FREE Stuff! Can It End Up Costing You Money?

We all like free stuff, right?

Free stuff is rarely free. Sure, it’s positioned as free, but that free gift you signed up for on the Internet has cost you the use of your email address.

That 7 free trial you signed up for is only free if you don’t forget to cancel the monthly subscription fee. If you forget, you pay.

The free sample they give you in the supermarket as a “taster” is designed to suck you in and buy the product itself.

With free. There is often a cost. But this is not what this post is about. It’s about people’s perception that free is best. Let me give you an example.

Free Is Rarely Free

I’ve been selling things online since 2004 and I’ve seen a lot of people come and go. I have yet to see anyone who started a business “completely free” ever make any money by doing so. There is generally some cost involved. If you are trying to get a free business, you are probably relying on free online tools, possibly free marketing on social media, etc.

People put work into producing “Free Stuff”..someone pays..

Think about it, it goes against the law of business, “starting a business for free to make money“is a strange one.. . Time is money, the more you try to do it for free, the more time you spend, and your time is valuable, therefore looking for free can be costly.

This might sound strange, but get used to letting money go. Invest in your education. Invest in your business.

The more you develop the free mindset, the more you actually avoid making money – WHY? because you keep looking for “bargains” instead of getting on with the serious task of making money. FREE (or cheap) becomes an obsession.

People only really put the effort in when they are “invested” and the more you are invested the more effort you will make. Trying to do everything for free is not an investment in you, it’s an investment in developing a mindset of scarcity. If you paid ZIP, Nada, Nothing.. you probably will put nothing much into it, ..

The FREE Business Pipe-Dream

There are plenty of free opportunities online. Many are either a scam or just a prolific waste of time.

People will procrastinate and complain about putting $1000 into a new venture yet not think twice in putting $1000 into the next iPhone..

Someone somewhere has to pay for something, or you can’t get paid. I know there is that one in a thousand person out there who has started a free business using nothing but free tools and has made a fortune… but, this is rare.

Let me squash a couple of myths that have been doing the rounds for years, and are far too common.

1. “I don’t have the money to start a business”. This simply isn’t true. Unless you are destitute, you have the money. You just choose to spend it on other things. If you have been on this earth for any number of years and you haven’t managed to save a $1000, $2000 etc, your money management skills SUCK!.
2. “I don’t have the time”. Unless you work 16 hours a day for 7 days a week, you DO have the time. You can start a part-time business from home, or a side-hustle in just an hour or two a day. The problem lies in the TV, it’s calling for you to watch your favorite programs.. people are addicted to the big talking box in the corner of the room. When it speaks, people listen. This is what stops you from starting a business. You are programmed to spend money on things that depreciate in value.

The Truth Hurts

The truth hurts, I don’t sugar-coat things as you help no one this way. – You can rapidly reframe how you look at things and stop seeing the word free as the answer. Millionaires are shrewd people, but they don’t spend their valuable time searching for ways to do stuff for free. They just don’t. They know that money makes money and if you don’t have it, find a way of getting it.

I understand that when you are starting a new business you try to make your money go as far as possible. This is natural, but in order to save money, develop the skills to do much of the work yourself at first. Once you have the business up and running, then you can hire people to do things for you.

I published 11 books in the first 12 months of my publishing business, I did it by hiring a ghostwriter to write several of those books. You invest money in people and tools to get a return, some things won’t return anything, some return a little, and some will return a lot, that’s business.

SIDENOTE: If you are looking to make money, start by reducing unnecessary costs. Take a long hard look at the things you buy regularly that are not really adding value to your life and are draining your bank account. Cut these out for a while and watch your savings account grow.

I hope you got value from this post. If you did, leave a comment below and share the post. Thanks in advance.

Have a great day

Keith

P.S Here is some FREE stuff that isn’t really free.

1. Money Mind Crush – The Digital Version, FREE in exchange for your email.
2. Rebecca Collins’s 10 weeks of her FREE Newsletter “Reclaim Your Life” in exchange for your email.
3. My private group – I do ask for your email address.