WHAT TO DO WITH LOTS OF MONEY: PART 3

#thinklikearichperson
You’ve done OK in life, but you still dream of something better.
So, you play the lottery.
You know the odds are not in your favor, but you can’t win if you don’t play, right?
If you think like a rich person, as author Steve Siebold suggests, you would take the money you spend in lottery tickets and put it into an investment that will multiply over time. In other words, you’ll get rich slowly.
Then, there’s the matter of what you would do with the money if it were suddenly in your possession. If you think like a “middle class” person, as Siebold categorizes it, you would come up with ways to SPEND your newfound fortune. If you thought like a rich person, you would find ways to INVEST your newfound fortune.
The message here is that if you think like a middle-class person, your fortune will disappear relatively quickly. It seems ridiculous, at least to those who think like a rich person, that ANYONE could be given that kind of money and not make it last through his lifetime, and the lifetimes of his descendants or heirs.
You see, thinking like a rich person, you would take your windfall, place it in appropriate investments and spend SOME of the dividends, interest and capital gains. The rest of the gains would be reinvested.
If you think like a middle-class person, your instinct might be to give some of your fortune to your friends, so they can SPEND like they have never spent before. That might make you feel like a really good person.
But, if you think like a rich person, your first instinct might be to give some to reputable charities. You might give some to your family. But the only way you would give money to your friends is if your friends had good investments that you could get in on. You would probably never give money to friends to spend, knowing they would not spend it wisely.
So it’s not only your thoughts about making money that matter. Your thoughts about how you would use money matter just as much.
So where are your thoughts today? If it’s Monday, are you dreading another workweek? Or, are you seeing your job as a means to an end, because you are slowly building a fortune?
If you think that way, you’ll think of Mondays as one more day until your ultimate payday. If you like your job, or at least have found enough things to like about it to make it relatively pleasant to go to work, it will make building your fortune that much easier.
So how does a “middle class” or working person build a fortune? First, you have to have a regular savings plan. Have money taken out of your check – it doesn’t matter how much or little you make – regularly to go into savings. Then, don’t touch it, unless you are buying into a superior investment. Let it grow for as long as you work.
Also, as Siebold suggests, perhaps you can find a vehicle that will allow you to build a fortune without interfering with your job. There are many such vehicles out there. For one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You’ll see lots of former “middle class” folks who learned to revise their thinking, and could tell their employers goodbye quite early in life.
In short, thoughts matter, especially thoughts about money. Give first priority to growing money, second priority to help others grow money and third priority on spending money – wisely. Even if you don’t have much money now, thinking that way will provide you an eventual fortune.
Peter