To date I haven’t talked a lot about Personal Finance though I work in the Finance industry during the day and I have historically had quite a passion for it.
An interesting observation, though not the point of this article, is that when I was tens of thousands of dollars in debt I was much more fanatical about studying personal finance, reading hundreds of books and articles on it. I’d say of the five hundred or so personal development books I’ve read in my life, more than half were in the personal finance arena.
But now that I’ve been debt free for a few years and my finances ebb and flow, but overall seem to grow, I don’t care too much about it. I haven’t read a personal finance book in a couple years and I only follow two personal finance blogs, albeit sporadically, The Simple Dollar and Get Rich Slowly.
That’s a long way to say that our passions change over time, and that’s okay.
I went from being passionate about being a pro athlete, to wanting to be a rock star, to desperately wanting to be debt-free, to wanting to be a full-time writer. This last passion seems to be sticking right now as I’ve longed for it for over a decade.
For nearly two decades now, I’ve consistently practiced the 3 Percent Solution.
Yes, I’m a jerk for making you read this far into what’s really a very simple concept.
I’ve always set aside 3 Percent of my net pay for pursuit of my passions.
This is not earth shattering, rather, it’s glaringly simple, but supporting our passions is so often overlooked.
We’re told that we should absolutely be saving ten percent off the top of our money and we should be maxing our IRA’s and 401K’s. Oh, what about paying extra on our Mortgage principal, and ruthlessly paying down your credit cards and student loans. If your religious affiliations partake in this, you may be asked to tithe which, literally, means give a “tenth” of your money to your church.
None of these ideas is bad advice (DO NOT try to engage me in a discussion that paying off your mortgage is bad advice. You’ll be treated as a Troll and Corporal Asskicker will have you vanquished with extreme prejudice). But where in all that tangled weave of advice do you find the resources to invest in yourself?
3 Percent.
Your personal development plan.
You, sharpening your personal development skills.
That’s all it takes.
Let’s say you bring home two thousand a month. Obviously people’s circumstances are all over the board on this one, but let’s just try to settle in on a number. This means that you’ll put aside $6o a month.
Now what’s your passion? I mean serious passion? Not, oh I really love to play video games or oh, I’d really love a big screen TV.
What is your passion, your gift that you’re meant to share with the world?
I hate my job, Mr. Charley, but I don’t know how to get out of it. I want to be a writer.
Two months of the Three Percent Solution and you can have a website or blog set up and start writing articles. Produce your own books for sale or start making affiliate income on products that inspire you thru Clickbank. Stick with it for a year and it will start to reap substantive benefits.
I want to travel and see the world but I never seem to have the time or money.
Make the time, and save up your 3 Percent for a plane ticket and go already.
3 Percent is arbitrary obviously, but it’s small enough that you can automate the transfer every paycheck into a separate account and you’ll never miss it.
If your passion requires you to go back to school (though unless a medical license is required, I’d challenge why you’d need to pay for more schooling) then it will take more than 3 percent or you’ll have to save for a few years but for most anything else, including starting a business these days, you can make tremendous gains with some focus and a little bit of money.
My normal pattern is to write a lengthy article each Tuesday but really, this is all that needs to be said on the subject.
I challenge you to put this one simple technique into practice. If you can’t make this tiny sacrifice then the Universe will see that you’re not serious about your goals. I know that sounds harsh but you have to be willing to do what most folks won’t do in order to achieve something that is fulfilling and worthwhile to you. Not being able to do the simplest of steps shows that you’re not serious.
Guest Posts
And now for something completely different…
I’m letting you good people know what my site is open to guest posts. That doesn’t mean I accept every article that comes my way but I am very passionate about the community of blogging and am particularly inclined to extend karma to other writers. I’ll work with you but there are some simple guidelines. I’ll try to be brief (not likely).
1. Please be conscious of the scope of this site. It’s broader than some but suffice it to say that I like articles on Minimalism, Simple Living, Personal Development, Motivation, Inspiration, Fitness, anything that can help improve the lives of myself and my readers.
2. Be nice when you pitch to me. In case you haven’t noticed, I can be persnickety at times and having three babies that like to wake me up several times a night means that I’m about one bad sentence from freaking out on someone.
3. Be cognizant of length. I like articles that are around a thousand words or over but if you’ve got something awesome that’s 750 words, I’ll take it. I don’t post short little haiku posts (though I’ve written a number of charming haiku poems).
Nantucket,
there once was a man
nevermind
4. Send it to me in a text file like Notepad or Wordpad. Failing that, I’ll take it from Google Docs too. I’ll be your best friend if you write it in Wordpress and then send me a text file of the HTML code. Email me the article with a short intro of who you are and why you’re here. Email to scribeforthetribe at (symbol) gmail dot (the little period thingy) com. If you’re a spam bot I’ll punch you in the gnads.
5. Don’t bother sending me a picture unless you have the rights to it and you think it’s like totally relevant. Otherwise I’ll justify the money I spend at IStockphoto and grab one from there.
6. Send me something that you haven’t published somewhere else please.
7. You can create a byline with a link that pimps your own site but please don’t excessively in line link to your other articles on your site. We’re here to celebrate me, not you (j/k).
8. If you’d like to trade articles then I’m totally cool with that. It just may take me some time to get one back to you.
9. I only post guest articles occasionally so get them in to me soon or you may wait in queue for awhile. Got another guest article coming up Thursday.
10. I don’t care if you have zero subscribers, don’t have a site yet, or trying to use this opportunity to launch your own site. I welcome your article if it’s helpful and refreshing.
11. I reserve the right to stop accepting guest posts at any time. If the queue gets backed up too far, I’ll stop accepting out of fairness to writers who probably don’t want to wait 8 months for their article to appear.
12. You don’t have to pitch me in a separate email. You certainly can send a couple paragraph pitch and the attached article in one email. I may email you back to try to give you advice on pitching other bloggers. Having participated in Leo Babauta’s A List Blogging Bootcamp, I learned a lot about pitching bloggers.
BTW, enrollment has begun for Leo’s next Blogging Bootcamp (affiliate link) which starts next week so if you had a desire to sign up, don’t dilly-dally.
13. (Last one, I promise). Please proofread your article. I not prefect but I’d like articles to be pretty crisp so that I don’t feel like I’m grading papers.
I’ve got a good little community that you guys are helping to grow right before my eyes. I started this thing less than two months ago and we’re already flirting with 350 subscribers and I get over 6,000 visitors a month with more than 10,000 pageviews. So please, be respectful of the community here with whatever you write because Corporal Asskicker carries brass knuckles on his mouse-on.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks Charley for the thoughtful article. I remember reading that Einstein called compound interest the Eighth Wonder of the World. I think investing money in your own personal growth and development is much the same way. You start small but the investment you are making in yourself and the dividends you will recoup both grow over time into something quite substantial.
It is always easy to make excuses about how you can’t afford the money or the time to put toward something you want to do. It’s all excuses really. If you are passionate about something, you owe it to yourself to make the investment.
Thanks again!
Hi Charley – Feeling quite inspired to put pen to paper, or digits to keyboard, for the guest post submission. However I do suffer a little from ‘write fright’ – for me the best posts are those written with honesty and from personal experience and the thought of laying myself bare (so to speak) still makes me a little nervous! Here’s to a great rest of the week and if I ever get over my nerves perhaps I’ll send something across for your perusal. Have a good one!