26. Money Investment Mastery Milestones for 4-Day Work Week Apprentices

First stage in the four day work week journey is to be a four day work week apprentice. Now, many people will move along the process to become a four day work week entrepreneur, but they won't have mastered some of the milestones and the things that need to be mastered to be a good four day work week apprentice. The four day work week apprentice is focused on maximizing your life outside of work without having to change jobs, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're an employee. When we look at that, it has to do with optimizing your relationships, making the most of your time, your money, and the things you own. For each of those areas, the time, relationships, money, and things, there are certain milestones that help you know that you're on the right track. Now, for me, with these milestones, sometimes I'm on top of them, sometimes I'm not. I'm human just like you. When I do these things, life is so much better. Here are the 10 milestones for mastering, optimizing your money. The first, very simply, is having enough income to pay your bills, live within your means, and save 20 % of your income monthly.

Some people used to say 10 % as interest rates change over time, and the more I talk to people that are really doing well financially, they'll tell me, Wait, I've been saving 20 %. It's what I used to do when I was younger. Kind of got off that train. I'm getting back on that train. With each of these ideas, you'll see there'll be a checklist you can get later and you can look at, do you want to do this? You can say yes or no. What's your target date for doing it and what's your status? Second thing is zero credit card debt. Ideally, we wouldn't use credit cards, but admittedly I do for certain things. So I like to know what my charges are going to be and I also like to not have surprises. And I also know that credit card charges are easier to reverse usually than ATM charges. S o some of my recurring bills and payments, I'll have them on credit card, but I know what they are and make sure that my balances are paid off each month. So I'm not paying credit card interest. I've done this both ways.

I've been smart about it. I've been stupid about it. It's really painful when you're wasting money on credit card interest. You get nothing back for that. So again, this is mastery, having zero credit card debt. Having an emergency savings fund equal to six months of your take home income, real simply, that means, regardless of what you make, you might say, Wait, I make $50,000 a year, but I take home $40,000 a year, or whatever it is, or Wait, I make 4,000 a month, but I take home 3,000 dollars a month. So if you take home 3,000 dollars a month, multiply 3,000 times six months, having $18,000 set aside in the savings fund, it's just for emergencies, not for shopping, not for extra cool toys, not for Black Friday, just emergencies. Knowing that you have six months of income no matter what, that's another step or stage of mastery and milestone that puts you in a very awesome place. And especially if you're an entrepreneur, creates a lot of security and you can breathe because you're not worried about next month's paycheck or next month's thing or the next thing you're going to do if it works or not.

Number four, having what I like to call a personal income protection plan. Another word for that is a disability insurance policy. Now, most people don't like to hear that word because they think of catastrophic, horrible things. But sometimes people are unable to work because they experience an injury. You want to be able to get a policy that's equal to at least 70 % of your income or more. Usually it's capped out at about 80 %. As a side note, my background is the insurance field, been in and out of it for over 30 years. And so just having that, that if you're unable to work, it's a tragic thing, but it does happen sometimes. It may not be a high percentage thing. It might not be forever. Some estimates show that one in three people at some time in their life will be unable to work for an extended period of time over at least six months. Again, having insurance there as part of your plan to make sure that you don't have to come up with all that money because if you can't work, bills still keep coming in. If you have people that are dependent upon you, having a family income protection plan.

And that is what I like to call something that is more what other people call life insurance. And when you hear people say life insurance, Oh, my God. All the stereotypes come up in what? The character Woody Harrison from Doc Hollywood, want to buy some life insurance? Some insurance, excuse me, I got to say it right. And there's a lot of things in the insurance world that are done that are shady. But one of the more basic things is just term insurance, where you're just getting insurance. And in whole life, permanent insurance can be awesome also, by the way, in the right situation. But having term insurance or having insurance where if something happens to you, you said, you know what? I make 30,000 a year, or I make 50,000 a year, and I want my family to have 10 years of my income. 50,000 times 10 years, I get $500,000 of income in a life insurance policy if I die too soon. Or if I know my kids are really young, I want my family to have my income for 20 years. Okay, I make 50,000 a year times 20 years. That's a million dollars.

It sounds like a lot, but if the income is not there and your family needs it, that's a pretty big deal. Knowing you have that taken care of and doing that is not only a father or mother or provider is a really huge thing. Number six, having all the debt that you carry, if you carry any at all, at an interest rate under 5 % and having a credit score that's 800 or more. I got to admit, at times when I've not been borrowing money, I said, I don't worry about my credit score. It doesn't really matter that much. Then later something would come up and I'd say, Oh, gosh, I need to get some credit now, or I need to borrow money to buy a car. And all of a sudden now I'm getting higher interest rates because I just neglected to monitor the credit scores sites or that stuff, whether it be your bank site or creditc arman. Com or one of those. It's something that can be taken care of so easily. It's a little bit of an annoyance, at least for me, but it can make a big difference to you in the interest rates you pay and how you manage things.

It's not so much so you can just go buy tons of stuff you can't afford. It's so that when you are investing, you can get the best rates possible. Having a monthly budget, tracking your expenses with a software and reviewing that monthly. Yes, it's no longer the 1900's use software. It does the math for you. If you don't like doing software, have someone do the software for you. There's bookkeeping companies, there's other people. Be on top of that. Know your budget, know your expenses, and review that on a monthly basis. Number eight, the ability to travel and enjoy life comfortably according to your priorities. Now that's a milestone because that's one of the reasons we make money. We don't make money because money tastes good or because we can drive around in money. We drive around in a car, not in the money. The money gets things for us. One of those things is the ability to enjoy life for a lifestyle of a certain way. A gain, having enough money to be able to do that and making sure that we're able to enjoy those things when we can. Being able to comfortably give to charitable and educational causes you believe in.

Not that you have to do that, it's up to you. Everybody's got their own choice when they do that. But knowing that you're in that powerful position, you say, Yeah, I can afford to do that. I've got my emergency savings fund, I've got my family income protection, my personal income protection. Yeah, I've got extra money. I can afford to be abundant and share that. Then finally, building the net worth to afford your educational goals and to be able to retire at the same lifestyle you're currently at or better. Now, asterisk here, if you've listened to any of my work, you probably know I don't think most people really actually want to retire. I don't believe in the overall concept of retirement. It was an idea that was introduced to help the soldiers coming back for more get jobs. So we retired people that were older to make room for the soldiers. If you look at nature, animals don't retire. Turtles don't stop turdling. Dogs don't stop dogging, just being what they're being until they get ready to die. So on one hand, you might say, Wait, I'm never going to stay for retirement. But we don't know what's coming.

Bad things can happen. Or you just might want to say, Wait, I want to be in a good enough position where I can afford to retire, which for me, that's the goal. And to be in a position where I can be as semi retirement as I like, work when I want, or if I feel like it, take a year or two or travel, whatever it might be. But to have the freedom to do it, even if I never pull the plug on it, even if I never choose to do it, that I can do that if I want to. So these are the 10 master milestones for optimizing your money. Again, it's important. I'm going to help you look to how to make more money in less time, do what you do best while you're in your work. But if you get outside of work and you can't enjoy your money and you can't manage your money, then all the work we're doing to do a better job inside work isn't as effective. We want to be on top of this, make the most of this. If you have any questions on this and how to best do this or resources on this, please let me know.

As always, I look forward to helping you make more money in less time doing what you do best. If you'd like to learn more about the show or the slide notes, you can go to 4day entrepreneur. Com and you can also look at how to become a 4 day work week apprentice by going to 4day workweek. Com apprentice. Learn about our training program where you can learn more of the details and study what we found are the best ways to help you make the most of your life outside of work before you even change jobs, or if you're already in a job as an entrepreneur or an employee, just making the most of your life outside of work so that the main reason why you're working, to have fun outside and enjoy family, friends, relationships, that those things are working the way you like. If you have any questions on this, just let me know. As always, thanks for listening.