How
would you define financial success?
Having
the ability to retire whenever you like without any financial
deprivation? Becoming wealthy - like, seriously wealthy?
Having enough passive income to replace all of your active
income?
Whatever your answer is we are all working towards some
sort of goal. Me? I'm aiming for no mortgage and no need
for "real work" by 2012 and, fortuitously, I
seem to be on the way to
achieving that. Only improving my self discipline appears
to be the main object in the way.
Wherever
you are in the journey, you must be able to master money
and its management. Money needs to have a proper place
in our lives and we need to treat it with respect and
wisdom.
By the same token, money, and its acquisition, simply
can't be the focus of your entire life. Life is more than
a bank account.
I
have no doubt that giving a proportion of your income
to either charities, or church, or individuals that you
personally know are "battling" is paramount
in money management as it gives money
a proper place in our lives - you have to get your priorities
straight. Don't try to skip this fact - it IS important.
Elsewhere on this site I have written about that magical
thing called "karma".
Whether you choose to believe in it right now or not,
it is TRUE.
All
too often I come across fellow punters who want to talk
up the amount they can make from this delicious sport
- obsessed about how they can " increase their take"
- at the same time
having no idea about controlling the money they already
have, no idea about interest rates, car loans, mortgages
and whether or not they have a workable retirement plan.
If
you don't really know how to manage the resources you
already have - GET HELP - ask the experts - do a TAFE
course in debt management - ANYTHING is better than blundering
along
doing nothing about it.
IMPORTANT
POINT 1: It is absolutely pointless trying to
set up a passive income stream from racing if you cannot
manage the resources you already possess.
IMPORTANT
POINT 2: You must exercise self discipline and
self restraint in ALL aspects of your financial life -
not just punting.
Now
I know some of you will be saying "oh here he goes
off another rant about self discipline". Friends
of ours ( not punting friends) were bemoaning the fact
at a recent dinner party about
how they simply couldn't live on $750 a week that the
husband's "normal" job returned. Now I know
it's not 'de rigueur" to live within your
means. Every second ad on Sky Channel is
a Harvey Norman ad offering no deposit, no interest, pay
in a 1000 days etc etc etc. That's fine for some people.
Not for me. If I haven't got the cash I don't buy it.
If I don't have the cash
I don't punt it. If I don't have the cash, I try not to
want it. Simple as that. When we analysed exactly what
their money went on and where it was spent, we were able
to identify $150 a
week that didn't HAVE to spent straight away - had we
spent more time, we probably could have turned up more.
What
does this mean for a serious racing investor - well, for
starters, another $150 a week that could have financed
a substantial bank. Note Well: I KNOW this is very easy
to say when the
kids are all grown up. I fully accept that in raising
a family it is not as clear cut as this. Been there -
done that!
Being
a master over your financial destiny far outweighs the
disappointment of not having the latest 2 million centimetre
plasma hi def TV (the losing horses look just the same
on a smaller
screen by the way!)
IMPORTANT
POINT 3: You must make a household spending budget
BEFORE you allocate money to your racing hobby / income/
investments.
Life
costs money.
Clothes,
food, accommodation (renting or buying), children, schooling,
education. It all costs money. You have to know exactly
how much your basic needs are or you will never know how
much you can SAFELY allocate to your interest of racing
without it causing great arguments with your partners
in life. They always take precedence over punting - or
should do. If they don't you are probably with the wrong
partner !!!
This
little business I run is called RaceRate ( and have done
for over a decade) It exists so I can make a passive income
from my interests. It is here to make a profit. Therefore
I have a budget for this business so I can gauge the effectiveness
of it. You would not be reading this page if this business
was making a loss. In the same way, if you are out to
make a profit you have to have a budget and spending plan
as well. I KNOW it is boring - I KNOW it takes time and
effort. You are worth it aren't you?
IMPORTANT
POINT 4: You will only EVER make a profit from
racing by doing the hard work.
There
are many days when I don't feel like getting up and sitting
down for a few hours at 5am to plan out my attack for
the day on the tote and Betfair - or, if you like, on
how I hope to get YOUR money - after all, that's all the
tote or Betfair are, a method of exchange between punters
where the winning few get the losses of the many ( less
the government/ Betfair rake of course). So when I win,
I know that somebody had to lose. If that's you, sorry,
but that's business and that is EXACTLY how I regard this
business of punting. Make no mistake it is a business.
In
a recent survey of American high school students a majority
of them told the interviewers they expected to be wealthy
as adults. But here's the kicker - over half of them declared
they'd get rich by winning a law suit. (Good grief!!!)
YOU GET NOWHERE IN THIS BUSINESS WITHOUT HARD WORK. The
more time you spend revising your own ratings and making
them as perfect as they possibly can be or fine tuning
a methodology (hopefully that you have purchased from
this site), the more success you will have. There
is no other option - unless you trust in, and occasionally
receive, the blessings of blind luck.
The
old principle that hard work is how you earn money seems
to be going the way of the dinosaur. Perhaps the great
computerisation of the 21st century is to blame but the
fact is, hard work is the only form of investment guaranteed
NOT to fail. Even allowing for the occasional stories
of "overnight millionaires, it is an absolute truth
that the majority of people will only be able to provide
for their needs through hard work.
IMPORTANT
POINT 5: If you have a mortgage, pay it off as
quickly as you can.
Understand
this: your property is ONLY and investment and asset when
it is paid off and you own it outright. An asset makes
you tax free money. Your HOME won't do this until you
stop paying interest and fees on it to the insatiable
banks. It is way more important to pay off your mortgage
than it is to punt on the horses. You would need a VERY
reliable method of punting to make the reverse true.
IMPORTANT
POINT 6: Always strive to learn more.
If
you are striving to make money from racing, learn everything
you can about it. Devour the racing pages on the internet,
try and see how others are making a living from this great
industry. Always open your mind to new (an old) ideas.
Old ideas do become new (and profitable) again when the
countless thousands of punters who supported the "old
idea" got disheartened by the shrinking dividends
(because everyone was "on it") and moved on
to something else. Thus the old idea, which probably worked
fine all along, returned better divvies again when the
"mob" went on to something else, newer, and
glitzier even.
Combine
knowledge and mix in to something you believe in and apply
with consistency and persistency and discipline, and you
may just finish this year in a much stronger financial
position.
| In
association with: Credit
Card Debt Problems, Tasmanian
horse racing and ratings,
Racing Ratings rating service, Greyhound
Racing Systems, Staking
Plans and Staking Systems, Sunshine
Coast Things To Do, Kangaroo
Island Things To Do,
Hobart things to do, Accommodation
Las Vegas hotels,
Accommodation Launceston, Accommodation
Hobart,
Accommodation
Anaheim hotels, Accommodation
San Francisco Hotels, Accommodation
Los Angeles Hotels,
Horse Racing Australia, Racing
systems software |
