1. Always spend less than you make – your life will be much easier and less stressful.
2. Pay yourself first – at least an hour a day of your income – you’re going to work 90,000 hours over your lifetime you should keep at least an hour a day of your income.
3. Don’t budget – you’re too busy, and you will just get frustrated and fail–instead automate your financial life. When it’s automatic you can’t fail.
4. Be an investor, not a borrower – investors get rich borrowers stay poor.
5. Buy a home, don’t rent. Renters stay poor – homeowners and landlords build wealth.
6. Don’t lend money to friends or family (you will lose both) — and you’re not a bank.
7. Never invest in things you don’t understand. If the investment can’t be explained to you on one piece of paper it’s too complicated. Pass.
8. Invest for the long-term – building wealth takes decades not days.
9. Don’t try to time the market, it won’t work. Investors who time the market always fail.
10. Never invest on margin – leverage kills you when things go wrong.
11. This time is different — it’s never different. Things work until they don’t work. Never bet the farm, you can lose it.
12. Once you become rich — stay rich. It beats starting over (ask anyone who has had to).
13. Give back — because the more you give the more you grow – and you make the world a better place.
14. Never give up. No matter what happens, no matter how many times you fail as long as you get up and try again you haven’t lost.
15. Compound interest really is a miracle that works when you work it. Save $10 a day at 10% interest in 40 years you’ll have $1,897,244. Earn half of that and you’ll have close to half a million dollars. That will be way better than not having saved. Trust me. Your older self will thank you.
16. To find the money to save and invest you need to find your Latte Factor. The Latte Factor is the simple metaphor that will teach and inspire you to realize you are richer than you think and small amounts of money can change your life – if you invest it! Come check more at www.thelattefactor.com.
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These truths have come from over 30 years of learning. Mostly from experience and also mentors. Feel free to pass them along. Peter Lynch, the genius money manager from Fidelity, definitely gets credit for #7. Also feel free to comment below with any truths you’ve learned along the way.
This could be fun to learn from each other.
Take what you love and leave the rest behind.
You don’t have to believe in them all…but trust me most of them will help you.
****AND SHARE AWAY****BECAUSE SHARING IS CARING. 🙂
Thanks David.
These truths are important and reviewing them weekly is a must. Putting them on a wall is also good.
Then next is putting them into action.
I am 51 years old and a single mum. I thought I did not earn enough to get out of the renting trap, but I have found my ‘latte factor’ and we are saving money. I have just applied for a home loan and am waiting to find out if I have been approved. If I am not, I will keep saving and working towards this goal. Reading David’s books has helped me to change my mindset – instead of thinking of myself as a struggling single mum, I now know I am a rich woman in the making. Thanks for having faith in all of us!