Money – it’s a long term thing.
When I was growing up [1970’s] you either had to be a movie or tv star or have inherited wealth – I don’t remember business being a thing. Of course, I am sure that’s not right, there is plenty of evidence to suggest and support that there were business owners that made money during this period (Alan Sugar seems to be one).
Instant riches could be had by winning the Football Pools – 8 score draws from ten seemed to ring a bell – never really understood gambling. Now, we have the National Lottery – something like a 58 million to one chance of you not winning – yet still, people play in the hope of a big win.
Those that do win big, don’t tend to hang on to it for long – with three to five years of living the high life – before it’s all spent. It was the same with the football pools all those years ago.
Instant riches seem to vanish as quickly as they arrive, and there is a reason for that. Money needs to be managed, having money is a responsibility, it takes time to learn how to work with it and how to get it working for you.
When you can have anything you want, there is a human tendency to have whatever you want and to have that now.
For most of us the only thing that holds us back is the lack of cash, a quick win would seem to solve that problem overnight. Result, drink, drugs and unhappiness soon follow. That is the pattern and our history is littered with stories about people becoming wealthy and losing it very quickly.
Fact is, money – having a lot of money is a burden of a kind.
Also, the fact is not having money is a burden of a kind – only I suggest that not having any money is more of a burden than having it. I don’t know – without some perspective, it’s hard to work out which is the worst (Christina Onanis, her bio was called ‘all the pain money can buy, which seems to indicate that money is not always a positive thing).
With that in mind, and based on my experience with money and managing it for clients is this.
Bad money habits creep up on you – you could be a millionaire but if you overspend for any period of time you will soon end up in the poor house.
Spending hard-earned money on stuff that goes down in value is one sure way to the poor house – stuff is tech, cars, partying – none of this goes up and value and you have to trade your life in order to obtain them (it’s called work).
Your money must work for you, a sure-fire way to end up unhappy is to invest in things that don’t pay you an income. Markets fall and rise, there is no real way to time your purchase of an investment and it’s future performance is always out of your control – if you buy shares in Microsoft today – you are hoping you are able to sell them back to the market for a higher price at some stage in the future.
Reality is, all of this takes good habits, discipline and knowledge of money principles.
This is what I teach over here at MoneyTrainers.co.uk along with a number of happiness principles – that one day will be taught in all schools.
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Until next time.
Richard
PS You Can Borrow My Brain – One Stop To End Financial Madness