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Introduction The primary reasons for writing this book were to increase financial literacy knowledge, to plant seeds of ‘Hope’, and to inspire all those who read it to achieve their dreams. I wanted to help them develop a life plan for their finances and provide them with real solutions to help chan...

Introduction The primary reasons for writing this book were to increase financial literacy knowledge, to plant seeds of ‘Hope’, and to inspire all those who read it to achieve their dreams. I wanted to help them develop a life plan for their finances and provide them with real solutions to help change the inequities in our society in need of our immediate attention. I want to share this financial literacy knowledge with everyone to motivate, encourage, and give them the confidence and courage to change their lives. I want them to use these financial life skill tools to build bridges and clear paths to be successful and achieve their financial dreams. I also want everyone who is introduced to this book to share their new financial literacy knowledge with family, and friends and pass it on to the next generations. I want everyone to be exposed to its benefits, become contagious, and be spread to everyone. As an individual, who is an optimist, want to see all people succeed and achieve ‘their American Dreams’. As a citizen of this great country, I believe that everyone should have realistic, fair, and equal opportunities to achieve their ‘American Dreams’. This is the idealistic representation of how democracy and capitalism are supposed to work together for the greater good of all its citizens. Over the years, I have been puzzled and challenged to understand why so many people and families are struggling financially living paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet. Americans work hard, they want to succeed and achieve their ‘American Dreams’. We all want to feel included, that we are playing on a level field and to have the same equal opportunities to achieve success as everyone else. They all want to prosper, provide for their families, and see that their children have a better start in life than they had. Therefore, you would have the ability to pick from that huge ‘Money Tree’ our parents told us didn’t exist. Many of you sometime in your life have heard one of your parents say, “You must think I have a Money Tree. Money doesn’t grow on trees. I don’t have a Money Tree that I can just go to and get the money you want or, what do you think I’m made out of money?” I now would like to label the ‘Money Tree’ they were referring to as ‘financial growth opportunities based on having financial literacy knowledge’. I want to stress that financial Literacy is the foundation on which all financial success is built. We are taught to study hard, get a good education, learn marketable job skills, work hard, and always do our very best and we’ll be successful in life. Just remember nothing in life is free, there is always some type of cos. If it’s not a financial cost, then perhaps itis is a moral or an ethical compromise of values. We’ve all heard and been told that America is the greatest and richest country in the World. The United States of America is viewed as the “Land of Unlimited Opportunities for those who are willing to work hard and abide by the law”. They want to have a sense of ‘HOPE’ to achieve their version of the ‘American Dream’. People can’t understand why so many Americans struggle financially their entire lives in their quest of achieving their ‘American Dreams’. Why do so many Americans appear to have lost ‘Hope’ and seem to become acceptant of their current situations? It seems like they have given up or lost ‘Hope’ in trying to improve their lives. May times they may never have learned on their own or acquired the necessary financial literacy knowledge to manage money, credit, and finances. These financial skills are necessary to build the bridges of ‘Hope’ and clear paths for achieving their ‘American Dreams’. Here are several reasons why so many American struggles financially throughout their lives. Many have never been taught or exposed to basic financial literacy skills in a school or anywhere else. It seems to have always been an unspoken rule that your parents taught you or you learned all your financial knowledge as you go through life and earn money. This couldn’t be further from the truth and is an unrealistic expectation, if our parents didn’t have basic financial literacy knowledge and were too embarrassed to tell you, then they couldn’t teach you. Unfortunately, most people are totally unaware that they lack basic financial literacy knowledge themselves. They didn’t and never knew how important it was to have financial literacy and life skill tools to become financially successful in their lives. It’s like that ‘Naked and Afraid’ Discovery Channel Series, where groups of people try to survive without clothing, food, or shelter for twenty-one days in the jungles of the world. They must find or boil water, catch and kill everything they eat and build a shelter while traveling to a recovery pick-up destination. Well, your financial journey through life can be quite similar to that of the contestants on the show. You are trying to navigate through life’s financial jungle totally unprepared ‘naked’ without basic financial literacy knowledge is not a plan you will survive using. Without having the basic financial literacy knowledge and still having to make critical financial choices will probably end up costing most of your future wealth opportunities. This is the money you should be able to save throughout your life for retirement by making the correct financial decisions. To make a comparison, it would be like trying to drive across the United States from the East Coast to the West Coast or vice versa without a map, compass, or GPS. You are attempting to make the trip with just enough money for gas, five nights at a motel and two dozen meals, and very little money for emergencies. You have very little knowledge of the vehicle’s roadworthiness or maintenance requirements because you were never taught anything like oil changes, air filters, or tire pressure and you don’t have any roadside assistance service. All you just know is how to gas up the car and go. You are basically unprepared to take a trip of this magnitude. Will you be able to make the trip without major issues? Probably not. Will you end up stranded? Probably so. This sounds like most of you when it comes to your financial knowledge, before making that journey of managing your money, credit, and finances, doesn’t it? This book will address and answer many of these questions and concerns, how do you prepare for and navigate the many financial challenges you will face in your journey through life? It will also assist those of you who are re-entering society to start over with real achievable plans, goals, purpose, and a sense of direction. This will contribute to a higher success rate of your building a better financial future. The book serves as a ‘Financial Head Start’ Program course to give you the hope and necessary financial knowledge to survive and improve your current financial situation. It will give you the confidence and courage to plan, prepare and make the necessary proactive behavioral changes to achieve your dreams. Another major objective of this course is to help you understand, know and be aware of where all your money goes. So, you can have better control to manage, plan, budget, and save your money to begin to see how fast it grows. It will better prepare you to joyfully make your financial journey through life successfully with the ability to have enough assets and wealth come the time for your retirement. Articles: To research for more information and a better understanding Financial illiteracy can result in poor saving, poor spending, excessive credit card use, and bad investment decisions. The stress of financial insecurity in families can lead to divorce, suicide, domestic violence and other crimes. Apr 29, 2014 The Risk of Financial Illiteracy by CEE - Council for Economic ... https://www.councilforeconed.org › What is the illiteracy rate in America? 1: 53% of adults are financially anxious. It turns out many Americans aren't financially literate. And they're stressed about it. In fact, a 2018 FINRA study found financial capability, stability, and confidence aren't improving. The Push to Require Financial Literacy Education – Investopedia How bad is financial literacy in America? Basic financial skills are generally not taught in classrooms in the United States. Lack of financial education has led to Americans having inadequate household and retirement savings, and high levels of credit card and student loan debt. Dec 22, 2021 10 Eye-Opening Financial Literacy Statistics - https://www.opploans. For decades, I’ve attempted to assist family members and friends to make better financial decisions regarding their major purchases. After speaking with them at length about their purchase, I became aware of how little they actually knew and understood about the management of their own money, credit, and finances. The book’s goals are to identify and communicate many of the challenges faced by those who struggle financially and help them find solutions and the confidence to change their lives. We must find ways to educate all Americans and future generations to give them the best opportunities to achieve their ‘American Dreams’. This is my attempt at ‘Paying It Forward’ by passing on to you some basic financial literacy knowledge and life skill tools to achieve your ‘American Dreams.’ This is how I’ve tutored others to make the necessary behavior modifications to take control of their income and manage their financial lives. This book’s objectives are to give you an introduction to basic financial literacy, to increase your financial literacy knowledge and show you how much you’ll benefit from this newly acquired knowledge. It will also illustrate to you the extremely high financial cost for not having financial literacy knowledge. It will also show you how having this financial knowledge will increase your purchasing power and ability to save money. This requires you to improve your financial life skill tools of how you manage your finances with planning, budgeting, and ‘living within your means’. This will be your greatest challenge because you have never been taught these money, credit, and financial management skills which are the ‘Keys’ to increasing your purchasing power, savings, and becoming financial security. The information in this course attempts to provide you with the foresight to avoid many of the financial pitfalls most people make during their financial learning curve to understand how to best manage their finances. It also provides you with a plethora of over six dozen scenarios solutions and methodologies of ‘Hope’ for eliminating many social, economic, and financial securities. No matter what your current income level is you can benefit from implementing many of these financial strategies and solutions to increase your financial literacy. They offer you budgeting plans and opportunities to create savings even in those times when prices rise beyond your expectations and in times of inflation. These ‘Food for Thought’ ideas and number verifications show how you might increase your purchasing power by making small behavior modifications. In the absence of ample planning, budgeting, and credit management for these challenges they have the potential to snowball out of control creating a lifetime of endless higher interest rate payments and debt. The calculations throughout the book will show you how much money these financial pitfalls will cost you over your lifetime, robbing you of your maximum potential future financial security. Hopefully, this course will help you see the consequences of a person’s reckless spending habits. It will expose you to those situations and offer illustrations to help you see the possible negative impacts of your actions. The more you can understand the root causes of the derailments of your financial future and your own contribution to it, the easier it will be for you to begin to develop and implement corrective plans and solutions to eliminate these problems. This in essence is how you increase your financial literacy and understanding. However, you must be totally honest, objective and accept your part in the circumstances you have created. The ability to accept your responsibility for these shortfalls will be one of the hardest and most rewarding parts of your journey. The numerous relevant real-life examples shown throughout the book should make it much easier for you to make the corrective behavior modifications to achieve your financial goals as you continue, ‘Soaring Toward Financial Freedom’. ‘Soaring Toward Financial Freedom’ objectives are to provide you with increased financial literacy knowledge and financial life skill tools through the power of education. This educational ‘Guide’ is a tool that will increase the middle-class population's so desperately needed financial literacy and life skills tools to become more confident about managing their money, credit, and finances. It explains and stresses how critical a great credit score is the single most important aspect of managing your finances, financial success, and your ‘Guide’ for building wealth. This can be accomplished by increasing your financial literacy with the thought-provoking recommended suggested strategies along with many examples and solutions of how to build bridges and clear paths to achieve your dreams. These clear paths act as road maps through life’s challenging financial mazes of pitfalls. It shows you how to avoid the many financial challenges Americans face over their lifetime which can create many of their financial insecurities. The goals are to make sure you get to your retirement with a substantial amount of money in your nest egg and financial security to allow you to continue living your best life. The book’s financial literacy knowledge creates ‘Hope’ and the necessary financial life skills and tools to motivate you to move forward to change your life and achieve your goals and dreams. It’s able to accomplish this with many simple easy-to-read, comprehend, and relevant ‘Food for Thought’ recommendations intended for everyone’s use, to manage and budget their limited income. It's like a basic money, credit, and finance ‘101’ basic financial literacy introductory management course to help you reignite that of ‘Hope’ of becoming successful in life. The knowledge you acquire will give you the ‘Hope’ you need to help you build bridges and clear paths to transfer you from financial illiteracy & challenges to financial capabilities & financial freedom’. It will also give you the ‘Hope’, confidence, and courage to move your life forward to succeed by understanding the basic principles of money. This is an educational process that is proactive and self-applied for those who desire to change their life. You can immediately start implementing many of the techniques into your daily life to manage your limited income more efficiently. ‘HOPE’ stands for Helping Others Prosper thru Education. It's the book’s ‘Challenge’ to you, ‘to change your financial futures for the better’. This book course may seem to be a bit unorthodox in the way the information is delivered, the goal was to get the reader to understand and relate to the material. Information is delivered and presented in a unique method similar to a lecture which may jump around a bit and be repetitive as the presenter reemphasizes important points. This encouragement was done intentionally to motivate them to make a change. It will seem as though a parent, teacher, or coach is with you throughout the entire book, speaking and encouraging you over and over again to listen and follow the financial advice they’re sharing with you. Many people need to hear the message several times, need an extra push, and even need tutors to learn different concepts. The purpose of the repetitive statements in this book course is to persuade and encourage them to make the necessary behavioral changes that improve their lives by the end of the book. Let’s have a little patience for those of us need to hear the message a few more times, thanks. It’s important they understand the lessons to have the ability to make better financial decisions and improve their credit score. Take all the time you need to process and understand the financial solutions offered. This financial knowledge is designed to help you make the best future financial decisions. To some of you, these repetitive messages may seem a bit much, however, for those who need the repetitive reinforcement it may be just what they need to make the necessary behavior modifications. This redundancy is like those TV commercials shown over and over again trying to get you to buy their products. The book course redundancy is designed to reinforce the value and benefits of implementing the many financial principles discussed to keep you from making bad or wrong financial choices. It justifies the long-term gains from this positive change of your deliberate behavior modifications. This shows you how all the strategies and solutions are focused on the same goal to increase your financial literacy IQ, so you will make much better financial decisions going forward. So, please be patient and try to understand everyone learns at different paces and some people truly need to hear information and messages over and over again before they are able to grasp it or believe it will really work. In addition, no matter what your income, age, or stage of life you are in, this course will provide you with enlightening and informative introductions to the worlds of money, credit, and finance. It offers you many suggested strategies and solutions to improve your money and credit management skills and habits. The examples, illustrations, and calculations used are general formulas and will work easily when you input your personal income information. You can use this knowledge to make positive permanent changes to increase the purchasing power of your income and increase the probability of achieving your ‘American Dream’. This book course will introduce you to a plethora of numerous ways to invest in yourself to ensure a rewarding financial future. ‘Soaring Toward Financial Freedom’ introduces you to and covers the complex world of money, credit and finance management not usually taught in school at all. It will serve as a tool to gain an understanding of many of the basic terms and languages used when engaging in money, credit, finance, and investments. It will help you bridge the gap between financial illiteracy and financial literacy, building an applicable understanding and comfort level you may not have ever had before. To get a better personal feel for your situation, please use your personal income and expense numbers based on your current situation. You should use the course information in this book as a reference tool to help you navigate through the many monetary challenges you will encounter as you take on more and more financial responsibilities such as credit cards, financed personal and auto loans, and when it’s time to purchase a home and get a mortgage. The lessons you learn here will have invaluable benefits to your financial future success, you’ll never forget them, you’ll always use them, and you’ll be so glad you know them. Unfortunately, real-life money, credit, and financial management skills aren’t taught in our public educational systems or colleges. So, most people live their entire lives fumbling through the complex world of money, credit, and finances without any real skills. You’ll have to learn how the world of finance works ‘on the fly' as you go through life from the many mistakes you are guaranteed to make. The book’s suggested recommendations, strategies, and solutions are devised to help you to avoid and bypass many of the financial challenges you will encounter. These challenges will grow more difficult as you become more and more dependent on the need to acquire credit and borrow money. You may have heard and agree with the saying, “It is better to have ‘something’ and not need it than it is to need something’ and not have it”. This is why it’s important to have basic financial literacy knowledge that will benefit you throughout your life. This information is structured to help educate you, your family, the current and next generations of students and young adults. It can be beneficial to the even more mature individuals who struggle with financial literacy and those beginning re-entry into society. It gives you a starting point for how to manage your time and money for those of you who don’t have any extra money. It helps everyone who has the opportunity to read this book to become more knowledgeable regarding managing their money, credit, and finances. These financial knowledge and life skill tools are necessary to avoid many of the many financial pitfalls and struggles our parents and grandparents had the misfortune of experiencing. This basic Finance ‘101’ money, credit, and financial management information will make you more knowledgeable about the ins and outs and benefits of planning, budgeting, commitment, sacrifice, credit, savings, and financing future purchases. The extraordinary benefits of this valuable knowledge, when you stick to the process, are what will give you the ‘power’ to control your financial destiny. When this knowledge is applied and used it will allow you to increase your current income’s overall purchasing power exponentially by stretching your dollars. This is an investment in yourself, it will give you the hope, financial knowledge, and confidence to build bridges and clear paths to achieve goals and dreams. The knowledge and life skill tools are something you will have will use for the rest of your lives and more importantly no one can ever take these skills away from you. It is your obligation and responsibility to teach your children and the next generation the financial literacy knowledge you will acquire from this book. As mentioned, this book course provides you with a plethora of over six dozen suggestions, strategies, and solutions to move forward toward financial freedom. The objective of the many strategies is to allow you to pick and choose the solutions you want and feel to implement into your life. Just remember that it all starts with the willingness to plan, budget, sacrifice, and live within your means early in your financial journey. This allows you to create, generate, and accumulate enough savings to begin to live a life of financial responsibility. There is no pressure for you to follow any of the suggestions, strategies, and solutions, start with the ones you are most comfortable with first. You will see the most strategies you implement the more savings you will generate throughout your life. Just remember, as you follow the process you will be able to better manage the two key components of financial freedom which are an excellent credit score and homeownership. However, homeownership is the foundation of acquiring assets and building wealth. The financial literacy knowledge you receive from this book course is like a ‘Gift’ that instills those feelings of ‘HOPE’, dignity, pride, and self-respect that exist in all of us. Those feelings of ‘HOPE’ create our ambition and motivates our spirit to set goals and make plans to achieve our dreams. It’s the ‘Gift’ that keeps on giving over your entire lifetime and you are able to share it with anyone you wish to. The beauty of this ‘Gift’ is that you are encouraged to share it and the more you share it, unlike other gifts, its value to you will never decrease like other gifts. Instead, this ‘Gift’ will always increase in value when you share it. It’s a ‘Gift’ that everyone deserves because they are worth it, and it needs to be shared with others. This is the ‘Gift’ which keeps on giving over your lifetime, that will empower you and change your lives forever. Teaching a person financial literacy is like that old Chinese proverb, “if you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. But, if you teach a man to fish, you will feed him for a lifetime.” It teaches you the financial literacy skills that enable you to save enough of your income to retire financially secure, but you must start believing you can achieve anything you commit to doing now. You can do this I’ll be with you all the way. Good Luck! The ‘STFF HOPE PROCESS’ represents, ‘Soaring Toward Financial Freedom – Helping Others Prosper thru Education – Provides Real Opportunities to Create and Empower Savings and Success’. So, grab a notebook, pen or pencil, eraser, calculator, and perhaps a pair of reading glasses so that you can take notes as you read and plan how you will start your financial journey of ‘Soaring Toward Financial Freedom’. You may want to read the entire book first, then re-read it, do the math calculations, and with specific plans to modify your behavior. One last note, this Book – Course is about increasing your financial literacy intelligence quotient or IQ to give you the ability to make the best decisions in order to build a better financial future. Therefore, it is my suggestion that you invest in yourself for the next six months to a year by taking the ‘STFF HOPE PROCESS’ challenge. I’m sure it will exponentially change your current financial situation with less debt, a better credit score, increased savings, and perhaps an opportunity to consider purchasing a house. Good Luck!