The Problem with Living Within Your Means

By Trace Trajano

Most financial pundits will say "Live within your means and you will be OK financially." While it is BAD to live above your means...or to spend more than you earn, I have never seen a millionaire or a billionaire who saved his or her way to financial success. Meaning...saving money is good but it is not enough to make you a millionaire or a billionaire.


Here's the solution: live within your means AND expand your means.


You need to have an additional streams of income other than your job. If not, you will always need to work to make money. I don't care even if you earn one million pesos a month. If you have to always work 8, 10 or 12 hours a day for it...it's not the way to become wealthy. As Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad would say "Wealth is the number of months or days you can afford not to work." If you always need to work, then you're not wealthy. You can be rich...or someone with a lot of cash but if you always need to work long hours to earn it, then you're not wealthy.


You need to have passive income. Passive income is defined as income that comes in with very little or NO work. I get passive income from the monthly cashflow of real estate and royalty from my books. Essentially, passive income is income that comes in even while you sleep.


In my book, "Think Rich Yuppies" (co-authored with Sha Nacino), we laid out the financial blueprint that will ensure success. You have to save automatically...at least 10% of your gross income. You have to pay off your debts systematically and automatically so you don't focus on them. You then have to learn how to generate passive income streams. In order to supplement that chapter, I proposed to Sha Nacino that she interviews different gurus about generating multiple streams of income. One of the gurus she interviewed is Eireen Diokno-Bernardo.


Eireen is the Philippines' number 1 eBay powerseller. To be a powerseller, you need to have sold millions of pesos worth of merchandise. So Eireen is NOT an amateur or hobbyist eBay seller. She has managed to build a real business that generates massive income for her and her family. The nice thing about eBay is that, once you set up the business in the right way, the income that comes in is basically passive. You don't have to deal with customers face-to-face. You don't have to sell in person. If you're a shy person like me...selling on eBay might be your one way for you to learn how to sell. Eireen advises that you need to set up an arrangement with a shipping company in order to get your shipping done in the right way and in order for you NOT to spend the time shipping what you're selling.


You might be thinking, "eBay is NOT for me. I don't have anything to sell." Eireen thought in the same way in the past. Actually, the one who started the eBay business for the Bernardo family is not Eireen herself but her husband. He started selling old memorabilia and he profited handsomely in the process. Any "junk" you have in the house might be valuable for someone and eBay could be the way for you to dispose them and make money from them at the same time.


You might be thinking, "I am broke. I don't have money to buy merchandise to sell on eBay." Think again: you can sell merchandise on eBay even before you buy them. You can also buy the merchandise on consignment. In other words, you can have your very own eBay store with "no money down" just like real estate.


Lastly, you might be thinking, "I have a full time job. eBay sounds like a lot of work: I need to buy the merchandise, pack them and ship them myself." Think again: there are some eBay vendors who act as middlemen. All they do is coordinate everything. Once an order comes in from their eBay stores, they call the manufacturer to coordinate directly with the shipping company to ship the goods directly to the customer. Passive income, isn't it?


To find out more how to launch your very own eBay business, get our book + 4 audio CDs "Think Rich Yuppies" here - http://ThinkRichYuppiesBook.com.


dedicated to your success,
Trace
P.S. Do you want to save on the shipping costs? You can get the book at a substantial discount on March 9, 2011 when you attend my upcoming seminar. Clic'k HERE to attend and register for the event (you have to be a member of BuyFirstDeal.com to register but membership is f'ree...)