If I could go back in time, these are the top 11 things I would tell my younger self.

1.    Start walking with God ASAP!

Learn about God, build a relationship with Him so that he can renew your heart and change your selfish ways to unselfish ones. Go to church to find strength in the faith of others while you grow your own faith. And very importantly, start paying tithes asap without fail, never miss a single payment ever!

Paying tithes is an act of complete faith. It is acknowledging that God is God and that you believe in his sovereign power. It is an act of worship, showing God that you believe that he Has and always will provide for all your needs.

Also, it is a way to further His church and spread His word so that as many people as possible can be saved for His kingdom.

Also give offerings of money and your time to the church as often and as much as possible because this will help you to grow your faith and fall in love with God.

Paying tithes and offerings is acknowledging that everything you have is a gift from God and you are merely returning 10% of what is already God’s.

2.    Educate yourself about the world of money – what it is and how it works.

Money is not obvious but a multifaceted subject that requires earnest study and thought. Money doesn’t actually exist, it is a symbol of value, that value is then exchanged for your time, goods or services – depending on whether you are a business owner or employee. And is doesn’t end there; that value is then assigned to other goods and services, which you will buy by exchanging your money with the prospective business owner. This is a system, a huge intricate boardgame of wits and smarts.

If you fall into the money trap, you will get a job and work your whole life to pay off a mortgage, then retire and live a difficult life trying to make ends meet on a small pension after having worked hard your whole life.

But there is another way. A better way.

What if you don’t get a mediocre job to stay in but to set yourself free? What if you don’t get that huge mortgage to pay off over 20 years? What if, you stay at home with your parents as long as you can to save up the money you earn from your first job? Or what if you form a group of like-minded friends and you all start your own business together?

What if you dedicate your time to tapping into the lucrative social media industry and learn to create digital products that sell while you are asleep?

Or be like my friend Calvin, who bought his first house and lived in the tiniest room, while renting all the other rooms out to pay the mortgage off in record time – then he had the means to buy another investment property and another and another… Calvin had to sacrifice living on his own in a comfy house but that is what it takes – saying “no” to the things you want now, sacrificing creature comforts, to achieve major financial goals in the near future.

If I could, I would shake my younger self to try scare some financial sense into her… not really – fear is the worst teacher, no one retains a good lesson from fear but rather from experience. What I would do though, is hand my younger self a copy of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. What a darn good book. It is an easy well written read that opened my mind to a new way of seeing money and thinking about finances. It is a great start for anyone interested in achieving financial freedom and getting out of the rat race where we trade our precious time for currency.

If you think about it, money is a ball and chain and we are all slaves who trade our time to earn the ability to spend the money as quickly as we can. But there are the noblemen and noblewomen, the kings and queens who have figured out how to beat the system by earning money while they sleep – this is the goal, this is true freedom. Don’t brush off this concept as a fairytale! Even though it sounds too good to be true, here are some actual ways of earning money while you sleep:

1. Investments – stock, bonds, savings and investments (my least favourite option because markets crash, and I don’t understand it well.) Also, it seems a lot like gambling to me and this doesn’t seem like a wise way to spend God’s money. But you may be different and see it differently – always pray about how you spend your money and let God lead, this way you can never lose.
2. Rentals – houses, storage units, commercial space, cars, equipment, machinery etc. Renting out items is a great business model – you pay for something once and then people pay you over and over to use that one item. It is pure gold.
3. Investing in other people’s business ideas for a return on investment (ROI). Become an investor and let others do all the work while you earn your share of the profits.
4. Selling products or services online whether they are digital products or actual items you have for sale. Drop shipping allows you to sell products without worrying about storage and delivery – be the middle man and make all the money by running a secure and well-maintained website.
5. Social media influencers are blowing up the internet and becoming millionaire sensations – this may be out of reach for the majority but there are also a lot of people making decent amounts of money on various social media platforms because they have added value to their audience and therefore have grown large followings. With large followings, doors open up to promoting items, advertising revenue, merchandise sales and a plethora of digital product sales like courses, eBooks, and much more.

These are just five reasonable and viable ideas of how to become an entrepreneur – how to make your money work for you and not you having to give up valuable hours of your life to make money.

I would tell my younger self to not stop reading at “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” but continue to study from the best – watch YouTube videos created by millionaires, read plenty of books – make learning about money a proper study!

Last but not least, I would tell myself to pray about every transaction and study Proverbs and the Bible for the greatest wisdom when it comes to money. I would save this for last, not because it is the least important part of my advice but because it is the most important and the last point is usually the one people remember – the one that resonates the most!

3.    Buy a small property to live in and pay it off as quickly as possible.

Never sell your first house but keep it as a rental property – earning you rent no matter where you go in the world. Also, your little house can act as a home base to return to if you get tired of being overseas – it is somewhere you can always return to if need be. This is something that I have needed to do a number of times but couldn’t. It is great to have that one place to always call home and it can make you rental income every month.

Also, the same house we bought for 300K is now worth over a million but sadly we sold it… how unfortunate!

4.    Learn to budget and learn to stick to it.

This should form part of your money study – find an intensive and detailed course about budgeting correctly – and how to stick to your budget. Today there is a ton of information for free, online about how to budget, as well as many great apps available to help you budget. Several banks also have apps with budgeting tools and functions to help you manage your money.

What this boils down to is discipline – which has sadly become a dirty word. Its origin comes from the Biblical word “disciple” which means ‘to learn’.

Discipline is not punishment – punishment is trying to change people by hurting them – this notion is ridiculous and very seldomly achieves its goal – it is abuse and not a means of helping people reach their potential. You might break someone’s spirit and this may be mistaken as “changing them” but alas it isn’t, real change can only be achieved through love and experience.

Maturity can be defined as denying yourself what you want now so that you can achieve future goals. Think of an athlete who doesn’t go to the party with all of his or her friends because he or she has to train the next day. This type of sacrifice is the ultimate self-discipline and it is the key to reaching your goals.

5.    Write your books and start your YouTube channel – be creative and let your creativity flow.

Write and share with the world consistently – don’t procrastinate, don’t put it off – write books about anything and share about anything, really, just get started – do it. Don’t wait and don’t put it off until you are in your 40s! Do it now.

Also, start a blog and learn about websites and video editing to help you along your way – we don’t always have funds to outsource these skills and I have found that being able to edit videos and build websites myself has really helped me to be creative and remain hopeful when my funds were non-existent.

I have a strong belief that one of the most important qualities that we have been given by God to nurture and develop, is creativity. We are made in the image of a creator who has therefore made us creative. It is also this creativity which is largely under attack with the format of the schooling system. Children have creative genius, just talk to a three-year-old and stand in awe of their imagination. This imagination should be nurtured and developed but instead it gets trampled on by bullies at school and a rigid curriculum-based schooling system that doesn’t allow you the time to think about anything other than the curriculum.

By the time they reach high school, the child’s creative genius has all but disappeared and they are listless and lethargic. Having had to memorise Shakespeare and mathematical theorems no beast or foul will ever need to know in their entire lives, teenagers are left directionless and uninspired about their future.

Psalm 139:14 puts it, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”

6.    Learn about minimalism.

Appreciate what you have and only value things by their use to you, whether it is a beautiful vase to finish off a room or a pair of underwear, buy what you need and do not be wasteful with your spending.

There is also a sense of power, self-discipline, confidence and clear-headedness that comes from not having clutter and not buying every gizmo, gadget and fad on the market. Having only what you need to sustain yourself and not feeling the need to keep up with the spenders, shows strength of character and maturity.

Matthew 6:19-21: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

7.    Learn to love frugality.

My husband and I snickered about how, while he was growing up, his dad would be happy with is one pair of shoes. “What do I want another pair of shoes for, when I already have this pair?” he would say. Hubby and I thought this was ridiculous but in hindsight, it turns out that my father-in-law was right. Perhaps one pair of shoes is a little extreme in our society and culture but minimalism and frugality are closely linked to self-discipline and will help you achieve financial freedom a lot quicker than splurging on every fake sale you see online.

Not splurging on eating out, extravagant holidays, name brand items, and being happy with modest choices is the key to saving a lot of money and once again shows confidence in oneself and one’s choices. Besides, who needs to prove themselves with the purchase of things when we know that God himself owned nothing in this world while he walked on it?

Learn to hunt and love specials! I feel so satisfied when I have bought everything, we NEED on special! It should be a sport – let’s see who can live on specials alone, ha-ha. Ok, maybe not a sport but it is a darn good hobby to have! But remember – unless you were going to buy the item in the first place, you aren’t saving anything by buying it! Don’t buy items you don’t need because they are on special!

Proverbs 30:8: “Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me.” 

8.    Avoid bad habits like the plague.

Don’t go down the road of smoking and drinking and trying other bad substances – what a waste of life and money this has been to me over the years – this is one of the reasons I wish I had gotten to know God earlier on in life – because of the silly mistakes I made getting involved with the wrong crowd and becoming addicted to nicotine and alcohol.

This led to a spiral of spending and bad habits that definitely contributed greatly to my weight gain, lack of self-esteem, bad habits, depression, laziness, poor health and poor choices.

If you are reading this and can turn away from these things before, they become habits and addictions, please, please turn and RUN!

Proverbs 28:13: “He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” 

9.    Treat every cent you have like gold.

Unlike frugality, this point is about your mindset and how you view money, which is very important because without the right mindset, all the other advice becomes pointless.

If you cannot see the immense value in having one cent – you may never have the millions you desire. This is not to be mistaken for loving money or worshipping money – please no. Money is functional and that is where it ends in value. But try to realise that if you don’t work to mentally protect every cent you have, you will likely create habits of overspending and lose a lot of money unnecessarily over the course of your life.

Every cent matters, because without one cent, you cannot have a million dollars. Luke 16:10-12 states, “He who is faithful in a very little thing is also faithful in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little thing is also dishonest in much”. Therefore, if God cannot trust you with the small change, He won’t be able to trust you with the big money and if God is the provider of all blessings, it is important that He feels like you can be trusted with money in order for Him to bless you with money.

10.       There is power in a little over time.

Doing something small on a daily basis is 100% more effective than doing something big once off. The real power is in realising that saving $100 per month for 10 years is more lucrative than putting away $1000 once and then never again.

Habits make you who you are! In the words of Charles Duhigg “The only difference between who you are and who you want to be is what you do.” And this all stems from your small daily habits.

The same is true for saving money – put a little away every month and be astounded at how much you have actually saved over time. Not only will you benefit from having a substantial amount of money saved but the saving-habit you will have created is invaluable and is an extremely important money-skill that all wealthy people have.

Poverty is not only about your physical circumstances but also covers your mindset. Just look at the amount of people who have won the lottery – millions of dollars – only to be worse off a year later than when they initially won the money. Your daily habits and mindset have to be right before you can truly be a wealthy person.

A wealthy person is someone who has confidence, self-discipline, wisdom and integrity. This is the goal, this is what we should strive for – being a truly wealthy person.

“The rich and famous” are a different kettle of fish – let’s stick to striving for “wealthy”.

James 1:2-4: “Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

11.       Don’t get debt ever!

Next to knowing God, this is possibly the most important advice I could give my younger self if time travel was possible. Credit cards, store cards, and loans are like willingly adding to your prison sentence as a slave. It is a slippery slide, a black hole that will keep you stuck and making more and more debt forever and ever until you die. Once you’re in debt, it is like getting stuck in quick sand, and the more you kick to get out, the deeper you sink.

Just don’t do it.

Go without whatever you want until you have saved up for it. This will show sound character, faith in God, patience, maturity and self-discipline – like a true wealthy person. Build these characteristics by praying for them, pray for self-discipline, pray for patience and maturity.

Remember that we are in a giant, elaborate board game, where good money management is the key to freedom – real freedom – where you no longer have to trade the only thing you have – time – for something that doesn’t even exist – money.