Wealth building is not just for high earners.
You can steal these millionaire money hacks and use them to improve your own financial situation.
One of the biggest mistakes we can make with our finances is to assume all is lost and there’s no point trying to build wealth or improve our situation.
These tips will give you some inspiration for how you can save more money, regardless of your income.
1. Simplify and organise your life
A chaotic, disorganised life is not just about never being able to find your keys. That’s annoying for sure, but it also has an impact on other areas of your life including your finances.
Being organised gifts you with time and a clearer head to make good financial decisions. If you’re pushed for time you will make impulse purchases for convenience and you’ll not be tracking your spending.
Let’s take a closer look at what I mean.
A disorganised person
- Sleeps 5 hours a night and wakes up too tired to concentrate
- Gets regular takeaways
- Wastes hours a day scrolling on their phone
- Overworked and burned out
An organised person
- Sleeps 8 hours a night and wakes up ready to face the day
- Meal preps so they have time to cook every night
- Prioritises their time so it is never wasted
- Makes time for loved ones and doing the things they love
When you simplify things in your life you free up time and mental energy to make better decisions. Here are a few examples of what you can do to organise your life:
- Trim down your wardrobe so you can make a decision on what to wear quickly in the morning.
- Organise your kitchen so you can easily see what you have so you don’t buy more food before using up what’s there.
- Plan what you will eat every week.
- Be clear on your spending priorities and understand where your money is going, so that you can make effective savings.
The goal here is to make your life easier, so that less time is spent on basic life maintenance tasks, so you can put more energy and time into growing income and enjoying life.
You may find these tips for starting a budget that works useful.
2. Look poor
Wealth is not about what you see, it’s what’s hidden. When you see someone driving a sports car the easy assumption to make is that they must be wealthy. But all you know about them is they spent tens of thousands on a car, that’s money they spent, not money they have.
People who build wealth understand that looking poor is important because the only way to stay wealthy is to not spend the money you do have.
Extravagant spending can easily lead to ruin even on a huge income. And it keeps you shackled to work, because you have to keep bringing in money to keep up with that lifestyle.
What can we take away from that, regardless of our income? Spending to look rich is not going to build your wealth.
A frugal person, regardless of their income, keeps their needs modest. They may keep the same reliable car for years, have a house that fits their family size rather than splashing out on anything larger and only buy to replace things that have run out rather than shopping to excess.
3. Calculate life cost
Before spending money calculate how much time you will have to spend working to earn the money to pay for it. This is your life cost.
If it’s not worth that time, it’s not worth your money. Start valuing your time because that in turn will save you money.
One of the reasons a wealthy person is able to get wealthier is they outsource time-draining tasks to other people, which frees them up to work on more important things that will earn them more money. They are prioritising their time so that they are earning more, even if it costs them some money in order to do so.
They invest money in freeing up their time, because they can then focus on more valuable efforts.
4. Avoid debt
I don’t mean your mortgage, although you’ll of course want to be working towards a point on your life where you aren’t paying it any more.
Debt costs you money every single month and will hold you back from being able to build wealth. If you want to build wealth you cannot waste money paying interest on credit cards and loans.
5. Develop high income skills
Your income is your most powerful tool for you to build wealth. The more you are able to live below your means, the more money you have to save and then as you build on that your savings start to make some decent earnings on your behalf. And it can be much easier to live below your means if you increase your income.
Developing higher income skills may take time and investment, but in the longer term you can build on your wealth much easier if you have been able to unlock a career path with better income prospects.
Some jobs have far greater potential for you to earn more, and some provide greater earning potential with less work.
For example, I earn more from blogging 16 hours a week than I did from my full-time job as a journalist. Read more about how to start a blog here.
6. Marry right
The gossip magazines and tabloids are often filled with tales of expensive celebrity divorces. You’re probably not going to end up rowing over a vineyard like Brad and Angelina, but divorce costs you money no matter what your income and assets.
Divorce means splitting up of assets, having to finance two homes instead of one and not having the power of two incomes being used to grow your wealth.
Moving away from the D-word, more importantly, your household spending and financial worth is not only determined by your actions, but by those of your partner or spouse.
If you are both on the same frugal page then living below your means is easy. If one of you spends extravagantly then you are both going to become trapped in the cycle of debt.
7. Resist lifestyle creep
As your earnings increase the temptation can be to increase spending on wants and needs.
You get a bigger house, a better car and take more vacations. You spend more willingly on things you don’t really need, because the money is there in the bank.
However lifestyle creep eats into the money that could be put into investments that can eventually provide you with the freedom to worry less about needing to stay on the relentless treadmill of work.
The billionaire investor Warren Buffet purchased his first home in 1958 for $31k and this home is still his primary residence, despite his net worth.
A good way to avoid lifestyle creep is to commit to a certain percentage of your earnings going into savings and have it set up as an automated payment. This way as your earnings increase, so does the amount you save.
8. Spend to save
Frugal living isn’t all about spending as little as possible. It’s about being smart with your money and getting best value.
Sometimes you need to spend more to save in the future. A wealthy person has room in their budget to ensure they can take advantage of great deals.
For example take advantage of supermarket deals where stuff you buy regularly is on offer if you buy more or larger quantities.
And spend so that it counts. There’s no point paying a cheap gym membership at a location you’ll never visit. Even if it costs double, the convenient one you will actually use is the correct choice.
9. Buy the best the first time
Rather than buying the same thing again and again, invest in something that is actually going to last and provide you better value for money.
For example if you seek out the cheapest possible washing machine but you have to keep getting it repaired and eventually replaced after just a year, then you buy the same again and the cycle restarts, you’ll end up spending more than if you had bought the midrange, reliable product. Cheapest isn’t always best.
10. Secure yourself
Ensure you have an emergency fund of at least 3 to 6 months of expenses, retirement savings and are managing to cover your expenses before moving on to other savings and investing.
Once you have reduced your risks, and built yourself a secure foundation so you can cover unexpected bills, then you can move on to really ramping up your wealth building strategy.
11. Don’t just focus on defence
Saving money is your defence, but you also want to ensure your money is making money.
Investing will grow your wealth over time, so that’s why you need to have that secure foundation I mentioned in place first. You don’t want to be withdrawing from investments after just a year in order to cover any emergency costs. The value of investments will fluctuate up and down over time, some years it may depreciate and other years skyrocket in value, but the point is over the longer term when you even it out the gains you make are better than leaving it in the bank.
Holding cash in the bank is safe, however thanks to inflation, the rise in the cost of stuff you buy, the value of that money is eroded over time. In terms of growing your money you historically get a better rate of return from investing.
You can find more ways to save money with these money habits of the rich and these tips for growing wealth.
