How to Become Rich

We know that spending is more pleasurable than saving. But we also know that nobody ever gets wealthy through spending.

Wealth building is preceded by money preservation.

Those who have a spending mindset find money disappearing from them. On the other hand, those who have a money preservation mindset are not scarce of it.

Can a money preservation mindset be developed by those who have a spending one? Here are some techniques that one can use with patience.

Self ridicule on expenditure

Catch yourself spending money foolishly and feel bad. For example, leaving your coins on the change plate in a restaurant in the guise of tipping isn’t clever.

Why would you want to pay other people’s employees more money for work they are employed to do? If you are such generous and appreciative, why don’t you tip your house girl each day you find she has handled your child well? Or the watchman who guards you at night as you sleep?

Misplaced generosity smacks of an inferiority complex. You want to be recognised as generous. But are you? What of tipping a parking boy upfront to watch over your car?

How many times have you ever found the boy still guarding your car by the time you are back? You paid for false feeling of security.

Skip the boy and take the coins to your daughter’s piggy bank and teach her how to save. If single, open a piggybank for all coins of the day.

Associate certain words with negative tendencies and they will pop up at the right time

For example, pick the word pig alongside eating. The magic is that when you join your friends after work, planning to devour kilos of meat and chicken while supper is waiting for you at home, it is likely the word pig will pop up and you will remember there is no need to waste food.

It works in other areas, so it can work with money and spending. Perhaps many people keep off promiscuity because the word HIV keeps popping at the right moment.

Be happy when you are described as mean

Mean is synonymous with being careful with money. Ordinarily, people don’t want to be considered mean. So, they end up giving or spending money to please others. Therefore, when people say you are generous, be worried.

Pat yourself on the back when you escape an expenditure

Don’t worry what others say. It is tough but once you get used to it, people will get used to you as mean and that will be your gateway to money preservation.

Consider it fun and before long, you will have acquired a habit of not spending carelessly.

Should you find some of these activities difficult, it is because they are. But if you succeed, the new phase will be pleasurable.

Don’t worry if you lose friends. You will get new ones who are like your new self. You will be among the few who respect and preserve money.

You will realise that there is a law of money that says money goes where it gets comfort among its kind.

Author: financial education trainer and CEO of Kenya Financial Education Centre.

www.financialeducationcentre.co.ke