Increasing your net worth is fairly straight forward. Lower your expenses and/or increase your earnings. There’s only two ways to accomplish it. Although increasing your earnings has a much higher potential, the easiest way to start saving money is going to be through decreasing your expenses. For me, that means living like a poor person. Well, at least from the perspective of most people I talk to, but I don’t think I’m poor. As a young bachelor this isn’t much of a problem for me, in fact I find it exciting as it’s a challenge to see where I can cut costs and find ways to save more money. However, if you’re not all about decreasing your expenses for your entire life, you may be wondering… how long do I have to live like a poor person, until I become rich?
You’re Already Rich
I say this a lot, but if you’re living in America, Europe, or any other modern country you are most likely considered to be in the top percentage of the worlds inhabitants. You have a roof over your head, food on the table, and can afford your cable television (most of us). As a result, you’re not poor, you just don’t have as much stuff as you’d like. If you want more stuff you’re going to have to increase your revenue, but how long will that take?
It’s Not Going to Happen Overnight
Following the basic model of punching a clock 9-5 and getting paid bi-weekly you’re not going to get rich anytime soon. Of course it’s a predictable, easy path without many obstacles because time is on your side along with conservative investing. This is slow because everyone else is doing it and everyone else can’t make 20% on their investments this year either. If you continue to just punch a clock, you’re not going to get rich overnight.
The Double Sided Coin
I think of becoming wealthy as a two sided coin. On one side is your potential to make money and on the other is your ability to decrease your expenses, thus increasing your savings rate and/or free time.
The potential to make money has unlimited potential whereas the ability to decrease expenses is limited by your current situation and may be a relatively small number. It should come as no surprise that the downside is easier to work on (some may argue otherwise), because most of us don’t know how to easily increase our earnings in the short run. It’s much easier to simply not buy something than to create another income stream.
If you’re able to lower your expenses you’ll give yourself some wiggle room to play with financially. This is done through frugal living, which frugal living which gives you time to focus on the upside. If your lifestyle wipes out all your time and money, you won’t have any time or money to focus on making more money. Once you’ve appropriately accepted that you’re going to live like a “poor person” until your earnings begin to grow either by investment income, real estate, or through creating a business, you’ll remain relatively poor.
So the answer to the question of “how long do I have to act poor til I’m rich?” in my opinion, is based mostly on your ability to create additional streams of revenue that fulfill your own definition of becoming rich. This can be done more easily through frugal living which allows you the time and excess money to work on businesses that will allow those revenue streams to blossom. Learn how to create businesses and value for others and you won’t remain poor for long.
I really think that people don’t realize that they could have a lot more money if they just spent less of it or just spent money wisely. You don’t always need to make tons more money, maybe you just need to stop buying junk.
Great post! Just last night I took a HUGE step towards creating additional streams of income in that I applied for a second job! Yup, I’m probably going to be a part time car salesmen 3-4 times a week. I hear there is really good money in it, and I think after years of working in the restaurant industry, I should be good at it:) As far as cutting costs, I did this BIG TIME about a year ago. I went from paying about $700 a month for living expenses down to $200. I don’t exactly live as nicely now,… Read more »
Hey well said. It is the same with loosing weight. Eat less or move more. True, some people just spend too much money because they are so used to it. And they cannot understand how you can live like such a “poor” guy… ha ha
Hey Ryan, good to hear from you man.
I lived poor for about 3 years before I started to see some momentum and wealth creation. Hang in there, you’ll get to that richer feeling stage soon enough.
Hope all is well.
Best, Sam
.-= Financial Samurai´s last blog ..Buying Blogs- Selling Blogs- How I Built My Blogging Business =-.
i love that you point out if you live in the US, have a roof over your head and food that you are privileged. i feel this way every morning that i can take a warm shower, eat something and head off to my job.
i absolutely love that you make this point as so many people forget this every so often.
Hey Ryan,
Good article. I’m about to cut back on spending myself in the time I need to develop my own business. Thought more about the details of it today.
Just spent a month in Sri Lanka. People have a lot fewer possessions over there. Made me think about all the extra stuff I have but don’t use.
-Neal
.-= Monterey Marketing Lab (Neal)´s last blog ..Really Bad Powerpoint =-.
I think both have to happen in regards to cutting expenses and increasing income. Passive income streams via the internet sounds easy, but is much more difficult than most realize. But, it is something worth putting the time into. I have significantly reduced our expenses since downsizing out home. But also over the last years have increased my income on top of my job using the internet. It was the most significant thing that has left me debt free except for my small mortgage. Now I am at the point I have a big enough emergency fund to start investing.… Read more »
Very good points you made. Cutting back on expenses is easier to do, but you can only cut back so far. As for bringing in additional streams of income, it’s more challenging, but I think it’s easier to do now a days via the internet. You can sell things, post your services online (like mowing lawns, tutoring, building web sites), increase your revenue through affiliate links. As for living like a “poor man”, I think all of us have been there. Especially when we’re trying to save for a goal or just don’t have a lot of income to play… Read more »
Lowering your expenses and increasing your earnings are ways to increase your income, not your net worth. You can draw a parallel: the ways to increase your net worth are to buy assets and sell liabilities. “If you continue to just punch a clock, you’re not going to get rich overnight.” You won’t get rich in 40 years, either. Ryan’s right: finding passive income streams is the only way to build lasting wealth- well, that or inheriting. And even that’s a passive income stream. “Passive income stream” doesn’t mean working from home like the chick in the pajamas on the… Read more »
I think that the experience of acting poor also helps you separate out what part of spending matters to you and coincides with your values and what doesn’t. Comsumerism is insidious and it’s easy to end up with an alsmost automatic spending pattern. Although I never took on consumer debt and viewed my mortgage as something to be paid off, I did suffer from lifestyle inflation, until an unpleasant event forced me to look and retiring early. I discovered that my income far exceeds what I need to live a meaningful and enjoyable life, but I was frittering it away… Read more »
[…] Planting Dollars says we’re already rich if we’re living in America in How Long Do I Have to Act Poor Until I’m Rich? […]
The bursar office at law school used to say,
“Live like a lawyer during law school and when you get out you’ll live like how a law student should”
.-= Evan´s last blog ..Why You Should Try To Get the Smallest Tax Refund Possible =-.
Thanks for this nice post, Ryan! Pleasure to read you!
“This can be done more easily through frugal living which allows you the time and excess money to work on businesses that will allow those revenue streams to blossom.”
This is great advice. Create more wealth by spending less time on activities that drain your wealth, and more time on activities that enhance it.
.-= Darren´s last blog ..Save Money And Electricity – How To Build A Solar Oven =-.
[…] from Planting Dollars asked a great question a few weeks ago: How Long Do I Have to Act Poor Until I’m Rich? Then, last week, Free Money Finance wrote about balancing enjoying your money now versus […]
[…] early and have a good plan, it’ll make for a much better Christmas!Planting Dollars asks How Long Do I Have To Act Poor Till I’m Rich? The author states that the 2 ways to increase your net worth are by either lowering your […]
Sometimes we like to make it harder than it is. Live within your means. Find a way to create value for others to pay you for it. Discover the solutions that people are looking for to solve their problems, and they will pay you. 🙂
.-= Kristine´s last blog ..Free Budgeting Tools to Track Your Finances =-.
There are a couple of ways to approach this question. If it’s about living within your means until you can build up your income enough to be ‘rich’, than the answer depends on how long it will take to build up your income. This is the approach I prefer. If it’s instead about living BELOW your means now so you can live richly later, even if your income hasn’t necessarily grown much, than the answer (for most people) is probably not to try. It makes more sense to balance your spending over your lifetime than to back-load the majority of… Read more »
Well..uh … living rich is not about how much one spends as much as it is about how one spends. Also, in terms of peace of mind, it’s a lot better to be wealthy, that is, have a lot of assets compared to one’s expenses, than being rich, that is, having enough income to cover one’s expenses—as opposed to being broke which is the opposite of rich. Rich and broke and two sides of the same coin. The sides of the other coin are wealthy and poor. Hence, if you live poor, you’ll become wealthy. If you life rich …… Read more »
Hey Ryan,
what is going on? There’s no word from you for more than a month. Are you on vacation? Or maybe you became financially free but did not have time to share it with us yet 🙂 .
Anyways, you have a wonderful way of thinking and I would like to read more of you.
If you really want to cut your expenses to the bare minimum, consider van living. It may not sound like the ideal lifestyle, but if someone is determined, they could do it for at least a year or so, and save a ton of money on rent, utilities, gas. Think about it.
Larry
I like your comparison of different countries, Most people of the middle class in developed countries are “rich”, compared to middle class folks in other parts of the world.
.-= Mandeep´s last blog ..4 Tips- How are Meta Tags Used by Search Engines =-.
I completely disagree with that statement at the beginning. We are not all rich. People struggle everyday just to make ends meet. Plus the economy is down so its even harder for the average person to make ends meet, no less having a luxurious item such as cable. People are in tough times right now.
I would say to even act poor once you do achieve a level of wealth. The worst would be to fall back into debt and bad habits. Look at some of these famous athlete. Granted they didn’t act poor to get wealthy, but it’s so easy to go from rich to poor again.
Hey Ryan,
i believe frugal living is the best option. Frugal living don’t necessarily mean; living like a poor man. it’s just a matter of not spending foolishly.
.-= innocriss´s last blog ..Avoid impulse spending =-.
Ryan, are you coming back to this website?