The secret to becoming wealthy

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The Secret to Becoming Wealthy!
(And eliminating financial stress)

by: Keith Rawlinson
Volunteer Budget Counselor

Do the rich know things that most of us don't? Is there a secret to becoming wealthy?

The answer to both of these questions is ‘sort of.'

Let's start with the first question: do the rich know things that most of us don't? I say ‘sort of ' because it is not so much that the rich KNOW things that most of us DON'T, it is more that the rich DO things that most of us WON'T. Are there some things the rich know that most of us don't? Well, maybe, but those are not the things that made them wealthy. The things that made the rich wealthy are very simple concepts available to anyone in the United States today. In other words, you do not need a fancy, ivy-league college education. In fact, you don't even need a college education–come to think of it, you could do the things that made the rich wealthy with very little education. Technically, if you can add and subtract, you can do what the rich do to become wealthy!

What about the second question: is there a secret to becoming wealthy? The answer to this question is also ‘sort of,' because there are steps to take and things to do to become wealthy, but these things hardly qualify as secrets. The fact is that these so-called ‘secrets' are so not secrets, that they have been around for thousands of years! These concepts for handling money are so simple that ANYONE can follow them and come out ahead financially. Want to start dealing with financial stress and working toward becoming wealthy? Then read on...

A Big Part Of The Secret To Eventually Becoming Wealthy.

First of all, you need to know that these concepts for handling money are not mine. I did not come up with any of these, they have been around for a very long time. So, you are not taking financial advice from some guy writing an article about getting wealthy; you are taking financial advice that has been true since the beginning of time.

So, what do these ancient concepts direct us to do to become wealthy? Probably the most important concept about dealing with money, and one of the first and most important steps to becoming wealthy, deals with debt. Even writings as old as the Bible tell us that debt is a bad idea:

‘The rich rule over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender' Proverbs 22:7

‘Pay everyone what you owe...' Romans 13:7

'Let no debt remain outstanding...' Romans 13:8

Romans 13:8 says to not let debt remain outstanding. Not letting debt remain outstanding, in my opinion, means to pay it off and get out from under it as quickly as possible. Why is eliminating debt such an important step to becoming wealthy? Well, if you have a lot of debt, then you must be making a lot of payments. If you have a lot of payments, then you are giving your money to others instead of keeping it yourself. If you are paying a lot of your money out to other people in the form of payments rather than keeping it, how will you ever build up money to save, invest and become wealthy? Becoming wealthy has to start somewhere. It starts with having money left over each pay so you have money to save and build up into wealth. If, after living expenses, all of your leftover money is going out in the form of payments, you will never have the money you will need to deal with financial stress and start the journey to becoming wealthy. You keep money for yourself by having as few payments as possible; and you have as few payments as possible by eliminating and not taking on debt.

Debt leads to financial stress and keeps you from becoming wealthy.

Don't believe that debt keeps you from becoming wealthy? Then try this: add up ALL of the payments you make every month such as credit card payments, car payments, home equity loan payments, same-as-cash payments, layaway payments, student loan payments and; just for the fun of it; your mortgage payment if you have one. Now, imagine putting that amount into a bank account each and every month and never spending any of it. Take that amount and multiply it by120. That is how much you would have in ten years if you had no debt and your bank paid no interest whatsoever. So if you have, for example, $1,300 per month going out in debt payments, you would have $156,000 in ten years even if your money earned no interest

Got 20 years until retirement? Multiply your monthly debt payments by 240 to see what you would have at retirement if your bank paid absolutely no interest. In our example of $1,300 per month, you would have $312,000.

Consider this: The average car payment in the U.S. at the time of this writing is around $378 per month. Let's say you eliminate just your car debt and put that payment into a decent Growth Stock Mutual Fund instead. Here's what would happen:

In 10 years you would have around $76,000.

In 20 years you would be getting close to $300,000.

All from eliminating just your car payment and saving the money instead! Could you start to deal with your financial stress if you had that kind of money laying around?

What about investing it?

Now, what if you eliminated ALL of the debts we mentioned previously? No payments whatsoever would leave the average family in the U.S. today with somewhere around $2,000 per month extra. If we put that into a good Growth Stock Mutual Fund, which is a very good place to invest your extra money, then this happens:

In 10 years you would have around $400,000

In 20 years you would have about 1.5 million dollars!

Sure looks to me like debt is a bad idea that leads to financial stress and keeps us from becoming wealthy.

Another Part Of The Secret To Eventually Becoming Wealthy.

In order to have any chance of eliminating financial stress, getting ahead financially and eventually becoming wealthy, you have to live on less than you make. This simply means that you have to be spending less money than you are bringing in. We have already talked about how debt takes away our chance to become wealthy; well, you have to have at least a little extra money to start dealing with debt, and spending less than you make is how you do that. Spending less than you make is also how you make sure that you have money set aside to pay bills, deal with financial emergencies and eventually invest to build wealth. Plainly and simply, you have to plan and control your spending. The only truly effective way I know of to do that is by creating a spending plan. 'Spending plan' is just another way to say budget. You have to decide, in advance, how your hard-earned money will, and will not, be spent. Once you have created and implemented a well-designed spending plan, YOU now have control of your money. Trust me, wealthy people have a plan and they follow it. Otherwise, they would not be wealthy very long, if they got there at all.

So, here it is,

The secret to becoming wealthy:

Get out of debt, live on less than you make, then save and invest as much as you can.

Simple? Yes. Easy? No. But that really is all there is to becoming wealthy. This is how the Bible tells us to do it. This is how the rich did it. This is how I'm doing it. This is how you can do it too.

How To Get Started.

So, how do we apply the secret to becoming wealthy to our own lives?

Read the rest of the numbered articles in which I take you through the steps to becoming wealthy. These articles will teach you how to create a spending plan, eliminate debt and be well on the road to becoming wealthy.

Want to become wealthy? Want to remove the pressure of financial stress from your life? Then read everything offered here on Eclecticsite.com's Financial Page, learn the steps and techniques, then put them into practice in your own life. Thanks to the techniques I teach here on the Financial Page, my wife and I are now completely debt free--including the mortgage on our home! I'm not asking you to do anything I haven't already done myself.

Why am I providing all of this information for free? Because I truly believe it is a God-given purpose in my life to help people both materially and spiritually. I'm not talking about anything weird here, it's just that I have belonged to Jesus Christ since I was ten years old, and the things I believe, teach me that it is one of my responsibilities to help others and make at least a little difference in the world. I have always had a knack for handling money, so that seemed like a good place for me to start a ministry. The Financial Page is that ministry. Money stress destroys marriages, family relationships, friendships, and lives. It has been my experience that it is very difficult for people to think very deeply about a relationship with family members, or with Jesus Christ, when they are drowning in debt and worried about their financial future. Money is the number one cause of divorce in America today; so, if I can help people to eliminate the financial stress from their lives, there is a much better chance that they will be better able to think about marriages, family relationships, friendships and spiritual things. You notice that I do not sell advertising space here on The Financial Page. The only things I'm willing to sell here on The Financial Page are things that I truly believe in which would help people accomplish the things I teach here. Also, I refuse to accept any money for my counseling services. That's how I make sure that my motives never change. I have been very blessed in my life, and I'm more than happy to pay for, and maintain, Eclecticsite.com's Financial Page out of my own pocket.

So, when it comes to getting on the road to becoming wealthy, you now know what to do, but you still have to learn how to do it. To start learning that, go on to the next numbered article.

To learn a lot more about saving, investing, eliminating debt and becoming wealthy, please read the articles on the Financial Page. There, you will find a veritable treasure of what to do and how to do it.

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This article copyright © 2007 by Keith C. Rawlinson (Eclecticsite.com). All rights reserved.
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