We all want more money, right? Who doesn’t? I am going to walk you through three things I do that lead to more wealth.
The 3 Steps to More Wealth
On the surface, each step sounds simple and basic, but they make a big difference in time. The key is making them each a habit so they can all work together to have the maximum impact on your finances. Let’s get started!
1. Wait Before You Buy
All you have to do is wait when you want to buy something. The longer you can wait the better and more informed choice you will make. Here is why. When we buy things, most likely it is based solely on emotion. The emotional sides of our brains get triggered first, we react and buy. When the logical part of our brain fires up a little while later, we realize the purchase was a waste of money and we regret it.
If you find the above story is your own personal story, don’t feel bad. It’s natural for your brain to work this way. In fact, this is known by most advertisers and they use this against us. The majority of advertisements you see are designed to specifically get an emotional reaction out of you so you buy.
To stop this, you simply have to wait. When you see something you want, don’t buy it. Wait. Write it down if you want to remember what it was. In a few days revisit the item. Do you still want it? Chances are you don’t. If this is the case, then you know it was an emotional buying decision and you would have regretted buying it.
If you still want it after a few days, ask yourself why. Question the purchase. If you have a good reason for wanting it, then you can buy it, assuming you have the money for it.
This will be hard at first as we are conditioned to buy now and not think about it. But doing this will save you a lot of money. I use it personally and cannot tell you how many times I’ve wanted something and after waiting realized I had zero interest in the item. It was all emotional.
By learning to wait, you save money on the things you really do want. You’ll discover that after some time, waiting isn’t so bad. Once you start waiting, you can monitor prices and wait until there is a price drop to save money.
Waiting will lead you to more wealth by making fewer emotional purchases and getting better deals on the things you do buy and use.
2. Save Your Raises
When you get your annual raise, what do you do with the money? If you are like most people, you do nothing. You just let the additional money be deposited into your checking account and you spend it. If you want more wealth and to get ahead financially, you need to act. Don’t just act the same after a raise, but save that money instead.
If your new paycheck is $40 more because of your raise, then set up a transfer to your savings account for that $40. Or even better, transfer that money to your investment account and invest the money for your future. You could even just increase the amount you put into your 401k plan [1] at work to save the money.
If you happen to have debt, use the raise you earned to pay off the debt faster and once it is eliminated, then save the money.
When you get a raise, it is your chance to change your financial future. Yes, $40 a paycheck doesn’t sound like much, but over a course of a year, that is an extra $1,000 you will have. When you start saving that amount, you can let compound interest [2] take over and really start to grow your wealth.
3. Do Something On The Side
The final step for more wealth is to bring in additional income by doing something on the side. I am not telling you to get a part-time job that pays $7 per hour. Nor am I telling you to work an additional 20 hours a week. Simply find something you love to do and figure out a way to make an income from it.
For example, when I was working full time, I was running my personal blog on the side. As the money coming in from my site grew, I realized I was making a decent amount of extra money each year. All the while, working on my site never felt like work because I enjoyed doing it so much.
There are many ideas out there to make a little extra money on the side [3]. If you enjoy comic books, you could collect and resell them online. If you are someone that is into crafts, you might be able to create some items and sell them at flea markets and online.
Or maybe you enjoy animals. You could pet sit for people over the weekends. In today’s world there is a way to make money from just about any hobby. You just have to take the time to figure out how to do it.
Once you start making extra money, treat it like the raises I mentioned above. This is what I did. I never accounted for this money in my budget every month. Whatever I made, I set some aside for taxes [4] and then put the majority into a retirement account and back into my business. By having this side income, I was able to get ahead much faster than I otherwise would have.
Final Thoughts
In the end, you can get ahead financially by doing a few simple things like waiting to buy things, saving your raises and finding a way to bring in additional income. These three things alone will make a huge difference in your finances, leading to more wealth faster than you thought possible. The best part is that these ideas are so easy, you can start using them today without much effort.
So what are you waiting for, start using these ideas in your life today and see what I am talking about!