Its Not How Much Money That You Make, Its How Much Money That You Get To Keep That Makes You Rich
There is a concept, that once I learned this, completely changed the way I looked at money, how I treated money, and the ways its helped me pay down my debts. And that’s the concept I am going to be talking to you about in this story, it’s not how much you make, it’s how much you keep that makes you rich.
Make sure you read until the very end of this story because I’m going to be showing you a little later on that when I started to treat money like oxygen, my debt started to go down and my savings started to go up. I’m going to be telling you what treating money like oxygen exactly means.
Who Is Richer
So to illustrate this concept of its not how much you make, but it’s how much you keep, let me start off with a little fictional story of two people, let’s call them Steve and Larry.
So first off we have Steve, who is definitely living well off, or is he? Steve just made a cool 1 million dollars this year, and in that time, has literally spent and blown every single penny. Steve was excited to show off his wealth by buying a new sports car, taking his friends on luxury trips, eating at the fanciest restaurants, and buying anything that he wanted. At the end of the year Steve has all this stuff, but $0 in the bank.
Let switch over to Larry for a moment. Larry is a hard worker and has a good steady paying job which netted him a very decent $100,000 this past year. But unlike Steve, Larry didn’t blow all of it on fancy things to either show off to other people or just to make him feel good. Larry paid for his essentials like rent, food, and gas for his car, while then putting most of the money he has leftover back into a savings account. At the end of the year, Larry had $60,000 cash in his bank account and little to no liabilities.
Ok, so this is a very simplistic example, but here is the really important question to ask yourself right now. Who is really richer, Steve with barrels of liabilities and no cash, even though 1 million dollars flowed through his hands this past year, or is Larry richer who only earned one-tenth of what Steve earned in income this past year, but has little to no liabilities and is sitting on a big pile of $60,000 in cash.
In all honesty, personally speaking, our friend Larry is richer, because, at the end of the day, that stuff that Steve has is not making him any money, it’s making him lose money, he has no cash left over to cover maintaining that stuff, along with no cash for emergencies, and absolutely no money left over to use for investing.
But Larry, on the other hand, has little stuff and lots of cash. And you want to know what else Larry has. He has options. He has options now of how to use that $60k to make his money grow such as possibly investing in real estate or equities.
Why Lottery Winners And Athletes Go Broke
Ok, so a lot of us have seen articles in the news or on TV where people that come upon large amounts of money very quickly, or even within a few years go broke, lose it all, and have to declare bankruptcy.
What?
How could you be broke when you just had millions of dollars drop in your lap?
I used to ask myself this question all the time growing up. I didn’t know the answer until recently because when I was in my teens, my 20s and even my 30’s, I had zero financial education and nothing in the way of financial literacy. I didn’t know anything about how to make money, how to keep money, or even how to grow money.
The problem that lottery winners and athletes have is not the making money part, that money is there, millions of dollars put into their very hands.
So where is the problem? The problem is with how they keep money or lack thereof, and a sprinkle in somehow to grow money too.
This is where so many people get money wrong.
They think that one day when I’m rich, I am going to be smarter with my money and all my money problems will go away.
I’m sorry but it doesn’t work like that, you cant be smarter because more money falls in your lap, you have to be smart with money before the money shows up.
More money just makes your poor financial literacy even worse.
It’s like someone throwing 5 balls in the air and then telling you to juggle them, you’ll learn while the balls are in mid-flight.
No! You will drop each and every ball because you didn’t have the experience with even trying to juggle one ball.
This is why rich people go broke, they don’t have the financial knowledge or education to know how to keep their money in their hands, and not widely throwing it away.
Money Is Power
Really stop right now and ask yourself, how much money has literally flowed through your hands in your entire life. How much do you think? Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of dollars? So how much of it did you hold on to and have right now?
For me, I had a big wake up call earlier this year, I truly felt like hundreds of thousands of dollars had gone through my hands in the 40 plus years I have been alive, but then I looked in the mirror and genuinely asked myself, Maher you have been working so hard your entire life, you have struggled so much to try to make money, and you are still struggling now to try to pay down this debt load you have on your shoulders, so what do you have to show for it?
You want to know my answer — nothing. I had nothing to show for it, except stress, a broken back, and frustration of the stupidity I had made in my life of just letting so much money go in one hand, and out the other to someone else, wasted never to be seen again.
You too are working hard right now, to support yourself during college, your spouse and kids, or even your parents, but at the end of the day what do you have to show for it.
Having money gives you the power to do whatever it is you want.
You don’t want to make the same mistakes I did, by buying useless stuff, having no cash left over to maintain or service the debt and continue to pay for the stuff you have, then have no cash left over.
Just like Larry, having money gives you the options for you to decide what to do with it. Give it to charity, support your family, pay off your parent’s debts, do good for someone in need. That’s why money is power because that power is in the options it gives you.
Treat Money Like Oxygen
Folks when I had this complete mindset shift, where I went from having money come into my bank account and then not giving it any care or concern, where I then went out and bought things I didn’t need or wasted it away, to instead treating money like oxygen where without it I couldn’t breathe, that’s when I not only started to see my world completely change and I was able to start making a dent in my debt repayments, but I actually could see some of the fruits of my labour of all the hard work I was doing.
When you go through this mindset shift, you don’t start to see money as something you can just throw away. Think of this, if you’re underwater without an air tank, what’s the one thing you are thinking about. Oxygen, breathing, getting your head back above water so you can breathe again.
Well, this is how I started to treat money, it was like my oxygen, not something I could just go out and throw away without concern or care.
I was now really contemplating very hard when I wanted to buy something if it was worth giving away this breath of air, because the less money I had, felt like it was so much harder to breathe.
Because I was working so hard on stopping the bleeding of my debt and cutting down my expenses, this is the one thing that really helped me get back on my feet.
I could now have money in my account and start to see the fruits of my labour. I could start to save up money so I could have something for emergencies. I had a surplus so I could put money into the principal balances of my debts so I could start to bring them down. I could also now have some money to start investing with and having my money begin to grow.
If you truly want to begin to be wealthy, keep more of your money, because you could make millions and have nothing. But when you treat money like your oxygen, you will begin to feel like you can breathe a lot better because, for me, this was my life-changing moment.
