Not a number in a bank account, but how you want to live it, how to feel about it, how you want to experience it. Because if you don't know where you're going, how will you ever get there? So this is one of the most important steps in your journey and on your path to financial freedom, okay? To be able to identify when you get there. All right, now that's week one, week two. This one is face the truth. Even if it's ugly, face the truth. This is your current reality. Okay? If we've set the destination, in order to set the path, I now need to know where I'm starting from. Now, this is where we get real. But I want to caution you here, the. The potential is that you not only get real, but you get judgmental. I don't really care where you are today in the sense of it doesn't set the tone for your trajectory, it doesn't set the tone for your journey. It doesn't set the level for where you're able to rise. I'm a son of an immigrant. My dad came here at 17 years old to go to school. He never had anything. He didn't have money, didn't come from money, and he became an engineer. So he was a white collar worker, worked all his life. We didn't live a lavish lifestyle. Used cars, who lived in the same home all our lives attract home. I built things from scratch. I lost it and rebuilt it. But. But my point is, is that no matter your age or stage, your circumstances.

Until we face the truth, no matter how ugly it is, we can't set a plan to get out of there. So we really, in week two, we want to look at our current reality. I know this part can suck because you're looking at saying, I don't want to look at how much debt I have. I don't want to understand that I'm overspending here or there. I don't want to revisit my mistakes. But they only define where you are today. They don't define the capacity for you to grow. Avoiding this is going to cost you More. Way more than facing it. And so here's what I want you to do here in week two, I literally want you to grab six months of your bank statements, your credit card statements. I want you to color code, I want you to get colored highlighters, and I want you to color code the. The line items. Whether it's a need, something for your survival. That's food, clothing, health care, transportation, shelter. That's about it. Okay, you're going to color code those. Those are needs. Those are green. We're gonna. We're gonna keep those. We need them to survive. Then we're going to color code wants. And those might be, you know, blue or yellow or some other color. Those are the things that we love, that we enjoy, whether it's the Netflix, the mani pedis. It could be technology, it could be toys, those kinds of things. Those are wants. And then there's a category of, wow, not anymore. I don't need these. I don't enjoy them, I don't do them that I can eliminate. So we're going to mark those in red. So I want you to mark all of those. And that way now you can be brutally honest with yourself and say, I now see where I'm spending. I now see where it's going. I now have an opportunity to look at it and say, are all the wants truly wants? Am I getting the value, the joy out of it that.

That I really, really thought I would. And if not, maybe you move it to a not anymore, and now you get a chance to cut some things out. Now, I will be the first one to tell you that I'm not one that says we just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. I don't think that you live a rich life through deprivation, but you live a rich life through intentional living.

And that you put your resources, your energy, your time into the things that mean something to you. It's called personal finance because it's personal to you. What maybe means something to me may not mean something to you, and vice versa. So. So taking my priorities doesn't help you. Let's take yours because it's your life. And so we cut the things out and, and do it in a way that now we have this additional cash that we can use to navigate and use to build the wealth potentially. Now, maybe we don't. We'll have to. May have to increase income or do some other things, but this is the time to figure out your starting point. Okay, then you get to week three. Week three is. Is the kill debt week before it kills your Future.

Debt. There's. I, I am not one of those people that believe that all debt is the devil. Now I do think that all debt has two personality traits. There is constructive debt and there's destructive debt. Okay. Or productive debt and destructive debt, however you want to call it. But the bottom line is that the destructive debt is the debt you go into. That is for consumables. It's financing a lifestyle today that you can't afford today. It is borrowing from your future. It's allowing your ego to say yes when you know that your logic should say no. That's buying the expensive car on a seven year finance plan, which we should never do, or getting the big screen TVs that you can't afford to get, but you put it on a payment plan or spending money on luxury travel that maybe you can't afford to do yet. Okay? Not saying not to do it. I'm just saying that if we are going into debt and carrying balances on high interest consumable credit cards to be able to live a lifestyle, then we're living beyond our means. And that has to stop. I mean, this is tough love time, but it has to stop. Because you take a credit card debt that maybe has an interest rate of 25% and that means that $6,000 in debt literally could take you over 25 years to pay it off. And if you're paying someone else 25%, there's no way you can get ahead. It's, it's just, it's insane. And I'm being strong about it to, to do that. Now there is productive debt. Productive debt is the debt that you go into that's going to increase cash flow, increase your net worth, your wealth. That could be debt mortgages on a rental property and things like that, because that's increasing your, your wealth over time. So this week I need you to stop using credit for unnecessary purchases. It's, it's time to take deliberate action. And so the first, the first piece of this then is understanding what kind of debt do you have. It could be student loan, credit cards, mortgages, that kind of thing. I'm not worried about the mortgages, okay? It's the consumable stuff, the credit cards, personal loans and car loans and things like that. I want you to get yourself on a debt payment plan starting in week number three. And if you don't know how to do that, I want you to literally go to melabraham.com no debt. You're going to get access to a free training. You're going to get access to a Excel worksheet. You'll put your debt in there and you can decide how you want to pay it off. You're going to choose an avalanche method or snowball method to put you on a debt payment plan and get yourself out of debt. That avalanche method is paying the highest interest rate first. The snowball method is paying the small, smallest balancers. I don't care which one you choose, okay? I care that you choose one and stay on it, okay? It will map out your, your plan to get out of debt. Get on it, follow it, and get yourself out from under the albatross called debt. Okay? Every dollar you free from debt is a dollar you can invest in your future. And that's how you start to build wealth. Okay? So week three, let's kill the debt. Let's get the debt out of our lives. Week four, this is time to start building wealth. This is where you do it. Even if you sit back and go, I'm broke. No, I, I can't afford to save. Well, I hear this all the time, okay? And I get it. But here's the thing. You can't afford not to. You can't afford not to develop the habits. Wealth building isn't about a ton of extra money. It's about building a habit that is putting money away to work for you down the road.

So this week I want you to set up an automatic transfer to a high yield savings account. Even if it's simply $5 a week, you can all afford $5 a week.

Just set it up, develop the habit, and start putting it away. Are you going to be wealthy from it? Absolutely not. But can you become wealthy from the habit of doing it? Absolutely, yes. Now, the other thing that I want you to try and do is if you work for a company that has a 401 and that there is a match, in other words, the employer is going to match your contribution up to a percent. I need you to turn that on. Because if you have a salary and your employer says, I'm going to match the first 4%.

Then you put 4% in, they give you 4%. You just made 100% on your money. It's free money. We're leaving it on the table. We have to find a way to make that work because we want to get that free money from the employer as much as we possibly can. Okay? And then make sure that you're investing that money in the 401k funding. It is one thing, but you want to make sure it's Invested in index funds and ETFs. Low cost, low fee. Make that happen. But. But this week, week five is the week you start, and you start now. You start with small amounts. If you have to. You. You do that because it will snowball into real wealth over time. Okay? Because you're. You're on the wealth creation curve. Okay? Now that leads us to week, week number five. Week number five. I want you to create a cash resource plan. Okay? A cash resource plan.

This is a financial plan. Some people will say it's a budget. No, it's a plan. A budget feels restrictive because it's telling you think. The mistake is that we interpret a budget as, oh, this tells me what I can't do. It's the opposite. A plan tells you what you can do. It's a permission to spend. It's a plan with a purpose. In other words.

We have money coming in and we already know what it's going towards, whether it's the mortgage, whether it's rent, utilities, clothing, food, entertainment, car payment, all that stuff we know in advance. And so what that does is a couple things. One, it takes the thinking out of what to do with your money in advance. Two, it gives you permission to spend the money in those areas because you already did the math behind it. Okay. Three, it allows you to prioritize where your money is going in a way that will make sure that it maximizes and optimizes what your money's doing for you. The spending plan is, is something that allows you to do things versus stopping you from doing things. Here's how I look at this. If you were going to hire a bunch of employees.

You would not bring a bunch of employees into a conference room and say, hey, welcome aboard. I have no plan for you. I have no goals, I have no tasks, I have no roles. I don't even have a job description. But I want to double the size of my business in the next 12 months. I mean, the likelihood that you would do that and be successful is zero. But that's what we do with our money. We wait for our money, come into our world, and then we decide what we're going to do with it. See, if we were going to hire those employees, what do we do? We decide the job description. We know the roles, we know the tasks, we know the priorities, we know the goals. And when we hire them, we give that all to them. So they have a recipe to operate from. They know what success looks like. Well, that's what your plan is, but it's just for your Money is that every dollar that comes into your life needs to have a job description before you ever earn it. So it knows what to do and it'll go to work for you. That's why we need the plan.

And so it's important for us. And I did a whole episode on the proper way to build a plan. So we'll make sure we hook that up in the show notes for you to help you out on this. But let's get a plan put together in, in week five. All right? And then week six. Now that we have a plan, it's time for us to track. Track your inflows and your outflows. What is going on with the cash in, the cash out? Where's it going? Now? You can use apps like Quicken, every dollar, ynab, which is you need a budget to track spending. You can use spreadsheets. Here's the most important thing I want you to do. I want you to track every expense that's going in, that's going out, every dollar that is coming in. But when you spend the money, I want you to also define what it is for. So how much, what it's for. And here's the kicker. I want you to also write down what the emotion was you were feeling when you spent the money. Here's why. Some of us, me included, are emotional spenders. And if we're not careful, we have emotional spend triggers. And when we track the emotions that are around our spending, we start to see what those spending triggers are. For instance, with me, sometimes with stress, and I want distraction, I'll shop online, whatever, you know. Now I don't. I'm not buried in debt. I don't carry credit cards. I do it responsibly. But still, there's an emotional element to it. I'm human.

But the key is that when I understand, when you understand your emotional spending triggers, we then can control those emotional spending triggers so we don't overspend and we stay true to the plan we created in the prior week. All right? And this is the time where you get a chance to.

Do weekly check ins with yourself. Not for judgment, not for beating yourself up, but for awareness, for growth, for learning, and for modification. Okay? When you have visibility over your finances, it will help prevent surprises. It will build confidence. It will put you in the driver's seat. All right? Week 7. Follow a proven financial system. There's no reason to reinvent the wheel. Follow a structured wealth building process. Okay? Mine is documented in building your money machine in my book, step by Step I walk you through the wealth priority ladder and guide you through everything you need to do to, to start to build wealth. Where does your first dollar go? Where does the second dollar go? Why do we do that? So we follow.

A system that has been proven. We're not trying to hit it out of the park and hit home runs. We are trying to make sure that we have a sustainable wealth path over the long term. And the principles I teach have survived decades. There are a lot of people out there that are, that are talking about money and wealth and they, they're, they're young and I'm older. Okay. So they've never seen a downturn, they've never seen a recession, they've never been through a long term down. So will their, some of their tactics and principles work during those times in my review? No. And they're going to be surprised. What you want to do is follow a process that has been proven to, to work in down markets, up markets, sideways markets, economies, because they ebb and flow. This is about the long term game. This is about you for a long period of time. All right, and that leads me to number eight. Okay. Number eight is establish a review and accountability system. What does that mean? That means that I want you to have a regular financial check in rhythm. It may simply be monthly. Just looking at your balances, looking what you did at the beginning for your spending and stuff, you'll probably look at it weekly. But there needs to be an accountability and review rhythm in your life. Putting your head in the sand is not going to cut it, let me tell you. Heads in the sand, when the train hits you, it's still going to hurt. So I'd rather you see the train coming so we can avoid it. And so that means regular check ins, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually. When it comes to your spending and your income, it's probably at the beginning going to be weekly and then probably move to monthly. Your finances, your wealth and that probably quarterly. Okay. Your taxes and planning, probably annually or semiannually. That's, that's the way I would, I would build it. But you want to have a rhythm, put it in the calendar, make sure that you're doing that. And the second piece of this is I want you to find yourself an accountability partner. Now that could be your significant other, but it could be someone outside of that. It could be an advisor, a mentor, a coach that you will have these conversations with. And not again, not for judgment, but for movement to keep you moving, to keep you on the path, to keep you on that journey, wealth isn't a destination. Living a rich life isn't a destination. It is an ongoing journey. It is something that you will be on the rest of your life. Financial freedom is about consistent action and not one time fixes.

It's about you getting in the game with a process and following it. Now, I've given you an eight step process to be done over eight weeks. Here's the deal.

If nothing changes, nothing changes. I need you to change something. So I just gave you the exact steps to change some things. And I promise you that if you do this over the eight weeks and then you look back at the end of the year, a year from now, and you have done this over the eight weeks and you continue to do it, your financial situation will be completely transformed.

But here's the truth. If you stay in debt, someone else owns your time. If you don't track your money, someone else controls it. If you don't invest, your future, your future is set by someone else. But when you get your debt in control, when you get your money in control, and when you get your money to work harder for the new than you did for it, okay? When you get that money to work harder for you than you did for it, you will find yourself on the path to financial freedom. Because you are on the path to building your money machine to give that to you. So here's what I need you to do. I need you to start taking action today. Commit to the eight steps, because your financial future will be in your hands. Right? You got this? I got you. I'm here to help you. I'm here to support you. I'm here to guide you. I'm here to answer those questions. I'm here to keep you on the path to financial freedom. Financial freedom is your birthright. Let's go claim it. Let's do it the right way, all right? I'm on a crusade to light that path for you and a million families. And I want one of those families to be you. If you have questions, if you have comments, do me a favor, leave them, note them, I will look at them. Okay? Send me your questions. Let's make this a team effort, all right? And if you found this of value, do me a favor, share this out, leave me a review and subscribe. I know I'm asking you to do a few things, but it helps the channel, it helps me, and ultimately it will help you. All right? Until I get a chance to see you on another one or on the road to your financial freedom, always, always strive to live a life that Bless you. See you in the next one.

Than thanks for listening to the Affluent Entrepreneur show with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the Affluent Entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of Building youg Money Machine where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcast or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.