My Own Private Eureka Moment

One of my favorite sensations in the world is when I read or hear something about a subject I feel pretty well versed in, and like the flip of a switch, I see things in a completely new light.

I pride myself on being a know-it-all. I know full well that I don’t know everything. In fact, every day I’m reminded how much I’m clueless about, but when I feel I know something, I will fight to the death to defend that knowledge or point-of-view, often to a fault (read: making an ass out of myself). I’ll willing to admit that.

I’ve started reading again after a long drought of free reading time, and my big area of interest these days is money management, as noted in one of my earlier entries. There are so many theories about money management but after spending years and years picking up new strategies for saving moula or cutting costs (some that worked and several that didn’t!), I finally found a book that offered advice on an often unspoken area – the secret to increasing your revenue streams. One of my blogging buddies recently did a wonderful entry about that very subject – multiple income sources.

I used to love Steve Martin’s comedy bit about How to Become a Millionaire... the first step which he would ramble quickly and quietly: “First, get a million dollars...NEXT,...” If it were only that easy.

But this past weekend as I finished up the now overdue Carrollwood Library selection, Automatic Wealth: The Six Steps to Financial Independence by Michael Masterson, I feel like at least anything’s possible.

Sure, there are some suggestions that I immediately tossed away as now defunct advice or simply not applicable to my own situation. “Buy real estate and flip, flip, flip away.” Um, ouch, not even on my radar given the current state of the Bay area’s housing market. Just thinking about it gives me the willies. “Work your way to the top and take control of your own salary and destiny, blah blah blah.” Again, I work for a media organization. Anyone following the news or financial tickers knows that this isn’t really an option. So that leaves one and only one valuable suggestion – create multiple revenue streams.

Okay, granted – not an original concept but what the book does achieve is offering some innovative suggestions for WHERE to find these possibilities, and that’s when the light snapped on...

Let’s face it – these days, for many of us, just thinking about our bottom line is enough to lead us to an overnight brownie binge. But I’m finally feeling an itty-bitty, teeny-weenie, itsy-bitsy, little ray of hope, and that’s a start.