A New Definition of Financial Security?

   There’s a prescribed way of doing life. Graduate high school, go to college if you can afford it, hope to get a solid job, struggle to pay off college loans, get a 30-year mortgage, and then potentially stay over-leveraged and stressed - for the rest of your life…

Of course not everyone falls into this pattern, although it seems pretty common.  If you get fed up with it all, you might decide to start your own business but, especially if it’s later in life, this can be just as stressful.

But what if life could be fun and rewarding without being so complicated? When you’re trying to get launched in your life, sometimes the choices are presented in a very limiting way.

College can be a fun experience and could even lead to a nice career, and that works well for some people. Also, college is probably required if you want to be a lawyer or something else with very specific requirements. But if not, then you might actually be able to go a different route for launching your great life… and end up just fine.

What if - instead of a lifetime of leveraging to the hilt with college loans, car loans, huge house loans, etc, etc - we were taught to create financial security by working to pay off a small house and a reliable car quickly, while we are young and have the most energy we will ever have?

Working for oneself takes time to learn and become proficient, and most of us fail a few times before mastering it. But it could be way less of a struggle if there were not a huge mortgage and/or massive bills hanging over us at the same time.

Did you know that the biggest expense retirees end up dealing with is housing? After a lifetime of mortgages or renting, paying monthly bills, and perhaps stressing over it all, many still have to worry about this most basic need, even after retirement. Ideally, social security covers your housing costs and more but, as we all know, we can’t count on that anymore. But what if you had already paid for your housing decades before?

We never know what life may bring. But no matter what, isn’t it easier to mount a response and to face whatever comes, if we’re not still worried about the basics? At the very least, this concept of financial security might give a person more choices. After you've covered the basics, everything else you create (maybe even your own business) would be like gravy!

In "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" Robert Kiyosaki even says that one of the ways people get ahead financially is by living in cheaper housing than they can afford.

This is just an idea I’ve had. College-first might be the right strategy. But at least there is more than one choice.

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—Duncan