The 7 Habits of Wealth

Smart Spending has a piece listing their 7 habits of wealth as follows:

• Hard work
• Modest living
• Patience
• Perseverance
• Balance
• Self-awareness
• Learning

I think this is a pretty good list overall. My take on each of these:

1. Of course -- goes without saying. You'll have to work hard at school/work/your business if you have any chance of making a decent income.

2. Spending less than you earn is my best piece of financial advice. Modest living is a key to this for most people.

3. Having patience over a long period of time is the key to letting the power of compounding work for you.

4. Could also be called discipline.

5. I think it is important to have balance in personal finances (and in life for that matter). Too much emphasis in one area or another can often derail a person's finances. Examples: Get-rich-quick schemes, people who only save, save, save, and won't spend a penny that's "not necessary," "sure thing" stock tips. 

6. Ok, this one's a bit of fluff to me, but I'll give them a pass on it since the rest of the list is good.

7. Of course! In fact, this is one reason I started Free Money Finance -- to encourage people to learn more about their personal finances and help them do so.

So what's your take on this list? Anything here that shouldn't be? Or did they leave out something important?

Comments

[Dave]

All of these habits are critically important but learning has been particularly relevant in my life recently. Just over the past three months, I've found new ways of investing my money over the long term wisely--such as converting from index funds to lower cost index etfs (caution: this may not be the best approach for everybody, but it works well for me), and taking advantage of no-commission trading to buy said index etfs. Of course a lot of my fiscal knowledge comes from this website so thank you and keep up the hard work!

[Kevin]

All those habits are great in most aspects in life, not just wealth. Still, good to hear them again.

[Dennis]

I've found balance to be a difficult one to attain. The difference between being "cheap" and "frugal" is subjective and is always a topic of debate with my wife and friends.

[Minimum Wage]

I've seen a lot of people who have wealth yet seem to not work hard.

[NWMR]

I disagree #6 isn't fluff. Self-awareness could simply mean knowing who you are. Pretentious people tend to be broke (not a generality either) since they're the ones always trying to keep up with the Joneses.

[Elizabeth]

Self-awareness is vital for me. I'm not so sure about the hard work, either. I guess I'm not really clear on how this would differ from perseverance.

[Debbie M]

I also disagree about #6. Knowing what you're saving for makes it a lot easier to save. Knowing what you want makes it a lot easier to pick motivating things to save for!

If you just go around doing what you're "supposed to" (such as go to college, get a good job, get married, have kids, buy a house, or whatever your family or subculture, etc. values) without thinking about what would make you happiest, then you're not going to be good at prioritizing.

And the other poster's points about knowing things like what your risk levels are so that you invest appropriately (instead of, say, always freaking out and selling low and buying high) seem obviously relevant to wealth building.