Managing Financial Stress
Doesn't Have To Be Hard.

Step 1: Financial Knowledge is the New Money
Step 2: Become a Passive Income Generator
Step 3: Set Up Multiple Streams of Income

Step 1: Financial Knowledge is the New Money

About ten years ago, my financial knowledge was very limited. I knew a little about budgeting, how to write checks and how to balance my checkbook, but that was all. In fact, I knew so little about money and finance, that I really didn't even know what I didn't know.

Some important person once said that "Ignorance is bliss" and someone else said "What you don't know can't hurt you", but that really isn't true when it comes to money. What you don't know about money really CAN hurt you - A LOT!

Managing financial stress can be a problem when you don't know that you have a problem and when you don't know that you have options.

Money was a different universe to me. It was a different language. Whenever I had to go to the bank for help buying a house or car or whenever I thought about setting up a retirement plan, I had a very difficult time. By the time the deal was done, there would be numbers and terms spinning through my head and usually I would have, in my possession, a couple of trees worth of documents and paperwork, none of which I could understand. I know that I am not alone in this experience.

I don't really know why I decided to learn about money, but I am very glad I did. Now, I have post-graduate training in accounting and economics and money no longer intimidates me. To get here, I read a lot of books, watched several movies and I tried out many different investment techniques. Each book, movie and experience with money added a little to my financial knowledge and now money doesn't scare me. Managing financial stress, constructively, has become quite second nature to me.

The carousel below has several books on it that I used to learn about managing financial stress. I hope you will find them useful too.

Step 2: Become a Passive Income Generator

Yeah, I know how you feel. I felt the same way. Not only had I always had jobs, in which I earned a regular paycheck, but I worked in an industry, in which I taught other people how to get regular jobs so they, too, could earn regular paychecks, just like me. I was a career counsellor and job search consultant.

However, I was dissatisfied with the glass ceiling. I wanted to earn more money than THEY said I was worth, and of course, being a young woman without a university degree, what THEY said I was worth and what they were willing to pay me as a result, simply did not match my vision of what I wanted to earn. Managing financial stress became harder and harder every day.

The next logical step was to start my own business. I did this and I failed. I did it again and I failed again. In fact, I have started nine businesses in my lifetime, which either failed or I closed them down or sold them because I hated them.

Do you remember what I mentioned earlier on this page about financial knowledge? I learned, the hard way, that a little financial knowledge really does go a long way.

Anyways, somewhere along the way, I realized that over the years I had tried my hand at many different methods to earn money. Most of the methods, I tried, were passive income methods. In other words, they earned money while I slept. I did a lot of work up front and they continued to earn money even after I had stopped working.

I had done stock market investing, real estate investing, network marketing, book writing and business ownership. I did all of this while I continued to hold down various jobs with paychecks.

I was never really a failure at anything I did, although at different points in my life, things got pretty hard, but I never defaulted on a loan and I never declared bankruptcy.

However, I was never really a huge success at anything I did either, although at different points in my life, the money flowed like water.

Then, about five years ago, something clicked and I realized that financial success was not the end result but rather the journey. All along the way, I had increased my knowledge about money and all along the way, I'd had good and bad experiences. All of my knowledge and experiences, together, had turned me into a passive income generator. It really should be every person's goal to embark on a journey to learn about money and try out different experiences to determine which things you like and which things you don't like so you can figure out what will be the best blend for you. If you do embark on this journey, then managing financial stress becomes no problem at all.

It's kind of like career planning, which takes me back to where I started in my career. I used to help people explore different careers and now I want people to explore different passive income generation methods and models.

The carousel below will show you some books I used to learn about different types of passive income generation.

Step 3: Set Up Multiple Streams of Income

At the current time, we have stock investments; we do network marketing; we do Internet marketing; I am in the process of writing a book and some courses to sell; and we are in the process of launching yet another traditional business. We are not rich yet, but then we are not financially strapped either.

You might listen to my story and think I am crazy to want to head into the business battle zone again. The truth is that it's not scary, because of my financial knowledge and it's not scary because of all my experiences, good and bad.

When we raise children, each and every day, we watch them try and fail over and over again. Each time, we tell them to get up, dust themselves off and try again and eventually, they will have success.

That applies to adults too. It;s the only way of learning about managing financial stress, in fact. Try! Fail! Try again! Maybe fail again! Try again and so on. Eventually you will have success. It's like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. You try each piece several different ways and eventually you find the correct way and the puzzle looks beautiful.

That's the way it is with the journey to multiple streams of passive income. You start with one small stream and then you add another and another. Maybe an old stream dries up or takes a detour and maybe you add a bigger stream. Eventually all the streams will come together to form a very large river.

The key is not to give up. Keep trying until you have that river. All along the way, learn more financial knowledge and learn from your experiences, good and bad.

Thomas Edison said, "I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways that do not work."

If you don't already know, Thomas Edison was an inventor. He is credited with inventing the light bulb and many other inventions.

The carousel below shows some tools I used to get comfortable with the idea of having multiple streams of income flowing at the same time.

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