2024 is the year you’re going to change your finances and start experiencing more wealth than you’ve ever imagined. I can’t stress the importance of developing a clear vision of your financial future.
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E.A.R.N is the 4-step process that will help you get there, and there are three reasons why following this method will allow you to become wealthy in 2024.
- According to a recent study, the average American household carries over $8,000 in credit card debt alone – that’s the average! This indicates a significant reliance on borrowing and highlights the urgent need for effective financial management strategies to reduce debt and build wealth.
- Around 40% of Americans will struggle to cover an unexpected $400 expense without borrowing any money or selling possessions according to a report by the Federal Reserves.
- Nearly 40% of American workers have less than $25,000 invested for their retirement, and more than a quarter have saved less than $1,000.
Everyone needs a foundation to build wealth, which is where the E.A.R.N method comes in. Let’s break down the four-step method to earning more in 2024. I’ll cover the essentials here and after, go check out the full in-depth discussion on my YouTube channel and join the conversation.
Watch This To Become RICH In 2024 (My 4 Step Checklist)
E: Evaluate where you are financially
Take a piece of paper – not an app, not a digital spreadsheet, I don’t want you to color it up and justify income and expenses. Take a piece of paper and write down all of your:
- Income
- Expenses
- Assets
- Liabilities
If you can understand your financial habits and behaviors, it can help you identify areas where you can improve and cut unnecessary expenses. Determine what you want to achieve and a timeline of when you want to achieve it. All of us are earning money every single day, and we have to earn more money to build more wealth, that’s why the first thing is to evaluate. It’s incredibly difficult to manage something that you’re not evaluating.
If starting this step feels intimidating, I have a wealth builder tool that can help you start taking that raw picture of your financial situation. Once you have that you can continue to zoom out and evaluate your current situation, what you want to achieve and a timeline of when you want to achieve it.
We take our cars in to get evaluated once or twice a year. We see a doctor to get our health evaluated once or twice a year. These are to help you prevent something from going bad, and it’s the same thing for building wealth, to evaluate where we are and catch something before it gets out of hand.
A: Arrange your Vision
I can’t stress the importance of developing a clear vision for your financial future. I want you to envision where you want to be financially at this time next year, the next five years, the next 10 years and the next 20 years. Actually visualize where you want to be and how it will feel to be in that position. Your visions for the next year, five, ten, and 20 years will help you actually arrange that into goals to help you get there.
Your goals can’t be generic, they have to be specific for each of these timestamps, we’re talking about using the SMART method: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Each vision should feed into the next, your one-year goal should feed into your five year goal, your 10 year goal, and your 20 year goal.
In the next 20 years, where do you want to be? Once you have that vision, break down that vision into goals for 10 year, five year, and one year goals, so by the time you get to the 20 year mark you’ve achieved your financial goals.
R: Render your Strategy
Create and follow a comprehensive financial plan for you. If you’re going to build wealth in 2024, you have to build a comprehensive financial plan by outlining the steps you need to take to achieve your goals. You can’t follow someone else’s goals, they need to be specific to you and what you want to achieve.
This means savings, investments, and paying off debt strategies that are designed and tailored for you, set by your visions, and your goals. A part of this strategy is increasing your income, investing, or entrepreneurship. The strategy needs to change and adapt to the goal you’re trying to achieve, the same strategy you render for one goal will need to be recreated for the next goal.
Investing should be a major part of this strategy, no matter what your goals are. Investing can be intimidating, but there are resources out there that can help invest for you. MooMoo is a cutting-edge investment app that will help you start investing, and is also giving 15 free stocks when you invest your first $1,000 – that’s a big step in rendering your strategy for financial wealth and abundance.
N: Now Act
You’ve evaluated your current financial situation and taken a raw picture of where you are, you’ve arranged your vision and your goals to help you get from your current season to the next season and you’ve rendered a strategy to get there. Now, it’s time to act on that strategy and start building your wealth.
Start implementing your financial plan immediately, even if it means starting small. You need to stay committed to the plan and the strategy with discipline. You’re going to be faced with setbacks, challenges, and it may not be the popular choice, but you need to stay committed to your strategy. It’s not going to happen overnight and it’s not going to be easy; successful people and wealthy people don’t put things off – they act now!
You need to regularly review and make adjustments to your strategy as necessary and celebrate your achievements along the way.
Let’s Recap
If you can follow these E.A.R.N principles, you take proactive steps to build wealth and achieve financial freedom in 2024 and beyond. I want to give you the principles to help you create a vision and build a solid foundation to build wealth. The first step is the foundation for financial wealth to stand on, you have to understand where you are financially, arrange the vision, render the strategy in order to act now.
Work through the E.A.R.N method to build that foundation and build wealth in 2024. Wealth isn’t just money, but it’s peace and joy. When you are able to incorporate the E.A.R.N method into your life, you’ll be able to truly start building the foundation for wealth to sit on and continue building that wealth beyond 2024.
Anthony O'Neal is a bestselling author, speaker and personal finance educator. He teaches families how to get out of debt and build real wealth on any income through The Escape Plan, his show The Table with AO, and the In the Black app.