3 Money Rules That Will Improve Your Financial Health For Those Who Want Extra Cash (WISDOM)
Manage your lifestyle inflation
Ronald Reed was a janitor. Every morning he ate at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital cafe, and every day he’d got to work. At age 92, sadly, Reed passed away. Upon his passing, family and friends realized something quite staggering about Reed: He’d amassed an $8 million fortune.
“He was a hard worker, but I don’t think anybody had an idea that he was a multimillionaire,” Read’s stepson Phillip Brown told the Brattleboro Reformer in 2015. — CNBC
Here’s the thing that Ronald Reed taught me: you don’t need a lot to make a lot.
Learn MoreWhat you need is two things = clarity of mind and focus
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The big question
If you were given a million-dollar tomorrow, what would you change? Okay, you’d throw in the towel at your crappy job, and maybe you’d live it up for a few months in Bali. But then what?
What happens when the dust settles, and you have enough money to do whatever you want? Then where does your mind float to? Because in all likelihood you’ll want to do something with your time.
Netflix, chilling, and hanging out with friends are all well and good, but much of the human condition means that we need something outside of that to fulfill us; we need purpose. We crave it. So it leaves us with the big question:
How would you choose to spend your time without money as a restraint?
Rich isn’t a state of mindset, it’s the principle of choice
Perhaps you’d choose to be a writer, a painter, a teacher, or an artist. I don’t know what you’d choose — for me, I’d choose to write in the mornings and build a business in the afternoon, something to do with dogs in all likelihood.
The principle is simple: it’s a choice.
It’s the ability to say: today I’m going to work on this thing because I want to. That’s the thing you’re chasing in all likelihood.
Most of the time we hate our jobs or the commute not because the activity is bad but because that time we want to spend somewhere else.
Choice = wealth.
#1. Manage your lifestyle inflation
Often what happens is as your income climbs, so too do your outgoings. The dial goes up on your salary so your clothes get fancier, your house gets bigger, your car gets shiner. I get it, you want to show off that extra cash you are earning. But here’s the thing, it won’t make you happier.
Things are just that, things. What tends to make most people happier over a certain amount of money is time spent the way they want. Autonomy. The freedom to do life how they please. If you want that, you need to unplug yourself from the spending cycle.
The easiest way to do that is to want less. That’s the real secret that nobody talks about. Probably because it’s not good for business. But really, if you want to be wealthier, train your brain to want very little.
#2. Manage the distance between you now and future you
Here’s the good news, you might be closer than you think. How do I know? Well:
The first is that you have enough time to ponder these questions and think about the world and how you want to exist in it. Not everyone has that luxury.
The second is that you’re already considering how to readjust what you do to earn more or spend less. That’s the sort of mindset that will allow you to save, invest and earn more than you ever thought possible.
Third and lastly, is that you are thinking long-term, which is perhaps the biggest superpower of all.
If you’re already thinking about this stuff, if you are thinking about how to readjust your life and think long term — well, you’re richer than you think. Think about where you want to be in 5 years’ time and then go back to where you are right now, are the bricks you are laying right now helping with your ambitions? And how mad are you going to be if you aren’t achieving those things in 5 years?
Zooming out can help you get clarity on the now.
Read also: 3 quotes from Tim Ferriss to inspire your own greatness
#3. Spend your time building something bigger than you
I’ve been writing online for 2 years. I’ve spent over 1000 hours writing. I’m obsessed at this point. Before writing, I was consumed by the world around me:
I’d spend hours scrolling on social media
I’d spend time browsing my favorite shops
I’d get in the habit of spending
All because I had a lot of time on my hands. If I wasn’t working I was in front of the TV scrolling through social media. This is where most of my spending happened. Randomly buying things I didn’t really need because if I was honest, I was bored. Now I write in all my spare time. It means I only buy things when I need them. I’d rather be writing than doing anything else.
Find something bigger than yourself and concentrate on that.
Final thoughts
Money is a tricky one but these 3 rules have certainly helped me.
Manage your lifestyle inflation.
Manage the distance between you now and future you.
Spend time building something bigger than you.
CONTRIBUTED BY Eve Arnold
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