I hear people complain about not being wealthy or people complain about “so and so” being wealthy, but I have to ask, are you even trying to become wealthy? Are you participating in the Wealth Accumulation Race?
The wealth accumulation race involves a few thing to participate:
- Frugal habits – spending too much money on coffee, cigarettes, and booze just won’t cut it and of course, these are impulse items. My advice, “Think on it for a while before buying”.
- Investing money that you have saved from your Savings Delta. If you don’t invest, how do you expect your money to help you become wealthy?
- Believe… You have to believe that it’s possible! This is important because if you don’t believe there is a great chance you won’t even try. It’s simple, but half of the wealth accumulation race is believing it’s possible.
- Your spouse needs to be on board too. If you are saving and your spouse is spending as fast as you are saving, you will never get ahead.
- Don’t fear small market downturns. This might not be as obvious, but sometimes you’re going to lose money in investments. Either do more research or invest in a good index ETF.
- Sacrifice, yes, if you are not born into wealth, you will have to forgo some things to get ahead… such as a vacation each year, eating out as much as you want, drinking, smoking, etc.
So if you are not doing most of the steps above, how do you ever expect to get wealthy? Luck is great, but most of us don’t have such financial luck, so lottery tickets are out of the question.
So what next? Do the 6 steps above and see how far you go over a 5 to 10 year span of time!
Thanks for reading,
Don
You need to convince me why I should wait till I’m “wealthy” to go on another vacation? How do you justify investing your disposable income instead of taking vacations? What if you die before you earned what you felt was enough money to take a vacation? Would you regret your decision?
Hi Chloe,
In the past, I did a lot of social observations and experiments in bars and other scenarios. I was directly today’s post toward one particular sad scenario that I experienced while travelling and going to a dive bar. In your case, you make enough money that what I state doesn’t pertain to you. Shoot it doesn’t even pertain to me as I’ve been on many vacations (one year I went three times). I actually hope to travel to foreign locations soon… 🙂
Hi Chloe,
Reading your comment again I realize that I didn’t answer your question adequately, so this is my attempt at it again:
On my site, I’m a huge fan of “dividend experiments” to fund certain “fun activities” like vacations, etc. I admit, at first I still took vacations without the dividend stream to support it, but within the past 5 years, that has changed. So I believe one should take vacations, but grow the dividend stream to eventually fund them… This way you are getting the best of both, you enjoy vacations while building wealth. I admit, my early vacations were cheaper but as my dividend stream builds they are getting more elaborate…