Hope for your financial life and beyond

5 Important Life Lessons From My Freelance Writing

Yes, you could take that headline as an announcement. I’ve officially entered the world of personal finance freelance writing. Is anyone out there looking to hire?

writing in a notepad My blogging journey to this point has been an interesting one. As long time readers here know, last summer I quit my job in education to become a stay at home dad. It was a big step but one that I don’t regret. The added time has allowed me to better manage our family activities and devote myself more to blogging.

The results in our family life have been tremendous.

Less stress. More downtime. More kid time. More moments for enriching activities.

Additionally, the extra time devoted to blogging is causing Luke1428 to take off. I already have more page views than I did all of last year. It really is amazing what some additional time, effort and connection building can do.

As great as that is, I’ve felt I could still do more with my time. So I was intrigued when contacted several months ago about writing for a new website. I’d never done that for money before and thought it would be a good experience if only for me to understand the world of freelance writing.

It’s been quite the experience.

Life Lessons Realized From Freelancing

To date I’ve written seven articles for SafeBee.com, a website devoted to making the world a safer place. I’ve really enjoyed it but writing for someone else is not like writing for your own blog. However, it’s reminding me of some valuable lessons that can be applied to any life situation. Here are my initial thoughts about what I’m dealing with:

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4 Guiding Money Principles that Every Child (and Adult) Must Learn

Please welcome my good friend and Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) Shannon Ryan from The Heavy Purse as she guest posts today.

word learn engraved in stoneWhen I was 13 years old, my father began giving me “money lessons” while we ate dinner, and I had no idea how these simple lessons would change my life. He didn’t focus on how money worked, but instead he showed me how my emotions affected my spending habits and money beliefs. With his guidance, I changed how I viewed money – from lack and fear – to one of abundance. Most importantly, I learned how to make financially confident decisions that aligned how I used my money with my goals and values. It felt great.

It wasn’t until college that I realized what a special gift my father gave me. Many of my friends and classmates had not been taught how to handle money wisely. Money wasn’t discussed in their homes, so they learned by trial and mostly error. I wanted to help them and became a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®). For the past 22 years, it’s been my honor to help families and individuals reclaim their money happiness.

How Money Habits and Beliefs Are Formed

One trend I noticed repeatedly was that many of our money habits and beliefs formed when we were children, not adults. We observed how our parents handled money and mimicked them, inheriting their money hang-ups along the way. We then grew up to pass these same hang-ups to our children, continuing the vicious cycle.

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My Top 10 Favorite Proverbs About Money

proverbs about moneyIt’s an exciting milestone day for me as my Hidden Nuggets Series is turning 50…as in this will be the 50th post in the series I started just over a year ago. It’s been an encouraging experience for me personally as I’ve explored how verses in the Bible and proverbs about money relate to my personal financial journey and issues in the world at large.

In case you are wondering, my interest in what the Bible said about money began while leading Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University class in 2010. In the middle of a video session, Dave made an off-hand remark saying that a person could get a degree in personal finance just by reading the Biblical book of Proverbs. “It’s in there…really!” he said, and then went on with the lesson.

That statement intrigued me. For days I couldn’t shake the comment.

So I started reading from Proverbs – one chapter a day for a month. That month of reading and recording all the proverbs about money I could find so inspired me, I decided to read the entire Bible through in a year and record all the verses that discussed a money related theme. I would find over 400 passages in all…you can find them categorized here.

That exercise taught me that if God takes the issue of money and our use of it seriously then so should I.

Top 10 Proverbs About Money

To celebrate my 50th post in the Hidden Nuggets Series I’d like to list and rank my personal top 10 proverbs about money and share a brief snippet about what the verse means to me. Here they are from #10 to #1.

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Every Job Teaches a Lesson

Lifeguard Tower“In all labor there is profit, but idle chatter leads only to poverty.” – King Solomon, Proverbs 14:23

All labor brings a profit, as it should. We use that profit to provide the basic necessities for living, to purchase items we want and to create more profit by investing in the marketplace.  The desire to take care of ourselves and build wealth is a huge reason we work each day.

However, the term “profit” can convey more than just financial gain. We also use that term to describe how something is beneficial or will give us an advantage in some way. For example, it would not be profitable for me to drive in the wrong direction on the freeway. It would be deadly!

So in relation to work, personal profit could mean more than just money. Through work we can also learn about ourselves. We learn about relationships. We learn about influence, perseverance, and sacrifice. We learn, in many ways, simply how the world operates.

I’ve had eight jobs in my life and each one taught me a different, valuable lesson. So here are the life lessons I’ve learned from work, from my first job to my present one.

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