In my five-year Rich Habits Study I discovered four ways the self-made millionaires in my study accumulated their wealth:
- Saver-Investor Path
- Big Company Climber Path
- Virtuoso Path
- Dreamer-Entrepreneur Path
The Saver-Investor-Millionaires in my study forged three important habits, which enabled them to accumulate an average of $3,260,000:
- Habit #1 Frugal Spending – Frugal does not mean being cheap with your money. Frugal means spending your money on the lowest price, highest quality product or service available.
- Habit #2 Saving 20% or More of Your Income – This requires that you maintain a standard of living that allows you to live off of 80% of your net pay.
- Habit #3 Bucket System for Savings – Identifying specific savings priorities and devoting a percentage of your savings to each bucket: Wedding, First Home, Emergency Fund, College Savings, Investments, Retirement, etc.
In my book, Effort-Less Wealth – Smart Money Habits At Every Stage of Your Life, I share the 23 Smart Money Habits of the Saver-Investor millionaires in my study. These habits guarantee financial independence and wealth.
The Saver-Investors in my study used these smart money habits, which helped them put financial success on autopilot. Because they followed these habits diligently, they were able to automatically build wealth over many years. Over those many years, their investments appreciated, dividend income accrued and interest income on their investments accumulated automatically.
Individuals who follow these three smart money habits are able to grow their wealth, even when they are asleep – which happened to be a common goal among all of the millionaires in my Rich Habits Study.
Conversely, those who live beyond their means wind up accumulating debt. The interest on that debt also happens to grow, while they are sleeping.
Every time they wake up, they are eight hours poorer.
If you want to build wealth the easiest, most certain way possible, the Saver-Investor Path is the way to go. It doesn’t require any advanced degrees. It doesn’t require that you take enormous risks. And it doesn’t require that you work oppressive work hours, which negatively impacts your family and friends.
For would-be Saver-Investor millionaires, accumulating wealth requires that you make a habit of making “saving” the first “bill” you pay with every paycheck and then learning to live off of what’s left of your paycheck. When you make a decision to save first, this forces you to reduce your cost of living, so that you are able to reach your goal of saving 20% or more of your net pay. This allows you to put your savings to work by prudently and consistently investing those savings, so your savings can grow – even while you sleep!
Tom Corley is an accountant, financial planner and author of “Rich Kids: How to Raise Our Children to Be Happy and Successful in Life”, “Effort-Less Wealth”, “Change Your Habits Change Your Life”, “Rich Habits Poor Habits” and “Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals.”
