Miscellaneous Essays

Wealth Building for Beginners (Even if You Are Not Young Anymore)*

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3.-Your Invitation to the “$150,000 Club”

In the last installment https://www.markford.net/wealth-building-for-beginners-even-if-you-are-not-young-anymore-2 of this series, I told you how I got started on my own wealth-building journey. I hope it amused you. Looking back at it now, I can see that the ratio I kept between foolish and sound habits was about 2 to 1. But that was enough. I hope it comforts you to know that you can do most things wrong (as perhaps your parents and teachers always reminded you was your habit) and still become as wealthy as you need to be!

The second thing I did was to introduce you to a very simple and crazily powerful wealth secret that most high earners never follow: As your income increases (and it will!), you must resist the urge to ratchet up your spending accordingly.

And thirdly, I shared with you one of the most important insights about wealth that I ever learned. Luckily for me, I learned it when I was still relatively young. (In my early thirties.)

That insight was this: You need a lot less than you probably think to live a rich life: A lot less wealth. And also a lot less yearly income to acquire that wealth.

As for income… If you can get your income above $150,000 a year and simultaneously curb your enthusiasm for expensive toys, your chances of one day retiring wealthy are about 99.9 percent.

As for how much “money” you’ll need to sock away… A very rough number would be about 12 to 15 times the amount of money you’d need right now to lead a rich life.

If you can get your income up to $150,000 or beyond (and as I will show you that is quite easy to do if you are willing to put in the right sort of time) and if you can save 20 percent to 30 percent of that (which is very possible if you manage your finances as I’ll suggest), you will arrive one day at a net worth of between $3 million and $30 million.

And that – if you know how to spend your money – will be enough to provide a great, rich life for you and your family.

Before we move forward on that, you have to answer one question…

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From My Work-in-Progress Basket

One Thing & Another

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Word for the Wise

 Retrodict (ret-roh-DIKT) – to use present information to explain or reinterpret or revise knowledge of the past. Example from Jamie Whyte in The Wall Street Journal: “Many are impressed by the fact that climate models can ‘retrodict’ climatic change – that is, use past climatic data (say, from the 1860s) to predict climatic data from the less-distant past (say, from the 1920s). They should not be.”

Did You Know… ?

Top speed skaters can reach 37 miles per hour.

 

From My “Work-in-Progress” Basket

Principles of Wealth: #7 of 61

Every virtue has its opposite vice. The opposite of common sense is foolishness. The opposite of commitment is equivocation. The opposite of persistence is inconsistency.

In understanding what it takes to build wealth, it’s helpful to consider human habits in these terms.

You can make most business and investment decisions, for example, by applying a bit of common sense. Don’t act on facts you cannot verify. Don’t put all your trust in brokers and salespeople, even if they are trustworthy. Avoid investments you don’t completely understand – and if you ignore that rule, don’t invest more money than you are willing to lose. If you put all your money into buying a bridge in the desert and lose it all… well, that’s just foolish.

When it comes to investment strategies (in stocks or bonds or whatever), countless studies have shown that being consistent – sticking to a sensible strategy over a long period of time – is much more likely to make you rich than jumping from one strategy to another depending on what’s going on with the market or what’s going on in your head.

And when it comes to building wealth through a business enterprise or by developing a profession, getting to work early each morning and working steadily till the work is done – even in the face of challenges and disappointments – is not just important but essential.

From my book How to Speak Intelligently About Everything That Matters https://smile.amazon.com/Speak-Intelligently-About-Everything-Matters

In ancient Greece, plays were performed in huge, open-air theaters, and most people sat far away from the action. To help the audience keep track of what was going on onstage, actors wore masks with exaggerated facial expressions. That made it easier to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys, the masters from the slaves, and the male characters from the female characters. (Keep in mind that all the parts were played by men.) And when something about a character’s appearance or emotions changed (e.g., when Oedipus blinded himself), it could be quickly portrayed – even to the folks in the back row – by the actor donning a new mask.

This theatrical convention is represented today by two iconic images: the laughing mask of comedy and the weeping mask of tragedy.

Look at This…

 https://biggeekdad.com/2018/01/hiking-continental-divide-trail/

 

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