We’re all in this game to make money. Am I right? I mean, some of you might read this blog because you find it interesting even if you don’t make money on the net, and that’s fine. But truth be told, this blog exists to serve those of you who are trying to make money online. Even myself, for whom this blog is only a side hobby to compliment my already successful career, it’s still all about the money.
Because of that obvious fact, I thought it would be pertinent to take a second to write something a bit out of the ordinary. Instead of discussing code, or black-hat techniques, or get rich quick schemes, let’s talk about something simple and eschew regular discussion of internet and technology all together: Let’s talk about wealth.
The concept of wealth applies to all of us, whether we are considered ‘wealthy’ or not, and regardless of where and how we accumulated said wealth. Personally, the overwhelming majority of my wealth has been made in the real estate industry, not the Internet. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. A wise man diversifies. And for me, the Internet has been one of my ways of diversifying.
Here’s the thing: Becoming wealthy ain’t complicated. Determining the air-speed velocity of African Swallow is complicated. That sort of thing involves all sorts of mathematics and calculation. Becoming wealthy, however, requires little more then a solid knowledge of the basics: addition & subtraction.
Granted, I am oversimplifying for the sake of argument. One must always have that tipping point idea before they can begin to start adding to their wealth instead of constantly subtracting. But bare with me here. Given the claim that the accumulation of wealth requires little more then the ability to do simple math, the reason more people aren’t wealthy is simple: they don’t know when to add, and they don’t know when to subtract.
The secret to wealth is this: Spend less than you earn.
The more you earn and the less you spend, the richer you become.
This sounds like basic common sense right? If I have two apples and I give Suzy one of them, then I’ve only got one apple left for myself. So why don’t we have more wealthy people? Why is the Canadian national savings rate so low? Well, it’s for the same reason that last years gross personal expenditure on consumer goods topped 880 billion with a gross personal income of 782 billion.
It’s because people don’t actually want to be wealthy. People want to appear wealthy. People want to make their friends and neighbors jealous. People want to live beyond their means.
It’s this overwhelming need to appear rich that keeps people from actually becoming rich. This is one of the top reasons why people aren’t wealthier. They get caught in this crazy cycle of spending and consuming, they fall for the marketing, buy the latest trends, need the newest cell phone, and guess what?? I bet those people have no clue of what their net worth really is, or even how to calculate it. These are people who will never become wealthy.
Another reason, especially applicable for all you internet marketers out there, is the idea of being able to get rich quick. The idea of getting in, scraping major cash, and getting out is a massive communal pipedream shared by millions of people. It just doesn’t happen often enough to base a business on it. If you were to pitch me a business plan that hinges on winning the lottery, or a perfect hand in a game of cards, I’d be tempted to smack you in the face. Why? Because you need to wake up to the fact that it ain’t gonna happen. I haven’t crunched the statistics, but I feel confident in saying that you stand a better chance of getting struck by lighting on a clear cloudless day then you do becoming rich quickly.
You can’t bank on luck, and you can’t expect luck to pay the bills. Saving is the only surefire way to become rich. But it ain’t that glamorous is it? Today’s internet entrepreneur who has had a taste of success doesn’t want to save, he wants to spend more to make more; he wants to gamble.
Eventually, this will bite him in the ass. You see, the beauty of saving is that it doesn’t matter what you do with your money as long as you don’t spend it. Further, the beauty of saving is that every month, the more you save, the richer you become. It’s a system of accumulating wealth that is literally free from danger. It’s foolproof.
To truly become wealthy, you must develop a strong balance between saving your money, and living a quality of lifestyle that works for you. Once you’ve developed that healthy habit and have stopped consuming products that you don’t need, well, you’ll be way ahead of the majority of the population and at that point you’ll understand what wealth truly is.
Wealth isn’t your car, your clothes or your phone. Wealth isn’t how you spend your money; it’s how you save it that counts.
I hope you guys enjoyed this post. I know it’s very out of the orindary for me, but I have alot more to talk about then just scraping and spamming (even though I do love scraping and spamming!!!) Leave a comment and let me know what you thought. I promise that next week I’ll get back on it with some more technical SEO stuff.
great post Rob.. allot of people are this way, especially in Orange County where I live. Its sickening to see how people are constantly trying to out-do each other. Its sad actually.. It would be good to point out that saving can also mean, investing. Investing in mutual funds, and or something else which is safe and will give you a return on your $.
This is definitely out of character for your blog, BUT it IS excellent advice for all of us. Unfortunately the "get-rich-quick-or-else-it's-not-worth-it" mentality is so prevalent today that you wonder where the work ethic has gone.
I really like what you say about people not wanting to become rich, but rather people wanting to appear as though they are rich. That is so sadly true.
You have to put the time and effort in to get returns, and once you get those returns, you have to spend them wisely and always remember to put something aside. My number one rule is don't spend money that you don't have! It's just not worth it.
Thanks for this post. It was a nice break!
Now back to scraping and all that good stuff
Let's make some money!!
Nice post man, very insightful. I'm currently paying the price of the last 10 years of spending more than I've earned so definately understand what you're saying!
I'm not bothered about appearing wealthy (although I can't resist gadgets!) and really not concerned about being wealthy – not in the financial sense anyway. I'm a lazy fucker though, so lay off the work as soon as I think I'm making enough cash… and usually get it wrong. Same problem, just rather than over-spending it's under-earning.
Maybe I'm wrong, but money in itself isn't worth anything, it has no value. It's what you can do with the money that has value. Money is just a means to an end, nothing more. I don't see any point in accumulating wealth just for it's own sake.
By the way, the html comments are great, but it seems to kill the Firefox spell checker!
Take it easy.
Damn, it was worth to visit your blog from time to time, this is a really impressive article!
I wish I was as fluent as you in English, and I'd try to copy you *g
Best Regards, Benjamin
Thanks for this post. I love reading your other stuff but this is really helpful. I am going to link to you from my blog because I think that what you've written here is the foundation for making money and making every penny count!
Interesting and glad you said it! Two of the most successful people I know work very mundane 9 to 5 type jobs. How they have handled their money over a number of years have made them quite well off. Self denial, and postponing graification can make anyone rich. Just try once to save cash for a purchase instead of using a credit card. Thats a very foreign idea to most people.
Yeap, good points. Once you do have some money, remember to put it to work. IRA or 401 ks are awesome for the lazy investor. Pick a fund that mirrors one of the major indeces and you should be ok. I started investing in 2000 and have had an average return of 11% to date. The beauty of this is you don't really have to do anything, except be disciplined.
What a load of crap this post is.
Appearing wealthy is more true an indicator of your wealth, then how many dollars you have in the bank. On one level your appearence (of wealth and everything else) is the more true reality. You are the story that is told about you. This story can be in your own mind or in the minds of others. [b]You[/b] are a meme.
The idea of gettting rich is the objective of getting richer than those in your social circle, or the social circle that you want to be in. Dollar bills give you a greater social latitude. In general wealthy people have access to more people than poor people have (given the same social status). But money and social status is intimently combined, like beauty and status. Those with money almost always have social status. For instances, of course, all women are attracted to, all else being equal, men with higher status. Beautiful women and rich man; no accedent.
So a dollar bill in the bank doesn't lead to wealth at all, it just doesn't make you any poorer directly. However, it is a net lose in terms of opportunity costs. Your neighbor that spent the same dollar to gain status has won over you, but he has also been beaten by the man who took that same dollar, turned it into two, and then spent 1 for the status, and still has the next to make another dollar to spend.
So what of status? Status is social latitude. Happiness is having pleasure from purpose. And if you don't have the status nessary to influence those around you, then what is your purpose? If you can benefit no-one (as a low status person must), then how do you plan to gain happiness?
A dollar bill in the bank brings your neither purpose nor pleasure, nor does it give you the power to have influence and further your purpose.
Wealth is the most likely road to making your life a masterpiece, your life is the story that is told about you, you are your story.
Don't put dollar bills i the bank, either spend them for pleasure or purpose/status or INVEST them in something that will make you MORE THAN YOUR NEIGHBORS.
captcha: insistence this
Excellent Post Rob. I think that there is a void in the Internet Marketing arena of some basic, wealth-building tips. As an affiliate marketer, I would consider this a pretty "easy" time to be making money — I don't take it for granted, and I put away as much as I can. I think it helps that I'm also a finance guy, but you message is definitely one that many internet marketers can find value in.
In order to build wealth, it is not simply enough to spend less than what you earn and put it into a bank, but invest those dollars in a way it brings you regular cash flow, that can be reinvested. Rob, your advise is very short sited. For instance if you purchase a house that you can rent for $300 dollars more than what you pay for it then you create cash flow. then you can turn around and purchase multiple houses that will bring you more cash flow. then in turn with that gain you can invest in additional assets. that is the secret to building wealth and also be able to afford a standard of living that you feel comfortable in. in the beginning you must start with saving and spending less than what you earn. but you must look at the long picture. "Cash Flow"
Rob,
You are so right with your comments. This is my first time reading one of your blogs and it made me look at myself square in the face. I make a great living but I've realized I'm not building wealth. That is all about to change!
By the way, The Holy Grail reference sold me!
Junk No, not bonds. Even bonds backed by sub-prime mortgages have some value, maybe more than people think I’m calling your attention to your junk, the kind that had no value from the day you acquired it. It’s the junk consumer goods you’ve bought over the years. Look around your house, from basement to attic and see the sheer mass of junk you’ve bought over the last 10, 20 or 30 years. Recall, painful though it is, how much you paid for stereo system after stereo system, Bose speakers, Sony Trinitron TV’s, Panasonic flat screen digital TV’s, kitchen gadgets from Williams Sonoma. Recall how you rationalized making all of these purchases as “investments” when at the time you bought them you knew better.
Think of the cars you’ve bought, the excise taxes you’ve paid to have them on the road, the insurance premiums and the frequent and costly repairs.
Thank of what you’ve spent in restaurants on inflated meal prices and on clothes you almost never wore.
Think of the so-called jewelry you’ve bought. The jewelry industry does a real number on you with this, setting up selling areas with lavish appointments and intense lighting. One of the great con jobs of all time was that pulled off by 19th century raconteur Cecil Rhoades (remember Rhodesia?). He acquired control of famed diamond mines in South Africa and created the myth, perpetuated to this day by DeBeers, that diamonds are scarce. What a joke, but think of the number who fall for it every day. If you think jewelry is somehow “different” and is an “investment”, just try selling a piece back to the jeweler who sold it to you or to any other. Just try it.
Think of all the money you’ve earned over your career and think of how much of it you have left. You’ve probably lost nearly all of it. Where did it do? It was spent on junk. The consequence is that, while you may have earned more than $1 million or even $2 million, you have little or nothing to show for it, other than a pile of AMEX receipts for junk. AMEX and its shareholders did well off of you. How well did you do?
Retailers now call upon you to corral your credit cards and start spending again. That’s good for them. How good it is it for you or your family? As Suze Orman has pointed out time and time again, we, in this country, are in deep trouble not because we spend too little but because we spend too much.
Now, for the real pain. The price to be paid for all the good times you’ve had and the junk you’ve purchased can be calculated. I’m sure you are familiar with AFLAC, the insurance company whose products are endorsed by a duck. Ho much do you think you’d have today had you invested $10,000 in AFLAC stock in October, 1980? The answer is over $2.3 million. That’s right, had you never saved another cent, never created an IRA, never participated in a 401(k), but had had the good sense to have skipped a car or two or maybe a few years’ purchases of clothes that went to the Salvation Army years ago, and instead had purchased AFLAC stock, you’d have over $2 million today, and that’s down from nearly $4 million due to Wall street’s recent slide. $10,000 was a fair amount of money in October 1980, but you know you have spent far, far more on junk. By the way, the AFLAC stock would be about 50,000 shares paying over $50,000 annually in cash dividends.
Think what you’d have if in addition to buying the AFLAC stock you had created and funded an IRA and had participated in your employer’s 401(k).
It’s never too late to break bad habits, habits that harm us. I don’t care what situation you face…you will always stand a better chance of obtaining a better outcome if you have money. We’re well into the liquidation of the bad debt of the early part of the 21st century. Mark my words, there will be more bad debt cycles to come. Resolve today that you will no longer be the pawn in a game calculated to keep you poor and in debt. Resolve to separate your wants from your needs and to stop buying things you don’t need. Do you really need premium cable channels for which you receive a massive cable bill each month? Do you really need all the clothes you buy? Do you really think that jewelry is an investment? If you buy it at an auction conducted by Christie’s, Skinner or Sotheby’s and its can be established as having belonged to James I, Catherine the Great, or Nicholas Romanov, maybe it’s an investment. If not, I submit it’s likely more junk. Expensive watches are in the same category. The watch makers dummy up “auctions” where they secretly bid on their own merchandise so as to create the impression that watches are an investment. For them they are. For you, they are junk. Just try selling one. Just try it.
When you buy so-called “designer” goods, you are simply signing to pay more for something you certainly didn’t need but were convinced you had to buy to seem “cool”. You end up ever further into credit card or other debt and the “so-called “designer” ends up even better ensconced in Palm Beach. Good deal for him; possibly fatal for you.
When you don’t have money, you don’t have power. What you want is nether here nor there. Someone with money will tell you what you can have, what you must do and what you can’t have and what you can’t do. If that state of affairs appeals to you, keep doing what you’re doing. When you reach age 67, you’ll have less net worth than a high school kid and you may be working for one.
If you want your son to be able to apply to Stanford or your granddaughter to Yale and to be able to do so on the basis that no financial aid is requested, then change your habits today. The colleges would deny it, but you know the chances of acceptance are better if the applicant is not raiding the school’s endowment.
Stop buying things you don’t need and stop using credit cards.
You have no patriotic duty to be broke. Let your neighbors be the ones to buy products from the companies whose stocks you own. With some modest effort, you can begin building a portfolio today that will include shares in a sufficiently broad range of companies so that there will be almost nothing that other people can do that won’t in one way or another make money for you.
Oh, you say, who’d head of AFLAC in 1980? Granted, it was a far less well known company then. OK, let’s vary the example. I’m sure you’ve heard of Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic. $10,000 invested in Johnson & Johnson stock in 1980 would be worth $500,000 today. Invested in Medtronic in 1985, the result would be $600,000, and that’s after the current sell-off. It’s not the AFLAC $2 million, but it’s more than your junk is worth and it’s liquid.
Eat at home, stay out of bar rooms and malls, make your own coffee, make do with the clothes you have, cancel premium cable subscriptions. You’d be surprised what you can do without, and so doing is a very small price to pay for possibly becoming a millionaire. You may be the first on your block to do so. Keep in mind that the people who live near you, the ones who keep a low prolife, have old clothes and an older car, may have beaten you to it. What if they heard of AFLAC in 1980 or bought Microsoft at an adjusted cost of 10 cents per share in 1986? You just never know, do you?
Resolve today to learn something from this crisis, something that will benefit you and your family for all time. $1 million is not misplaced; it is lost $50 at a time. I close by quoting Jonathan Pond, CPA and lecturer on many PBS programs dealing with building personal wealth. “Your best dollar is the one you don’t spend”.
Richard E. Savoy
Boston, MA