Are you going to work for 45 years, five days a week, or be the master of your activities from now on?

You know that my goal is to achieve financial freedom and go to the other side of the barrier, so as an exercise I've been imagining what it would be like living outside the routine of working five days a week, for 8 or 9 hours a day.

The weekends would no longer have the same meaning as before. Fridays would not be  "happier" days than the others and I could be working on some weekend, it may seem paradoxical, but I could be writing on Sunday without any problems.

I think the danger would be to fall into the trap of working constantly. The goal is not to get out of the rat race to fall into a  worse routine. This would be the challenge of the entrepreneur.

Responsibility and personal effectiveness

With so much power over our free time there also comes great responsibility: what about our personal effectiveness?

How many productive hours should I have to work? Or, how much money show I have to make?
For the salaried employees these questions do not exist as they work the same, day bay day and every month. But there are models of work where it is not necessary to produce for 8 hours a day to be effective.

Everything depends on the sector and the way we have chosen to develop our business: if you work with customers directly, your presence will be more necessary, but if you work in training people or on a website, you only need to be present in the moments that you have established.

What is your choice?

Work and learn

To work constantly make you lose sight of the whole and have an impact on your creativity, your effectiveness and your income. I think it's important to find the balance between work and learn to feed that spark and to not get lost in the details.

Being the owner of your life

Some mornings on my way to work I wonder:

- Maria, what would you be doing at this time if you were working for yourself?

Ah yes! My goals are very clear to me and I would act accordingly. As I devote priority to those things that have a lever effect, or multiplier, the kind of thing that would work with very little effort to make money work for me, I'm sure that things like that are those that I like to do.

French actor Gerard Depardieu has left France to live in Belgium.
He has paid 85% in taxes to his country and is moving to enjoy a fairer taxes system.
As I said in my Robin Hood syndrome article, they always start by saying:
- "Let's tax the rich, the rich are bad and keep all to themselves while there are poor people over there"
And then everyone ends up paying more taxes, even old retired people now.

The image of France in the world

But Depardieu has something of gaulish, there is something big and honorable about this man. At least he hasn't got his hand in other people's pockets.
He has left onpenly and renounced to french passport when the prime minister Ayrault described the move as shabby.
But he is everything except shabby, his income comes from hard work from his youth and he has always invested and created jobs in France.

Why is he so criticized

There is a big list of rich socialists who are in the exile to avoid the tough tax system which are never criticized. But Depardieu is a republican and it is his political side that gets him in trouble.
They use criticism, guilt, denigration and belittling citizens to push them to pay.
- "Oh, he is so selfish, all that money that he hasn't earned all by himself".

But it doesn't come to their minds that they don't deserve and they haven't work for all the luxury, servants and planes they enjoy today after getting into power, as the new selfish aristocracy, some kind of modern monarchy.
Will such behavior encourage young people to strive and advance in society?

We are near the end of 2012 and I am reviewing all the positive changes. As for the negative things I take them as lessons from which to learn to move forward more wisely.

Take control

Or better to say: take responsability. This year we have reduced the negative balance in our bank account to make it disappear. We have decided to just offer chocolate as Christmas gift for the adults.

I've been checking our bank account online at least once a week to reduce and control spenses.

The result is that we have come to end of the month in positive balance, which has not happened for a long time, maybe years, so that we will not pay extra bank fees.

Bank overdraft fees are that money that banks make you pay when you have not enough money just to sink you more into debts.

We were tired of working for the bank and working to pay credits. We also have a plan to pay off all debts, which is already in its way. And a savings plan, which is already well in its way too.

The thing was to get out of that behavior where you swim in comfort hoping that things are going to come to you by themselves, like apples falling from a tree right into your hands.

But no, we had to claim 1000 euros to the tax service that they wanted to charge us by error and we fixed the issue.

We have changed our phones fees we work with the new Free Operator and now we only pay 19 euros/month. This has made us about 120 euros in savings each month.

More things you can do to improve your financial situation

1. Negotiate the interest rate: if you have a current credit, ask to review the interest rate, see if you can you lower it down.
2. Cancel subscriptions: reviews all subscriptions, insurance and fees you do not need and call them to cancel everything. Perhaps it is just 5 euros but is your money and you are tring to stop all leaks.
3. Ask for a raise: If you worked to increase the turnover of your company directly or indirectly, you can use this as an argument to demand a wage increase, at least try!
4. Learn Finances: Get at least the basics and if you invest in financial products and study them well, read the contract before signing.

Lately everyone wants more money, but how many are willing to take care of it?

How do you think the rich have become rich? It is because they have learned to use money, to reclaim it when needed, to spend it wisely without wasting, to invest it to make it work for them and even to give it in a controlled way.

It's all about acting and not let things go

Some people do not check their bank accounts and thay just wait a call from the bank to find out that they have no money.

Remember that your time and your effort are equal to money. Money is a common good, and if you treat it well you will take the first step toward your freedom: financial security.

We hear about the crisis from years ago. Everyone says it was inevitable and that economy is not an exact science that can be predicted.

But it is all about a story of bubbles: the tech bubble, the real state bubble, the speculative credit bubble and finally the bubble of sovereign debt that plagues many countries.

I would say that the worst of them is the speculative credit bubble and the excessive debt because it affects everyone: governments, businesses and homes.

Gold and currency

Fixing the price of things is the main job of the biggest economic actors and powers. When Bernanke (current president of the United States Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan's successor) aims to fight deflation he tries to set prices at a higher level than they would naturally be.

Inflating prices was imposing its own system of equivalence of things, goods and services to the dollar.

This was the end of the equivalence of the currency with gold.

Economists are the new high priests

And the assistants of politicians and banks. Their analyses have a great impact on the social and economic growth of a country.

A well known example of this is the classification of S & P (Standard & Poors). We know that the highest classification of this financial agency is AAA.

As S & P degrades the classification of a country, this has a huge impact on prices and market confidence.

Economy is there to serve the dominant interests, and they are unable to create a coherent historical thread of past events in order to anticipate and build a prosperous future for all.

And the masses are still numb with advertising and materialism and the need for security as primary goals, submerged in the lagoon of conformism.

And when we see the waste of millions and millions of dollars in bailout some countries, like Greece and Spain, they do want to make us believe that it's for the good of all. But all that money coming out from one pocket today will have to replaced later at some point, right?

In the mean time no one really understands what is happening.

The United States seeks and cares for its gold with the utmost care, they are always talking about their gold reserves, always preserving it and protecting it.

They know that paper money is nothing if it is not backed by gold, the 9000 tons of gold they have.

While some dumb European countries have been selling gold at $ 260 an ounce.

Build your own economic universe

And in all this, what I can do? you will tell me.

Just accept and create your own economic universe as part of yourself and take care of it. Your money comes from your efforts, your creativity, your courage to go out and make it. But in the everyday life we do not want to care about it.

And so we get more credits, more debts. After all this is how everyone lives.

But do you really need it? Learn to use money as a tool, learn to receive it, give it and multiply it.

Learn how to change it only for what is of real value to you.

And keep your own gold reserve to care the most important reserve: that which is the best in at the bottom of your heart.

Christmas is near. You see blinky lights and colours all around. Santa is ringing the bell and shouting at the door of every shop.
Christmas is beautiful for children, it's mean to be for children.
Christmas is like Saint Valentine: it should be every day.
But marketing brains have chosen one single day of celebration so you could spend all your money on fancy presents.
If you need to offer presents and gifts, let them be meaningful gifts of love.

Does Merry Christmas mean merry gifts?

For some, maybe.
Christmas was meant to be a celebration for the Lord Jesus birthday and before that it was a pagan roman celebration called the "saturnalia feast" where they decorated rooms with bay leaves and green trees.
Nowadays it is a celebration where people burn their credit card and lend money to buy the fanciest and more expensive presents they can buy: it is a logo celebration.

Make Christmas time a time of love.

But his year make it special, try to get all your loved ones together to sing and get merry.
Be thankful for all the good things you've got and enjoy the simple things which got more value.

Spend less and enjoy more.
Light up a fire in your heart.
Merry Christmas.