Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

What is Freedom Worth

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It’s a bit of a cliche now, but we all know the scene from Braveheart where Mel Gibson’s character screams “FRREEEEDDDDDOOOOMMMM!!!” as some medieval device or another removes an offscreen part of his anatomy.  Despite the cost, he never gave up his fight for freedom.

And really, can you put a value on your freedom?  And are you really free?

You get up at 5 a.m. every morning to hop through the shower, commute to some office somewhere, and sit at a desk for 8 hours so some company can make a few more bucks.  Oh, and they might pay you for it.  Are you really free?  Can you do what you please?  Why not?

 

 

 

 

We all accept the yoke of the “job” because we want things.  And we need things.  The things we need are relatively minor in most cases.  It’s the things that we want that really drive us to go to work each day.  Part of our goal as Personal Finance students (that’s what we all are) is to realize what wants we really care about achieving.  An example; As usual, black Friday rolled around with lots of great deals.  Several such deals revolved around various sizes of LCD and Plasma HDTV sets.  I really, really want one.  Badly want one.  As a result, I’ve struggled with the issue all week.  Should I go get one? Shouldn’t I?  In the end, I decided against it.  Firstly, it wasn’t in our budget.  I shouldn’t have to go farther than that, but I did.  Secondly, I’ve gotten much better about recognizing and separating wants from needs.  I do want a new fancy tv.  But I don’t need it.  And until I do, it’s going to the bottom of the want list.

Recently, there has been lots of talk about our economy and how bad it is getting.  Along with that has been talk about the thousands upon thousands of layoffs that have been announced.  Luckily, I’m not one of them.  Yet.  I really don’t foresee me joining them.  For that I am thankful.  Or at least I was until I read the Fire Fly Manifesto.  Ok, the thought of losing my job is enough to put my blood pressure into previously unseen heights and give me a stress ulcer.  But that manifesto makes it sound like it’s all gonna be ok.

It’s an incredibly motivating piece.  And I truly came away from it wondering if it wouldn’t be better if I did join the corps of the unemployed.  And then I broke out in sweats.  But I did think about it.  And there is a part of me that wishes I had the freedom of the unemployed to do with my time as I choose.

If you have recently lost your job (especially you) or if you feel that your job is threatened, you need to read this paper.  It’s short and sweet and free.  The author is pushing his site and his upcoming book, but only lightly and the Fire Fly Manifesto really stands on it’s own.  Even if you don’t feel threatened, you should read it.

Government Grants

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One thing that you see plenty of people pushing is the information products that tell you how you can get all this money from the government for free.  Free!  Did you hear that?  Free!  (I couldn’t help myself.)

Between Kevin Trudeau and his Debt Cures and Mathew Lesko and his question mark-y free money omnibus, consumers are inundated with sales pitches to try and sell people on information that is already free.  Arguably, they do collect the information and put it in a little bit easier to use format (at least Lesko does) but it is free nonetheless.

I don’t really believe in regurgitating information.  I figure if you want something bad enough, you shouldn’t be hesitating to do a little research to find out how to go about doing it.  So, without further ado, here’s the government website where you can search until you’re blue in the face for free money from the government.  It’s Free!

Visit Grants.gov for all the information on government grants that you could ever want.  It’s a little hard to wade through, but if you end up with a grant, it will be well worth the work.  Also, if you are ever looking for more information about other government programs other than the grants programs, make sure and give the new usa.gov site a try.  It serves as a one stop index of all the government websites.  There are way more than you would expect so be ready to do some more wading.