I just remembered I can recommend some books to you guys if you need to raise your income.
I've spent a lot of time & effort studying success advice, and it has helped me a lot. Here's my list
of books that I've found helpful:

1. I've read & listened to pretty much everything by Brian Tracy. He's the best. Probably his best
book is "Maximum Achievement." If you want to know how to get ahead and raise your income by
leaps and bounds, Brian is *the man*. Study and live by his advice and you are guaranteed to
be much more successful and happy. I definitely am! His advice really works!

2. Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill

3. Psycho Cybernetics, by Maxwell Maltz

4. Your Infinite Power to be Rich, by Joseph Murphy

5. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, by Harv Eker

The way these books work is to re-program your conscious mind and your subconscious mind to think
and live in new ways in order to open yourself up to much greater success and happiness. Many people
are weighed down by false psychological limitations which hold them back from getting more out of life.
The goal is to be all you can be, have all you can have, and be a lot happier every day. Many of us have
had negative influences corrupting our thoughts and giving us false limitations. Many people are negative
and they like to degrade us and tell us we can't do things. Also the TV news is full of excessive negativity
and gloom and doom. Now we can get rid of those burdens, set ourselves free to soar like eagles, and
really enjoy life to the fullest. The advice in those books is really true. It really works. I've lived through
the process. I used to be down and out and severely depressed. I grew up with bad parents and bad kids
and they seriously screwed up my mind. Then I studied a lot of self help materials. Now I'm very happy,
very excited and optimistic, and I have a profitable business of my own that I'm always growing. I love
my business and I love my life now. I live life the way that I want to live, to please myself. I'm always
thinking positively and about achieving my goals every day. I refuse to let anything get me down
anymore, and nothing does.

 

Cerainly nothing wrong with thinking positive.

 

You need about $42k discretionary cash plus insurance, maintenance, storage and gas - you can have it all saved or at least budgeted as part of your spending plan for the next 3 yrs, 10 yrs, 20 yrs, etc.

How much you make is not the answer since the new American Way of using credit puts most into "the more you make the more you spend" which is usually above your means and the desire for creditors.

Making more money is the usual desire but is difficult if not impossible for most - the real trick is spending less or dare I say wasting less - do you know where your money goes?

Years ago people bought what they could afford - budgeted items in envelopes/jars/etc. - when it was full enough, they bought that item.

Envelopes has graduated into the 21st century http://www.mvelopes.com - take a look at it - it may help you, it worked for me.

Eric

 

Mark, my man.... I was in your shoes once bro. In the summer of 1994 I took out a loan for $3500 to buy a 72 Rallye 340 4 speed and paid it off a little at a time over 3 years. Within the first year I dropped the motor and was paying on a car that didn't run for another year. My Dad and everybody in my life shook their heads and just could not understand why I would not get a nice Nissan or a Toyota? Well, the truth is, I got more satisfaction just sitting in my Challenger listening to Iron Maiden than anything else in my life at the time. But at that time I was not married, had not found the Lord yet, and worked in the parts dept of a Dodge dealership in CA. I was riding a bike to work with a Challenger sitting in the driveway broken. Since then, the car has been painted three times, moved allover the country and now is sitting in a garage again. Only thing is, now the car is worth $20,000 and that Toyota would be a crap pile. So, I do not regret what I did. I had hard times because of it but all worth it. It is a love and appreciation for what Challenger means man, TO CHALLENGE! TO SPIT IN THE FACE OF THOSE WHO SAY BOOOOO! It is the perverbial bird to THE MAN, and for that matter, THE WOMAN too! My advise is two fold, going into big debt right out of the gate will hurt you. But, life is short man, you will never be 22 again. You won't have to worry about buying one for another two years anyway, unless your Dad owns a dealership. They are already spoken for my man, maybe for the next 3-4 years. But if you want it bad enough, and you work hard enough, you will get it. And it is worth it if it costs you blood, sweat and tears. The love just grows that much stronger. That is the core difference between a Challenger and a Corvette, attitude. The stiff upper lip, and the mullet waiving in the breeze! Just watch the 1970 Challenger commercial with Old Sheriff Buford whats his nuts, that is where this all started, then watch Vanishing Point. Maybe you already have, those things say more about Challenger than I ever could.

 

I'm 18 have a good secure job, I make $20 an hour, I bought my powerwagon with "squirrel hole" cash, I paid $1500 for it, that took me 3 weeks to put back away, however I have lots of opportunity for overtime, and I work the occasional saturday, I now have about $25K squirreled away for the challenger. I will wait till I get about $35K saved up then take out a loan and use the first 20 for a down payment, then pat the rest off quickly, establishing good credit, and dropping some jaws at the local bank.

Hard work, and cut backs in the luxury department, and I'm sittin great for my challenger.

Whatever you do though, don't dig youself a hole you'll never get out of, and if you don't have great credit, or have not yet established credit, get someone with a good credit history to cosign, it will cut your interest rate significantly.

Good luck to everybody, hope all who want one will be able to get one.

 

Well i'm only 14 so i have absolutly no idea what the crap to do. so, i'll just do what my da tells me to do when i start out on my own.

My dad makes 70k-ish a year. we could well afford a challenger but we have 2 married couples (going to college) and my sister, in a year and a half will be going to college to. so in about 4 ish years everyone will be out of college and my da d can afford a challenger.

 

That's the smartest thing you could do, Bud.
SAVE every dollar that you can. They add up quickly - and are spent even faster. Maintain only enough debt to build a good credit rating (when you're old enough to need/qualify for credit), and pay it off as soon as you reasonably can.

I gave my kids "gift cards" for Christmas this past year. They were "impressed" by the total of the gift cards - thought they were rich! LOL!
When we took them to the mall for them to use the gift cards and get what they wanted, they saw for themselves how far a dollar goes these days. I think they were very surprised and gained an appreciation of what we do for them - every day.
This may seem impersonal or antisceptic to some, but we know the kids learned a valuable lesson (besides letting US off the hook in deciding what they'd get within the limits of our Christmas budget - and what they wouldn't get.......THEY had to "make the hard choices" themselves). As parents, we feel our primary obligation is to "teach" our children, not pamper them.

 

I feel like trying to save more on the same income is a dead end. If your income is too small, you can save 100% of it
and still not get what you want out of life. I strongly feel that the answer is to increase your income.
Plus for me, depriving myself of nice things is more painful and onerous than coming up with ideas and working on increasing my income.
In my business, this year I am going to increase my sales/profits/income by doing the following:
1. Make a new, better web site to more effectively market my products and therefore increase sales
2. Create more products, as many new products as I can
3. Create better products, i.e. products that appeal more to the customers and therefore sell more.
4. Continue to improve my understanding of what sells and what the customers want.
5. Increase my skills and knowledge in key areas
One of the good things about business is that there are always many ways to increase your income.
There is no limit. It's all about what you can do.

In general, from the advice I've read, people can increase their income in the following ways:

1. Start a business. It's easier and cheaper than ever before, thanks to the internet.
I spent very little on my online business and I'm making good money every month and
there's great potential to make a lot more. I didn't have to pay for a store or expensive equipment.
I read of a teenage girl who is making a million dollars per year from her web site.
2. Get a job where you are paid not a fixed amount, but on how well you do. For example,
being a salesman. If you work hard and become a very good salesman, you can make large
amounts of money and there's little or no limit.
3. Be more effective in your job and get more high value work done faster.
4. Learn more skills and knowledge
5. Learn to do a new job that pays more

You have to think positive and open yourself up to new possibilities.
Thinking in terms of limitations just holds you back and is also false.
People are a lot less limited than they think they are.
They hold themselves back by thinking they are limited, when they're really not.
Richard Branson has 3 billion dollars and one of the major reasons he has so
much is that he has huge balls and there's no challenge he's afraid of taking on.
He has no psychological limits in his mind. He just goes for everything.
Going for new opportunities is like jumping out of a plane.
You have to just cast aside all your fears and false limitations and just go for it.
And then you are rewarded with a much better lifestyle.

 

Increasing your income is certainly a sure fire way help put yourself in a good position. However, I have seen people with ever increasing earnings continue to outspend themselves. It seems that the bigger paycheck demands a bigger house, a bigger car, boat, tv, etc...

Case in point is the tax credit folks plan to spend on a big screen TV. You even cited your own struggle to deprive yourself of anything you wanted as your motivation. Some people cannot seem to control that no matter their income.

I suggest that everyone practice a crazy philosophy...live on less than you make (no matter what you make). Pay CASH for things after you SAVED up for it...kinda like your Grandma used to do. I submit to you that a COMPLETELY paid for Challenger drives nicer than one with a $600 a month payment on it...and I bet the paint even seems a little shinier.

I cited a quote from Dave Ramsey about taking a crock pot approach in a microwave world. I'll give you another about sacrifice. "Live like no one else today so tomorrow you can live like no one else"

 

I haven't seen this thread in awhile.. sorry for not responding sooner. No Sir, I'm a 13R (Firefinder Radar Operator). When a mortar, rocket, whatever goes up in the air, my nifty radar tells me the location from where it came from and I send that information up and they either do a counterfire mission on it, go and send out a patrol or ignore it because sometimes it just isn't worth it.

Sometimes we miss that round and it lands on the FOB (usually that means our radar wasn't facing the direction from where the round came from) and we run out and analyze the crater and determine where the round came from on how the crater is formed. That part of my job isn't fun because while everyone is running toward a bunker we are running toward the action

But other than that I live a dull life.. and thanks for the support davecpa and everyone else!