I always like reading what Knight Kiplinger has to say. Why? Because 99% of the time, he and I are on the same page financially. For instance, here's a thought of his that Kiplinger's recently ran that I couldn't agree with more:
The biggest barrier to becoming rich is living like you're rich before you are. Why? Because all that discretionary spending -- the chic apartment, frequent travel and restaurant meals, consumer electronics, fancy clothes and cars -- crowds out the saving that will enable you to be rich someday.
He goes on to talk about how people spend so much on lavish lifestyles, then wonder why their net worths aren't increasing and why they can't even do the basics like save for a house. The reason is that they're spending their savings! Duh!
As I've said before, the first step to becoming rich is to spend less than you earn. If you can't do this, no matter what your income is, you won't be making any headway financially.
BTW, is anyone starting to connect the dots on this advice? Seems like a lot of reputable people are giving it out these days.
Am following this strategy and have saved up $400,000 (am self-employed so income is much higher than average). However, is nowhere near enough to live off the interest income and quit working yet.
What do you think about being a landlord and living off of rental income?
Posted by: Mike Wachowski | October 21, 2009 at 12:09 PM
Being a landlord is hard work ... I would never do it again. I owned a 4-flat and am glad to be rid of it. After accounting for your time and upkeep it isn't a great investment.
Posted by: Michael Goode | October 21, 2009 at 02:14 PM
I find it interesting that most people always assume it's either or. Either you can live a nice lifestyle or you can be rich. There are people can do both. Sure you may not get rich quite as fast but it's possible to save a lot AND spend a lot.
Posted by: savvy | October 21, 2009 at 04:24 PM
@savvy
I don't think it is impossible to balance your saving and your spending it is just hard... Most people simply cannot do both because they don't have enough income! Check out the wage statistics - http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm, think about how few professions can really support both!
-Rick Francis
Posted by: Rick Francis | October 21, 2009 at 05:11 PM
"Earn more, spend less."
That's basically what it comes down to.
That or, as Sheryl Crow once sang,
"It's not about having what you want, but wanting what you have."
And although I don't personally care for Cher's singing at all, I remember her once saying,
"If you don't think you'll be using that something five years from now, you don't need it."
In the end, I believe life isn't always about constantly getting more, but to be able to really understand ourselves, and knowing how much is "enough".
Posted by: Eugene Krabs | October 21, 2009 at 05:14 PM
How to get rich.
Method 1.
It's very interesting to read how the richest man in the world become so rich without earning a college degree. His name of course is Bill Gates.
His story is all about being in the right place at the right time and being a good programmer and a very shrewd businessman.
Gates and Microsoft were approached by IBM regards getting an operating system for their very first PC.
Microsoft had written programming languages such as Basic but had never written an operating system.
To make a long story short he bought the rights to an operating system called QDOS (which stood for Quick and Dirty Operating System) from Tim Paterson who worked for Seattle Computer Products for $50,000, and kept it secret from them. QDOS was a knock off of CP/M, the most successful O/S at that time that was produced by Digital Research and had sold over 600,000 copies. Digital Research was a small company in a little town called Pacific Grove, CA, near Monterey. Paterson had bought a CP/M manual and wrote QDOS in 6 weeks, sufficiently different from CP/M to be legal.
Gates then talked IBM into allowing him to market the O/S (now called MS-DOS) separately from the PC.
The rest is history. That's how Bill Gates turned $50,000 into $58 Billion.
Method 2.
Get a really great education and become a successful Doctor, Lawyer, or other highly paid professional.
Method 3.
Live frugally, save everything you possibly can and start buying real estate. By the time you own about 10 rentals you are well on your way.
Method 4.
Start a very successful company - takes a lot of guts and is hard to accomplish.
Method 5 (this is what worked for me).
Get a good education and start in a career that brings in an above average income, augment it when possible with a wife's income, live frugally and save as much as you possibly can.
Become very knowledgable about investing in the market - not Buy & Hold, but Momentum investing where you hold investments for several months depending upon their performance.
Then pray for Good Luck and hope that another great Bubble will come along that impacts the market the way the introduction of the Internet did. This may be a very long wait unfortunately.
Posted by: Old Limey | October 21, 2009 at 09:47 PM
I'm constantly amazed at why people just can't spend less than they earn.
It is utterly perplexing.
Posted by: Financial Samurai | October 22, 2009 at 02:04 AM
Hey i am saving every month. But the biggest problem is that I am investing them after every few month hoping that from next month I will surely save continuously. Anyway I want to get rich and hope your article is a good step for a beginner like me.
Posted by: Steven Francis | October 22, 2009 at 05:28 AM
All of the sudden, I'm feeling sort of proud of my 10 year-old chevy impala...here's to being invisibly rich!
Posted by: dan | October 22, 2009 at 08:34 AM
I think it helps to have a place like this to brag about your frugality instead of your extravagance. Most people don't really have that same opportunity when talking to their neighbors or co-workers or even family. Talking about how much money you have seems to be taboo in a less-anonymous setting, but talking about all the "stuff" you have seems to be ok for some reason.
Posted by: Andy | October 22, 2009 at 09:45 AM
Why do I feel as if Knight Kiplinger and I live in different worlds 99% of the time?
Posted by: Terry | October 22, 2009 at 03:27 PM
Dear Samurai:
I live on a poverty-level income, why are you amazed (constantly, even!) that I can't spend less than I earn?
Posted by: Terry | October 22, 2009 at 03:28 PM
@Terry
All of your comments are centered around the fact that you are living on a low, poverty-level income and can't make more for a variety of reasons. If you have no plans to ever make more than you have to live on, then why are you so interested in a web site about saving?
Posted by: Crystal | October 22, 2009 at 04:08 PM
Crystal --
Because he likes complaining...
Posted by: FMF | October 22, 2009 at 04:10 PM
@FMF
Yeah, I see that. I just wondered if he could... :)
@Terry
Seriously, I lived on less than $15,000 a year in college. The key was to have roommates, eat cheap, and spend hardly any money on entertainment. I was working 2-3 part-time jobs at any given time to earn that $15,000 and I was taking 12-18 hours a semester, so it wasn't like I had a lot of time to spend money anyway. I had to stretch all of it to cover whatever my scholarships couldn't and all of my living expenses.
Try renting a 2 bedroom with 4 people, splitting the cable and internet costs, living off cheap groceries (Ramen, beans, rice, hotdogs, etc), and not driving anywhere except work and the grocery store. I put less than 6000 miles on my cars in 4 years.
For fun, we had peanut butter and jelly sandwich picnics, watched tons of cable tv and old movies, hung out with friends, played on my future husband's Super Nintendo, played a few computer games that friends owned, and played Dungeons and Dragons for hours sharing the old books for 3.0 that we had...
Please don't complain about poverty on a site that proves that it is a choice. If you want to make more money, get another job. If you want to save money, live on less. If you come up with reasons that you can't, those are called excuses. Ignore your excuses and reread the above two comments. Anyone except the truly homeless without a penny to their name (so they don't even beg efficiently) can live on less.
Posted by: Crystal | October 22, 2009 at 04:42 PM
Heck, right now I rent an 8 x 8 room in a house with three other people...which for me is an improvement...in my last place, I was paying 70 percent of my income to rent a room on the edge of town (poor bus service) in a house with nione other people. (I had to move out of that place because the house was short-saled to avoid foreclosure.) I ditched my landline a while ago and carry a $5/mo prepaid cell phone. Oh, and I have some free internet access on my discounted laptop I bought cheap with a volunteer discount.
Now I would LOVE to make more money, but lack marketable skills, lack the money to go back to school, and also lack a car and license, so I can't do Dave Ramsey's Deliver Pizzas gig.
Which reminds me, by the time I graduated high school, I had had two paper routes...so why do paper routes require a car these days?
Posted by: Terry | October 22, 2009 at 06:33 PM
Get another job she says! Where oh where would I get another job? My resumes go into an electronic black hole, and so do the resumes of my local friends.
A new restaurant opened here several months ago, the others recruited on Craigslist, received 1,000 resumes in three days, and removed the ad early.
Remember, I lack marketable skills...so I'm applying for a lot of menial (mostly restaurant) jobs...now what are the job prospects in a restaurant for someone over 50? Not so good!
Posted by: Terry | October 22, 2009 at 06:39 PM
@Terry
I don't know where you live, so I have no idea what's available. The unskilled positions I have worked were as a bowling alley attendent, a receptionist, telemarketing for University of Houston asking for donations (sorry to everybody I bothered), dealing fake money Black Jack for office parties, and office assistant. I got every single one of these by introducing myself to the manager directly. The telemarketing position was by far the easiest one to get since no one really enjoys calling people every evening...high turnover.
I have friends who worked at McDonald's for several years and quickly got promoted to management...they made more in those management positions than I do now. I also know two professional dog walkers. No college degrees for any of the above and you can find bus routes or whatever.
My husband's parents both work for SBC and neither one has a college degree.
If I got laid off right now, I'd get more involved in the Houston SPCA...they would keep me in mind if a position opened up since they already know me. Plus, all rescue organizations look for general workers all the time due to turnover. They pay at least $7.50 an hour for the animal assistants that pick up the poop and assist with adoptions. I actually do it for free, but I get to play with the dogs anytime I want as well.
Posted by: Crystal | October 22, 2009 at 08:22 PM
Old Limey -
Microsoft wrote BASIC? I was programming in BASIC around 1977, which I thought was pre-Microsoft.
Well I just looked it up, Microsoft was started in 1975 (obviously I don't know my Microsoft history) but BASIC originated at Dartmouth in 1964.
Posted by: Terry | October 23, 2009 at 02:01 PM