Get Rich Quick!

http://mmmlife.com/2006/08/get-rich-quick/

I want to be rich and retired and happy. You probably do too. At this moment thousands of people are thinking about how they can get richer, faster.

The real secret is this: getting rich is easy. Very easy. My easy, 2-step process goes something like this:
Work
Don’t spend anything

Its really a pretty simple equation. The money you have = What you make - What you spend. And for most of us, the “What you spend” category is right up there with “What you make”. So the simple solution is obviously to not spend anything.

Hungry? Find some free bread at La Madeline’s Thirsty? There’s a water fountain. Rent? Live in a cheaper neighborhood with several roommates. Entertainment? TV is free. Internet? Go to the library. Sick? Robutissin! (Chris Rock)

Its sort of sucky really that too many of my friends seem to be caught up in getting rich. You feel like you’re doing the right thing, being frugal, saving money, putting it away, depriving yourself a little bit, knowing that in 35 years you’ll have a nice nest egg.

But that’s in 35 years, and in the meantime, you’re really paying for it in life.

So let me qualify my comment above: I want to be rich, but not if it comes at the expense of happiness and fun in my life. Frugality is fun for a bit, but not when it takes over and becomes the driving force in your personal finances. The driving force in my life is the desire to go out, smile, affect other people, and enjoy this one life I’m living right now.

This is hardly a license to burn through your money or not save. You need to keep putting money in your retirement accounts. Don’t be an idiot about how you spend your money. But do not seriously deprive yourself today in the name of a larger retirement fund in the far future.

A habit of extravagance will hurt you, but you need to make sure your enjoying life today too, or its really not worth it. The extra Starbucks coffee isn’t going to make or break the retirement account.

Do some honest self-reflection to ask yourself what things you really want in life. You can get to “financially rich” faster than everyone else in the race if you don’t spend at all, but its probably not worth it. Ask yourself which things really matter to you and which things don’t. Learning to cut back on things you really don’t need will finance the things you really want without eating into your retirement account.

Deprivation will drive you to misery faster than it will to retirement.