Money can’t buy you love or happiness. Although it can buy a good deal of pleasure and plenty of other things as well as being able to remove a lot of unhappiness. Money on it’s own is clearly not wealth, although in this book wealth and money are pretty much synonymous.
This author likes lists, the book is in fact just a large list, with 107 about managing your money then nine about managing other people’s money.
These are the ten things which people most seem to want to spend their money on:
1. Security. A home of your own and enough money in the bank to support you in the way you want, plus a bit in hand for emergencies, and a big enough pension to ensure a comfortable retirement.
2. Comfort.
3. Luxuries.
4. Mobility. Ideally first-class travel.
5. Status. Prestigious invitations, access to important people and exclusive clubs.
6. Influence. As a generous donor of substantial sums, you can make sure that your views are taken seriously.
7. Freedom. Not being dependent on employers, bosses, creditors, clients, customers. Not being a slave to the calendar, diary or clock.
8. Leisure. Time to do the things you want, go where you want, meet who you want, when you want.
9. Popularity. Being able to entertain friends, acquaintances and contacts frequently and generously, which does wonders for your social life.
10. Philanthropy. Being able to make regular and substantial donations, which gives you the satisfaction of helping people, supporting organizations and furthering causes you believe in.
Think wealthy, get wealthy then get even wealthier. To do this it is important to carry out regular financial health checks. It is important to remember forgetting a debt doesn’t pay it!
Need to actually think through your finances and plan this. If you see money as the solution it becomes the problem. If you put aside more than you need the left overs become the savings.
Watch how someone read their newspaper – which paper select and which sections do you read first. If you want to make money aim for the more serious paper and read money and business sections first.
Don’t over protect your children from the valuable experience of poverty and learning from this. When other people have money they can spend it how they like, this is particularly true for your parents.
How we think about wealth might be holding us back from having wealth. If, in our heart, we believe
(even subconsciously) that money is a bad thing and having lots and lots of it is a really bad thing, then chances are we might be undermining our own efforts, unwittingly, to get lots of it.
The more effort you are prepared to put into making money the more you will get. Aim to achieve a simple system that works for you saving a certain percentage of your income. Obtain this percentage by thinking through your possible needs and changes that will occur.
Learn the art of negotiation, which involved making the other person feel they are getting as much as you are from a transaction. Always know your bottom line, what it is you want and aim for a win/win situation. Be prepared to give up things to secure other things – be flexible and fluid and know as much as possible before you start as knowledge is power in negotiation situations.
Make your finance decisions wisely, be sensible with considered thought. Then take action and get on with investing.
Think long term, gaining wealth is a slow process. If you get it all quickly you have no time to acquire experience and sense. Too quickly and it’ll be all ‘spend, spend, spend’. Wealth happens slowly over a period of time, when you turn surplus cash into something that will work for you.
Don’t borrow money unless you really have to.
Keep working harder than anyone around you, only at the very end is enough is enough and it is time to start giving it away – not when starting out and achieving some success.
See others as the people they are, not for how much money they have. Money can change a few people for the worse, but so can fame or kids or promotion or drugs. Most people are just themselves, whether they happen to have loads or nothing at all. So try to see others for who they are and not for what they have.
Take action with your money. Think like a samurai – they lived by a simple creed – no hesitation, no doubt, no surprise, no fear. Once you have decided on a course of action (or battle or combat) then
be committed; know everything you need to know about it, don’t be afraid and get on with it as quickly as possible.
