Defeat Your Financial Enemies

By Carlos Villeda

Defeat your financial enemies is a book that contains practical tips to properly manage money. The first 7 chapters are somehow sequential. Chapter 2 contains a list of over 40 common enemies of money, some which are very common and lethal such as debt and unemployment when they work together, others might seem not to be harmful but when working with other enemies they can cause great damage when people are negligent in handling money.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543949117

Book preview

Title: Defeat Your Financial Enemies

Author: Carlos Villeda

Translated by: Luis Garrido Alvarado ([e-mail])

Carlos Villeda

email: [e-mail]

facebook: @LicCarlosVilleda

twitter: @lic_cvilleda

website: www.cvilleda.com

First Edition

Copyright ©

It is prohibited, except as provided by law, any form of reproduction, distribution, public communication and transformation of this work without the authorization of the owners of intellectual property. The infringement of the aforementioned rights may constitute an offense against intellectual property (articles 270 and following Criminal Code).

This book is dedicated to: God, who gave me the gifts and skills I have and specially, the gift of teaching others what I have received from Him.

All the people who have left their legacy in all the books I’ve had the opportunity to consult in order to condense the teachings that I am sharing in this book.

Besides, this book is also dedicated to my five kids, who are a gift from God to me, especially David Andrei and Javier Alejandro.

But it’s also dedicated to you kind reader, who dedicates reading time and effort in applying the principles shared in this book.

Table of Contents

I. General aspects about money management

II. The enemies of money

III. Finance Principles

IV. How to do super-profitable business?

V. Why do some people prosper and others don’t?

VI. The four wisdoms of money

VII. How to reach your financial freedom

Powerful thoughts to improve your finances

Glossary

Bibliography

References

Clarification

In this book you will often find Scripture passages for support on the matter, because inevitably, all the foundations regarding any aspect of our lives, including finances, are found in the Bible.

However, these Scripture references do not intend to turn this book into a religious or spiritual book by any means, they are just a bibliographic source, one with great authority.

You will also find some comments regarding the relationship between God and money, with the only purpose to clarify the author’s perspective that God has nothing against money, but He does warn us about the dangers of mishandling it.

Chapter I

MONEY MANAGEMENT

1. Poor Money Management Problems

Poor money management affects our relationships in different perspectives, with God, with our families, and with those with whom we live.

• It affects our relationship with God. A person who has financial problems, if he or she is attending a church, probably, will stop attending, will stop seeking God, will stop praying and will stop reading the Bible because the shame they are bearing, just like with Adam, will cause them to hide from God, because they do not feel comfortable coming before Him in these conditions.

• It affects our relationship with our spouse. Financial problems bring deterioration in marital relations, since an anguished life, because of the lack of resources or debt, first leads to financial slavery, then leads to tensions and dissensions, and it frequently ends in divorce. There are often disagreements between couples because they have different criteria in the finance management. Who manages the budget? How much should each one contribute money wise if both work? How much money should the wife receive if she does not work? The right thing to do is to join all the income into just one account. Make a budget and define how much will be assigned to every household’s needs. Each spouse will then administer his or her share. In addition, it should be taken into account that a financial crisis is affecting their marriage, then it is also likely affecting their children. The children will inherit bad financial management manners, while the Bible encourages to do the opposite, Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. But what can a disorganized couple teach to their children about money management? I don't have any money!; There is nothing left!; -We are broke!, etc. Sadly, more than 50% of divorces are caused by financial problems and more than 80% of couples find that the main cause of their problems is their finances. Most certainly, their children will learn to spend money in the same way their parents did, or perhaps, they might learn to do the opposite, and instead of spending all their money, they could end in being stingy.

• It affects our relationship with others. When we mismanage our finances and we have financial commitments with other people, who usually are our friends, it is most likely that we will lose their friendship. Tell me whether or not it is true, that when someone owes you, they hide from you. Obviously, people hate calling their friends who owe them money to ask them to pay back what they owe, and the debtors see them as inconsiderate for calling; after they were a blessing and reached out a helping hand in a moment of need, now they are disliked and avoided because when they keep reminding their friends about their debt. There is a well know quote that says Raise crows and they will peck your eyes out. One of the thoughts in my book Powerful Thoughts To Improve your Finances, also related with the financial topic, says: If you lend money to a friend, decide which one you want to lose.

2. Money, Sources and Uses

What is money? Money is not life, it is just vanity said an old song. When it comes to definitions, it is hard to find one that would satisfy us all, but for this book's purpose and without pretending to get to academic or sophisticated definitions that economists use, we can define money as:

A means to satisfy our consumer needs, to give, to invest and to pay our liabilities

What is important is to make clear that money is a means not a life purpose.

Money in itself is neutral. Money is expressed in paper or in metal or any other way that it adopts in its development, therefore, it is neither good nor bad, it depends on how it is used.

Money is active regarding time and price. Money varies its price throughout time because it loses its purchasing power if there is inflation and it increases its value if it is lent to interest. It can also increase or decrease its value if it is traded with foreign currency, depending on the exchange rate. When the local currency loses value because of inflation, it is said that money depreciates and when it loses value against a foreign currency it is said that it is devalued.

Money is a great servant, but a bad master. like Francis Bacon said. In other words, for those for whom money is the purpose, they end being slaves in their pursuit, suffering from greed (desire of what others have), avarice (not wanting to spend what we have) or both. On the other hand, if money starts working for us, it won´t let us be in need, as a result of scarcity.

The value of money makes it possible to easily compare all the goods and services, and this comes from the need to facilitate trade, given the difficulty of making the exchange by barter (goods for goods).

In its evolution, money has suffered several changes after bartering:

Only gold and silver coins have disappeared and the remaining currency figures work in different types of transactions today. What is not known, is how money will look like at the end, but what we do know, is that some credit card companies are working on a microchip the size of a rice grain which is implanted in the back of the right hand and with it, the bank account of the microchip owner is operated (Check Web site Mondex & microchip). It is also speculated that money will disappear in its present form, when electronic transactions intensify in use.

3. Attitude towards the use of money

The truth is that, the real problem of personal finances is understanding that your job income is not what you make, but it’s rather the difference between what you earn and what you spend; being totally aware in what is it that you spend your money on, and the attitude you have towards the use of money. There are many people that know how to make money, but only few know how to keep it, because, this depends on the person's attitude regarding money management and it is also linked to the person's saving and spending habits.

Regarding the money management attitude, let me illustrate it as follows: Give $100 dollars to two of your children and tell them they can do whatever they want with it. One month later, call them and ask them to show you what they did with that money. There is a very high probability that they both did something different with it. One could tell you that he or she saved it. The other one could tell you that he spent it eating out with his girlfriend.

Both opposite reactions are incorrect, because there is always a need to spend one part and the obligation to save the other one…this is what I refer to, when talking about the attitude towards the use of money.

When one faces the decision of how to use money, we must distinguish between need, desire and whim.

Let's exemplify these three cases: The family needs a car and they have enough to buy the one that suits them. In spite of having just the specific amount to buy this car, the husband wants to buy a sports car which is worth twice the amount of the one they need and have the money to pay for, however, the wife says, You better buy an SUV or a Family Van, If you don´t, don´t buy anything!, and most likely they will end up spending $10,000 or more on this whim.

If the budget is tight, we should focus only in needs, because we cannot spend on satisfying desires and whims at this point. Although to define a necessity can entail subjective factors, it is clear that a need is basic when it is about life or death, but there are non basic needs that are essential. The car example, mentioned before, can be a necessity if sending the six children to school by bus is more expensive than making the effort to buy the car, or if the husband is a salesman, in which case the car is vital.

As for the attitude towards money management, we should identify all the wrong attitudes and ask God to help us change. People with the wrong attitude about money use is identified by any of the following characteristics:

• Spends impulsively. (The terms impulsive or compulsive have the same meaning as for use in the spending subject, because according to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, compulsive is a person who has irresistible and impulsive urges, impulsive is a person who usually speaks or proceeds without reflection and caution, carried away by the impression of the moment.)

There are people who buy whatever are offered without meditating, usually they buy what's on sale just because it's on sale, let it be useful for them or not. I was told a real story of someone who came from Miami and brought a ski to Guatemala and when the friend asked him why he had bought the ski; his response was that he did it because he had found it with the 50 % discount.

• Spends because of vanity. Many people buy certain products, to not fall behind of what the neighbors have, purchase to compete, for desire, whim, because of fashion trends or to show off to people that don't even care about them.

• Spends without priorities. The majority of people have this problem, but when people have enough money they do not realize they do. Doesn't it happen to you? You go in the supermarket and you begin to put in different items in the grocery cart. Items that are on sale, items that were not on the list of things you needed. When the budget is tight, this brings not only financial problems but problems in the couple's relationship.

• Gets in debt. Any person who spends more than what they receive, if they want to continue spending at the same rate all the time, needs to have an additional revenue to balance income and expenses. One of the mechanisms to achieve this, at least temporarily is debt. The problem is that the debt leads people to financial slavery (subject to be discussed after).

• Loses contentment. People, who are not happy with what they have and what they can purchase, will always be complaining about their situation. The problem is that their situation becomes a vicious circle, because if they earn more, they spend more, debt grows more and again they lose their contentment.

It is important to recognize that even though it is easy to say all this and write it down, it is not necessarily easy to put it into practice. Someone once said, that the only easy thing about money is LOSING IT !, but there's hope for those who want to keep it. YES, IT'S POSSIBLE! In fact, we will discuss it later when we talk about the Four Pillars of Money Wisdom.

• Buying Unproductive Assets. Many people buy assets believing that they are making an investment, because they do not know the meaning of it. What they are actually doing is buying non perishable goods, but, that do not produce not even an additional penny to its original purchase value, on the contrary, they depreciate and lose their value through time. If they were purchased through credit, their financial situation will be affected even more, because the asset value will be much less than what they have to pay for it, due to two factors: one, the depreciation of the asset; and two, because of the high interest rates charged on any purchase through credit of certain items, like furniture, televisions, cell phones, sound devices, etc.

Summary of chapter I

Poor financial management affects our relationship with God, with the family and with others. This is why it is necessary to learn how money works, which is not good nor bad, it all depends on how it is used, since money is the worst master, but it is a great servant.

One of the greatest financial problems is not how much money is earned, but how it is spent.

When spending money it is necessary to know the difference between desire, whim and necessity, more so if we are talking about a tight budget, in which case it is necessary to prioritize the expenses to cover the basic needs, and spend on satisfying any other desires only if there is extra money for it.

To defeat your financial enemies its suggested to have a positive attitude towards money management and change the bad attitudes, such as spending impulsively, because of vanity, without priorities, getting in debt, losing contentment and buying non-productive assets.

CHAPTER II

ENEMIES

In war, an enemy is someone who we are facing in the battle field. Our purpose is to defeat him or he will defeat us, for there are no second places when it comes to war; it is either you get the gold medal or the grave, which even if it has flowers, it will remain a grave.

In the financial scope there are enemies that will declare war on our budget, like debt and unemployment, but there are other enemies that will attack like the guerrilla, for they only ambush us from time to time. Regardless of whom our enemy is, the best way to defeat him is by getting to know him and his strategies.

Even though I know there are innumerable financial enemies and I will only mention some of them; some will be described briefly, since they don’t require much explanation and others will take us longer because of their relevance and because they are the ones that deal the most damage.

I would like to warn you that this is not a document of religious matter, but it includes many biblical references as backup and the reader can decide whether to consider them or not, but as for me I cannot disregard them, because the Bible has been, and will remain, the best source of wisdom for mankind.

1. Laziness

Laziness leads to poverty. Proverbs 24:30-34 declares that scarcity will come like an armed man to the sluggard. Proverbs 13:4 adds: Lazy people want much but get little, but those who work hard will prosper. The apostle Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 3:10 ..The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat. In other words, a lazy person, sooner or later will face times of need and won’t have the financial status to deal with it nor will have anyone to help him, as most of us don’t like lazy people. There are of course lazy people with luck, who will find someone to drag them around in life, but they are the exceptions.

When we talk about lazy people, one immediately brings to mind those who get out of bed late, that spend the entire day doing nothing or the spend hours watching television or social networking, but in this category we could also mention those who, even though they have a job, they do whatever they can to avoid the responsibilities of their jobs, they play sick so that the office doctor can dismiss them, they take advantage of any recess they can take from the office even if they don’t deserve such break, or have accomplished the minimum amount of tasks to earn a break and make up excuses for them. The employers sooner or later identify these people and label them, and won’t let them move up in the corporate ladder, and when they get fired they have a hard time looking for a job because of the bad reference and this will lead to financial crisis.

2. Negligence at work

This is laziness close relative, but they are not the same, for laziness entails not working or disregarding a job, while negligence entails not caring or even forgetting about your job. A doctor who leaves medical pincers inside the patient after a surgery, the carpenter who leaves a door maladjusted, the tailor who leaves a sleeve longer than the other, the blacksmith who leaves a crooked balcony, the plumber who leaves the water dripping from the faucet, etc. A negligent person won’t carry an agenda, won’t prioritize, does what is trivial and not what is important, watches a lot of television, chats or spends a lot of time on the social networks, talks a lot over the telephone, wastes a lot of time