Consumerism is that voice inside your head that makes you want to buy new clothes. Even though you just went shopping last weekend. It's browsing Amazon when you have no particular goal in mind. It's the reason why you see advertisements to buy something everywhere you turn, consumerism is the single biggest detriment to your financial independence. This mindset is important to large corporations because it keeps their pockets lined with cash. They pay you to work nine to five, only for you to go home and give most of your paycheck back through buying their products.
In order to make more money, you'll need to figure out ways to keep the money you do have. While it may be difficult to imagine now, you can buy items for functionality rather than status. Do you really need to upgrade your phone every year and a half? The day you begin to resist those temptations is the day you begin building your own fortune. The second bit All is that we don't talk about money. In fact, I've noticed that many on wealthy people have negative views towards great wealth, and it's seen as a bad thing to discuss money or to put too much emphasis on it.
At the same time, most people would love to be wealthy. If money is such a bad thing, Why does everybody seemed to want more of it? I haven't heard anyone who's asked their boss for less money. Before people can experience more wealth, they first need to welcome it mentally. Let me introduce you to the law of attraction. Regardless of how you may feel when you can't find your car in the mall parking lot, the mind is a very powerful thing.
The law of attraction draws off this power to say that energy attracts like energy. Negative attracts negative and positive attracts positive. If you always have negative thoughts about money. It's believed that your life will find a way to make those negative thoughts your reality. Now this isn't scientifically proven, but many successful people tout the benefits of positive thinking instead of constant Thinking about bills and debt, be more appreciative for the money you do have. Visualize yourself in the financial situation you desire and try your best to feel in your mind how it would feel in reality, transform your mind and think positively about money.
The older I've gotten, the clearer it's become that making money has less to do with intelligence than simply knowing the rules and tricks of the game. Don't make mistakes out of ignorance. Talking about money is one of the best ways to bounce ideas off others and get wealth building insights. Let's bring money back into the conversation. Challis. A major contributing factor for those who don't have money is not understanding how money truly works.
One of the biggest misconceptions people buy into is trading time for money. From the day we start first grade, we're taught to get into a great college and work our way up the ladder. Supposedly, if we earn a high enough salary one day will become rich somehow. That's nonsense. I'm willing to bet that people would make different choices. If they realized how they've been conditioned to maximize somebody else's wealth instead of maximizing their own, first of all, your salary is only one half of the equation.
If your expenses increase proportionately with your income, you'll never become any wealthier. It's easy to fall into the trap of letting an increased income, increase your expenses as well. But being aware of that tendency will help you save more money. When you have more money to save. You can put it to good use and let it accumulate value for you. If you don't spend your money on things that hold value, increase in value or generate a return you're not building wealth.
To build wealth, your money has to work for you. More on this coming up shortly. Another big mistake people make is dismissing interest. Interest can be a beautiful thing. Not realizing its effect, however, is a huge mistake that people make too often. When you invest in bonds, put money in the bank or lend money to appear you get interest in return.
Interest is the benefit you get for putting your money to work for you by letting someone else use it. This is an excellent way to increase your wealth. On the flip side of that, credit cards and student loans also require interest if you're not careful, large balances can cripple your finances very quickly because those interest rates require larger payments as the balances grow. The reality is a lack of education and personal finance leaves people in the dark about the benefits and pitfalls of interest. While we're encouraged to spend more on our credit cards and take out loans for college. It's no one's responsibility to help you get a return on your money and not let your liabilities skyrocket out of control.
Unfortunately, for many people, they simply don't know what they don't know you're not going to fall into that category any longer.