However sadly for most Canadians they will be working past the age of 66 on a 1/3 of the income and a 1/3 of the energy that they used to have when well at my age!  What’s even sadder is that a lot of these people are carrying debt with them…that’s just ridiculous.  I’m forever grateful  that I got around people that helped steward us to get out of debt so that we don’t have that stress in our life and so that we don’t take it to our grave.  We’ve got money growing in the bank, not wasted away like some others may think on “tools” and products we’ll never use.  That would be stupid, whoever tells you to buy stuff you don’t need, run the other way!

So if you get to that golden age of retirement at the age of 66+ and you want to live off your pension, I’ll give you a little example of what that precious magical pension may be worth.  If you are a RN (Registered Nurse) for example, you’d bring in around $1,700 a month.  Quite the income there.  If your a LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse), you’d bring in $700 a month.  These numbers are not fake, my step mother is a RN and that’s what she’s faced with, not to mention others who’ve also confirmed this outside of my family.  There are still quite a few people out there thinking their pensions are going to take them to the promised land of retirement and the fact of the matter is they are kidding themselves.  You’ll need either some significant investments outside of that or some other way of creating some residual style of income.

The funny thing is, build a solid platinum business with proper width in the Amway Business Opportunity and you could make just over double that pathetic pension of a RN. (not including Q-12 bonus)  The benefit of that outside of monetary compensation is that you’ve helped some individuals or families have an opportunity to do the same as what you have.  Again I’ll maintain we will never convince anyone to do what we do but the proof is in the pudding with the people we are working with and the many semi-retirement parties that happened last year.

It’s obvious through this article today (and many others) on CTV that the whole Freedom 55 or even Freedom 65 just isn’t working.  People are looking for other opportunities and that’s exactly why this business and what we are doing is growing at a steady rate. 

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20120222/sunlife-retirement-poll-120222/

The article talks about a few different rules that have been passed down by the generation before us.  The older generation that used to think the following:

1. Finish school, get a job, get married, have children, and buy a house as quickly as possible. Delay saving for retirement until your 50s.

2. Buy the biggest house you can afford. Have a big family and pay of your mortgage fast.

3. Find a steady job with a good pension and don’t worry about investing for retirement. Stay there for 35 years and retire with a guaranteed monthly income.

I love all of these because I see so many people doing exactly that.  While some people are starting to save earlier, most are spending it and their credit like they are drunken sailors.  The second one is so especially true because it also ties in with status and buying that huge house, although nobody is paying it off fast. They get the largest mortgage they can with the lowest payments, only to find themselves in deep doo doo when they renew and the interest rates have gone up. Say bye bye house.  Lastly the third one, there is no such thing as a steady job, job security is dead.  I’ve seen it first hand where I work and if anyone actually pays attention to the news or where they work they’d understand that as well.  Gone are the days where people work 20-30-40 years at one job.

So what are the new rules according to this news article?

1. Recognize that life unfolds differently now. If you have no home or family and spend your way through your 20s, saving for retirement will take longer.

2. Consider whether – and  when – home ownership makes financial sense. Think about buying a smaller house or renting until you have a big down-payment.

3. Recognize that you are in the driver’s seat. If you don’t have a job with a secure pension, you have to make sure you plan and save for your retirement.

A lot of these make simple sense yet sometimes people cannot wrap their heads around it or they are counselling with their parents on the old style rules which is only causing people to fail in life.  Now this doesn’t apply to everyone however if you’ve been keeping up with the news you’ll see that debt to income ratio is at an all time high of 153%.  One positive note is credit debt is finally slowing down, but its taken a very long time for that to happen. 

The key to this story is right here “recognize you are in the driver’s seat”. That is why so many people are looking for other opportunities outside of their full time job.  That is why so many people are looking at an opportunity like Amway or other Network Marketing Opportunities.  That’s why when I talk to some people they are already involved in something else part time outside of their job be it another job, Network Marketing, Home Business, or starting their own traditional business.  Amway North America and Network Marketing is growing and that trend isn’t stopping despite what you may read elsewhere.  It’s growing so much they are actually teaching it in College now.

So get in the drivers seat and take control of your finances, stop relying on the government or your job to take care of you because they won’t.

The survey found that 57% of Canadians would be in a tough spot if their paycheque was delayed by just one week.  I don’t know about you but that’s pretty damn scary that people cannot even live without their paycheque for one week.  You may think your in a good spot but the real test is to try it out, you may think your okay but in reality maybe not.  Now not everyone is in this boat and I’m sure a few of the people who read this blog will be quick to say they are just fine.  That’s great because your in the minority then at 43%! The other interesting report is that 40% of the people that responded to this survey will need to retire later than planned.  So much for “Freedom 65”, and it’s quite apparent as many older people are working longer and longer into their old age just to pay for the necessities of life. What ever happened to being able to relax and do the things they really wanted to do and live life?

It doesn’t matter what industry your in or how much you make, people are not getting the message.  I honestly think it’s because of the low interest rate.  People figure the money is cheap and they will just “pay it off” later or what not.  I’m just assuming there.  When the interest rates go up, and they will, people will be at their knees crying because they cannot even put food on their table.

I’ve never said Amway is the answers to your financial woes and have never tried to convince anyone to do what we do, however you better figure out what your plan B is going to be.  People are looking for opportunities of some kind, some way to make extra money to pay down debts, however whatever it is will take hard work.  Nothing is going to be quick and easy, it was easy to get into the mess you made by maxing our your credit cards however it’s going to take 10 times the effort to get out of that mess.

I think the biggest challenge many people have and why they spend more than can afford is because of association, plain and simple.  The whole mentality of “keeping up with the joneses” or “I gotta have that now” is what’s killing people.  I should also mention that status is another thing that kills people, people feel the need to look the part or cannot be seen as not having money and it just drives them further and further down the debt hole.  Again I assume this is what’s happening but by watching the people at work and seeing how some friends act it’s quite clear I’m not that far off base.

So watch your association and maybe start meeting people who have a different take on life.  People who live a life of delayed gratification, people who save now and then pay later, people that don’t care about status, people that just want to live a debt free lifestyle.  There are MANY different ways you can do that such as www.meetup.com or other sites of that nature.  One of the things we’ve done with our involvement with Amway is to utilize the training and support system called World Wide Dreambuilders or World Wide Group that teaches things like delayed gratification, living a debt free lifestyle, marriage, and a bunch of other great principals that not many systems of companies stand for.  Anyway that’s what we’ve chosen to do and have been blessed many times over for doing that.  Debt free and money in the bank that’s growing certainly puts us in that 43% that’s for sure.

Stat’s don’t lie, what are you doing today to make sure your in the 43% and not living paycheque to paycheque?

For a lot of us this picture paints a pretty realistic future.

Here is what the CPA said last year this time – http://www.nupge.ca/content/3571/poll-finds-six-10-canadians-live-payday-payday

Jim Yih some financial expert says “the older you are the more you’re going to deal with the necessity of debt”.  That is such a load of BS.  Who says that debt has to be a necessity?  It doesn’t HAVE to be and the more that people keep saying it’s OK to have debt the more society is just going to keep accepting that.  Okay so a house is your “necessity”, I’ll *maybe* buy into that, but even still you don’t HAVE to have a mortgage.  There are many ways to go about not having a mortgage, and no I’m not saying you have to do what we do to make that possible.

The moral of all these stories and news related items is focus on your debt repayment, and focus on staying out of debt.  At the very least focus on your consumer credit and remove it.  People who are 10’s of thousands in consumer debt are that way most likely because they are instant gratification people who have no self control on their spending.  It’s the now mentality, I MUST have that new pair of jeans that I cannot afford, or I MUST have that new XBox, or whatever.  How about have some restraint and delayed gratification and SAVE for it.  Now there’s a novel idea!

Lastly towards the end of the article they say how getting out of debt is a slow and steady approach, it doesn’t have to be.  Depending on where you are at, what you can streamline, what you can cut out, you can actually hit your debt hard and repay a lot faster than you think.  It all depends on how serious you are.  We paid off over $100K in consumer debt in less then 2 years, it doesn’t need to be a 10 year journey.  We got serious about it and streamlined and cut back, we did it because we had huge goals and being debt free by the time we had kids was one of them.  Kids are expensive enough let alone having a huge debt load on top of that.  Sometimes you need that motivation to change and that was ours.

Interest rates are not going to last this low for long, once they go up that’s when you’ll be in a world of hurt.  You’ll have nobody to blame but yourself.  So what are you doing today to get out of debt?  What did you do to get out of debt?  Feel free to share.

CTV News Article – http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110829/debt-poll-cibc-110829/

Follow other bloggers for this year’s Summer Blogging Challenge here:

Zita of Ignite Strategic Solutions, Cliff of Peer Pressure Works, Tammy of Tam I Am, Peter of Crazy Wookie Cookies, Chad of The Daily Grind, Vlad of Analog Coast, Robb of Blogging Life, Kim of Nature Baby Bloggings, Liam of ln The Now, Natasha of Natural Urban Mamas, Earl of My Name is Earl (J. Woods), Brad of Kick Me Out Soon

Also follow this on twitter with the “Official” hash tags #SBC #SummerBlogChallenge

What I find really sad is a show like this is a prime example of just how desperate some people are to make a quick buck.  People are willing to sell collectables and part ways with family heirlooms just so they can have a few thousand dollars.  These are items that should continue to be passed down or treasured within a family but because people are so strapped for cash they reach out to shows like this to hawk off their stuff and hope to get out of their financial woes.  Yet they will only realize their quick buck will never fix the real problem, its just a band-aid.  The real problem is still there, lack of mentorship, poor association, poor financial planning, and the list goes on.  It’s no different than lottery winners typically ending up broker than when they started.  If you don’t know how to steward money in the first place, coming into money won’t change that, it just makes it worse and extra money highlights that.

Obviously this is my take on why this show is on however its pretty coincidental this is happening now when the US is facing even worse financial crisis that is going to put Canada back into a recession.  TD even released a news article based on the fact we could be going back into a recession again.  Yet some people think we are doing okay… give your head a shake, its going to take more than a few years to climb out of where we are and where the US is.

Follow other bloggers for this year’s Summer Blogging Challenge here:

Zita of Ignite Strategic Solutions, Cliff of Peer Pressure Works, Tammy of Tam I Am, Peter of Crazy Wookie Cookies, Chad of The Daily Grind, Vlad of Analog Coast, Robb of Blogging Life, Kim of Nature Baby Bloggings, Liam of ln The Now, Natasha of Natural Urban Mamas, Earl of My Name is Earl (J. Woods), Brad of Kick Me Out Soon

Also follow this on twitter with the “Official” hash tags #SBC #SummerBlogChallenge

You can check out the full article here – O Canada! – A Look Inside Our Northern Neighbour’s Direct Selling World

There are some pretty neat facts that I’ll re-purpose here from the site:

• Over 900,000 Canadians are associated with the direct selling industry.
• The Canada DSA represents 48 companies with sales revenue of over $1 billion annually. (* Side Note – Amway did $1 billion in sales in the month of June)
• The direct selling industry accounts for more than 16 percent of non-store retail sales in Canada.
• 91 percent of Canadian direct sellers are women.
• Canada’s direct selling organizations donate nearly $8 million to charities annually.

Canada is vastly growing in this industry and has in the last 5 years grown 11.2%.  Alberta and British Columbia continue to lead Canada in this industry and sales and I can say without question that is directly related to the growth of Amway in our area.  That’s unfounded but after hearing what Jeff Johnson from Amway Canada said to our leaders last week, I can put two and two together.

So why is this type of industry taking off?  People are looking for other ways to make money.  With articles like this published today by CTV – CIBC poll finds 72% of Canadians are in debt. people are looking at ways to reduce debt or get ahead just a little bit.  This opportunity and industry allows for that. 

There is another reason why others are looking at this and that’s for an additional hobby out there and maybe not necessarily the money.  That’s quite alright as well, that’s the beauty of this industry as there is a fit for everyone.  We have a lot of friends who are in many different Direct Selling opportunities and that’s great.

There are more and more third party credibility resources now backing Direct Selling and opportunities like ours.  Robert Kiyosaki for one is a big proponent of Network Marketing and if he could start all over again he’d do this type of industry.  Lastly we’ve got Frank Luntz and John Maxwell who came to our Spring Leadership back in April who are big supporters of the Amway Business Opportunity and World Wide Dreambuilders.

While my blog is specifically about my experiences surrounding World Wide Dreambuilders (WWDB) I’m excited to hear news like this that this industry isn’t just a rinky dink one.  It’s growing whether people want to believe it or not.  Lastly if you’ve ever had a bad experience with any Direct Selling company, including Amway, remember you had a bad experience with a person, not the company.  As always make sure you know who your dealing with as not everyone is as honest or trusting as you may think, as sad as that is.

Zita of Ignite Strategic Solutions, Cliff of Peer Pressure Works, Tammy of Tam I Am, Peter of Crazy Wookie Cookies, Chad of The Daily Grind, Vlad of Analog Coast, Robb of Blogging Life, Kim of Nature Baby Bloggings, Liam of ln The Now, Natasha of Natural Urban Mamas, Earl of My Name is Earl (J. Woods), Brad of Kick Me Out Soon

Also follow this on twitter with the “Official” hash tags #SBC #SummerBloggingChallenge

A couple in our business got married yesterday late afternoon at the MaGrath Mansion on Ada Boulevard here in Edmonton which is one of the prime spots for outdoor weddings.  Such a beautiful and elegant setting which was a total fit for this couple and highlighted the amazing people they are.  This is a couple that has taken a lot of values from World Wide Dreambuilders and incorporated them directly into their lives and it is apparent with how in love they are, how much they smile all the time (I don’t know any other couple that smiles this much), and how solid of a relationship they have.  They’ve mentioned many times that the path they were on before getting involved with WWDB was a path that would have taken them an additional 4 to 5 years before getting married.  While that may be fine for some people, after seeing great examples of some pretty solid marriages they decided there was no reason to wait that long and well the rest is history.

This couple is great at putting things into practice like paying for a wedding in cash and not going into debt for a wedding.  I won’t say how else things are going for them financially but making decisions like this will lead them into a debt free lifestyle very soon.  We are very proud of them and others on our team that are doing these same types of decisions.  There are a few more weddings coming up in our business and all of them are being paid for in cash.  Much different from the norm that you see where people go into HUGE amounts of debt for one day.

I mentioned earlier how this couple impacts us, they impact us by inspiring us to smile each and every single day as they always do.  They inspire us to continue to work on our marriage and express love like they do.  This is just one of many examples this couple and other couples and singles on our team inspire and impact us.  Its those qualities of people that inspire us that we look for when building our team.  We don’t just want to impact people ourselves but we want to be impacted and inspired from the people we work with.  That’s why we don’t just “sign” people up for the sake of it. 

Once dinner was done the speeches started and it was at this point we saw the impact we and other upline have made on this couple.  To be invited to their wedding and reception along with family and friends is a great honour and we were very blessed to be part of the day.  They wanted us to be there because we are like family to them and have helped them through many tough decisions and directions in life.  It was quite apparent the impact we made when not only my wife and me were mentioned in a special shout out but quite a few of their upline as well in front of family and friends.  While their family and friends may never really understand the impact, they do and I am so proud to see them married and starting their life off in such a positive way.

Our business while rudimentary is an online webstore however there are so many intangible things that comes with what we do.  It’s the system of World Wide Dreambuilders (WWDB) that helps us create life long friends and people who inspire us.  I cannot even begin to explain the things I’ve received from this amazing association but I can tell you I thank God every day for our life, where we are and where we are going.  I’m glad that He was able to remove my cloud of scepticism after 5 months to allow me to see something I would not have normally seen.  Sometimes what we are looking for doesn’t come in the packages we expect. Something I think all of us need to keep in mind when opportunities present themselves.

Maybe renting isn’t for everyone however with the way the economy is headed, interest rates that will rise, you’ll see more and more people starting to rent.  Garth has a great example in there that may change our mind, or not.  Check it out, get all the info and come up with your own opinion but don’t be blind to it. 

I like some of what Gath says in his blog.

“If the goal is to become financially independent and build net worth, renting can beat the pants off owning.” – Just proves it’s not only World Wide Dreambuilders that teaches this success principal.

“…Most importantly, a renter would have lived in an identical (maybe better) house while building net worth and taking no risk on a seriously wobbly housing market. Zero debt. Total liquidity. Unfettered mobility. Net worth would be greater, not less. Options enhanced.”

Garth also refers to a few links that may give you some other insight.  I agree 100% with this link – http://www.moneyville.ca/article/1015893–why-i-sold-my-house-and-rent-instead

And then for the older people – http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/budget/personal-finance/why-renting-can-be-the-right-choice-for-aging-boomers/article2077874/

My wife and I are very happy renting for the time being, it’s allowed us to be 100% debt free, has given us a heck of a lot more flexibility in so many ways, has allowed us to donate more of our income to charities, and because of being debt free has allowed us to put money back into savings at a MUCH faster rate then what we had before.  Lastly like Garth said we are not tied to a “wobbly hosing market” which means when we decide to move to Kelowna, we can do so without the headache of selling something that may or may not sell.

I’m not saying that everyone has to rent, but if your in debt up to your ears and want to start moving towards financial independence, you may want to think again.  Don’t take my word for it, there are many others stating the same. Thoughts? Comments? It’s open for on topic discussion.

I won’t go into the full details of the article as it’s pretty much the same if not worse as I’ve blogged about before.  Go check out the article over at CTV News.  I also read Gath’s blog which I read all the time where he talks about how home prices in the US just passed the Great Depression in terms of collapsing values. Don’t think that will at least affect Canada? Give your head a shake.  There may be pockets in Canada where housing “may” be looking good, but that won’t last and you really REALLY need to get educated on where things are going.  That doesn’t mean listening to your real estate agent.  You need to check out blogs like Garth’s or people like Harry S Dent who are actually in tune with the markets and in a lot of cases are in agreement with many economists around the world with how we are in a Global Recession.  But again do your own research.

Anyway I’m curious how long people will expect to live with huge debt loads, huge mortgages they can barley afford (just watch when the interest rates go up and how many people ditch), and feeling of entitlement to having what they want when they want.  People need to shift their mentality to long term thinking and figure out where they will be when they retire at that special age of 65. Oh wait, that’s IF you can even retire at 65.  So many people carry debt loads right into their retirement, so much for that pile of cash at the end of the rainbow you were hoping for.

I’m not saying you need to build an Amway business, I don’t need to convince people to do what we do and never will, but you better have a good plan B and start making it your plan A.  Your job at the old factory or wherever you work isn’t going to give you the retirement bliss your hoping for, and neither will that tiny tiny pension plan you have “building up”.  You need to take your retirement (whatever that looks like for you) into your hands now and start making chances so you go into retirement without debt, heck start living today without debt.  Just get smart about it.

I’m sure next month or the month after we will see yet another news article on debt and how it’s higher or something like that, you need to ask yourself what are you going to do today to provide for the future?

So just how deep in debt were we? What was the final tally?  Well in the 17 months we did have some set backs so there was a bit more debt in the end however we stayed the course and paid every single cent back.  Here are the numbers:

So there you have it, $374,000 paid off in 17 months.  However I’m not excited about the mortgage being paid off, I’m excited about the consumer debt we paid off. That’s the more important because that was us being stupid, status’y, and feeling entitled to have pretty much whatever we wanted.  Trips, furniture, games, eating out, wine, wine, wine, wine and more wine.  I was asked the other day, did we sacrifice a lot of things?  I’d honestly say we’ve not sacrificed as much as you think we have.  I would do it all over again because our marriage is 1000 times stronger because we don’t have the stress of owing people money and we don’t have the stress of fighting over money.

What’s next?  Well we will be better prepared for life’s accidents or life’s misfortunes that’s for sure. No longer will we need to draw against our Line of Credit or swipe our credit card for those things.  We will make sure to have a proper reserve in place.  We will now start saving for a newer vehicle that’s a few years old so that we have a safer vehicle for when our child arrives in July.  We are excited for that.

Being debt free will finally allow us to take our eyes off ourselves and start to bless our parents and be able to give more to charity.  Obviously that won’t happen right away however we can now honestly start to look at things like that.  Other then that we we don’t know yet, we are still getting over the shock of what we’ve done in the last 17 months.  Because of great examples in our lives we were able to get back control of what we thought was a train wreck and start moving our finances in a positive direction.  We can now say we are financially free, truly amazing.

*Update* Check out this great blog by a friend of mine Jode in Vancouver who’s getting serious about her debt situation.  So proud of you Jode! http://veronihilverius.jigsy.com/entries/dollars-sense/debt-be-gone